The Bread

I made my Christmas bread today. I didn't want to. I didn't want to AT ALL. It takes forever. It makes me grouchy. But I made it.

Here's a step by step (sort of) guide on how all this magic happens.


Let the yeast bubble and rise.


Mix sugar and eggs.


Add two cups of hot milk.


Add four cups of flour.


Add yeast.


Add melted shortening.


The spice that gives the bread it's amazing flavor. This spice is not cheap. Luckily you only use two teaspoons. One bottle lasts me a few years.


Dump in the spice. When I first started making this bread, I used to shell the actual seeds and grind the cardomom up into a powder. Um, yeah. That's not going to happen anymore. Besides, I haven't seen the actual seeds at the store in years.


My favorite part of the whole process: make pretty swirls.


Dump in four more cups of flour.


Ditch the spoon, and use your hand to mix the ingredients.


Keep mixing and kneading the dough until it doesn't stick to your hand anymore.


Put the dough in a warm oven to rise.


For 90 minutes.

Go get allergy shots. Clean the kitchen. Make some phone calls. Surf the web.


The phone died, so I failed to get a photo of Hudson "punching" the dough down after rising for 90 minutes. You put the dough back in the oven for 45 more minutes of rising. It will look like this.


Enlist two small people to punch the dough down yet again.

At this point, you need to relinquish the next hour or so of your life so you can roll the dough into strips. This part sucks.


Stupid strips.

I made 24 strips.


Stupid braids.


I have to admit, the braids are pretty.


Braids have to rise in a warm oven for 30 minutes. In the meantime, pretend to be a good mom by letting a small child make green cookies.


Green balls.


Paint on an egg wash.


Sprinkle on cinnamon and sugar.


Bake.

Eat.

Tell as many people as you can how you slaved away in the kitchen. Wait a year before doing it all over again.

Kill the Moment

I may or may not have mentioned before that Hudson calls Evan "Brother." He rarely, if ever, uses Evan's name. When he says 'Brother,' it comes out sounding like one quickly run-together syllable: Bru-er.

Anyhow...last night we were driving home from a gift card dinner at Applebee's (thank you Secret Prayer Pal!) when Hudson called out, "Brother, press play." God forbid we should spend any time in the car without a movie playing. That would be torture for the small people. Again, I digress.

I made the comment to Eric about how I hope Hudson never stops calling Evan by Brother. It's just cute. It's sweet.

Evan piped up from the backseat, "I like being called Brother."

Eric and I exchanged that "awwwww" look. What a sweet older brother. What a great kid. He loves his little brother. He likes the special name that his little brother uses for him. What a great family moment.

Eric said, "Is it because it makes you feel special? It's a special name just for you?"

Evan said, "No, I just like it."

Annnnnnd, the sweet moment was shot down.

Why did we even go shopping?

Eric and I went out into the Christmas crowds yesterday to get 99% of our Christmas shopping done. I am sick, but I drugged up and headed out. It needed to get done. All that is left is for the boys to get something for their dad and stocking stuffers. Those gifts will be bought on Monday and Tuesday. Eric took the boys this morning to buy stuff for me.

Each year I think, "This is the year we'll scale back. Three presents from us. Three presents from Santa. We'll save money. We'll focus on being spiritual. We'll save money. We'll have less to wrap. We'll save money."

And then I get in the stores. And I want to buy EVERYTHING for my adorable children who deserve none of it. I block aisles as I force Eric to count up the gifts with me, making sure each kid as an equal number. I designate Santa vs. Us gifts. I second guess. I put stuff back on the shelf. I put it back in the cart. Many times.

We came home with a trunk full of Christmas goodness. We are blessed to be able to spend money on our kids. I am excited for them to open stuff on Christmas morning. I really think we picked out things they'll like and actually play with for more then four minutes.

And now I sit here watching my children playing together on the family room floor. They are sitting approximately six feet apart. Each child has one of my Uggs boots in front of him. And they are taking turns throwing a small ball at each other trying to land it in the opposite boot. When the ball goes in the boot, much cheering and fist pumping ensues. When they miss, there are groans and "Aw dang it's."

This game has been going on for over 20 minutes. So I ask myself, why did we spend any money on Christmas presents? Why did I go out with sickness to dirty nasty crowded awful stores? Why did I obsess about choices?

My children are obviously content with their mother's boots and a 25 cent ball.

I'm taking it all back! Yeah, right.

Where do you keep your Legos?

Moments ago, Hudson had his hand down his pants digging around for something.

Eric told him to get his hands out of his pants.

Hudson proceeded to pull his pants down. I asked him what the heck he was doing.

"There's something in here," he said.

"Yeah, your wiener," I rudely suggested. Keeping it real, people.

"Nooooooo," Hudson said.

"Your butt," I said.

"No," Hudson explained, "I think it's a Lego."

Of course. Because we all have Legos in our pants.

I'm telling you, I'm never bored. Scarred for life, sure, but never bored.

Will this week end?

Not yet, anyhow.

In very cool news, I won a prize! Check THIS out!

Evan had a small meltdown after school because he had a lot of homework. The conversation went something like this:

Me: What's wrong? I can't understand you when you are crying.

Evan: Miihimekln nioeiningieo nioeihighihei.

Me: Um, okay. (Hug hug pat pat)

Me: Slow down. What happened? (I thought he was injured or someone stole his pencil. Who knows?)

Evan: We have to do four pages of cursive!!!!!!! (said in a major melodramatic way)

Me: Okay.

Evan: I can't do it.

Me: Okay, don't do it.

Evan: But I have to do it.

Me: So do it.

Evan: But I can't do it.

Me: We're going in circles, Evan. What do you want to do?

Evan: There's too much. I can't do it.

Me: So don't.

Evan: But I have to.

And you get the gist of the rest of the conversation. I finally got him to go do one more page while I finished up business in the office. By the time I picked him up to go, he'd finished a few more pages. Such drama in the life of a 7-year-old. He did spend quite a bit of time on homework tonight.

After leaving school we had to go to the allergist so Hudson could get his first set of shots monitored by the doctor. I forgot to post about this last week.

Hudson was scratch tested for allergies over the vacation last week.


He did a great job being still on the table while they injected him with bunches of stuff. Those are indeed the medical terms used for this procedure!

Yep, he's allergic. Poor little guy with a red back!


Then they had to do a more in depth test on his arm. It hurt him a bit, but Hudson was a little trooper.

Normally, they don't do these tests until age 5. However, with our family history of horrendous allergies, we knew it was inevitable. The doctor agreed that Hudson could handle this just fine.

Tonight he got his first set of shots. He did great. He said it didn't even hurt. Welcome to the "shot" club, Hudson!

More Soccer

Hudson started in his very own soccer class today! This is in no way shape or form connected to Evan. In fact, Evan looked a little lost having to sit on the sidelines!

I failed to get a picture. Just imagine the cutest kid ever with the biggest eyes ever out on the field and holding his own with kids several years older than him. I'll try to get a photo of him next week.

At first Hudson was very excited. Then we got to the indoor soccer field, and he freaked out a little when he realized that Evan wouldn't be out there with him. I took his hand and led him to the field. Once he got out there, he was fine.

Our schedule this week is completely nuts.
Monday -Me staff meeting, Evan soccer
Tuesday - Me Christmas play practice, Hudson soccer
Wednesday - Me tutoring, Us WW weigh in, Evan soccer, Me 50th anniversary committee
Thursday - Me Christmas play practice, Us allergy shots, Us 2nd grade meeting for First Reconciliation
Friday - Us birthday party
Saturday - Soccer tournament, Christmas tree sale/boutique, electric parade
Sunday - Soccer tournament

I need Christmas to come just so we can slow down for a few weeks. Sheesh!

I did spend a few minutes last night cleaning off the notoriously messy counter.


Before


After. It's not perfect, but it's better.

Money and Santa

Eric and I have been working on our family budget for a few months now. We don't share money details with the kids, but we also don't talk about it in secrecy.

Evan knows about money. He is getting better and better at understanding the true value of a dollar. He also knows that we can't buy everything we want any time we want. We work and save for the things we want.

Yesterday we were at the mall, and the line for Santa was empty. I am all about getting the Santa visit over with, so we walked over to talk with the jolly guy.

Hudson, surprisingly, had no interest whatsoever in speaking to Santa. He wasn't scared. He wasn't crying. Even with his brother sitting on Santa's lap, that didn't convince him to walk over to say hi. When I asked him why he didn't want to see Santa, he said, "That wasn't the real Santa."

Oh. Okay. I guess Hudson is holding out for the real deal!

Evan did see Santa. I asked him what he asked for. Books and DS video games.

Later on Evan asked me which cost more money, the books or the video games. I told him that video games are more expensive.

He said, "Okay, then I'll have Santa bring me the video games, and you and Dad can bring me the books because they don't cost as much!"

Awwww! A part of me thinks this is very sweet. He wants to save us money. A part of me wonders if he hears too much money talk.

In any case, I sure hope Santa got the message that Evan wants video games!