Each year, I try to remember and give my children’s teachers a gift. Most years, it’s a coffeehouse gift card. Sometimes, we make it personal. I try to remember the after-school care instructors and bus driver, too.
But this year, we’re going homemade. Inspired by my middle child’s desire to make holiday goodies, we’ve made more than three dozen chocolate “pops” and chocolate covered preztels. The latter was decided after a friend called Friday exclaiming, “I have chocolate and preztels. Want to get together?” We had eight kids at the house …

Sometimes, life catches up with you.
That’s been very true the last few weeks. So this is me, apologizing, for being silent on the blog.
Do you blog? Do you find you have dozens of ideas about what to write, but sometimes fail to get them down? Or do you start to write and then think, “Why would anyone care about this?”
Or do you actually write it, only to have your computer eat it?
Maybe it’s just blog burnout?
I think I’ve had a bit of all of that the last few weeks, not …

Monday night when we arrived home, I pulled out a 9′ inflatable, holiday polar bear – to put up in my living room. Last year we didn’t put it up – I was afraid my then-infant would be smothered by it.
Now she’s the one smothering it! She’s in love, completely! We bought the polar bear several years ago after Christmas. My son loved it. My now-6-year-old, not so much. In fact, it freaked her out so much that we had to take it down.
All this we do for fun in …

I feel like I’ve lived in the “Twilight Zone” for the past week.Eight days ago, my youngest was sick with a cold, pink eye and the tummy bug. Before Thanksgiving, four of five members of my family were sick. We cancelled plans to host Thanksgiving, but at the last minute I was able to go to my parents with the family members who were healthiest. (We have much to be thankful for, as I wrote about in my column last week.)
I worked that night, covering Black Friday shopping (on Thursday) …

My sister in law held her annual cookie day this weekend! I’ll post a few of the recipes we used (as soon as I find them!) but in the meantime, I’ll share her decorating tips.
I love how she organizes this event for the five grandkids old enough to help. She puts tiny bowls of toppings on a turntable in the middle of the kitchen table. This year, we had lots of goodies for the kids to use: licorice; marshmallows; a candy mixture of M&Ms, Skittles, gummy bears and Sweet tarts; red hots; …

With so much that goes on this month, I’m snapping away with my phone camera. Each year, I create a digital scrapbook (using Shutterfly.com) to make a photo book of memories. I usually just capture the day, but this year, I’m hoping to capture the whole month. It’s been fun, with our new traditions (“Elf on the Shelf” and baking). Besides, years from now no one will remember the disaster my house was just two weeks before Christmas. Hopefully this book will show that!

I have not pulled out our boxes of holiday decorations yet, but I have pulled out the box of holiday-themed books. I love bringing them out each year. And I try to add at least one new title to our collection.
This year, it was an easy choice. My kids are big fans of Anna Dewdney’s “Llama llama” books. While shopping for another new holiday tradition (“Elf on a Shelf,” which I’ll discuss later), I found she has a new title.
This book is brightly colored, fun to look at and even …

I’m not much of a baker. Come to think of it, I’m not much of a cook (unless the slow cooker counts!).
But last week I felt nostalgic. I wanted cinnamon sugar pie crust crisps, the kind my mom made growing up. I cheated in the recipe when I made it last night. But it tasted SOOOO good. I’d never made it for my family. It was an instant hit.
The crisps originated with my great-grandmother, I learned from my mom. After making pie, she would take the left over pie crust, …

It’s a true sign of the holidays when peppermint coffee creamer arrives in the stores. I got mine a week or two ago.
This container is empty. I MUST get to the store today or tomorrow morning will be very sad.
What are some of your favorite signs of the holidays? I am going to post one a day from now until Christmas (or maybe beyond considering the fact that there have been years when the tree is still up in February).

Well, I guess if anyone could top last year’s Christmas Eve rendition of “Where is baby Jesus?” during the entire service, it would be my daughter. (Writer’s note: My son probably would have been just as entertaining except he had a cold.)
So Wednesday evening we went the 4 p.m. service with my husband, his sister and her family, and my in-laws.
I knew I was in trouble when, upon sitting in the pew, I told my nearly 4-year-old daughter, “Now, you need to be good. Santa is still watching.”
“When’s he gonna …