My mama gave me my birthday cake yesterday. Now it’s up to me to bake it and eat it.
This family joke began years ago when my elegantly aging sweet mama just couldn’t get the energy to bake my baby brother a cake. So I told her she should just give him a cake mix box and the frozen strawberries (strawberry shortcake) and let him make it himself.
That’s become the norm for many birthday occasions, and it’s perfect for me. And we laugh and enjoy the shared memories and fun. Stress is taken from my mama, she doesn’t have to worry about baking a cake, and she can just love on us as only mamas can.
Do you have any funny family traditions? Share in the comment section. Thanks! Have a wonderful day!
Happy book birthday, Laura and Jennie! What an adorable picture book! I know I can’t wait to get my hands on it and read about Porcupine and friends. And I hear there is a great pie recipe at the end, so let me at it!
Congratulations!
Note to writers: This interview is chock full of information about the Laura’s publishing journey. I loved learning more about the process.
Fall is my favorite time of year, when the apples, pumpkins, squash, and other great produce is harvested. I can’t wait to sink my greedy fingers into a box of apples or a trunk-load of pumpkins.
Applesauce Day takes me right into autumn. I can just imagine the fun and tradition of gathering with family to make large amounts of applesauce. What tastes better than homemade applesauce? Nothing! Ok, maybe homemade pumpkin pie or apple cake or pear tartes or . . .
This lovely picture book tells the tale of a family traveling from the big city to the orchards to pick apples and then to grandma’s house to put those apples to good use. What’s special about Applesauce Day is the family heirloom – the applesauce cooking pot. Family traditions and passed-down items are a passion of mine, so I immediately bonded with this tale.
I found Applesauce Day to be well written and beautifully illustrated. Flashbacks! I don’t know that I’ve seen other picture books with flashbacks, but the ones in this book are adorable.
Even though apple season is at an end, boxes of apples are still available. Go ahead. You know you want to read this book and make applesauce. Just imagine the scent of warm apples and cinnamon wafting through your home. See? I can smell it from here.
KID KANDY
Make Crock-Pot Applesauce
Ingredients:
apples, cinnamon, water
Directions:
1. Wash, peel, and core apples. Slice into wedges.
2. Put apples in Crock-Pot. Sprinkle liberally with cinnamon. Add about 1/4 cup water.
3. Cover Crock-Pot with lid. Turn heat to high and let it simmer. Occasionally stir and check apples for tenderness.
4. When apples are soft and mushy, use a potato masher to mash the apples into sauce. I love chunks, so I don’t strain it.
5. Eat warm! Cool and put the rest in the fridge. Or freeze individual containers for later.
I love making Crock-Pot Applesauce with my students every fall. Everyone brings 2 apples, no matter what variety, and we put them all together to cook. By the end of the day, everyone in the school wants what’s bubbling in our room!
I’d love to hear (and smell and taste) how your applesauce turns out!
It’s been a rough year for my family, so we decided to switch things up. This year, we went off the charts for Thanksgiving.
We chose to:
-travel to the beach (off-season is awesome)
-cook our own little turkey breast
-decorate for Christmas
-begin our annual Christmas movie countdown
What really happened:
-beach plans were cancelled due to health issues
-went on a drive to the mountains to collect pine cones for art projects
-soaked by pounding rain
-did a little off-roading to travel up a steep, rocky, bumpy, muddy path
-met a wolf
-the wolf turned into a Husky, lost VERY far from civilization
-he loved us. And jumped eagerly into the pickup
-had to figure out what to do with a huge lost dog (wearing a collar, but no tags)
-Did you know everything is closed (pretty much) on Thanksgiving? Unless you are shopping.
-which was good, since we needed dog food
-by the time we got home, it was very late when our little turkey breast went in the oven
-spent all afternoon taking photos, hanging out, searching for lost dogs, and contacting friends and social media groups in efforts to find this handsome boy his family
-nowhere to keep a large, very large dog in the RV
-our daugther and family took Mr. Handsome home to sleep
-Mr. Sweetie (SO good with kids, pets, noises, crowds) hunkered down in exhaustion
-turkey dinner became our traditional leftovers meal: turkey, cranberry sauce, cream cheese, sliced red onion sandwich (I had a salad)
-actually had a six-course meal. That’s what I told Kevin as we ate and drank different courses while waiting for the turkey to get done
-nearly sugar-free crustless pumpkin pie is delicious!
-decorated the RV. Put up our tree in less than 5 minutes. Done.
-put up the outdoor tree. Less than 5 minutes. Done.
-finished the Harry Potter movie marathon. Next, Christmas.
Our day was totally nontraditional. But we liked it.
Who knows? Next year we might go back for pinecones.
I just completed stocking number 5. Or 11, depending on how far back you want to go.
Autumn, the youngest grand princess, wore her Christmas stocking just in the nick of time, since all other stockings are hung by the chimney with care, and mommy and daddy were patiently waiting for Nana to finish sewing for the fourth family member.
Christmas is a very short time away, right?
Making Christmas stockings became a tradition as soon and my honey and I were married. I strip-pieced matching stockings for both of us about 31 years ago. They have been used every year, except this one, when they are hiding in storage. And maybe next year, which will most likely be the same.
After each of our two children were born, I made them giant strip-pieced stockings. Somewhere (again, in the storage unit) are pictures of them wearing their stockings. As adults, Taylor and Chelsie both have their stockings in their own homes. Spouses (and child-of-our-hearts) received their own stocking. All that was missing were the baby pictures in stockings, but, well, they are just too big to wear them!
Jump forward to the next generation of grands.
First came Hayden, our 4-wheelin’ boy. Nana got busy right away to make him a stocking.
Next came Khloe, Princess of the Blue Eyes. Nana stitched and sewed to get her set for Christmas.
Donavyn, the brown-eyed ducky boy, came next. Here he is wearing his stocking beside his baby sister. He barely fits!
Gage, little wild man, made his appearance over a year ago. Nana dusted off the sewing machine and created his stocking.
And finally, Autumn. Last winter, when I was making Gage’s stocking, I cut out the base for another stocking, since we knew grand number 5 was on the way. Good thing for me, as we didn’t know we would soon be shoving all of our belongings into a tiny storage unit. When my Christmas senses kicked in, all I had to do was pull out the trunk with my fabric, dig out the stocking base and Christmas fabric, and I was reading to sew.
Stocking number 5. Or 11, depending on where you want to start counting. For us, it all began 31 years ago.
Christmas was an important event for Christians in medieval Europe. Not just celebrated around December 25th, it began with the advent season at the end of November and continued through Epiphany o…
Here is a little medieval history about advent and Christmas. I loved reading it and comparing the now and then traditions we observe during Christmas. A special ending comes in the form of “O Come, O Come Emmanuel” played on a medieval Scottish harp!
This is a big deal. I know they’re all the rage right now, and are you not glad? We grew up with coloring books. Not the adult sort that is popular, but books featuring cartoon characters and now-iconic movie themes. Frosty, Rudolph, Tom and Jerry, Barbie…the list is quite long. And I’ve probably had at least one coloring book for each character.
Christmas and coloring books go hand in hand. Opening that freshly minted box of unbroken and pointy tipped crayons and deciding which picture to color in first – that was one of our growing up years Christmas traditions.
Our stockings always had an orange, an apple, and nuts. Add some assorted hard candies, never enough chocolate, small toys, coloring books, and crayons! I’m not sure we had the coloring books and crayons every year, but often enough that I associate them with Christmas morning and full stockings!
I carried on the tradition for our two children when they were young. Coloring books, crayons, chocolate, and candies. For some reason, I dropped the fruit and nuts, though now at my mature age, I view them as synonymous with Christmas stockings.
During college (yes, waayyyy before adult coloring books hit the market), my college friends and residents of the dorm I lived in often sat in the hallways with coloring books and crayons, happily coloring, visiting, and enjoying much-needed stress relief.
As an adult, I still have coloring books. I recently found a lovely nature-themed adult coloring book. I also have a journaling Bible, complete with multiple illustrations ready for me to color.
And today, I purchased old-fashioned coloring books – Rudolph, Frosty, and Santa. I just need crayons, apples, oranges, and nuts.
Because now I can pass along the coloring traditions to the grands.
Never fear. Nana had the grands over for a wild and seriously crazy evening of decorating gingerbread cookies. That is not an understatement.
For the past few years, I have decorated gingerbread houses with the grands. But this year, with 3 boys and 1 girl, six years old and younger, I thought gingerbread cookies would be much easier. I was right.
But we still made a big mess, gobbled too many decorations, and spread icing far and wide. One nice thing about decorating cookies instead of houses was that we could eat our work instead of letting it sit around and petrify into cement.
I’m not so sure the parents agreed. But like any good grandparents, we played, made memories, fed them too much sugar, and sent them home.
Here are a few photos from our Gingerbread Party. Notice the series when Gage decides he is GOING to have his plate and cookie (Nana had to decorate his, as he can’t eat cookies yet). Of course when we are all watching his actions, Donavyn chooses that moment to look at the camera instead of eating the icing and candy off of his gingerbread boy.
Tips:
1. Make the cookies in advance. Definitely. I used giant cookie cutters and made 1 girl and 3 boy cookies. The extra dough was used for normal cookies.
2. Sort candy into individual bowls. That way, each child gets the same things to put on their cookies. Or, I mean, the same amount of sugar to eat.
3. Give each child a cookie sheet as a workspace. Escaping candies and sticky knives stayed right where they needed to be.
4. Forget the fancy icing. Just buy a tub of white icing. It spreads so nice and easy. The icing in the gingerbread house kits is horrible and making a glaze icing that doesn’t spread is frustrating.
5. Enlist someone else to take photos. No way could this Nana help everyone, keep Gage from eating stuff, and take photos. Even with assistance, taking pictures of our completed cookies was the hardest part!
6. Have fun! Eventually we will get back to the houses. But for now, keeping it simple makes more sense. And next year, when we have 5, I think I will have to adopt yet another helper for crowd control.
Love, Laughter, and Life 