Cookie Day!

What is Christmas without cutout sugar cookies? Nevermind that I don't even like sugar cookies, or icing, or sprinkles all that much, but it's a quintessential Christmas tradition, and I had to make cookies with my kids.

Of course, not being a Christmas cookie fan, I didn't have good cookie cutters. OK, I do have a nativity set that doesn't really look like a nativity set, and besides, I wanted the tree and candy cane and stocking - you know, the true meaning of Christmas ;). So I spent quite a bit of time trying to find Christmas shapes. Finally found a set of 100 shapes (all seasons and holidays, not just Christmas) for $10 at Bed, Bath, and Beyond, so we were all set to make cookies.

So, we invited friends over to help make and decorate Christmas cookies Tuesday. The kids all helped make the dough (I have four different recipes, so I picked the easiest one, for which I actually had all the ingredients). Silly me, though, I forgot that the dough needs to chill for an hour before rolling our, so we had a bit of dead time. But that gave Isaac and Ben a chance to run around and burn off energy, and we also had time for lunch.

After lunch, it was time to roll out the dough and cut out the shapes. Isaac and his best friend Ben participated for a bit, but then they got bored, so they played while Audrey and Zach (Ben's brother) used the cutters. They had so much fun!




Then it was time to decorate. I like the ease of tub frosting, but I love the look of royal icing. So I made the icing, and added food coloring, so we were all set to beautify our fun Christmas shapes. The kids had a blast decorating their cookies! Zach ate them as soon as he decorated them, Ben and Isaac decorated all of theirs, and then started eating them, and Audrey just wanted to look at the pretty cookies, and clean up messes as they happened. When she was all finished, she ate the icing and sprinkles off her snowman, so we had to redo it. She still hasn't eaten an actual cookie.





Quentin slept through the entire process.

Welcome winter!

The great thing about kids is their excitement over snow. No matter how yucky it is to drive in, or the hassle of shoveling, or the freezing temperatures, kids love to play in the snow. And somehow their excitement catches, and I go outside and enjoy pulling them in the sled, or throwing snowballs, or sticking my tongue out to catch snowflakes. Or the best backyard snow activity of all, building a snowman!

Here's our first creation this season:

Advent in the Herford home

Growing up, I don't recall our family or church celebrating Advent. I don't recall Advent calendars or wreaths, lighting of candles, or even a basic countdown to Christmas day. Somehow, even without Advent traditions in our home, we learned about Christmas and what it really means for us as Christians.

I may sometimes decry the materialism of Christmas, but let's face it - I love getting gifts. My kids love getting gifts. And that's OK. I just want them to discover that giving is fun, too. I love decorating the tree (a pagan tradition *gasp*), but beyond just making it pretty, we can make it significant.

So maybe as I raise my kids, our tree becomes less perfect in its display, but more perfect as I spend time with the family making it our own. The conversations that we have while decorating, buying gifts, and wrapping them can be about what Christmas means to us. But one thing I've learned about myself is that good intentions don't always work the way that I want unless I'm very intentional in the execution.

So I've decided to give in to Advent traditions, and create an Advent tree for the kids. Each day will include an activity to prep us for Christmas. One day, we may learn a Christmas carol, another day we may wrap gifts, and another day we may create pieces for the nativity. I am hoping that this will give me focus as I teach my kids about Jesus's birth, and what we're really celebrating.

S'Mores, anyone?

The Herford household produced a very special treat this Halloween - the most scrumptious S'more ever! An energy-filled graham cracker, a delectable chocolate bar, and the squishiest marshmallow combined to produce this divine dessert:



Here are the individual components:







Don't you just want to gobble them up?

Quentin Matthew

How'd we come up with that name? It's not very common, we realize, and certainly hasn't been mentioned to any friends or family as a possibility, so where'd it come from? And what happened to Luke?

About 3 weeks before Quentin was born, we decided that the boy name we'd picked (Luke Nathaniel) just didn't fit with our other kids' names. So it was back to the drawing board. We revisited the master list that we'd created while pregnant with Isaac, and started narrowing it down again.

Here's our list of baby name criteria:

1) two-syllable
2) non-shortenable
3) great meaning
4) not in the top 25 names, but still recognizable

If we really loved a name, we'd be willing to compromise on any one of these, except the no-nickname rule.

One problem was that I'd had Quentin on my list, but Monte had Quintin on his. I don't like Quintin, but he preferred it to Quentin (yes, there is a difference - Quintin rhymes with safety pin, and Quentin rhymes with ink pen. If you can't distinguish between those two words, I pity you). Plus, we had discarded it early on due to meaning anyway (they are both derived from the ancient Roman name Quintus, meaning 5th). We like names with significant meanings, and neither name would work for a first or second child.

This time around, we still couldn't agree on the E vs I, so it was again discarded. Add in the fact that Monte liked the name because it could be shortened to Quinn or even Q! I am actually OK with using Q around the home, but i am not OK with Quinn, especially since it's growing in popularity for girls. And Quentin is the more accepted version in America.

So three weeks before he was born, we revisited the name. I had convinced Monte that Quentin was a better option than Quintin, but I still was hung up on the not-so-meaningful meaning. Until I remembered that this child would be the fifth member of our family, so the meaning actually worked for this child, but wouldn't again. So all that was left was to figure out a middle name.

So that's when we called our moms to find out what other name options were for us. Monte's parents had not considered any other names for him, and Mom was going to name me David Michael had I been a boy. I don't particularly care for either of those names, so we were stumped. About 15 minutes later, Monte walked into the room where I was on the phone with Mom to mention a possible middle name. As he walked in, I asked him about the name Mom had just suggested - Matthew. That was the name that Monte was going to suggest, so it was perfect. Plus it means "gift of God" so that more than made up for the rather prosaic first name.

I can't imagine him with any other name now. And it has the super coolness factor like Monte. So that's how we came up with his name. He's not really named after the shuttle bus driver named Quintin, nicknamed Q, that Monte once knew. Yes, that put the name on his real-life radar, but it was on our list first. And it's not even the same name. But we do call him Q!