Dance Dance Dance

We had a GREAT Christmas! I am just happy to have Jason home for longer than a weekend! Our group present to the kids was the Dance Dance Revolution for the Wii. Here I caught them dancing and wanted to post for the whole world to see! :-)

Seriously, I can't make divinity.....

My 13 year old daughter likes to give her girlfriends little gifts when it comes time for Christmas. Nothing fancy but just a little something to let them know she loves them! This year we bought some ribbon and she used puffy paint to write their names it. She then tied the ribbon around a package of gum. One last thing she wanted to do was make some divinity..easier said than done.

See, mom here, has a long history with Divinity. Every Christmas my mom or Grandma would make a batch or 2 or 3 of divinity. I have grown up eating this candy at Christmas time as far back as I can remember. I LOVE IT!

As I got older and moved away from Mom and grandma, I thought I would try making divinity myself. I mean, mom and grandma make it every year, how hard can it be? Right? WRONG! I think I have tried making divinity at least twice and both times it did NOT turn out!

I hadn't had divinity in a while until last year when my parents were able to come down and visit for Christmas. Stephie and my mom made at least 2 or 3 batches and it was just as good as I remembered! Since Stephie helped my mom make it last year, she figured she could make it by herself this year. For the record, I want you all to know that I said, "If you make divinity you are on your own, I can't make divinity!"

Determined not to be swayed from her Christmas gift idea Stephie asked me to buy all the ingredients and said she would make the divinity herself. Well tonight was the night.....time to clear out of the kitchen and watch Stephie make divinity. I stepped in for supervision and proceeded to watch my daughter start making divinity. All started out just fine but soon turned into disaster. As soon as the sugar syrup reached the soft ball stage it surged up to the hard ball stage and turned carmely color. I helped her pour it over the egg whites and stepped back to let the kitchen aid do the work!

The "stuff" did come together so Stephie started to spoon it out onto the plastic wrap. After about 8 pieces, the mass froze into a hardened mass about as hard as the counter top it was sitting upon! Translation...divinity batch into the TRASH! Great!

The last thing Stephie said to me tonight was "Mom, next time you say you can't make something, I am going to believe you!"

"Divinity" anyone?! Ha-ha-ha!

Christmas Card

I found the coolest thing this year for Christmas cards. I was able to create my Christmas cards online using Hallmark.com. Along with the convenience of being able to upload and create my pictures online, Hallmark took things once step further for me. For no addional charge I was able to also upload my Excel spreadsheet with Address's, type in my return address, and then pay for the stamps for each card. Then through the magic of the internet...Ta-Da, my Christmas cards are DONE!
No trips to the post office, no writing names and address's all night long, none of that.
30 minutes on the computer and that's it! SO CONVENIENT (or so lazy for me...no comments please)!
I usually type a little letter to go along with our cards but this year I decided not to do that either. It is just to hard to explain our situation, Jason has worked 3 different places this past year, our decision to live apart, no one gets it....and that is ok, it our lives and we are doing what works for us! Right? Right!
So, in case I didn't have your address here are the pictures I used on our Christmas card this year! Merry Christmas! :-)