Christmas at Dakota Village

On Saturday we spent that afternoon at Dakota City in Farmington. This is the second year we driven down for their Christmas open house. Cost is $10 for a carload. It was cold, but the snow was so beautiful. They are open again this weekend, so if you missed the activities last week, you still have the chance to get there before Christmas.

The kids wanted to play checkers in every single shop.


Sophie wrote another letter to Santa. She is really hoping for a microscope for Christmas.


We found Mrs. Clause at the Post Office.


We rode around the village in the horse drawn wagon.


In the library, the kids made ornaments by stringing popcorn and folding paper. Yes, I realize this is about the last year I will be able to convince Calvin to wear a dragon hat for the winter. It is so cute and it makes me a little sad to recognize how much he is growing. Slow down Calvin!


We warmed up with some hot cocoa and hot cider. Bring extra cash for the hot drinks and for the penny candy in the candy shop.

Cold and Cocoa

When it looks like this:


and the kids come in with rosy cheeks,


we usually end up at the kitchen table with hot cocoa and marshmallows.


The snow is gorgeous this week - fluffy and white and thickly coating all of the trees. The kids spend hours sledding every day after school and the front hall is full of dripping snow pants and mittens every evening. It is definitely winter around here!

P.S. Did you hear? My sister is flying in for a week long visit starting on Christmas Eve. I'm not going to tell the kids. It will be a surprise treat!

Relief Society Christmas Program

Lovely ladies - every single one. We have the best ward - you should be jealous.

Recipe: Nutella Cheesecake

Nutella Cheesecake - I know, ridiculous. Why hasn't someone come up with this before?

I made two of these beauties for the Relief Society Christmas dinner last night and they were really, really delicious!


Be prepared for a lot of licking of the bowls and sneaking spoonfuls of Nutella while making this recipe.


I found the recipe on this site (I have made many, many of her recipes and have always been thrilled with the results). I would make one small change in the recipe. There is too much butter in the crust. Instead of half a cup, I would substitute something like 3T. Just enough to make the crumbs wet - not so much as to make a paste.

The flavor is excellent, the texture is beautiful, the presentation is . . . well, look at it!


Hey! There's a photo of the slice I ate today for lunch!


To see the recipe on Cream Puffs in Venice, click here.

Chritmas Advent and Counting Craft

We made this craft on the last day of November, but it is not too late to make one now.

First make your chain. I just used regular construction paper in white, green and red. I precut the paper into 2 inch strips. Each child needs 25 strips (or however many days are left until Christmas).

Tell the children to think of some sort of pattern like red, white, green or red, red, green, green, white, white - whatever. Or, if you have young kids, just let them go with a random pattern. We just used a swipe of glue stick at the end of each strip to hold the chain together. The paper is so lightweight that this works fine.


Once they have their chains done, give each child 25 circles of yellow construction paper. With a black marker, have them write one number on each circle - up to 25. For the younger kids, I put out a sheet of paper with the numbers written on it for them to use as a guide.


When they are all done, have them glue their numbers to their chains. In order, one number per link. Done!

Now, each morning, let them tear off one link as they count down to Christmas Day. Calvin has his hanging in the kitchen where he enthusiastically tears off a link each morning at breakfast.

Recipes: Pies

All of the recipes for these pies can be found back at this post, but I thought I'd let you know what we thought about the recipes that were new to me.

The pie above is the Panna Cotta Pie from Martha's site. It is a very grown-up dessert. The pie is not very sweet, has a good flavor and it absolutely gorgeous with the poached fruits on top. If I were to make it again, I would make more filling - it seemed like it needed more in the filling to crust ratio. The filling sets up quite firm.


This is the Chocolate Mousse pie - so easy and sooooooo rich. I can never eat a whole slice of this pie, but the kids love it!


One of my favorite pies and I usually do not like peanut butter and chocolate. This pie is light and guaranteed to become everyone's new favorite pie. The recipe makes two pies - you do not want to try and make one really thick pie instead as the filling will not set up firmly and you will have to use a spoon to serve it (that has never happened to me - OK it has).


Finally, this is the Lemon Cream pie - I was going to make Martha's version, but I opted from one on epicurious instead.. Light and delicious and the first pie gone at Thanksgiving.

Thanksgiving Feast

recipes to follow