Tag Archives: baking

Holiday Pre-Partying

Posted by: Maggie

Last Sunday night we had Andrew & Amy and Betsy over for a holiday movie and baking party. The whole thing was Andrew’s idea, by the way, and thank you Andrew! It was a great idea! We all had so much fun. This is one of my favorite parts of the holidays, getting to spend time with our closest friends.

I wanted to bake my favorite holiday cookie, chewy chocolate gingerbread cookies, but the dough needs to be refrigerated for several hours before baking so I spent the morning making all of the dough so that once the guests arrived all we would have to do was to roll it into balls and roll them in sugar before putting them in the oven.

Here are my ingredients. I actually make this cookie from scratch, and real scratch, not my new ” from scratch.”

Of course I didn’t actually take any pictures of the party itself, because as I’ve said I tend to forget about my camera when I’m hosting a party. And to be honest I was pretty drunk through the entire party. I hadn’t eaten much that day, so all it really took was a glass of wine just after Andrew and Amy arrived.

At some point I had a second glass of wine and then while Amy, Josh and Besty watched Love, Actually (such a great holiday movie, always makes me cry) Andrew and I worked on the cookies and some very very boozy eggnog that he had made himself. It was actually really good eggnog with tons of Brandy. So I was pretty good and drunk through the entire party. We had a great time just talking and laughing and occasionally watching parts of the movie. I spent half of the night just listening to Betsy and Andrew talk which was so much fun for me. It felt just like old times when the three of us were best friends in high school spending every Friday night watching movies at Betsy’s house. Oh, the good old days!

Anyway, it was a fun little party and luckily Amy was there with her camera. Here is the link to the photos she put up in her SmugMug gallery. If she posts about it herself later, I’ll update this post with a link.

Update: Here’s the link to Amy’s post about the party!

Eleanor’s Birthday Part One: Preparations

Posted by: Maggie

Sorry that I was missing last week. I was busy with new clients at work, a bunch of other events, and was exhausted from the prior week’s excitement.

Here’s what you missed: Eleanor turned two last Monday! Yay! We had a small party at my mom’s house for her on the Saturday before her birthday. The night before, Josh and I prepped. Josh baked the cupcakes and I built Eleanor’s birthday present. In case you were wondering, that’s how things work in our house. I’m the handy one, Josh is more of the cook, neither of us is great with the cleaning (but I’m definitely better).

These are funfetti cupcakes. Josh made them from “scratch.”

By the way, I decided that I’m going to start saying that I made everything from “scratch.” And in my head that will mean from a box, or pre-made frozen, or whatever, as long as I have to do any prep work at all before serving I’m calling it from “scratch.” Now, if my definition of “scratch” differs from yours that is not my problem.

So I thought that I would get this tricycle and it would pretty much be put together and I would just have to put the seat and handlebars on or something. But no, it came in all sorts of pieces. No problem, though. I like building stuff. I really like working with my hands. I kinda always wanted to be a carpenter, but I just don’t have the physical strength or stamina to have a job where I have to be on my feet all day.

So I got the thing built, and I’m all proud of myself, but then when I wheel it out at her party the handlebars are loose! Arrgh! I thought I had tightened it enough. It seemed really tight when I tried it. So we bring it back home and it sits in the living room for a day waiting to be fixed and when I go to fix it, wouldn’t you know, but it is perfectly tight. As it turns out, it was super cold at my mom’s house in the room where it sat all day waiting to be revealed. We suspect that the metal just contracted in the cold and that’s what made it loose. It sat in a warm room and like magic it expanded again and was tight enough. I think we’ll be keeping it outside on the patio though, so I guess we need to let it get cold again and then tighten it then so that it stays nice and tight no matter the weather.

Wow, was that story as boring as I think? Oh well, I’m done with this post! Tomorrow: the party!

Holiday Baking

Posted by: Maggie

I baked this week. I’m not really into baking, but it seems hard to avoid at the holidays.

Amish Friendship Bread, moist and delicious:

My favorite Chewy Gingerbread cookies for our friends Betsy and Justin’s holiday party:

I let Josh handle the power tools.

I don’t usually dress up to bake, but we baked immediately before leaving for the party.

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