December 17 & 18

I have been in bake city the last two days + about a million other things thrown on top, but I love it.  I actually completely forgot to stop in and say hi yesterday.  Our kindness advent was way fun.  We did surprise chalk art in our friends’ drive-way.  Hudson tends to go a little rogue with his drawings…imagine lots of swords and ninjas and light sabers and very intense fight scenes, so I gave them one rule “You must draw something Christmas or winter themed.”  This was helpful.

Today’s kindness advent got changed around a bit and we did something different, but it’s one of those things you just choose to keep between you and those special some ones.  You get it…like the things God puts directly on your heart.

Tomorrow we are delivering bake goods to lots of people, but a whole bunch to our pediatrician’s office.  They are the best and take such good care of all these Kelley kids.

We also class partied it up today which was too much fun.  Amon is already out of MDO so he was in attendance for all the parties.  I was in charge of cupcakes and pinterest for the win on easy festive cupcake toppers.  Pretzel sticks, green candy melts and sprinkles.

I have been baking, baking and more baking.  I wanted to give you the rundown because I found a few slam dunks.  I  am happy to report all the recipes were delicious…minus me slightly burning the gooey butter cake…just slightly…and I did some cutting off of the a-bit-too-brown-pieces.  There may have been a few curse words, but alas, I survived and moved on.

So here’s what was made:  Gooey Butter Cake (an old fave), Sugar Cookie Bars (so good), Puppy Chow Cookies (crazy messy, but just do it), Chocolate Peanut Butter Crunch Candy (addictive), M&M Bark (hard to cut, but I totally loved this combination), Double Dipped Pretzel Chips (a fave of Josh Kelley), Gooey Butter Cookies (hold the phone, I may have a new favorite.  LOVE the texture and lightness of these), Oreo Cheesecake Cookies (I’ve made these before and they are always a hit), Andes Mint Cookies (another oldy, but goody and super easy) and Nutter Butter Balls (one of my all time favorites and I always use white chocolate).

Let’s discuss Amon while baking today.  All he wanted to do was A) Eat or stick his finger in everything.  *For those receiving baked goods…Amon did not put his finger in your food because that is just gross and kids are way germy.*  B) High-five over and over and over again with oven mitts.  And C) Stand way too close to the mixer.  God love him.

The conversation we had one million times today:

Amon: I eat dat.

Me:  No, were not eating these right now.

Amon: Maybe, morrow?

Me: Probably not tomorrow.

Amon: Maybe, Tooday?

Me:  Sure Amon.  We’ll eat these Tuesday.

I received the sweetest little package in the mail today from a blog reader.  There was the kindest note and then these two ornaments.  After all that baking, it made me tear up.  Thank you so much Ms. Linda…you made me day…and Solomon immediately hung both ornaments on our tree.

And after a quick dinner tonight and some cleaning of our kitchen, everyone put on PJs, got a sweet snack and we did our yearly Christmas lights drive-thru.  After we finished, Josh Kelley said, “Well, it’s officially Christmas.”  It’s what we do.

This was the best picture I could get of the boys and me.  It makes me laugh.

So how was your Thursday?  I am beyond pumped tomorrow is Friday and Christmas vacation has officially started.  Here’s to a grand weekend people!

Happy Thursday!