Merry Christmas Eve

This is the first Christmas home in the states in seven years.  It has been a crazy ride. Arriving two days before Thanksgiving. Staying first at my Mom's, then at Dave's brother's.  Packing, unpacking, repacking, trying to not be that guest that overstays their welcome.  Homeschooling on the road.  Dealing with unexpected medical issues like ringworm, and no, FS friends, no one threw a cat in my car! And bilharzia.  Always fun when your kid starts peeing blood and it turns out to be some weird tropical disease the doc can't even find a lab able to perform the test to verify the diagnosis. Now the mountain cedar season has started in Texas.  Itchy eyes and stuffed up noses.  So. Much. Fun.

There have been days that I wondered why in the world I thought this extended holiday trip was a good idea.  All our Christmas stuff, all the traditions we have created during Christmases overseas, all left behind in Malawi.  We are missing lazy weekend days laying by the pool in the mid-summer African sun. Missing board games with friends.  Missing the holiday party at the Ambassador's residence and seeing who played Santa this year.  Missing throwing  our New Year's Day, black-eyed peas for good luck in the New Year party.

This week reminded me why I came home for the holidays. It has been the absolute best.  Girl's night in playing Quelf.  I must get this game.  With three boys still at home I really really need a game that may require you to be a sad weeping willow every time a "4" is rolled or it may require you to give yourself a wedgie, and if you "De-wedgify" yourself at any point during the game you have to pay a 2 space penalty.  Take note, only play this game with people you are totally comfortable seeing you making an idiot of yourself.  These particular girlfriends have known me forever. We saw each other through pregnancy, morning sickness, potty training, and the first day of kindergarten.  They are sisters of my heart, so giving myself a wedgie in front of them was no problem, but there will be no wedgie pictures posted here.  Sorry.

I took Grayson to his first live theater experience with bunches of other kids from the 'hood. We saw Junie B. Jones, Jingle Bells Batman Smells.  He loved it and now can't wait to read the books. We even got to meet the whole cast and take pictures afterward.

We went to the tree farm and cut our own little tree.  We used to do this every year. The boys have seen pictures of Dakota cutting the tree, but the younger boys are too young to really remember those annual trips. They only remember the fake tree we ship from post to post.  This morning we went out to Mom's house to decorate the little tree.  And if a live tree weren't enough we set up a white Christmas tree at my brother-in-law Paul's house.  Due to his tree hating cats it is outside on the porch, but that is OK, it does double duty as yard decor.  That's it at the top of this blog post.  I love it.

There has been so much more this past week than I can even write about. Zoo trip, shopping and not on Amazon, River walk boat cruise to see the lights, hiking at Lost Maples State Park, attending a surprise party that was actually a surprise, cruising for Christmas lights, fire pit and s'mores at two different friend's houses on two different nights, basketball in the park, Christmas Eve dinner at Danny's (another brother-in-law) followed by tamales, dessert, and fire pit at at Ms. A Day In the Life's house while the kids zoomed around the cul-de-sac on rip sticks, scooters and skateboards.  It really is a Wonderful Life.

Merry Christmas Y'all!!  Wherever you may be!!

Ain't Worth the Clean-up

What does making bread in a food processor have in common with Christmas? You got it! Right now I'm thinking both things just ain't worth the clean-up.

We have officailly reached the point where I am sick of all the Christmas decorations and they really gotta come down. Soon. Like yesterday. Traditionally we leave the stuff up until the kids go back to school. This year the kids don't head back until the 9th. I don't think I can hang in there that long. However trying to pack up all those breakable things with three wild children trying to help guarantees something, usually something of great sentimental value, will be broken beyond repair. So I guess Christmas stays for one more week, but I am really looking forward to having it all packed away, and the house cleaned, and put back to rights. I am not looking forward to all the work. No matter how I look at it I have at least two days of work getting it all boxed up. Sigh. Currently I'm not convinced that it was all worth it, that's a lot of cleaning up to do.

One of the best presents I received this year was a much longed for food processor. It's a thing of beauty. A sliver Cuisinart all shiny and new just waiting for me to try out everything it can do. Most things it does wonderfully. Nearly instant strawberry ice cream, fantastic. Bread crumbs, perfect! Chopping vegetables to make the mirepoix for the black-eyed peas for our New Year's Day party, so easy and so fast. I can't wait to make a carrot cake just to see how well it does shredding all those carrots. The one thing I have found that it doesn't do well well is knead bread dough.

Now I know this seems obvious to some, it is after all a food processor, not a bread machine. But here's the thing. It came with a dough blade, and there are recipes for bread in the cookbook that came with it. It should make bread dough. I figured I had to try it out at least once. In fairness it did seem to do a good job of kneading the dough, but holy cow what a mess. That was the first and last time I'm trying that. It just ain't worth the clean up. The dough managed to work itself into every hard to clean crack of that machine, I spent more time cleaning that thing than if I had just mixed and kneaded the dough by hand. And to top it off I had to hold the base while it was kneading the dough or it started to walk across the counter.

Now unless I am really in the mood to mess with bread dough all I want to do is dump all the ingredients in a machine and go have a cup of coffee while the machine does the hard stuff. Then I can just yank the dough out, shape into a loaf, and bake it up. I do not want to have to baby sit the machine to keep it from committing suicide by walking off the edge of the counter. Sadly my bread machine disappeared during our first international move 6 years ago, I really miss that machine. Happily my KitchenAid stand mixer does a pretty good job of handing the messy part of making bread. I guess I will stick with the KitchenAid unless of course I get a bread machine for Mother's Day. (Yes Babe, that was a hint!)

Not Exactly Wordless Wednesday - I'm An Elf!

Christmas in the Tropics!

The Weather outside is frightful,
A fire's too hot to be delightful,
And since I can't catch a plane,
Let it rain, let it rain, let it rain….

The Day After

The Day After

It’s the day after Christmas and we are hanging out relaxing. The boys are watching National Geographic, David is talking to his sister on Vonage, and I am blogging and drinking a beer.


Kuche Kuche Beer, the Pride of Malawi, the name makes me giggle every time.

Merry Christmas Y'all

I didn't get Christmas cards sent out this year. I really meant to. I even bought cards made here in Malawi by a talented artist in the embassy community. I forgot one thing though. Stamps. I didn't ship stamps to post and you can't buy them here but you do need them to send outgoing mail. We are ordering some and will be back in the snail mail business soon. In the meantime a bloggy Christmas greeting to all my family and friends will have to do. Merry Christmas to everyone!

This is our tree this year. It is so encrusted with ornaments it is hard to see the tree. Just the way I like it!

Some of the ornaments like this pretty glass leaf were gifts from dear friends over the years. This one dates back to my teaching days. It is one of a set of three and they were a gift from my co-teacher, another Shannon. We ran the 2nd grade Shannon and Shannon show for a few years. Good times!

Some of the ornaments like this Snow Baby were inherited from Dave's mom Annette and her husband Ray. We miss them still but can't help but to smile as we hang the ornaments on the tree for their grandkids each year.

A lot of the ornaments are ones we have collected over the years. Each person gets a new ornament each year. With six people in the family that adds up to a whole lot of ornaments real quick. The pewter ornament with the three little bears is my ornament from 1998. That is the first year David, Dakota, and I spent Christmas together as a family. This year is the first year we will spend Christmas without Dakota. Where has the time gone?

This year my favorite ornament is this little mouse who has climbed up onto the spire and is all tangled up in the lights. He is just too cute sitting up there all by himself.

Marshmallowy Goodness

As I mentioned yesterday I decided to try making marshmallows from scratch, mostly because I didn't think to order any for hot cocoa this year. I distinctly remember seeing some at Shoprite, but there weren't any when I did the Christmas shopping. I don't know why I found this surprising. Malawi is one of those places where if you see something for sale and you think you might want it, you better buy it on the spot because it is virtually guaranteed to not be there when you go back and it may be months before it shows back up again, if it ever does.

We always have hot cocoa and marshmallows on Christmas but there are no marshmallows to be had. Thankfully gourmet homemade marshmallows have been all the rage the last few years with stores like William Sonoma selling them for ridiculous prices so there are tons of recipes out there right now. I have to admit that if I had a bag or two of Jet-Puffs I would never have tried this but like many of my cooking adventures desperation sent me to the internet searching for recipes.

My cookbooks all (or almost all) disappeared somewhere along the way during our first international move so I spend a fair amount of time searching the net for recipes. I have a few rules for recipe searches. Stick to sites that have have a way for people to post reviews. Choose recipes that have good reviews and actually take the time read the reviews before starting. That way you can see where people may have run into problems, and how they fixed them. My favorite sites are epicurious.com, cookinglight.com, and allrecipes.com. There are also a few cooking blogs that I follow. In some ways I am glad that I lost my cookbooks. My repertoire of recipes is certainly much more diverse than it used to be.

Marshmallows. Surprisingly easy, incredibly sticky! I used this recipe from epicurious.com that was originally published by Gourmet magazine. I didn't need any special equipment I didn't already have, just a stand mixer and a candy thermometer. It only took about 30 minutes to turn sugar, corn syrup, water, egg whites, vanilla, and gelatin into a tray of marshmallow goo. Several hours later it had dried into a giant marshmallow waiting to cut into smaller marshmallows.

The basic idea is to soften the gelatin in a bit of water and beat the egg whites into stiff peaks. Combine the sugar, corn syrup, water, and a bit of salt and boil it until it reaches 240 Fahrenheit. I went just a bit over that thanks to some kid distractions and it still worked. Then pour the hot syrup over then gelatin, stir until it the gelatin dissolves and then beat on high until it forms stiff peaks. This took long enough to make me very glad I was using a Kitchenaide stand mixer and not my old hand mixer. Then add in the vanilla and egg whites and beat it some more. Pour it into a a greased pan and let cool uncovered for several hours. I just left it overnight and it worked perfectly. That's it. It was pretty easy.

When trying to find out more about making marshmallows I ran across this blog about making marshmallows. It was totally hilarious. I didn't have the same problems she did but managed to run into other problems of my own. The hardest thing for me was cutting the marshmallows. Everything was sticky. I had a hard time getting the slab of marshmallow out of the pan. It stuck to the pan, it stuck to my fingers, it stuck to the knife, it was just plain sticky. I started throwing powdered sugar all over everything and that helped, a lot. One of my favorite food bloggers said to oil the pan, put parchment in the bottom of the pan then oil that too. I will definitely try that next time. I tried cutting the marshmallows with a knife and very quickly switched to a pizza cutter. Eventually I ended up with a beautiful pile of marshmallows and a counter (and floor, and stovetop, and coffee pot) all covered in powdered sugar. It looked just like snow. It finally looks a little like Christmas here in the tropics.

Yes I used a ruler!

I tried to get David to pose with a cup of cocoa with melting marshmallows for this blog post and suddenly realized why it is so hard to get the kids to all pose nicely when I have a camera. It's genetic! I am including these pictures for your Christmas enjoyment! Merry Christmas Y'all!

Christmasy Food

What do you eat on Christmas? Do you eat the same thing every year? Do you use that day as an excuse to try fancy new recipes? Thanksgiving has the turkey, what foods spell Christmas to you? In our house Christmas day usually means ham. Too bad the only ham we could find costs a fortune and is at a store that has had ongoing problems with it's cold storage system resulting in random meat spoilage. No ham this year. This is truly the first year I can remember without a ham.

To add to the culinary failure in progress Christmas Eve means tamales and chili. Since I made tamales and chili a few weeks ago as part of Dakota's week long leaving home feast we are all tamaled out, although the kids have let me know they will take another Big Red, thanks. So what to do this year? How to make it feel like Christmas despite the 90 degree weather, no ham, and tamale overload?

David suggested gnocchi which is one of our favorites, but there was a unanimous "Not Knee-Yucky!" chorus from the kids. Sick little critters. In fact pasta was shot down across the board as not "Christmasy enough". There were suggestions for turkey which I politely ignored, once a year is quite enough. I thought of steak but somehow that seems more like summer BBQ than Christmas dinner. Of course it is summer here, so maybe it isn't such a bad idea.

We finally settled on baked chicken with green beans, potatoes au gratin, cranberry sauce out of a can (BLECH), homemade bread, and creme brulee for dessert for Christmas Eve. Christmas Day we will have a beef stew, fresh rolls, and apple pie with ice cream for dessert. Simple, homey, comfort food. Well except for Colin's creme brulee and even that's not too hard to make.

In case you think I for got about breakfast on Christmas Eve we will have pancakes made by Alonzo. He makes the best pancakes light and fluffy and just a tiny bit sweet. On Christmas Day will will have beignets otherwise know by my kids as donut holes. And while we are opening the presents hot cocoa with marshmallows. Yummy!

Today's adventure was making the marshmallows. I have looked all over town and can't find a bag of marshmallows anywhere so I tried making them. I say tried because I am not sure yet if they are going to set up the way the are supposed to but when I licked the bowl it tasted like the best marshmallow fluff ever. So my fingers are crossed it all worked out and we will have pretty homemade marshmallows melting in our hot cocoa come Christmas morning, if not I am just putting a big spoonful of marshmallow fluff and calling it good enough. I will post an update later with pictures if they work out. If you are dying to try making some yourself the recipe can be found at epicurious.com.

Wordless Wednesday - Christmas Ornaments 2010

Wordless Wednesday - Caught In the Act

Christmas Eve 2009

So what does a Texan do at Christmas time? Eat tamales! What to do if you are far away from Texas at Christmas time? Make your own tamales and invite friends over to help eat them. Which is exactly what we did. We made 12 dozen tamales, a pot of chili con carne, a pot of beans because some people like beans in their chili, bought some Big Red (God bless who ever is charge of the commissary!) and then invited everyone from Dave's office to stop by this afternoon after work. Of course some people are out of town, some people are busy, but some showed up and we ate, talked, laughed, and had a blast. I think this may be a new holiday tradition.

Wordless Wednesday- Christmas Kitty

I am FINALLY in the holiday mood!

I am usually the driving holiday force around our house. I don't just celebrate Christmas I wallow in the holidays! This year I have been going through the motions but not feeling the joy. I don't know why but I have been in a blue funk. Even the Christmas music, which I normally play nonstop, has been annoying me, but after the last weekend I am FINALLY in the holiday mood.

This weekend was nonstop Christmas fun. Thursday we went to a Christmas performance by Grayson, and Friday we went to a performance by Colin. Friday night we watched a Chipmunk Christmas DVD which goes with the Chipmunk Christmas CD the kids have been listening to on the ride to and from school each day. The kids are loving Simon, Theodore, and Alvin. Now if they would just quit acting like them!

Saturday we went to the Christmas Market in Wiesbaden. I like that one so much better then the big market in downtown Frankfurt, much less crowded. I didn't have to worry about spilling my gluhwein from people pushing me. On the was home we drove the long way through the Taunus and there was about 5 inches of snow up there. Gorgeous!

Those of you familiar with Jakarta will notice that the blue stall in the right of the picture above looks like it was stocked from the 4th floor of Pasaraya where all the handicrafts are sold. Those little wooden cicaks that you can pick up for a few thousand rupiahs there sell for 40+ euros here. There seems to be one of these stalls at all the markets. It cracks me up.

There's lots to eat and drink at the markets. David got his favorite bratwurst mit brot otherwise know as sausage on a roll. All the kids opted for a crepe filled with Nutella and while I agree it is good I went for this German version of pizza topped with some sort of white sauce, onions, and ham, yummy!

And what would a day at the market be without riding the rides with the kids? We rode the double decker merry-go-round and the kiddie train. In a different part of the market there was ice skating rink but we managed to escape that this time.

Saturday night we went to the Seidlung Christmas party at the fieldhouse. Free food and live holiday music, what could be better? I even won a cute Christmas village cake in the silent auction. Sunday found the kids back at the fieldhouse for pictures with Santa, of course I was at the commissary because I forgot but Dakota saved the day and took the kids down there to meet Santa and take pictures while David and I shopped for groceries. Yay Dakota! Now that I have been on holiday overload for a few days I think I am ready, bring on Christmas.

Oh if you are wondering why there are no pictures of Colin at the market it's because he spent the day with a classmate skating and curling down at the Eissporthalle. He had a blast and currently holds the title of the only Mullins to go curling.

I Get it Now

We used to have a live Christmas tree every year. We would drive out to a cute little Christmas tree farm near Seguin, spend hours walking around and around comparing the trees until finally we found THE TREE. Then Dave and Cody would use a hand saw to cut the tree down and haul it to the front of the farm, load it up, tie it down, and haul it home. Then we would struggle to get it to sit right in the stand, and get the lights strung all over it so there were no dark spots and hang the ornaments just so to disguise any bare spots. The reward would be a gorgeous unique tree and that wonderful pine smell through out the house all through the holidays.

Then we moved to Jakarta and had to get a fake tree. Not so many Christmas trees in a tropical Muslim country. There are a few to be sure but they tend to be pricey and there is certainly no cut your own tree farms, at least not that we ever found.

Now we live in Germany. There are lots of beautiful real trees to choose from here, after all this is supposed to be the country that came up with the idea of decorated Christmas trees. Last year I tried to talk David into a real tree, plastic just isn't the same. My argument was the smell, I missed the smell. Dave bought me a pine scented candle. Hmmmph!

This year I tried again. The tree lots are everywhere, and the trees are so pretty, I really want one. I have tried sad puppy dog eyes, hints, longing sighs, profuse admiration of the real trees, flat out demanding a real tree. And....nothing...silence...crickets chirping.

Finally last night David announced that real trees are just too much trouble, then he hauled the fake tree up four flights of stairs from the basement and dumped it in the living room. Today as I was setting up the tree and fluffing the tree I kept wondering how this is any easier than a real tree. He went to work today and I got to spend half the day trying to make a pile of wire and plastic look like a tree. I have scratches all over my arms from this thing. Then I suddenly figured it out. It is easier FOR DAVID!

When we had a real tree David had to drive to the tree farm, David had to help Cody cut down the tree, David had to haul the tree to the car, David had strap it down, David had to drive it home with out losing the tree on the highway, David had to trim the tree so it would sit straight in the stand, David had to string the lights and David was usually the one who remembered to water the tree so it didn't dry up too fast.

With a fake pre-lit tree all David has to do is haul it up from the basement dump the box in the living room and say, "Here ya go Babe." then he is done. Yep, I get it now.

*if you click on the picture at the top it is interesting to note that is NOT Dave helping Cody haul that tree, it is Paul, aka Uncle Bubba. Things that make you go hmmmm.

Well That's Done!

This was my living room this morning. Well, maybe it wasn't as clean as the picture but all the decorations and the tree were still there. Alonzo and Colin FINALLY returned to school today so I arranged for Grayson to stay for after school care (he normally gets out at noon) and spent the whole day putting away Christmas, alone, with no kids.


This is my living room tonight. It is free of (almost) all Christmas decorations and order has been restored. Ahhh! The poinsettia will stay until I either murder it or it is warm enough to plant it outside. I am betting I murder it long before spring.


Even more importantly with all the hanging window ornaments gone the curtains can be easily closed without worrying about breaking something. This a big deal because it is COLD outside. This morning the temperature was -15 celsius. That sounded really cold but I don't do metric as a general rule so I looked it up on the computer and it turns out it IS really cold, 5 degrees fahrenheit to be precise. Brrrr. The curtains really help to keep the inside a little bit warmer.

Status Quo

Things are quiet around here. Well, no, actually with four boys and no school it is not quiet at all, things are noisy, very very noisy. Nothing new is going on however. The boys are playing with/fighting over all the new toys Santa brought. There is still no snow in the Taunus. David is back to work leaving me at home to deal with the chaos. Normally I am not envious of him going to work, but this week it sounds fabulous. Where can I get a job, quick, so I can go spend my days talking to adults instead of mediating the never ending fights around here?

The house which I spent hours decorating for holidays has started to close in on me. This happens ever year. I love the glitter and color of all the Christmas decorations. I love fussing with them each year trying to make it all look just right. But then just before New Years I suddenly want to rip it all down! I want to make the house feel open, clean, and organized. I think it isn't so much the decorations as it is the kids being home and the fact that they can trash a room faster that I can clean it. I noticed in Jakarta when we had a full time maid, the house stayed spotless most of the time, and the need to take everything down and pack it away just wasn't there. In fact last year I didn't get around to packing up everything until late January. This year I think it will all go the weekend after New Year's.

Even though there isn't any snow, it is still too cold for the kids to be outside for long periods of time, (-8 celsius/18 fahrenheit right now) but the sun has been shining so out they go. They get all bundled up and head outside, but I swear they barely make it down the stairs before the doorbell starts ringing. We have one of those intercom doorbells. It rings, I answer and ask politely over the intercom "Who is it?" then buzz the downstairs door open. I then have to wait for them to make it up 3 flights of stairs and ring the inside doorbell to our apartment. I am now to the point I am answering the outside doorbell "WHAT?!?!?" I am going to end up yelling at some poor innocent person who happens to ring the wrong bell.

Well it is 7:45am  and the sun is just starting to come up, which means that the kids will be up soon. In fact I can hear Grayson heading to Colin's room to wake him up.  I am going to post this, enjoy a last cup of coffee and brace myself to face the day!

Christmas Day

Christmas day has come and gone and I leave you these pictures to chronicle the day. I hope you enjoy.













Happy Holidays!!!

Events of Christmas Eve

Today was full of fun and excitement. As promised I am providing an update on how the tamales and houses building went. Well… actually it all went really well. We got the masa and the meat all done yesterday so all we had to do today was assemble, cook, and eat.




I didn’t get any pictures eating them because… well, we were all too busy eating them. These tamales would give “Rubens Homemade Tamales” on Rigsby Ave in San Antonio a run for their money.


Today we found the best way to get rid of the candy you still have from Halloween is to have the kids decorate gingerbread houses, or in our case graham cracker houses. We all had a blast with our decorating. I am not sure how we made such a big mess and to tell the truth I am not sure how much the candy actually made it on the houses. From the sounds I am hearing from the kids, the ones that are suppose to be asleep upstairs; I would say a good portion made it in the kids.




Have a wonderful Christmas!

The night before Christmas Eve

The boys are all tucked in to bed and Shannon is hard at work in the kitchen getting the fixings ready for tomorrow. If all goes well we will be having tamales with chili con carne and beans for lunch and the boys will be decorating their gingerbread (aka graham cracker) houses. Next year Shannon swears that we will get the gingerbread made and frozen by November.



Check back tomorrow so you can see the finished results of the house decorating and the fruits of our hard labor in the making of the tamales. If all goes well perhaps we will be able to have them more often, you know like once a year instead of once every time we go back to Texas.

Wallowing in Christmas

There seems to be so much to do at Christmas time in Germany. Drives into the mountains to play in the snow. Christmas markets in every city and town. Ice skating downtown. Parties and Christmas shows at school and cub scouts. I am beginning to feel a bit like we are overdosing on yuletide spirit. Today's activity was Breakfast with Santa here on the Siedlung. We told the kids to get dressed we are going take a picture with Santa. A few minutes later they showed up downstairs in matching outfits, honestly I didn't plan the outfits, I was too busy sucking down my morning caffine. Colin and Grayson even match down to thier socks. David grabbed the camera to record the cuteness, these were the best of the pictures he took. We left the house a little worried about the photo session with Santa.


While we waited our turn several babies and young toddlers took pictures with Santa. Everyone of the them burst into tears. Poor little things. Last year Grayson looked a little concerned about Santa (and who could blame him?) but this year he climbed right up into the sleigh and smiled up at him. Grayson has caught the Christmas spirit! Santa seemed relieved to have a break from the tears.


In spite of our worries the pictures came out fairly decent. A little red eye but David can probably fix that later. For some reason my red eye correction tool is making everyone look stoned. I finally gave up and left it alone.


Tomorrow we are taking the kids on a surprise shopping trip downtown. You will have to check back to see what we bought.