Every year Michael's work has a Christmas party....it's usually the last Tuesday before Christmas. Most of the time because of the way the days fall the kids end up still being in school so they aren't able to come. I could pull them out, but I feel like they should be in school as much as possible so I don't. This year, however, the kids are out of school so they get to come.
Every year since Michael has worked at the water district I have always made a point to make some sort of homemade goodie bag up for each of the employees. I honestly feel that it's my way of showing the home side of Michael and our family. Sure he's a great worker and that shows in his amazing work ethic, but he's also an amazing husband and father and I feel like me and kids reflect him and how wonderful he is.
For our 6th day of our 12 Days Of Christmas I thought it would be fun to include the kids in on the baking. Usually I'm baking when they are at school or I'm just wanting to get it done so I really don't want to be patient and have them help me. They are getting older and taller so helping me out is easier than when they had to sit on the counter and take up all my work space. It was actually a lot of fun too!
First order of business was to take all the Rolos out of the wrappers!
After this picture I did have to remind Owen that he is actually tall enough to stand and work at the counter. I guess he's just used to sitting and helping. His job was to lay out all the pretzels on the cookie sheet.
At first Jack and Owen were my only helpers since Ella and Zeke were still upstairs cleaning up. Once Zeke was done he came down and was able to help Jack unwrap Rolos.
Lining those pretzels up like a boss!
After all the Rolos were unwrapped and the pretzels were lined up it was time for the Rolos to be placed on top of the pretzels.
Then it was into the oven for a few minutes so the Rolos could soften a bit.
Once Ella came down her and Owen worked on separating the broken pecan halves from the whole ones. Who wants a broken pecan half on their turtle!
Once the Rolos were softened a bit it was time to put on the pecan and smush it down a bit. This took a gentle touch and a little coaching to get the kids to do it correctly.
We needed to make another batch of turtles so the kids started unwrapping more Rolos and placing more pretzels on the cookie sheet.
While they had been working on all that stuff I had been making the candied pecans. These are to die for and super easy!!!
Next up was peppermint bark. The kids had the task of unwrapping the candy canes.
Ella was so excited she was able to get this candy cane unwrapped without it breaking!
The candy canes when into the Ziploc bag and we smashed them up into little pieces.
While the kids were unwrapping I was in the kitchen melting chocolate chips. Once they were melted I spread the chocolate on a foil lined cookie sheet.
To reward the kids for being such hard workers I let them have at the bowl of melted chocolate once I had scraped most of it out.
Needless to say they were like moths to a flame....they devoured that chocolate and got super messy in the process.
Yeah Zeke you are barely messy....that's because he can't stand getting messy!
After the kids washed up and I spread a layer of white chocolate on top of the semi-sweet chocolate they helped me sprinkle the broken candy cane bits on top.
After finishing that up we had to take a break. I had to go and take a shower so we could attend Michael's grandma's funeral. She had passed away on December 6th. She had been sick for quite some time so it wasn't a surprising passing. It was a lovely service that highlighted a wonderful woman of God. Heaven definitely gained a amazing lady and how awesome is it that she is worshiping in the presence of her Savior this Christmas season!
After the service I had to run to the store to get some more white chocolate and then I was back at it. The boys were playing on the Xbox....a treat that Daddy allowed, but Ella really wanted to keep helping me. It was so much fun having her in the kitchen with me. Love that girl! Here first job was to unwrap the peanut butter cups.
She decided to line them up in this rectangle shape....she said it looked like the shape of a phone!
The peanut butter cups were used to make peanut butter cup fudge! It is yummy!
Ella also helped me make these raspberry jam shortbread cookies. They looked super easy to make and I was able to use my homemade raspberry jam, but they just didn't turn out as cute as the recipe showed them. I'm thinking it had to do with the fact that my homemade jam is pretty runny. They taste good, but they just didn't look nice so I didn't include them in the goodie bags.
Here's the finished goodie bags all packed up. There is candied pecans, peppermint bark, turtles, peanut butter cup fudge and then 2 Ghirardelli chocolate squares in each bag.
Another successful festive family day!
