Long Lost Cousins

Lol... Well not really lost, it had just been a reeeally long time since we had seen each other.

Terry & I

Last week my cousin & his wife headed to Orlando for a little fun with Mickey Mouse. When they had their fill of the Magic Kingdom they headed to my parents place just outside Orlando. Little did my cousin know, his wife had asked my dad if there was any way my sister &/or I could make it to town to visit also. Well my sister already had Christmas plans with her in-laws but I was going to be home alone with the boys while FedEx dominated Donna's days leading up to Christmas. So we made plans to meet halfway, it just so happens that St Augustine is the halfway mark between my parents & us :)

So Saturday morning as soon as the boys woke up I handed them a cup a milk & a waffle & got everyone dressed & ready to head out the door at 8am (the boys wake up at 7, a lot to accomplish in just an hour, lol) I stopped for gas & we were on the highway...

Driving I-95 is pretty easy but it was the Saturday before Christmas & there were definitely more people heading into FL than were heading out. I got just across the state line & hit a traffic jam :( it's a big highway with plenty of lanes so I was sure we'd be off & running again in now time...

Well, we traveled 6 miles in the next 2 hours before we finally got past a tractor trailer that had spilled pallets of produce all over the highway but we finally made it to St Augustine just in time for lunch at one of my favorite places ever, The Columbia Restaurant. 

We had a great visit over lunch, it was the first time I had met Wanda, my cousins wife but she's one of those people that you feel like you've always known. Caden was being really really shy. He's had a little bit of a hard time lately with new people, he couldn't even sit at the table facing anyone (strangers in the restaurant) so I held him on my lap & he hid his face in my arm until I couldn't hang onto him anymore. He did manage to eat a little chicken with his head down under the table, lol...

Once we finished lunch & headed outside we found ourselves at a nice fountain. The boys were in heaven! It was a beautiful 83 degrees out so they splashed & played in the water (without getting in the fountain) & everyone was their happy, outgoing selves again. The boys got completely soaked & did a good job getting everyone else wet too. 

Grandma, Terry, Wanda, Kellan, Caden & Garren 

Wanda getting soaked by Caden

After we finished at there we walked over to the historic fort, wandered along the wall overlooking the water & found some nice grass to play in. The boys loved spending time with grandma & grandpa & they also LOVED playing with Wanda & Terry.

Kellan, Caden, Garren & Grandma

The boys would run up & back down the hill,

pouncing on Wanda & Grandma in between

I enjoyed seeing Terry & meeting Wanda, I love catching up with family & staying connected & of course showing off our beautiful boys :)

P.S. it took me less than an hour & a half to get home ;)

Cinnamon Salt Dough

The first time I made salt dough was the boys first Christmas. Donnas parents came up to Winston-Salem to spend Christmas with us & my mother in law & I made salt dough ornaments with cookie cutters & made handprint Santa faces with the boys little bitty hands.

What survived from our first try

The ornaments were far from perfect! When I baked the salt dough it puffed up, maybe I rolled it too thin??? When we painted our ornaments with the recommended acrylic paint, the paint cracked. I have no idea what happened there?! We went with anyways because it was more about the memories & time together than perfect salt dough ornaments. Unfortunately a lot of them were broken during our move (we had not so wonderful movers) :( including the Santa face handprints. I was able to glue them back together but am waiting until we get to FL & asking my mother in law to reprint the faces since she did them the first time :)

So back to cinnamon salt dough... I wanted to make salt dough again this year & attempt to get more hand prints from the boys before their hands are too big to make ornaments with. I saw on Pinterest some people were making "apple cinnamon dough." I took a look at that recipe & didn't have enough apple sauce or cinnamon (2 CUPS) on hand. That's really a lot of cinnamon huh? So I explored other fragrant dough options & ran across a ladies blog who had simply added a tablespoon of cinnamon to the standard salt dough recipe. A tablespoon I could handle, so I went with that plan. (Sorry, I do not remember the blog title to give credit)

Here is what you need:

• A flat surface
• A mixing bowl
• A cookie sheet
• A rolling pin
• An oven ;)
• 1 cup of flour
• 1 cup of salt
• 1 tbsp of cinnamon (this of course is completely optional, if you don't want brown cinnamon smelling dough then leave it out)
• 1/2 cup water - you will need more but start with 1/2 cup & only add a few drops at a time until the consistency is right.

Here is what you do:

• Put the flour, salt, cinnamon & water in a bowl & mix it with your hands.
• Add a few drops of water as needed until the dough is play dough consistency.
• Sprinkle some flour on your work surface & roll out the dough, this time I rolled mine out to just less than a half inch think.
• Cut our your shapes using cookie cutters or free hand or however you like to get your shapes.
• Use anything with a small tip to wiggle a little hole into your ornament & then bake them on a cookie sheet for 2 hours at 200 degrees & enjoy the aroma! They may or may not be completely hard by this time, you can leave them in longer or you can let them air dry the rest of the way. Mine are actually still slightly pliable in the very center but I don't want them to crack so I took them out of the oven, they'll harden all the way eventually :)

For handprints, I roll out the dough right on my cookie sheet, have one of the boys press his hand in it & then I freehand cut a mitten shape around the handprint, then I did the then next hand & then the 3rd hand. After each handprint was made & I cut out around each one I peeled away the excess dough & baked the handprints right on the cookie sheet without having to move them or messing up the print :)

Little blob hands into real hands :)

You can paint your ornaments or add embellishments or just leave them natural.

We did a little of each. I painted faces & buttons on our gingerbread men & left the rest of them natural.  I painted the mitten around the handprint but left the handprint natural and I let the boys paint the rest.

Garren, Caden, Kellan

 

 

This years batch turned out much better & I didn't have any of the issues I had the first time. I love the smell of cinnamon & these little beauties smell so good, the pups keep stealing them off the tree to try & eat. Speaking of on the tree... The boys had traded in their trucks & underwear & had been hanging these ornaments up, taking them down & rearranging as they see necessary.

Look closely, they are all on the bottom left side of the tree :)

Santa Hopping

Last night (posting this laye so last monday) was likely the last day Donna would get home at a decent hour until after Christmas so we made the most of it!

Santa had a visit scheduled at the clubhouse here, so we started out paying him another visit here first. There was a bit of a crowd when we walked in, not a line or anything but several spectators. Even though you would think all the stares the boys have gotten in public places would have desensitized them from it, it hasn't. Caden & Kellan are very bashful & Garren even gets uncomfortable in an unfamiliar places. Once someone offered up candy canes all was well though! The boys talked to Santa a little but where very interested in the train going around the Christmas tree. We hung out for a few minutes letting the boys play a bit & then we headed out to find Santa visiting in his next location...

We pulled up to what was suppose to be a "Winter Wonderland" but it was just a half empty tree lot with a beardless Santa. We didn't even get out of the car & headed off to Santa stop #3...

One of Donna's employees owns a restaurant on the island, he told Donna that Santa would be there tonight so that was our next stop. we actually went in & had dinner before visiting Santa one last time. The boy could see him from where we sat & said his name & chanted "ho ho ho, merry Christmas" while we ate. Once we were done the boys were ready to see him up close! The last visit was probably the best of all. The boys loved the elf helping santa out, his reindeer & all the gifts under his Christmas tree. They were even kind of partial to Santa himself.

Kellan & Garren in Santas lap, Caden checking out the reindeer

 

 

Garren going in for a BIG hug!
 

 

Maybe 3 Santas in one night was a bit much, but the boys seemed to have a good time & we were thoroughly entertained watching them greet Santa each time. It was a fun night & should hold us over for the next week while Donna is swamped at work.

Christmas Lights & Cookie Baking

Saturday night after Donna got home from work we bundled the boys up & headed out to find some Christmas lights. We missed the tree lighting on Jekyll Island but thought since they had one in the historic area that they would have nice lights to see... They barely had any Christmas decorations at all :( They did have a tree & one house had a giant wreath. The Island Club had some lights but I was pretty disappointed overall that the whole historic area wasn't dine up for Christmas.

Anyways we drove around the island & did find a fun Christmas light display & a spectacular lighted oak tree.

Only in Coastal GA would you find sea turtles

in the Christmas light display

We had fun riding around listening to the boys say "Christmas lights" & "Christmas tree, where the Christmas tree go?!" Garren asks everywhere we go to see see the Christmas trees, we circle through target several times before we check out these days, lol...

Sunday we went out to my mom & bonus dads to bake cookies. When we still lived in FL we had a cookie baking weekend every Christmas & had our parents & friends & neighbors over to make yummy Christmas treats. We haven't done it in a few years so it was nice to do it even with just us & my parents. The boys are very into coloring & painting these days so I was really excited to see how they liked decorating Christmas cookies.

Everyone getting ready to help & Caden helping out at the mixer

Kellan eating molasses out of the jar & Garren & Kellan eating cookie dough as I'm trying to roll it out

Kellan getting ready to taste the flour

& Caden & Garren decorating cookies

Garren, Kellan & Caden

Caden helping roll & Garren on quality control

The boys loved every part of making cookies! They loved tasting every single ingredient, right down to the flour. They helped mix, roll & cut cookie dough & they were not shy about eating the cookie dough or the cooked cookies as they came out of the oven. I forget how tall they have gotten & even though we put the cookies on a tall cooling rack towards the back of the counter they could still reach up & grab them. No use in trying to limit the number of cookies eaten on baking day! I have absolutely no idea just how many any of them they ate but I will say they did not eat lunch or dinner Sunday, lol... Kellan wasn't really interested in decorating the cookies but Garren & Caden did a great job decorating the cookies & each other! The boys also had a great time visiting & playing with "grandma & poppy!"