Christmas

We made cookies for Santa

   

We left some of the cookies on a plate for Santa along with Christmas wish-lists

    Santa Came The kids were up way early(5 a.m.) to check their stockings from Santa. Thankfully, they went back to sleep for a few more hours. We opened presents

     We played with toys & games and ate a non-traditional/traditional Christmas dinner of Shrimp and Grits with a little bit of ham. It was very good! We had a very Merry Christmas & are looking forward to a wonderful new year!

2009 Ritz family Christmas letter

Merry Christmas!

Egg Nog Cake

We had company for dinner on Friday night & Kaitlyn made the dessert.



Egg Nog Cake



It was yummy!
As Casey would say, "It's a keeper."

Egg Nog Cake - yield 16 servings

Ingredients:
cooking spray
1 package (18.25 oz.) yellow cake mix
egg nog
eggs
vegetable oil
1 tsp. ground nutmeg
1 tsp. egg nog

Egg Nog Icing
2 cups confectioners' sugar
1 tablespoon butter, melted
2 to 3 tablespoons egg nog

Directions:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees or temperature specified on cake mix package. Evenly coat 10-inch fluted tube pan with nonstick cooking spray. Prepare cake mix according to package directions, except substitute egg nog for the specified amount of water. Stir in nutmeg and and the additional teaspoon egg nog. Bake as package directs for fluted tube or bundt pan. Invert pan to cooling rack. Remove pan, and let cool.

To prepare icing: beat together all ingredients until smooth and spreadable, but not runny. Spread over top of cake.

Note: Do not use a "butter recipe" cake mix.

The Most Epic Christmas Decoration Idea You'll See Today

Someone sent me this in an e-mail. It made me laugh. Maybe this is why we don't have lights on our house?!



"Good news is that I truly out did myself this year with my Christmas decorations. The bad news is that I had to take him down after 2 days. I had more people come screaming up to my house than ever.Great stories. But two things made me take it down.

First, the cops advised me that it would cause traffic accidents as they almost wrecked when they drove by.

Second, a 55 year old lady grabbed the 75 pound ladder almost killed herself putting it against my house and didn't realize it was fake until she climbed to the top (she was not happy). By the way, she was one of many people who attempted to do that. My yard couldn't take it either. I have more than a few tire tracks where people literally drove up my yard."

Gingerbread

For many years we have made gingerbread houses during the Christmas holiday. We would use graham crackers for the house itself & candy for the decorations. It was always fun and something that we looked forward to each year.
One year I even tried to make my own gingerbread, but when the sizes expanded after baking I realized I'm not a baking architect, and we went back to the graham cracker style house.

(This one's for you Heather)




This year I thought we'd be industrious & build a village. They were on sale at Michaels, so for the 1st time I picked up a kit...thinking it might be easier and less expensive(and they looked cute).



Boy was I WRONG!! The frosting was more like cement and wouldn't stick to the gingerbread, we couldn't figure out how the pieces fit together, and poor Ryan was waiting patiently for the buildings to become stable enough for him to be able to help(that never did happen). So, instead of a cute little gingerbread village that was suppose to have 5 houses, we ended up with 3 houses that would never pass inspection and were really not all that edible.





Our (not so pretty) village



Demolition



They may not have been the prettiest gingerbread houses on the block, but we still had fun!

Oh Christmas Tree

Casey put up the tree earlier this week, but with everyone's busy schedules we weren't able to finish decorating it until last night.



It's always fun to see our ornaments the kids have made over the years...



plus a few traditional ones



and some that we've collected.



It always makes for a colorful tree full of fun memories.

(Ryan didn't like the fact that there weren't any presents under the tree, so he made one for everyone.)

Bird Invasion

I was cleaning the house today and heard a loud chirping sound. I took a look outside and this is what I saw...



Our yard was completely covered by a flock of birds. I attempted to open the door and take a better picture, but that only resulted in them scattering.





I didn't realize how loud birds were when they traveled in flocks. I'm not sure what their activity was, but it made for some visibility problems for the poor truck that was attempting to drive through as I opened my door.

Our Day of Thanks

When we were living in West Virginia we would spend the holidays with friends & divvy up meal assignments, making the task of cooking a Thanksgiving dinner not so overwhelming. However, when we moved to Georgia 8 years ago that all changed, and I became the head chef of our Thanksgiving eats. It took a few years to become comfortable with that title, so this year when we spent Thanksgiving with friends again and divvied up the meal assignments, I was thankful!

Our delicious feast...





Plus a few taste testers...



and some great game playing



made for a wonderful Thanksgiving Day with friends!!

A Visit

Janelle and Seth came to visit last week while Casey was out town for work. We enjoyed their visit & spent some time taking pictures of Mr. Seth. He was such a cutie posing for the camera...



A few of Seth's funny faces...



When Casey came home they spent the weekend gathering & burning our piles & piles of leaves...



It was a pretty difficult and time consuming task, but they(neighbor boy included) managed to get it finished & had fun doing it.







It was a busy & fun week. We are looking forward to the holidays and seeing everyone again!

Happy Thanksgiving

I'm thankful for life & a wonderful family to share it with!

Roasting Marshmallows

This was our goal...



However, "burnt" marshmallow ended up being the flavor of the night.

Advanced Art

Kaitlyn is taking an advanced art class this year, and I'm continually amazed by her talents...

Kindness

"How lovely to think that no one need wait a moment, we can start now, start slowly changing the world! How lovely that everyone, great and small, can make their contribution toward introducing justice straightaway... And you can always, always give something, even if it is only kindness!"

-- Anne Frank

Thank you kind lady for taking the time to reach out to us in the grocery line yesterday in Wal-Mart and offer my son two(not one) pieces of gum and for explaining, "one is for now & the other for later."

Thank you for talking to us and making us feel like your friend.

Thank you for making me forget my own thoughts of sadness I was feeling and making me happy & grateful for the kind act of a stranger.

Thank you--

Halloween

We had friends come to visit for the Halloween weekend, which always makes trick-or-treating so much more fun!



We made it around the entire neighborhood, minus a couple houses that had dogs(Ryan knew which ones those were). He still managed to get a good amount of candy.



The rest of the weekend ended up being a bit rainy & wet, so we had to opt for some indoor activities....making slime with the kids, crafts, coloring, watching movies, and just enjoying the company!



We did manage to make it outside in between the rain showers.





The leaves seemed to be the main attraction. They are just beginning to fall in our yard, so they are fun to gather & play in. Over the next couple of weeks our yard will become completely covered with layers of leaves, as we try and keep up with the piles. It makes for some great weekend activities!



It was a fun Halloween weekend, and we enjoyed the visit with good friends!