Christmas Whirlwind Part 3

Finally after all the preparation, baking and decorating Christmas day arrived!  Let me tell you… I had 95% of my Christmas shopping done by Thanksgiving so I could ENJOY the rest of the month before Christmas.  But with all the projects, wrapping and such time still flew by!

All the stockings were LOADED with love and affection and goodies for everyone

Dad camped out in his favorite chair waiting for the festivities to begin.

My three nephews and my niece were decked out in the Christmas jammies watching Spongebob while waiting to have breakfast so we could open presents.

Here’s Mom & Dad’s tree fully decked out with presents.

My cutie-pie niece Lilly Jo with her pigtails and dimples.  She gets embarrassed when “Auntie Kim” points the camera her way

The fun began with the opening of stockings.

My brother Thad holding his youngest – my nephew Cole.  He’s such a sweet baby boy.

I got the coolest little Nerf toys in some McDonad’s happy meals (which wound up as stocking stuffers).  One was a little plastic basketball hoop and ball and the other was a set of goal posts and a foam football.  Here’s Thad showing Lilly how to “flick” the ball.

The present opening “mayhem” starts

I think Cole had a fun first Christmas!  He was doing really good for being passed around from person to person.  He is such a blessing and we all wanted to share some love with him.

Here’s “Nanna Kaffy” (as my niece calls her) holding Cole after a wonderful Ham feast.

Ever the doting Mother AND Grandmother, my Mom just can’t get enough of her grandkids

And now it’s “Papa Tim’s” turn with his little grandson.  I just love the way Dad looks at him

And the way Cole looks at “Papa Tim” – “Yeah, I think he’s pretty okay.”

Cole kept sticking his tongue out all night!  It was cracking me up!  I have about 15 pictures of him with his tongue out so I had to share at least one.  What a bundle of joy!

Last but not least – someone actually pointed my camera at ME!  I’m usually the one behind it

Hope you all had a warm and wonderful Holiday Season!  Here’s to a Happy and Prosperous 2010!

xoxo

Christmas Whirlwind Part 2

I was a baking MACHINE this year.  With 9 different kinds of cookies and 3 pies.  I usually do gift baskets for my parents and my brothers and their families, with cookies and chocolates and goodies.  This year I opted to do cookie buckets for them and some of my other friends.

I spent 4 nights in a row after work up until after midnight baking and baking and baking and then cleaning and scraping and washing   It was all worth it as everyone enjoyed the tasty treats come Christmas Day!

This is what my counter top looked like every night after work for about a week.  Bags of sugar and flour, mixers, measuring cups and measuring spoons.

I am SO glad I went to Costco and bought the huge bags of brown, white and confectioners sugar there.  It’s MUCH cheaper and I probably would have run out half-way through my baking.  And NOBODY likes having to run to the store in the middle of baking something!

I made Russian Teacakes or as we have always called them, “Snowballs”  which are always a favorite at Christmas.  Here they are cooling on the cookie sheet before being rolled in confectioners (powdered) sugar.

Here they are after being rolled in sugar and waiting to be packaged up for gifts.

By special request I made some Snickerdoodles for someone very close to my heart   xoxo

Frosted sugar cookies are probably in the top 3 of Christmas cookie favorites.  These are usually one of the first to disappear from the plate.

These were so RICH and delicious!  Cookies made from devils food cake and frosting made from sugar and cream cheese….YUM!

This doesn’t even show all the types of cookies I made (oh and there’s mini loaves of banana bread in the back too).  But this is what my dining room table looked like for about 4 days before everything was done and I could box it up.

They were all delicious tasty treats!  I spent SO much time in the kitchen… maybe next year I’ll just make the top 3 favs   Maybe I’ll add a few of these recipes here to share with you all later

xoxo

Christmas Whirlwind Part 1

Well I’m little late with the Christmas post…. but the holiday season was CRAZY!  And I know there are loved-ones who would like to see the pictures anyway

I spent a lovely day/afternoon with my Mother helping her drag out the Christmas decorations and decorate her tree.  Mom & Dad used to be Christmas tree “purists” having a REAL tree (noble fir) for as long as my memory can take me back into my childhood.  But after years and years of climbing through the woods to find that “perfect” tree or spending BOATLOADS of money on a tree at a tree farm they finally opted for a fake tree.  Luckily Mom found one that looks really nice and is still big enough to hold all those ornaments she’s been collecting over the years.

Helping Mom decorate her tree brings back so many Christmas memories for me.  She still has MANY of the ornaments I remember from my childhood

Along with some new ones that get added every year.

We made quite a mess of the living room in the process of unpacking everything.  But Mom was very grateful to have help with this project

The stockings were hung by the chimney with care

Here is Mama standing next to the tree, I think we were pretty much done at this point.

Mom and I with no makeup, wearing our sweatshirts and a smile after a long hard days work of dragging out boxes, climbing up ladders and hanging the decorations

Love you Mom!!

xoxo

Atkins’ Family Portraits

Well… this might become a family tradition…..though I didn’t do it LAST year I DID do it the year before.  I drag all of my studio photography equipment to my parents house for Thanksgiving and TRY to get some pictures of the kids (my niece and nephews).  I usually try to drag my brothers and their wives in there too.

I was able to get a few cute ones this year, though SOME were reluctant :p

Thad and Jenny were willing   My family rocks!  I love my bro Thad and his wife Jenny

My little baby nephew Cole was all smiles for the camera.  What a CUTIE-PIE!  How adorable is he?!

This is my niece Lilly and my sister-in-law Jenny.  Lilly was being a stinker and didn’t want to have her picture taken.  So Jenny was trying to coax her by being in the picture too.  I loved this shot.

Here’s the little stinker   This was the only picture I got of her looking at the camera.  She’s usually pretty good about me taking her picture, but I think having the backdrop and the lights set up really put her “on the spot”.  This is one of the main reasons I prefer to do on-location photography of children in a park or backyard and get candid shots.  Sometimes they just “clam up” and there isn’t much you can do but make the best of it   She’s still a little cutie-pie ain’t she?

TREY MAN!  He is SUCH a “cheeser”!  He didn’t want to do it at first, but then he wandered out and said, “Okay! I’ll go I GUESS!”  He stood there and said “CHEESE!” over and over again LOL!  He’s a good kid

Alas I had to post another pic of Cole because he’s so little and adorable and man…. they just grow so quickly!  I remember when Trey was this tiny.

I love my family so very much and I am so glad that they are willing to be my guinea pigs when it comes to me being a Shudderbug

I’ll be posting some of my OTHER brother and his kids when I finish editing them.

Hope you enjoyed!

XOXOX

Kim

Pecan Pie for Thanksgiving

Oh how I do love to bake during the Holidays!  I don’t like to cook (I can, I just don’t enjoy it as much).  But I DO love baking pies, cookies and pastries to share with and give away to my loved ones during the Holidays.  It really is a warm-fuzzy for me.  I turn my Pandora radio onto Holiday music, plug my headphones in and bake the night away.

That’s what I did for my Thanksgiving Pecan Pie this year.  It turned out DELICIOUS and it was fun to make.  I decided to document it with my camera this year.

• Preheat your oven to 375º
• Prepare a pastry for a 9 inch one crust pie
• 1/3 cup plus 1 Tbs shortening
• 1 cup flour
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 2 to 3 tablespoons cold water

I mixed the dry ingredients (flour and salt) together.  Then I added the shortening and used a pastry blender (which I highly recommend because it’s so much easier) to blend the shortening in with the flour and salt.  The trick with this pie crust is to blend and blend until there is no longer a “powdery” consistency in the flour.  You want it all to be absorbed by the shortening, until it looks like large crumbs.  Then I added 3 Tbs of water sprinkling it on one at a time and tossing with a fork.  Then I gathered all the dough together into a ball and squished it out flat.  I put it on my floured counter top and rolled it out to about 1/4 inch thick.

It can be tricky getting your pastry into your pie plate without it falling apart.  I usually place my rolling pin in the center of the pastry and roll one half of it over the rolling pin then I place my pie plate right beside it and use the rolling pin to drag it up over the plate.  Once I got it in the pie plate I pushed it down around the bottom before trimming off the excess leaving about an inch hanging over.  Then I folded the extra underneath before putting creases all the way around.

Next it was time to get out the BEAST (aka my kick-ass Kitchenaid) to mix the ingredients for the pie filling.  You can always use a hand-mixer or beater if you don’t have a beast like mine

• 2/3 cup sugar
• 1/3 cup stick butter or margarine
• 1 cup Karo syrup
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 3 large eggs

I then mixed all the above ingredients until it was smooth.  After that I added the pecans.  The recipe calls for 1 cup of pecans but I usually just put the whole bag in and I haven’t had a single complaint yet!   I would recommend using a spoon or spatula to mix in the nuts as my mixer tends to pulverize them :p

I took the empty pie shell and put it on the oven rack and poured the filling in.  After that was done I made a “tent” out of aluminum foil to place over the top.  It’s my experience when baking pies with such a high sugar content they tend to burn or scorch on top really easily.  I baked my pie for the first 35 minutes with the foil on and for the final 10-12 I removed the foil so the top would brown a little bit.  But keep your eye on it once you take the foil off because it will turn brown really fast.  Bake your pie for 40-50 minutes until the center is set.  The pie is done when you give it a half-turn and the center barely jiggles.  It can jiggle a little bit because the pie will continue to cook after you take it out of the oven.

Taaaadaaaa!  A delicious Pecan Pie for the whole family to enjoy!  It was WONDERFUL!

Happy Holidays everyone!  Share your love and caring by baking goodies for your loved ones this season   The “Mmmmmmm!” sound is a gift in and of itself

XOXOX

Kim

Time With Family

A couple of weekends ago my family got together to celebrate the October/November birthdays that are all close together   We had some nice family time and great food.  I snapped some pictures too!

4 generations in this photo – My Grandfather in the the back on the right, my Father in the chair in the front, my Brother Thad in the back on the left and My nephew Cole on my Father’s lap.

My absolutely adorable baby nephew Cole being held by Papa Tim (My Dad).

Lil Miss Lilly Jo was all dressed for the October festivities.

Trey doing what he does best – playing with cars in Nanna Kathy’s hallway.

My baby nephew Cole being snuggled by his Daddy – Awwwwwww!

My Momma, brother and nephew posin’ for a pic.

Lilly trying to figure out how to make the toy saw work on the wood floor!  Maybe she’ll take after Papa Tim and be a Handy-Girl!