Happy New Year!

Remember us, O God; 

from age to age be our comforter. 

You have given us the wonder of time, 

blessings in days and nights, seasons and years.

Bless your children at the turning of the year 

and fill the months ahead with the bright hope 

that is ours in the coming of Christ.

You are our God, living and reigning, for ever and ever. 

Amen.

A New Year's Eve Tradition!

"It's just not New Year's Eve without Puppy Chow!"

"YOU SHALL NOT SNITCH!!!"

Keeping all Balrogs, Dragons and Puppy Chow Eaters away!

Too late.

Tonight will find us coming home from spending some Christmas gift cards from Grammie at the book store and curling up with Puppy Chow and a movie. It's what we do. Maybe that sounds boring, but we love it. Although, I think instead of a movie this year, we will watch the final episodes of the BBC's Robin Hood (Series One){affiliate link}  and maybe even start Series Two. The big kids have seen them, but BigBoy and Sean haven't. Nobody minds watching them again! It's also on Netflix Instant Watch right now.

(BTW… BigBoy has only watched selected, previewed episodes, not all of them. The older kids have only seen episodes from Series 1 & 2. I have watched Series 3 and am sad to say that the show really tanked that season. We will probably just stick with 1 & 2 for the kids.)

There are many different recipes for Puppy Chow. Here is the one I loosely use. (I never bother with measuring exactly.)

Puppy Chow

1 12 oz. box of Crispix cereal (you can use Chex if you like. I prefer Crispix.)

1-2 C. chocolate chips
1/2 - 1 C. peanut butter
1/4 C. butter (opt.)
1 tsp. vanilla (opt.)

2 C. powdered sugar

Melt chocolate, peanut butter, and butter (in the microwave or on the stovetop, you decide), stir in vanilla and pour over cereal. I like to divide it up into two bowls so the cereal doesn't get crushed. Toss to coat. Transfer to a gallon size or larger zip top bag (again, I like to use two gallon size bags). Dump 1/2-1 cup of powdered sugar on each batch. Toss in sealed bag to coat. Add more sugar if you like it lighter colored. We like ours slightly greyish. Enjoy!


What are you favorite New Year's family traditions?

Patrons for the New Year

My family really likes using Jenn's Saint's Name Generator to assist us in choosing new patrons for the new year. I usually print everyone a homemade holy card to use as a bookmark or just a reminder of who they chose, or rather... who chose them. Here are our special friends for this year...

The Professor

Sunshine

Shortcake

BigBoy

Cupcake

Mom

Dad

I hope you all rang in the New Year in health and happiness. We had a very quiet movie night with some fancy popcorn and our traditional Puppy Chow treats. Then headed off to a nice, quiet (read: sparsely attended) 9AM Mass. I am assuming everyone else went the night before. The children have the rest of the week off from school, but we will be working on our schedule for the next half of the year and getting some things better organized. I hope to share it all with you soon!

 

You knew this was coming... right?

What else am I supposed to do with an adorable baby in the house on New Years?

We never got around to playing that game...we are soooooo not late night people. I think we might play it today and on this solemnity contemplate in a small way those last recorded words of our Blessed Mother "Do whatever he tells you."(Jn. 2:5)

Happy Feast of Mary, the Mother of God!

 

Happy New Year's Eve!

We've got a new game to try out and a movie to enjoy and lots of fun snacks to munch on while we wait to ring in the new year! The children have already emptied their book store gift cards at what has become our annual New Year's Eve book store bash. Thank you, Grammie! As soon as my hubby gets home from picking up a sweet friend at the airport, I will have all of my dearest loves tucked safe inside my home, just where I like them on a night like tonight.


 Happy New Year to you all!

 

Bûche de Noël

I haven't made one of these in a long time, but I kind of had an itch to. You know that itch just had to be scratched! A Bûche de Noël is a traditional French dessert honoring the Christmas Yule Log. We decided to save ours for celebrating the Solemnity/New Year today.

I read somewhere that servants use to go find the largest log they could for the Christmas hearth because tradition held that they didn't have to go back to work until the log was all burned up. Husband asked if he had to go back to work when our Yule Log was gone and I said, "Yes! That's why I left out all the sugar!" Tee hee!

~Gum Drop Holly Leaves and Berries~

Flatten gum drop on a little bit of sugar to keep it from sticking to the counter.

Start cutting off bits to form a holly leaf. You can squeeze in the sides and shape it with your fingers once you have it cut. Chop off the tips of the red ones for the berries.

~Truffle Mushrooms~

Traditional Bûche de Noël are usually decorated with marzipan mushrooms but we are not very fond of marzipan, so I used white chocolate truffles and Pepperidge Farm Pirouttes.

Dusted with some cocoa powder, they look pretty convincing!

Fr. Barron on New Year's Resolutions

From the Word on Fire Blog