Holiday Baking Tip #1

If you have a double boiler full of melted chocolate that you just used to dip buckeyes (or pretzels, or oreos, or whatever it might be that you dipped), do not pour the leftover chocolate down the garbage disposal. It will harden there.

Not that I did that- I wouldn't be that dumb, but still. Don't do it. In the event that you DO find yourself with a garbage disposal full of hardened chocolate, you will need to get a sink plunger and plunge it, and then you will need to run really really hot water down it until the chocolate has melted enough to allow the garbage disposal enough power to run again.

Just saying.

Liam being Liam

Here is a video of Liam being Liam. It's best with the sound on- these are the sounds that he makes all day every day....Notice the big grin when he notices the camera...what a ham! Sorry. the video is really dark on Youtube!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jfnW8NHogz4

Baby, It's cold outside

I try to update this blog at the end of every month, but November wasn't that eventful, so I had to wait until December to get a few more things in. Sorry! It's been freezing up here for those of you in warmer places- I envy you! For a while it was snowing every day, but now it's just cold. I think the highest our temp got yesterday was 25, and when we got home from Liam's 9 month check up (even though he's almost 10 months old), it was 19 degrees. Brrr! Here is Liam all bundled up. He was 30 inches tall (90th percentile) and 23 lbs (77th percentile). What a big guy!

Christmas Time

We finally put our Christmas tree up on December 4th. Some of you are saying "finally?" But we usually do it the day after Thanksgiving. Liam has been a good boy and doesn't mess with it much, but that might be because we try to keep him occupied on the opposite side of the living room. We let him sit in the armchair with us sometimes, and then he likes to check it out up close.

First Tooth!

Liam has his first tooth! The bottom right tooth finally broke through the gums over the weekend. I tried to take a picture, but it's just barely there, and I don't know if you've ever tried to get an almost-ten-month-old to hold his mouth open long enough to let you get a picture. It was not a successful attempt.

Merry Christmas...Here's your pinkslip.

Many of you know that I had the perfect Job for the mother of a 9 month old. Yes, Had. past tense. Sometime around July, Gannett corporate (the company that owns the Lansing State Journal, along with several other big newspapers- including USA today) announced that they would be laying off some people. In our department, 3 people lost their jobs, and I was able to breath a sigh of relief- I made it through that round. But sometime at the beginning of November it was announced that Gannett would be cutting 10% of it's workforce. Uh Oh. This time our department was hit a little harder- there were 6 before me, and I know at least a couple after. There were 38 at the Journal in all, but I think 7 were open positions.

The tension was high all day on Dec. 3rd- layoff day. And once the first person came out of HR in tears, it got worse. For a couple of hours that morning, I watched people flinch as their phones rang, hoping it was a customer, packing their stuff into boxes, and walking out the doors. Some of them had been there forever, others were newer. Some were really hard workers. I kept counting as people walked...5, 6. How many more can there be from our department? Then my phone rang. Crap. It's HR. I said "Kelly- my phone is ringing and it's HR!" to the employment rep that sits close to me. I pick it up and was told to report to the HR directors office. Long story short, I was handed my pink slip- it was really a while piece of paper, explaining that since I'd been there 2.5 years, I would get two weeks of severance pay, and my insurance would continue for the same amount of time. Yikes. I was told by several people- HR, my boss, her boss and others, that it was definately not because of anything I did. My reviews were always great, and nobody had heard anything about me doing a bad job...ever. Welcome to the real world, Erin. It doesn't always matter if you do a good job if there isn't money in the corporate budget to pay you!

Oh well. It was a good job while it lasted. Now I'm looking for a new one, but it's got to pay more, since I'll have to pay for Liam's daycare now. Right now I'm having fun playing with Liam and baking cookies, thinking "I'm getting paid for this this week".

Cake Class!

I have always wanted to take one of those cake decorating classes that they offer at Michaels and Hobby Lobby. I love to bake, but when it comes to decorating, my food always ends up looking like it was decorated by a 3 year old. So I finally signed up to take the class at Micheaels in Dearborn. Here are some of the samples of the stuff that I made- both in the class and since it ended.



I can make the Wilton Rose!

Our Final cake- they don't teach the complete rose until the last night of the class.

This cake was the first one we did in class. It was supposed to say Josh and then a number for a kid's birthday, but it wasn't Josh's birthday, and he wasn't a kid, and Liam can't eat cake, so I just wrote #1 Josh.

A sample of a few of the Christmas Cookies

I made these baby buggy cupcakes for some friends of ours up here when I took them a meal after they had their second baby.

First Thanksgiving

Liam's first Thanksgiving! Unfortunately we didn't get to make the trip home, because I had to work the day after Thanksgiving, and Josh had lecture the day before, so we had to stay in Michigan. My family couldn't make it up, but Josh's mom and Grandma came up, and we had a big dinner with Turkey, Dressing, Dumplings, Hashbrown casserole, and Pecan pie and Chocolate Pie for dessert...a carb lover's dream dinner-- and I am a carb lover!

If you look closely, you can see the bits of Turkey on his tray.