All about the Christmas food

After putting the kids down to bed, Dallin and I got cooking. If you knowDallin or I, you know that holidays and travel (for us) are ALL about the food. Since I'm Hispanic, we always celebrated Christmas Eve with a traditional dinner that included Guatamalan tamales, sweet bread, and hot chocolate. So over the years, Dallin and I have combined our traditions and this is what the Christmas Eve meal has turned into. First, we always have lobster tails for dinner. We have a fantastic recipe and Dallin cooks them on the grill. They seriously are the best lobster I've ever had.



Next we cook up fire-roasted artichokes out on the grill as well. This is a recipe that we've perfected over the years. We had these at a restaurant years ago and spent several years trying to imitate the recipe at home. And we finally did it (although I think our artichokes are actually better now!) The pictures don't do them justice, but trust me, these are dee-lish!

And lastly, we spend the last couple of weeks before Christmas trying to track down some good Guatamalan tamales. Last year, I ordered them from a lady Dallin knew but I was not impressed with them. This year, we found a little Guatamalan restaurant here in Reno and ordered a few for Christmas. They were pretty good -- not as good as the ones I ate growing up, but they were up there. For those of you who don't know, Guatamalan tamales are made of up of a soft maize filled with pork, olives and red peppers and wrapped in banana leaves. Christmas, for me, just would not be the same without them. And for dessert, we had a peppermint pie that is a DeMordaunt family tradition.

Christmas morning always includes family recipes as well, including the Christmas kringle which seriously is to die for. It's a dough ring filled with raisins soaked in an almond filling, with icing on top. We make two rings and they're gone in a blink of an eye! Okay, I think my next post, I will finally blog about Christmas day!!

The Most Wonderful Time of the Year...

Christmas 2008 was wonderful! This is the 2nd or third year (I honestly can't remember) that we've stayed in Reno for the holidays, and I absolutely love it. We don't have to deal with long lines at airports or long drives. We can just stay home, relax and spend time with our family.

We've got some neat Christmas traditions underway and I'm sure they'll only get better and better over the years as our kids get older. First of all, the pre-Christmas season was full of the usual: decorating gingerbread houses and putting up all of our decorations, and of course trimming the tree. We totally scored on our christmas tree this year. We actually got it pretty late this year (b/c it was just a hectic time of year for us), so I was convinced we'd come home with an ugly "Charlie Brown" tree. But not so! I think this was the prettiest tree we've ever had. It was perfectly symmetrical and nice and tall. And the kids had so much fun decorating it. Every year Dallin and I exchange ornaments that are symbolic of something that happened that year. And we also give similar ornaments to our kids. So over the years we've started accumulating some really nice, sentimental ornaments, which I absolutely love.

My kids showing off their very best behavior for Santa

This year, we also lucked out with some great snow before and during Christmas. I can't remember the last time I've had a truly "white" Christmas, but this year, it was just that. The kids had fun making snowmen, we had fun sledding, and everyone had fun running through the mounds of snow behind our house. The first day it snowed, I felt like such a kid. I spent HOURS outside with the kids pulling them on the sled, trying to shovel the driveway and having snowball fights with them. It honestly was so much fun.

Jacob ready to pummel his mama with a snowball

The cutest snow bunny -- I adore my Aubrey!!

On Christmas Eve, we made cookies for Santa and his reindeer and then re-enacted the nativity. This year's program went a lot better than last year. Last year, everyone was crying throughout the whole thing. This year, there were no tears and everyone seemed to get along... even inside the manger. As you'll see by the picture below, none of my kids like to have things on their heads, so the best we could do was to lay kitchen towels on their heads to make them look more like Mary, Joseph and a shepherd.

After the nativity, we took pictures in front of the tree and let them open their one present of the evening which is always pajamas.

This post is starting to get lengthy so I will continue the rest of the christmas festivities later this week. Enjoy the pictures!

My "Sistas"

So, I am finally getting some more pictures from our recent trip to California for Adeline's baby blessing. And I'm not quite ready to start blogging about all of our Christmas projects this year yet. So I will stick to everything else for the moment and do a massive blog about Christmas in a few days.

I just have to say that I am very lucky.... I have 2 great older brothers and 2 REALLY great little sisters. My sisters and I are very close. We talk all the time and in general are very similar to one another -- in looks and personality. While I was in CA with them, I realized how much I miss them and wish I could be near them especially now that they're married and having babies. I'm not much of a phone talker, but get me on the phone with one of my sisters, and I can't shut up!

Also, while we were in Cali, one of Becky's friends took some great pictures of my family, which I am including below. So this post is filled with lots of fun pictures. Enjoy!

This mosiac was made by my sister Ligia, but I stole it from her blog and posted it on mine too!

This was taken right after Adeline's baby blessing

Our cute girl

Family shot at the beach

Playing Catch Up

So I'm a little behind on my blogging. First off, we had a wonderful Thanksgiving here in Reno with my brother-in-law and his family. They have the CUTEST little boy you've ever seen named Lucas and my sister-in-law Melissa is (I'm convinced) one of the most beautiful people I've ever met. (I know she is probably ready to kill me after reading this!!) And she is funny (you should see her dance)! And smart (she and a friend started their own company which they run out of their homes). Anyway, we had a great time making Thanksgiving dinner, the kids had a great time playing on the golf course behind the house, we drove around parts of Tahoe, and we even squeezed in some skiing for the husbands and boys and massages for the ladies! The morning they left to go back home, my son Jacob woke up crying because he didn't get a chance to say goodbye to his cousin Luc. I think we ALL missed them once they left. (We especially miss "the goggle." -- Melissa, this joke is for you!! :) )

As a side note, I don't think I have EVER seen Dallin so happy as when he came home from skiing with Jacob. I think Dallin has been waiting his entire life to go skiing with his kids so the fact that Jacob has loved skiing so far and has been pretty good at it has made Dallin's year.

Jake and Luc on the slopes

Now I'm going to fast forward to recent events. We just got back today from my niece's baby blessing this weekend. My little sister Becky had a baby girl about 2 months ago (my niece looks JUST like Becky and is SOOOO cute!) so my parents, sisters and I went out for the blessing. We had so much fun seeing Becky and her family and seeing my parents and my sister Ligia with her daughter, who is also the cutest and most happy baby I've ever seen. We went to a local petting farm with the kids, ate yummy food and just spent time together. We were only there for the weekend so the trip went by much too fast.

On the drive home, we got a flat tire. It was late at night on Sunday so EVERYTHING was closed. And practically NOBODY (I'm talking taxis and cabs) wanted to come and pick us up because of where we broke down. Anyway, after several calls to AAA, a local hotel and a towing service, we were finally able to get out of there safely. We had to get all of our tires replaced and we weren't able to come home until this afternoon. But like I said, we made it home safe and sound so I guess we should be grateful for that.

Including some fun, family pictures below....

Garrett with baby Adeleine
The happiest baby on the planet!

Aubrey and Evan enjoying a swing at the beach

Jacob and his "Papa"