or rum balls, if you prefer.

Recipes for the masses who keep finding their way to this site via search engines using the terms “bourbon balls” or “freezing bourbon balls.”

These are oddly popular with our daycare ladies. If I had to coddle a passel o’ other people’s screaming, snot-nosed hooligans, they’d be right popular with me, too.

recipe one:

vanilla wafers & 4 – 6 graham crackers, to make 2 1/2 c crumbs altogether

1 c powdered sugar
1 c cupped walnuts
3 T light Karo syrup
3 T cocoa powder
pinch salt
powdered sugar for rolling
bourbon to taste (few T)

Crush crackers & wafers and add rest of ingrieds except for powdered sugar. Roll into small balls the size of walnuts. Roll in powdered sugar. Keep in a closed tin/container; will last approx one month.

recipe two:

12 oz semisweet choc chips
1/2 lb butter
2 c powdered sugar
3 T bourbon (or light or dark rum)
3 T powdered sugar
3 T grated nuts (any kind)
3 T unsweetened cocoa

Melt butter & choc chips over double boiler. Remove from heat & stir in sugar & rum thoroughly. Cool in fridge about 2 1/2 hours or until hard enough to form into balls. (check after 1 hr to see if butter has separated from choc and stir again if it has) Mix together in bowl: 3 T powdered sugar, 3 T grated nuts, 3 T cocoa.

Roll in palm of hand to form balls (or use two teaspoons or small scoop), then roll in powdered sugar mix, dusting palms w/powdered sugar as you proceed.

Store tightly covered for several days for best flavor.

With a nod to loobylu’s recent post on matchboxes and Advent, I present to you the Heels household parental joint effort of this evening:

The matchboxes are covered with images that I cut out from Anthropologie and Land of Nod catalogues from this season, as well as a cover from a recent Land’s End or LL Bean. (I forget which one.)

I printed out the round stickers and as I glue-sticked the covers on the matchboxes, the Husband stuck the numbers in place on each box. We then went back and filled each box with a piece of chocolate:

Note also the shrinky ornaments that McPantses and I made over the weekend. It’s always more fun when you let the kid cut things out, right? Note the glare from the lights and the flash, too. I’m quite new to capturing life via a camera. Work with me, people, and forgive the ineptitude.

While making the shrinky ornaments, I made a 2005 tag and tonight I attached it to a big green glass pitcher that we put all the matchboxes in, after we wrapped each chocolate with a cutout slip of paper listing the big activity for the particular day.

I’ll list our 24 days of activities tomorrow. In a minute, I have a date with a Medela PIS.*

Think McPantses will love this much?

* Can you hear me sighing all the way from here?

Edited to add our list, which was really hard to make because we have to allow for harried, hurried nights after working all day and three or four Christmas parties, two of which are mandatory and on nights after work (I hate going out sans kids after work–it’s too much for the kids and for me):

1. Put up Christmas flag.

2. Stamp, sign and mail church postcards. (The Mothers in Prayer group sends cards to all the children in the church for Christmas and Easter. Each member takes an age group. McP loves anything mail related, so this will be fun for her. For me, it’s a task that must be done.)

3. Get wreath (from local curb market–it’s a neat tradition and you have to get there at the asscrack of dawn to get decent greenery in December).

4. Color picture for Christmas card. (McP is doing the artwork for our card–she draws a mean version of the Heels family, complete with me holding Charlie Crabcake and herself taller than anyone else.)

5. Make house smell like Christmas. (Where you toss cinnamon sticks, cloves, anise seeds, etc., in an old saucepan and warm the crap up every once in a while.)

6. Polish toenails in Christmas colors. (I am thinking light metallic green with tiny red dots.)

7. Hang candy canes on tree.

8. Call the inlaws and sing a Christmas carol.

9. Give present to fave daycare teacher while she babysits this night.

10. Hang paper snowflakes from ceiling. (Some gorgeous crafty blog has a pic of this.)

11. Make peanut butter pinecones to feed birds.

12. Wrap school present. (McPantses’ class draws names.)

13. Call my parents and sing a Christmas carol.

14. Drink hot chocolate and stir with candy canes.

15. Paint face like Rudolph. (The Husband and I will be at a Christmas party, so we figured fave daycare teacher/babysitter could handle this one well.)

16. Color Christmas pictures.

17. Eat reindeer food. (We are driving to TN this day and coming home on the 18th, so we had to go simple simple simple. I think reindeer food will be a ziploc with popcorn and m&ms and peanuts.)

18. Watch Christmas movies.

19. Make a paper chain.

20. Wrap present for favorite friend.

21. Look at all our Christmas cards!

22. Make salt dough ornaments. (I like to do baby handprints and footprints and use them as gift tags. These are very popular with grandparents.)

23. Drive around and look at lights.

24. Read the Christmas story and leave out milk and cookies for Santa.

If I have time and motivation, I will try to link stuff where appropriate. I tried to make things simple and brief and I wanted to be sure that McPantses would enjoy everything we did. I didn’t do a lot of tree decoration or baking because I’m not sure when that’ll get done and I wanted to keep obligatory stuff separate, if that makes any sense at all.

I can’t wait to see what McP thinks of all this. It’s the first year we’ve done a daily activity.

the boy is gazing at me with much suspicion as he gnaws on a piece of cinnamon toast. In retrospect, I wonder if he thought I was going to take it away from him, maybe? He started out with rice-sized bites that I carefully trimmed down and then he sort of leaned over and grabbed the whole piece from my hand and I watched, grabbed a camera and snapped pictures.

He managed to crunch the toast down to bits and it made him very happy to do so.

I owe the sender of the gently worn stripy Hanna zippy outfit much thanks. I love it and I think its cuteness puts me one percent of one percent closer to getting the entire family zipped into stripey Christmas goodness for a future Christmas card shot. As of right now, there isn’t enough bourbon aging in Kentucky to lull the Husband into gentle agreement, but I remain steadfast and ever-vigilant.

p.s., LOOK, FOOD FIENDS! I gave my baybay WHOLE WHEAT at nine months! Whatever shall happen now?

Can you tell me why the boychild doesn’t sleep through the night?

Am I going to have to pony up for some gentle sleep-training book?

This kid doesn’t sleep much at all.

Here’s what I’m thankful for:

Add to the “what I’m thankful for” list: one Husband, standing behind me making monkey faces and noises. We do what it takes to get the shots around here.

Before the boychild came along, we’d spend an afternoon taking three or four rolls of film from two or three different cameras in order to get a Christmas card photo. Today, we’re hoping one of these three or one of the several I snapped on a Sponge Bob disposable camera will do the trick.

What do you think? Should we start all over or do you think we’ll end up with something we can handle?

Happy, happy day.

Edited to add that if you’re considering ordering photos online for any reason, I just snagged 230 pics from winflash dot com for just under $29, including shipping.

We’re going with photo number one above–the Husband likes it best and I do, too, and I’d rather order now than wait for the Sponge Bob camera to be developed.

Yesterday, I spent an hour and eleven minutes on the phone with my favorite friend here. I told her what’s been going on in the angsty category and she was wonderful and supportive and real. I probably feel as good as I would feel if I’d spent six months on a therapist’s couch–the fact that she isn’t related to me (my mother has pretty much told me to stop talking about my angst because “it’s making [someone] feel too guilty”) or married to me, but she does know my entire family is the tiny clincher that makes her a perfect listening party.

Plus, she has significant family angst of her own and can relate. My own angst is small in comparison, but as I’ve said before, it’s mine and it’s the first I’ve known since the standard teen angst. She told me that there’s nothing wrong with me for being angry and hurt and for starting to have depressing realizations about my family and my life. She also told me, matter-of-factly, that one day I will be over this and be ready to forgive everyone, and she told me that from the point of view of someone who’s been there. I will get over this and being hurt and upset doesn’t mean I need some form of medication, etc.

I’ve been walking on sunshine since I hung up the phone yesterday afternoon–that is how much better I feel–she was able to provide comfort in a way that my husband could not, only by being her and not him, if that makes sense at all. In fact, I am so not a touchy-feely-huggy person* that no one I know would ever think to give me a hug out of the blue as a measure of comfort, but every once in a while, even I need a big hug and a good cry. Right now, I feel like someone gave me a big hug, but in secret, where no one else can see and it doesn’t make me blush.

Plus, I asked if she’d like to go to New York with me when I walk the National Stationery Show next May to check things out and she’s a seasoned traveler with oodles of frequent flyer miles under her belt, so she’s thrilled. I’m happy to go alone, but I’ll have a much better time with company, especially company I love.

I am ready to start the Christmas season with a smile on my face and a clean kitchen countertop (getting there) and craft supplies out the wazoo. Dick Blick shipped my order yesterday and I have a stack of recipes at the ready.

So, in addition to happy, add lucky, because right now, that’s me. I am lucky to have such a friend. I really am a big ole donkey girl scout, aren’t I?

* I’m not. I make myself hug McPantses several times a day because I don’t want her to grow up that way. I also kiss her a whole lot for the same reason.

I completely forgot that the Husband said that on Sunday.

I was in the kitchen working on the chocolate buttercream for McPantses’ birthday cupcakes and the Husband was on the big couch (as opposed to the stripey couch) holding the boychild, who was standing up and bouncing in the Husband’s lap.

The Husband hollered “OUCH” in the voice of someone who has surely lost a limb in a horrible accident and then he laughed and said, “This could only happen at our house. My nose really hurts because Charlie reared his head back and bonked me while I was picking my nose.”

We are some classy folk, with the silver and the linens and the nose picking.

Early on this summer, I snagged a pair of raspberry pink cords from the J Crew clearance table. The pants are size 8 and they’re decorated with limey green loafers and I love them. I didn’t bother to try them on when I got them because that would have hurt my feelings and I knew, I just knew, in my heart of hearts and in my asships, that they would fit by Christmas, which is about when the thermostat drops below 80 degrees.

Every once in a while, I dig those pants out of the guest bedroom closet and try to tug them over my thighs and not once since June have the damn things come up easily or zipped all the way past the flobbly gut.

This morning, though, angels sang and a bright beam of sunshine burst through the window and lit up the pink pants as I stood in front of the closet contemplating what not to wear.

The Husband? Out of town until tonight. The boychild? Screaming while picking at cheerios and banging toys in his high chair. McPantses? Grumbling about how she doesn’t want to wear khaki pants today. The whole house was in a state of chaos, as it always is when one parent tries to ready the family for the day without the help of the other parent.

When everyone is screaming or grumbling, the ideal thing to do is try on the pants that will never fit, right? Right?

They fit.

They zipped easily.

They look durn good.

And then when I sat down next to the screaming crabcake to use the breastpump,* they slid down over my gut** and I could feel a breeze in the asscrack area, so the pants that finally zipped went back into the closet after I finished pumping.

* Have you ever tried to have a milk letdown when your nearly 9 month old screamed his head off right next to you? It’s not an easy task. Fortunately, he stopped a few seconds later, but good googly moogly, we had about four minutes of eardrum-shattering misery. I suspect that the four teeth that are percolating dangerously beneath his gums (two on top, two on the bottom) are about to pop out. I wish they’d either go ahead and burst through (the more to bite you with, mommy dearest!) or that the kid would chill out and have some bourbon on a cotton ball already. Lordy.

** It seems to be shrinking fairly well on its own. While there is still a flobbly part, it’s about a third as big as it was a couple of months ago and it no longer flops over on its own when I turn over in bed. If you’ve never experienced this particular post-partum phenomenon, I am happy to stop typing and sit back and wait while you work the gorge back down in your throat. I fully agree that it is that disgusting.

Enjoy your breakfast and have a nice day!

Signed,
BUT THE PANTS ZIPPED!