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Bryan and I are just sitting down to watch an episode of my newest favorite TV show: Big Love.  We had a good first day of 2011.   But thank heavens that the kids are in bed.  They were pretty wild and crazy today!

I took down all the Christmas decorations yesterday, so the house is back to a cleaner, fresh state.  But I do miss that beautiful tree.  On New Year’s Eve, Joe and my dad came over for a while.  We played some games, made some cookies, cut out some snowflakes, and enjoyed being together.

Joe’s back in DC now, and the holidays are coming to a close.  We’ve got one more day of winter break before our new year officially gets underway.

I hope your New Year celebration was a good one, and I hope your 2011 gets off to a great start.

Hugs,

Althea

We had a lovely Christmas celebration in Wisconsin this year.  The last time we were in Madison for Christmas was in ’08.  My mom had been gone just over a year, and it was hard…coming up with new traditions without her.

This year felt a lot more joyous.  Time really does heal.

I was so excited to see Maretta & Kyle and Joe.  The Zilics drove down from St. Paul on the 23rd after work, and Joe flew in from DC on the 24th.  By the afternoon of Christmas Eve, the four of us siblings were in the same place for the first time since May.  Makes my heart feel full.

Here’s some pics from our evening together.

Here, Maretta and Kyle are watching The Muppet’s Christmas Carol with the kids.

Getting ready for supper.

Here’s our menu:

Christmas Eve Dinner 2010

Party potatoes – Lisa
Roasted Brussel Sprouts
Broccoli
Rolls
Pink Salad
Slow cooked honey baked ham

Cheesecake – Maretta
Lots and lots of Christmas cookies

Sitting down to the feast.  I think everyone agreed that ham was a good way to go.  So yummy!

Joe took a turn with the camera, so there’s a picture of me!

There were 11 of us snugged in to our table.  It worked out just fine:)

One ham is honey baked and one ham is a two-year-old girl.

Sweet sister.

Digging in!

After dinner, the kids got to open a few gifts.  They opened their presents from Maretta & Kyle since the two of them were spending Christmas Day with Kyle’s mom and Kyle’s dad’s family.

They also both got to open their Christmas pajamas.

After the kids were outfitted in their new jams, we all read The Night Before Christmas together.

My version of the story is illustrated by Mary Engelbreit, and I love the pictures.

Sylvia loved the story too.

The kids hung their stockings amidst much anticipation and headed off to the land of sugar plums.  Here’s a sneak peek of what they found the next morning.

Christmas is so much fun!  And this was certainly a Christmas I’ll remember.  When people asked what he wanted for Christmas, Andrew stubbornly would reply, “Love.  Just love in my heart.”  I think we all won out as there was lots of love in our hearts.

And with that, I lay my head down for a long winter’s nap.

One of the reasons that I didn’t post much in December is that we were all so sick for so much of it.

Sylvia had a bad cold just after Halloween.  She coughed for two weeks, had a good week of clear health, and then just after Thanksgiving came down with another cold.  Soon, Bryan, Andrew, and I all were sick too.  That’s all normal enough, but a couple weeks later, she started running a fever again.  The fever went away and was replaced by an evening of the stomach flu.  At a birthday party no less.  A doctor’s appointment revealed an ear infection.

Then in addition to my cold, I got the worst sore throat I’d had in years.  And I lost all energy – exhaustion and fatigue were the name of the game.  A wonderful doctor – my fairy-god-doctor – diagnosed me with strep throat.  After a couple days of antibiotics, my throat felt soooo much better.  But it took me a good week to regain my ability to be up and about.  So glad to live in an age of modern medicine!

Around that time, Andrew’s cough got worse, so I took him to the doctor to have them check his lungs.  I was glad that he wasn’t having bronchitis or pneumonia issues, but they did put him on antibiotics to treat what they thought was a sinus infection.

So for the next 10 days, Andrew, Sylvia, and I were on a ridiculous medicine schedule.  Sylvia took her medicine once a day.  Andrew took his (refrigerated med) twice a day with food.  I took mine three times a day – one hour before or two hours after eating.   We all had a sticker chart to keep track of who had taken what.

Now, a month after we all initially got sick, I think it’s safe to say that we’re all on the mend.  The kids and I are still coughing intensely now and then, but we’re close to normal.  I’m back to giving 100% at my workouts.  And I’m hoping that we all get a little reprieve before we get the next bug that is inevitably on the way.

The kids and I got into the cookie-making spirit this year.  I started right after Thanksgiving, making up the basic dough for our sugar cookies and Linzer squares.  It’s the best dang sugar cookie dough I know.  It’s made with almond paste.  And to me, it just tastes like Christmas.

Since I love all my readers, I will share with you this dough recipe.  It comes from my mom – Margot Babler –  from a November 1980 Family Circle magazine article.  And it’s been made yearly in the Babler/Dotzour households for the last 30 years.

Basic Sugar Cookie Dough

Ingredients
1 lb butter softened (4 sticks)
2 cup sugar
2 cans almond paste (8 oz each)
4 eggs
1 1/2 tsp vanilla
6 1/2-ish cup flour (sifted)
1 1/4 tsp salt

Directions
Beat the butter and sugar. Crumble in almond paste. Beat until very smooth. Add the eggs and vanilla. Mix in the flour and salt. Break into four balls. Cover in plastic wrap and refrigerate or freeze.

For cut out cookies: Refrigerate dough for at least one hour. Roll out, cut out, chilling intermittently if necessary.  Two balls of dough make enough cut-outs for our family.
Bake for 10-12 minutes at 375 degrees (air bake cookie sheets work great).  I look for one tip of a cookie on a corner of the sheet to get the tiniest bit golden before pulling them out.  Cool (or freeze).  Frost with a mix of whipping cream and powdered sugar with a dab of vanilla.

For Linzer Squares: Use a jelly roll pan. Grease the pan, put down wax paper, grease the wax paper. Take one ball of the dough and press into the pan. Spread about one cup of raspberry jam (with seeds) over the dough. Take another 1/4 of the dough and roll out.  Make strips with a pastry wheel.  Lay the strips down to create a lattice weave pattern (but you don’t actually have to weave them!).  Bake at 375 for 12-15 minutes.  Makes a great holiday treat for teachers!

I spread out my cookie-making by making the dough early and freezing it, then cutting out the cookies and freezing those, and then frosting the cookies a few weeks later.

We were happy to have one of Andrew’s best buddies from school join us.

Happy decorators!

Oops!  I just noticed that last year I did a similar post about this recipe.  I had pictures of the Linzer squares on that one.  Oh well.  The holidays come every year:)

I love Christmas cards!  It’s so fun to visit the mailbox all through the month of December and see the writing of friends and family on the cards inside.  I love reading people’s letters and seeing pictures of growing families.  We have so many friends and family who live far afield, and it warms my heart to catch up with the annual cards.

Here’s a copy of the card and the letter that sums up the Dotzour Family in late 2010…

December 2010

Greetings to our family and friends!

I hope that this Christmas finds you in good health and with a contented heart.  It’s fun to have a white Christmas here in Madison.  The kids have been thrilled to discover and re-discover all the magical traditions this year.  Cookies!  Lights!  Decorations!  Special books and movies and songs!  Oh, and need I add…Presents!!!  It’s wonderful to experience the holidays through the eyes of my five- and two-year old.

2010 has been a nice year in the Dotzour home.  Bowser, who is sitting on my lap as I type, asked me to tell you that he and Spooky turned 10-years-old this year.  Funny that the tiny kittens we got when we’d only been married a year are turning into “old men!”

Our extended family has been doing great with the sad exceptions of Bryan’s Grandma Harvey and my Uncle Greg who both passed away earlier this year.  Our thoughts are with Grandpa Harvey and Aunt Kate as they adjust to life without their partners.

If you follow my blog, www.dotzourfamily.com, you can read up on the weekly highs and lows of our crew and see way more pictures than anyone really needs.

Here’s a snapshot of our year.

In 2010, Bryan took up Ultimate Frisbee, grew a beard, and switched jobs.  How’s that for the year in a nutshell?  He enjoys his new job programming at ShopBop, and it’s a thrill to see him challenged and engaged.  If you need any super-hip, trendy clothes, check them out online!  Bryan’s such a dedicated, capable guy, and I’m proud that he’s my husband!

Andrew turned five in June.  He spent the summer playing, climbing, reading, swimming, and generally living it up.  He continues to love animals, has a fantastic imagination, loves to play on the iPhone, and is reading up a storm.  In September, he started Kindergarten at our neighborhood Spanish language immersion charter school.  I wasn’t sure how he would do in a 90% Spanish environment, but he’s thriving.  His teacher is fantastic, and he skips to and from school each day.  What a joy!

Sylvia has grown up so much this year.  She’s a big talker now, telling stories, playing make-believe, and dancing, twirling, dressing up, and just being a wonder of a child.  You should see that girl walk around in heels!  We’ve had challenges helping her direct her intense emotions, but with the assistance of Paci and Poodle, and her increasing vocabulary, it seems like that is getting better all the time.  If you ever want to play pretend, come on over to the Dotzour house, and my kids will engage you!

I’ve felt so fortunate this last year to live the life I do.  I love living in Madison, and I feel lucky to get to be home with the kids.  I feel luckier still to have some part-time child care for Sylvia which allows me the space to work at and grow my photography business – over 50 clients this year!  I took up early-morning bootcamp workouts and took to running again.  Remarkably, I’m really enjoying both!  I had a busy year, and it was so much fun.

Especially at this celebratory time of year, our thoughts are with all our friends and family who we love but don’t get to see.  I hope your 2011 is a good year, filled with a lovely mix of calm and adventure, growth and peace.  Cheers to you!

~Althea

This December was such an exciting and magical one for the kids.  Seems like being ages 2 and 5 is pretty much ideal for making December a month where we wandered through a magical time of excitement and anticipation.

The day after we got home from Texas post-Thanksgiving, we went out to Jung’s and got our tree (a balsam fir again).  The kids took all of 30 seconds to pick it out.  As we have in past years (and as Andrew remembered that we had done in past years), we went to Culver’s afterward for lunch.  These kids sure do love their Culver’s.  Andrew has recently discovered chicken fingers, and he longs for his vanilla custard with cookie dough sprinkles on top.

After getting back home, we got it up right away.  The kids were so excited to help get the decorations up from the basement and to help decorate the tree and house.

Bowser likes when it’s Christmas tree time too.  He likes drinking from the tree water:)

Here’s Andrew putting up the lights.  He looks so grown up with his short hair!

There’s Sylvia decorating her one square foot of the tree.

The result of her decorating efforts.  That spot was well-covered!

Later on… so pretty!

Here’s a little one-foot tree that I gave to Andrew to put in his room.  He decorated it by putting all the little ornaments on the top.  So cute:)

I loved seeing how delighted the kids were to explore my Christmas decorations.  The music boxes were a big hit as was anything with Santa on it.  And the kids really enjoyed playing with the nativity this year.

After supper most nights, we read some of our Christmas books.  The Grinch, The Night Before Christmas, The Polar Express, My Wonderful Christmas Tree, and Christmas Magic were all big hits this year.  We had Christmas music (most of it jazz, piano, Celtic, or world) playing most afternoons.  We baked cut out cookies and Linzer squares and spritz cookies and magic bars.  Several evenings in December, we piled the kids in the car after dinner and drove around enjoying all the beautiful Christmas lights.  We shopped almost exclusively online except for some last-minute store-shopping.

It was a fun-filled month.   An active month.  The Christmas Eve and Day celebrations were a great culmination to our month of planning and preparations.  Hope your December was a good one too!

Oh, boy, it’s been quite a busy and less-than-healthy month in the Dotzour home.  I just looked on my site and realized that I haven’t written a post since December 3!  Oops.  So now I’m wondering…do I catch up with early December, or do I jump right into the Christmas celebrations from the last couple days?  Decisions, decisions.

Well, as a compromise, I’ll upload all our Christmas Eve and Christmas Day pics to the gallery, so anyone who wants a visual of the Christmas festivities can see them.  And then I’ll write some posts for catch up.  As a quick spoiler, we had a wonderful celebration.  I don’t think I’ve stopped smiling all weekend.

I hope that everyone out there enjoyed a lovely Christmas and that you are now (or will soon) get to have what we in the Babler family refer to as Slug Day.  Staying in pajamas, playing with toys, watching movies, snuggling down, and relaxing for many hours after the excitement of the last days and weeks.

I made a dinner last night that was yummy enough that I wanted to share the recipes.

Andrew came home from school talking about Hanukkah, so we spent some time yesterday afternoon talking about some Hanukkah traditions.  We decided to make latkes (which, for the record, he then refused to taste).  Sylvie helped put the potatoes into the food processor, I pressed out as much moisture as I could, and using this recipe, I fired up some delicious potato pancakes.   I’ve only fried food a hand full of times before, and I’ve never had what I’d call success.  But using the right amount of peanut oil and keeping the heat on medium, these latkes turned out golden and scrumptious.  How do you convince a newly-picky-eating five year old that they’re just french fries in different form.  And he can dip them in sour cream or apple sauce!  Silly boy.

I had some chicken thighs in the freezer and a jar of honey mustard in the fridge, so I looked up those ingredients and made this honey baked chicken recipe.  It was an unexpectedly huge hit.  There were groanings of pleasure.  I think this recipe (easy as it is!) might make a repeat showing.

Andrew also learned how to make paper snowflakes in school today.  Since the Hair Cutting Incident of 2010, we’ve banned scissors from the home.  However, we’d planned to bring them back (with highly supervised use) in December.  My kids happen to L.O.V.E. to cut paper with scissors, so after a couple months of scissors austerity, Andrew and Sylvia happily snipped at paper while I cooked supper.  And we have snowflakes hanging on many windows.

Our house is decorated, holiday music is playing, and the kids are so excited about all the holiday magic.  Already – SO EXCITED.  I’ve been encouraging them to pace themselves:)  Hope your December is off to a good start!  Enjoy the twinkly lights:)

Thanksgiving Day.  A fun day of relaxing and playing.  Granny did nearly all the cooking (with moderate assistance from Melanie and even more moderate assistance by me).  I took a little time to photograph some of the prettiness around the house.

Here’s the fall wreath on the front door.

Granny got some materials for the kids to make place cards.  So cute!

Pilgrims and Indians and the napkin rings made by the kids.

Beautiful Thanksgiving flowers sent by Grandma Jo.

Meanwhile, my half-naked children played games.  Here’s Sylvia coloring with Grandad.

and Andrew and Bryan playing a game of Quirkle.  Andrew caught on to this game right-fast!

The weather was balmy for the first few days of our trip (high seventies!), but on Thanksgiving, a cold front blew in, and we all got a little chilly!  Here’s Sylvia (wearing a dress that used to be Melanie’s) and Bryan watching Grandad and Andrew playing with a remote control car.

Grandad steers and Andrew leaps about in front of the crazy car.

Here’s my sis Melanie looking svelte and fabulous.

Me and my girl (thanks for taking the picture, Grandad!).

Here’s our lovely Thanksgiving table.

Grandad carves the turkey.

So much good food!

Yum!  I hope your Thanksgiving celebrations were warm and loving and full of all your favorite foods.

We have so much to be grateful for – good health, wonderful family, treasured friends, warm homes, full kitchens, peace, and contentment.  Wishing you all a gratitude-filled year!