We had the yummiest Christmas dinner this year!  In the past we have always done a huge prime rib, but this year we changed it up just a tiny bit and decided to do a whole filet mignon tenderloin.

I am the honorary roaster for Christmas dinner so I set off to find a recipe that would work for us.  I found this yummy Bourbon marinade from Paule Deen on food network, but used this other recipe here to roast the meet since I wasn’t interested in standing in the snow to grill.

First of all, I did learn that you need to trim up the tenderloin.  I found this youtube video to be perfect in explaining how to trim the meat.  I roasted to meat whole rather than slicing it up though as he does in the video.

Looks AMAZING and tastes AMAZING!

Marinating in the Bourbon- cilantro mixture.  There are not two filet’s in there… just decided to roast the filet “chain” from the trimmings as well.  It wasn’t very good, but the kid were fine with it.  See youtube video above for more info.

Perfection!

Ingredients

• 1 cup bourbon
• 1 cup brown sugar
• 2/3 cup soy sauce
• 1 bunch cilantro, leaves chopped
• 1/2 cup lemon juice
• 1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce
• 2 cups water
• 3 to 4 sprigs fresh thyme, leaves chopped
• 1 (5-pound) beef tenderloin, silver connective tissue removed
• Oil, to brush on before searing

Preheat the oven to 425 degrees F.

Season the meat with the salt and pepper. In a large skillet, heat 2 teaspoons of the oil over medium-high heat until good and hot, then add the meat and sear until well browned on all sides, about 10 minutes total.

Transfer the meat to a rack set on a baking sheet. Roast until an instant-read thermometer inserted in the thickest part registers 140 degrees F for medium-rare, about 30 minutes, or to your desired degree of doneness. Remove it from the oven, cover with aluminum foil, and let rest for 10 minutes before slicing to allow the juices to redistribute.  I used a tenderloin just over 7lbs and it took 45 minutes to get to 140 degrees.

I guess before I even really start this post, I want to tell you: if you have an unlimited flow of money and want to freeze your butt off then go, if not, stay home (definitely call me negative Nancy on this one).  Yes, it was something cool to see, but totally not worth $100 for our evening event.  Feel free to leave comments if you disagree!  This post is for ICE Shrek the Halls at the National Harbor in Maryland, just outside of D.C.

Pricing

This is what I mean about throwing money away.  Luckily, we didn’t have to pay for my 1 and 3 year old (pricing starts at age 4).  From this screenshot, you can get an idea of how much two adults are.  This doesn’t include the at least $10 you’ll spend on parking at the Gaylord.  Call me bitter if you wish about pricing, but for 4 SMALL rooms of ice, it isn’t worth it.  Save your money!

Notice the “internet fee”. There is also an extra charge there.

So here we go, with parking and our tickets, we are at $75.

After ICE, we ate dinner in the Gaylord Hotel.  We went to National Pastime Sports Bar and Grill.  If you want mediocre food and to pay $8.96 per kids meal, then eat there!  The one cool part about this was that “it snows” at 6:30 every evening and we were able to see it from our table.

What You Get to See

Here are some pics of inside ICE:

Some of the exhibits are cool.

Note that my 1 year old was pretty much miserable because it was FREEZING (obviously to keep exhibits looking good), but when I say freezing, they told us it was 9 degrees in there.  They give you coats on top of us having our own, but they don’t fit well with other heavy coats on.  HINT:  IF YOU GO, BRING GLOVES, HATS, SCARFS, EXTRA SOCKS, BOOTS, AND ANYTHING WARM.

The one cool part of the 4 rooms you get to see:

The slides.

Slide inside ICE.

Slide inside ICE.

We did go during the week so it was less crowded, however they didn’t have all the slides open because of it, so there were still lines for the slides.

Final Thoughts

Sorry for being so negative.  I know there is still some more days for you to experience the exhibit, but I for sure will never do it again.  Maybe if it was $12 per person, I would think it would be worth it, but not for $31.50.  If you want to experience the Inner Harbor, definitely go to the Gaylord, watch the snow fall, ride the train or even build your own Gingerbread House (I saw a Certifikid for that), but save your money on ICE.  Here is a link for everything the Gaylord offers (it is a BEAUTIFUL HOTEL).

And after all this and my poopy feelings… I do hope you had a Merry Christmas and will have a Happy New Year!

Merry Christmas!!!!  I love this time of year!  So many yummy goodies and happiness all around!

I love to see so people around the world united in celebrating the birth of the Savior.  It is so magical.  People collecting gifts and food and giving to others.  The happiness this season spreads such feelings of peace during difficult times.

It always amazes me!

This year we drove from Florida to Northern Virginia to celebrate Christmas.  We have been busy meeting up with good friends and family.  I made these yummy Christmas tree brownies to bring to dinner at a friends house.

Just make your favorite brownies and cut them into triangles using a pizza cutter.  Have fun decorating them with your kiddos!

We had such a good time making them even though we left them sitting on the counter when we left for our friends. Ha!  Doesn’t the thought count more than actually remembering to bring the goodies along???  My mom got to take them to work to pass out to her coworkers instead!

Wow, Christmas is fastly approaching!  There are so many easy Christmas crafts and cookies that I’ve been doing with Ella.  This one was one of her favorites!  She even had the neighbor over and they did it together!

Cute Christmas trees made out of sugar cones and green icing!

I didn’t see the green icing at the store so I just added a few drops of food coloring to white.  I pulled out leftover Halloween candy, marshmallows, sprinkles and chocolate chips.  They went at it and had so much fun!  Our gingerbread house this year was an epic fail and these were so easy and already constructed!

Fun stuff!

I have been going through a serious soup phase lately!  I don’t know if its the cold weather, the holiday season, or what, but I have been loving it!

I had to bring a crock pot of soup to a Christmas party last weekend and made this AWESOME Broccoli Cheese Soup.  There were close to 100 guests and probably 15 or so crock pots of soup brought.  My soup was the first one gone!!!

I used a combination of two different recipes because I really liked the addition of carrots in one, but I didn’t want to use half and half creamer in the sauce.  Here and Here.

I doubled the recipe to fill my crock pot.  It was filled all the way to the brim!  The only thing I would do differently if I cooked this again would be to grate the carrot as the original recipe calls for.  I was being lazy and just dumped a bag of thin carrot straws in it.

I would also just dump everything together in a crock pot to cook for a few hours (Do not add the butter/flour/milk part until after it has already thickened in a saucepan first).  I was short on time and cooked it in a pot over the stove then moved it to a crock pot to stay warm during the party.

INGREDIENTS
 1 3/4 cup of chicken stock
1 small onion finely diced
1/3 cup flour
4 TB butter
1/2 tsp pepper
1/2 tsp salt
2 cups warmed milk
1 1/2 cup shredded cheddar
1/2 cup swiss cheese
1 cup grated carrot
3 cups of chopped broccoli, lightly steamed

***Cook chopped onions in chicken broth in a covered sauce pan for 15 minutes. Heat milk in the microwave for one minute.  Melt butter in a separate large pot.  Add flour, salt, and pepper to the butter and stir constantly for a minute or two. Then add the milk and whisk until the soup begins to thicken, about 5 minutes.  Add the chicken broth/onion mixture and stir until combined.

Add the cheddar and swiss cheeses and stir until completely melted. Stir in brocoli and grated carrot.  Ready to eat!

This was soooooo good that just writing this post and looking at the pics is giving me cravings for it again!  I think I will go through a batch into my crock pot right now!  Happy Cooking!

One of my friends (I spent 6 college years with her) invited us to a Christmas craft party!  It was so much fun for the kids.  Ella was so excited for it and couldn’t wait to go.  She had food and four fun crafts for the kids to do.  The food was absolutely adorable and the crafts were at the perfect level for the kids.  This post may be picture overload, but it’s the best way for me to show all the effort and creative thinking!  I took my snowman cupcakes that I just posted about as a little dessert for the kids.

We got there and I admired the food and even the juice boxes.

Three pizzas looking like a snowman.

Even the juice boxes were decorated:

Rudolph juice boxes.

Check out these cute snowmen!

Powdered donuts on a stick!

Ella loved them, can you tell?!

My munchkin loving the powdered donut snowman.

The four crafts included:

Making reindeer dust so the they can find your house.

The bag the reindeer dust went in.

In the bag they put:

Oats “Carbs Do A Body Good”

Flour “Flying Powder”

Raisins “So The Reindeer Can Poop”

Gitter “Star Dust”

Fry Chips “Energy Boost”

Then, we went and made a bird feeder:

Roll a pine cone in peanut butter and then roll in bird seed. Perfect little bird feeder.

Next, we did a letter to Santa:

Letter to Santa.

Lastly, we made a gum drop snowflake using toothpicks and gumdrops.

Snowflake made out of gumdrops!

The best part of all…… SANTA showed up!

Even a cool Santa arrived!

It was definitely a cool party.  Thanks Catherine!!!  Maybe one year I’ll get around to doing one!

My husband had these at a friends house a few weeks ago and insisted that I make them for him… great idea!  They were awesome and really made it feel like Christmas around here!  I should tell you that this recipe seriously makes a gazillion PB balls so if you do not have a lot of mouths to eat them I would make half of this recipe.

They taste like a Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup!  So good!  We roasted marshmallows at my sisters in her fire pit the night I made these with the kids and my husband loved putting it in his S’more.  He called it S’mreeses.

Anyway, these were great and easy enough for the kids to help with.  They loved rolling the dough into balls.

The Peanut Butter Ball S’more.

Peanut Butter Balls ready to get dipped in melted chocolate

Glorious!

More Glorious!

Very festive!

Peanut Butter Balls
Recipe from Witandwhistle.com

3lbs powdered sugar
4 cups of peanut butter
1lb of butter
3 bags of chocolate chips (I used milk chocolate)
1/3 cake paraffin wax (I used shortening instead)

***Combine the peanut butter, sugar, and butter together.  I had to use my hands to mix well.  Roll into balls and refrigerate.  Melt chocolate and wax in a double boiler.  I don’t have a double boiler so I just microwaved them in a microwave bowl for 30 seconds, then stirred. Microwaved another 30 seconds and stirred, then 20 seconds and stirred, etc… only use small time increments as it is very easy to burn.  Once melted I used a toothpick to dip the balls into the chocolate.  If the chocolate got too thick I just heated it up for another 15-20 seconds.  Cool on wax paper and refrigerate.

Roasting marshmallows to make some Peanut Butter Ball S’mores!

I made a promise to myself this holiday season and that was to not let the hustle bussle get to me and actually take time for the season with my kids.  Usually the holiday season just passes me by and I did not want my kids to have the same feeling.  So, here’s one of our many crafts/recipes that we’ve done so far.

Yes, I know these aren’t the beautiful flowers like Jamie did, but decorating with candy can hide the not so good with icing talent.

So easy and a huge hit with the kids!

All you need is:

– Yellow cake mix box with the ingredients they have listed (or your flavor of choice)
– White icing (I cheated and used store bought)
– White sugar-like sprinkles
– Mini chocolate chips
– Butterscotch chips
– Aluminum foil cupcake wrappers (or your wrapper of choice)

I bought these Wilton sprinkles at Target in the baking section.

All you do is:

Bake cupcakes according to box.  Let cool completely.  Ice them, turn it upside down and dip into sugar.  Decorate with the chocolate and butterscotch chips.  So easy, so good, so cute, and so fun!

Here they are all together!

Aren’t they so adorable?!?!

My 3 year old having so much fun!

But please, don’t give me all the credit!!!  I got this adorable idea here.

Lastly, remember to enjoy the season!

I have been trying to take this decorating class at Michaels for years now and have never come up with time to do it.  I finally decided that I would do the class whether I had time or not!  It is a 2 hr class that is once a week for four weeks.  I had to arrange rides for my son to basketball practice, get babysitters when the hubby was out of town… but all the hassle was worth it.  I loved it.

I am planning on taking the level 2 course next month.  I feel like I really learned a lot of good techniques and tricks that will help me in making my own cakes.  I don’t plan on becoming a professional, but I do love making my kids birthday cakes myself.  I find it really makes the birthday feel more special!  Here are some of the things we did in class…

This is called a “Shaggy Mum.” It is made using tip 233.

 

These are called “Rosette” flowers. They are made using tip 18.

 

Filling your cupcakes with pudding or anything else is simple using tip 230.

 

The yellow flower on the top is called a “drop” flower. It is made using tip 2D. The big flower on the bottom was made using tip 12.

 

This the start of a “pompom” flower. Use tip 12 to make a round circular base. Then tip 16 to put pipe the cluster in the center (the dark blue).

 

This is the completed “pompom” flower. Use tip 18 to pipe rows of pulled out starrs around the circle base. Start at the bottom and work your way around the circle base and repeat for each layer until you can no longer see the base.

First we practiced on a given practice sheet. These are drop flowers and rosette flowers.

 

These are shells and leaves. The shells are made with tip 21 and the leaves are made with tip 352.

My final cake. We practiced handwriting.

I can’t wait to take the level 2 class.  I will post on that when I complete it.  For now, It is official… I am a certified level 1 decorator.

Here are some of the cakes I did before taking this course.  Can’t wait to see the improvement on my future birthday cakes!

Superman Cake
Lion King Cake
Monster Cupcakes
Number 3 Birthday Cake
Rainbow Cupcakes
Giant Cupcake 

I will be the first to admit, I LOVE CHRISTMAS!  I love it so much that we have 4 Christmas trees (plus a Charlie Brown one).  We have one set up in our family room, living room and in each of the girls rooms AND  I will have to get another one by next Christmas for our new Patterson baby addition (no complaints there)!  Tonight I made an ornament for the girlie family room Christmas tree.

Purple goes with “the girls” tree.

It couldn’t have been easier!  I bought the clear fillable and nonbreakable ornament at A.C. Moore.

$.50 ornament found at A.C. Moore.

I curled up some ribbon and stuffed away!

Curl ribbon and stuff it. So simple!!

I think the possibilities with clear ornaments are endless!  I see some really cute ones on Etsy that I bet are so easy to make yourself!

Here’s our family room tree… Sorry to my husband in advance for living with 3 girls!

Sorry, Brian… Girls RULE!