Amanda's Blog

Some of you reading my blog may not know that our family is on a special diet because of food sensitivities.  Landon, Brooke,and I have been gluten-free for over two years because of Brooke and Landon’s asthma, and Landon has been on a soy-free diet because of digestive issues.  Austin now eats gluten-free too because of eczema and just recently, I have started eating dairy free while nursing Caleb because of his digestive issues. (So, we pretty much have 2 or 3 foods left that we can all eat. Ha!)

Josh would want me to clarify here that he has no known food sensitivities, and if you were considering bringing food to us (which, you probably weren’t, but just in case) he would be glad to eat all the gluten you’ve got!!

So, when it came time to make cookies for Santa (which I blogged about here), I was worried (pretty pathetic, I know) that I wouldn’t be able to eat the cookies (and I love me a good sugar cookie with lots of buttercream icing on top…or maybe I really love some buttercream icing with a little cookie to hold it:).  Well, I set out online to find a good recipe, and I hit the JACKPOT!!!  This recipe is simple; it rolled out well, cut well, and cooked up great! (I may even have to make sugar cookies more often because these were so easy and SO DELICIOUS!)  These were so good that my gluten, soy, and dairy eating family asked me for the recipe…always a good sign:)

So, without further ado, here is the wonderful recipe taken from the Pamela’s Products website:

Vanilla Roll-Out Cookies

Ingredients:

• 1 bag (3-1/2 cups) Pamela’s Gluten-Free Bread Mix (no yeast needed)
• 1-3/4 sticks of unsalted butter (14 tbsp)*
• 3/4 cup sugar
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 2 eggs
• 2 tsp vanilla

*I substituted Spectrums Organic Palm Shortening to make it dairy free.

Directions:

Soften butter in a mixer. Add sugar and cream until light in color. Add eggs and cream together well. Add vanilla and mix in, add salt and the whole bag of Pamela’s Gluten-Free Bread Mix (be sure to take out the yeast packet enclosed in the 19 oz bag of mix).

Refrigerate for 1 hour.

Roll out between two pieces of parchment paper that fit a baking sheet, cut out cookie shapes and remove excess dough- don’t move the cookies. Place the parchment with cookies on baking sheet and bake in preheated 350° oven for 8 to 10 minutes, or until edges start to brown.

Decorate with colored sugar or candies before baking, if you desire.

I used Wilton’s Buttercream Icing recipe and sprinkles (so good, but so messy…) to decorate the cookies, but substituted the Spectrum Organic Palm Shortening for the butter and shortening and substituted ice milk for the milk to make it dairy free.

**A special thank you to Pamela’s Baking Mixes for making our gluten-free diet easier and yummier!!  If you were a real woman, my husband would want to marry you:)

I LOVE Christmas!!  I love spending time with family, eating yummy treats, giving gifts, and seeing the “magic” in my children’s eyes.  I also love all things Santa Clause – thanks to my mom (just ask Josh)!  We had a wonderful Christmas, and I hope that you did, too!  This was one of the few Christmases that none of us were sick.  Usually, we always share more than just gifts with our family in MO…I am sure they were thankful for our wellness this year:)  (I do not say this bragging…just in a thankful way.  I have too many times said to Josh how we are all healthy only to be awakened in the middle of the night by an “asthma” cough or high fever…so now I am a little superstitious about stating our wellness:)

I was, however, in prayer on Christmas for families that were not so fortunate. I thought of a dear friend whose four children were all sick with either the flu or strep throat:(  I also thought about a family that we know from FHU whose 2 1/2 year old daughter had a liver transplant on Christmas Eve, so they spent the day in the ICU in Pittsburgh. And the family from home whose young daughter is also battling cancer.  There are many who are not as fortunate as us, so for those I pray that they will have healthier days ahead.

I wanted to share some of our Christmas festivities with you. Christmas is a week-long event around here.  (I do LOVE Christmas, but after the week of parties and sugar highs, I am ready to get my kids home and in routine:)

Our first family Christmas was with our Burch family on December 17th.  Josh and I actually had to miss this one due to a funeral, but the kids were able to attend.  They had a great time!! Thanks to aunt Roxanne, I still have pictures to share!

 Our second family Christmas was with Ms. Ann and Mr. Dickie on Sunday night, December 18th.  Ms. Ann and Mr. Dickie are very special to us!!  They have adopted our family as their own.  Since we do not live around family, it is wonderful to have “Kentucky grandparents” to help with the kids and love on them.  They sit with us every Sunday and treat my children as their own.  The kids love them and love having Christmas at their house.

Our third family Christmas was with Pa and Nandy on Saturday, December 22nd.  We got to spend the day at their house with aunt Keisha and uncle Brandon.  The kids got some great gifts and drank way too much of Nandy’s punch:)  They also got to see some of their second cousins that they don’t see very often.

Our fourth family Christmas was with Papa and Nana on Christmas Eve.  The kids love going to their house and especially love when they get to play with their cousins.  We had a great time eating our gluten free, soy free, and dairy free food:)  (My mom has become very creative in our holiday meals trying to accommodate all the special diets!)  It is a bit chaotic trying to open gifts with 7 kids, ages 8 and under (my brother and I have stair-stepped our kids…our kids are 8, 6, 5, 3 (almost 4), 3, 1, and 3 months:)  but it is always a lot of fun!!

Our fifth family Christmas was later on Christmas Eve with my Grandma Green’s family.  It is always fun to get together with my aunts and uncles and cousins!  We always do family pictures in front of the Christmas tree (a tradition that Josh looks forward to every year…Ha!) and eat lots of good food (ribs and shrimp) before playing dirty Santa.

Finally, our sixth family Christmas was at home on Christmas morning with just the six of us.  Santa came and brought lots of goodies, and then we opened our gifts from each other.  We spent the day in our pjs and loved being at home together!

We are so very blessed and are thankful for all of our family.  What a wonderful time of the year when we get to spend time with those we love, give gifts to one another, and eat WAY TOO MUCH!!!  I sure hope that your Christmas was wonderful, too!

Landon had his preschool Christmas party today, and guess who came for a visit???? How’d you guess it…SANTA!!!  Here are a few quick pictures of the kids with Santa.  They love Santa, and I love that they love Santa!!

All the kids with Santa.  It is a huge feat for the Ketchums to have all children with Santa and none of them crying.  Usually, our family Santa picture has one child screaming and being held down by Santa…Guess we will enjoy the picture this year because most likely Caleb will be running from Santa next year:)

Caleb’s first picture with Santa by himself!!  What a SWEET boy!!

Landon with Santa!  Doesn’t he look so sweet and innocent…well, let me tell you, looks can be deceiving! HA!

No, this is not Santa with the kids, but it is so rare to have a picture of me with the kids that I had to post it, too.  (Not too sure what Caleb is looking at…)

I sure do love Santa, and I really love pictures with him!!!

I got this great idea from a deals blog that I follow, Hip2Save.  I love this site and there is no telling how much it has saved us. (Josh may think it has cost us b/c I do tend to get wrapped up in a good deal, even when I don’t need it, but I choose to focus on the savings:)  Anyhow, I found this cute idea for time capsule ornaments, and I am so excited about doing them every year (well, at least we did the first year; we will have to see if I even remember or find time to do it next year…ha!)  They were really kid friendly, too!

All you need are some plastic ornaments that will open up (I got mine from oriental trading),

 paper to write on to put inside (we used cut up tissue paper so it would be prettier),stickers to decorate the outside, a picture of your child, and ribbon to make it prettier and hang it on the tree.

The instructions are simple…write the kids favorite memory on the paper and put them inside the ornament.  Then you can decorate the outside however you or your child would like.  We chose to put their names and ages in stickers. (If I weren’t so OCD, I would have let them put the stickers on themselves…but I really wanted them to be straight…I did let Austin do his own, but only with thorough instruction on how to get it perfectly  almost centered:)

I have plans to put a picture of each child in the ornament soon sometime!  It may go the way of all the other picture ornaments that I have bought since having 2 or more children (why do they have to make the frames such odd sizes!!!).  You are now ready to put a pretty ribbon through the hole at the top of the ornament (don’t know what that is called…) and hang it on your tree!!

I look forward to doing this every year (I hope) and then looking at their favorite things/firsts from each year as we decorate the tree each year.  This was also a very inexpensive craft and as I mentioned before, the kids loved it!!  We also used the plastic ornaments and supplies to just make pretty ones to put on the tree or give as small gifts.  It was fun to get creative with these.

Oh, and here is what Caleb did during the ornament making:)