The good, the bad, and the shifty...

Isn't that about the best Santa you've ever seen? Seriously, he's the real deal. The boy sitting on his lap is my very own C when he was just about 1 year old. At the time we thought he'd love sitting on Santa's lap. Back then, he was in daycare full time & was happy being held by anyone. Anyone, that is EXCEPT for Santa.

Yikes! What's the deal with this Santa? His beard was as white as the snow...only if that snow had recently been visited by the family dog! I think this may rank as our worst Santa ever, but since he was at our local library & the visit was free, I'll cut him a little slack. He is a little creepy though, isn't he? That's C just before his 3rd birthday, wearing what I think is an elf hat.

Is it just me,or does this Santa look a little shifty to you? Over here Santa, look at the camera! C'mon man you are supposed to be a professional! I mean the 4 year old is looking at me, why aren't you?!

Last year, this Santa had to bribe K with a book just to get her within a few feet of him. No way was she getting on his lap. C on the other hand will happily climb on Santa's lap if it will mean a chance to request toys.

I'm glad he wasn't scarred by his early childhood experience with the man in red.

We'll be heading off next week for this year's installment of pictures with Santa. I don't think I'll have much luck getting K to sit on his lap this year either. I know C will be game though - he is nothing if not outgoing and social, especially if presents are involved. Now, if I can just find that first Santa again....

More chocolate please....

Today was a cold, windy and snowy day. A kind of day that makes you want to put a fire in the fireplace, stay inside & bake something. Something chocolatey and delicious. Something like brownies! Mmmmm, brownies.

Now, I will admit here that I am a bit of a snob about brownies. Not so much of a snob that I won't happily eat any kind of brownie set in front of me (except for those blondie things. I'm not sure what they are, but I know they are certainly not brownies!). But, I am enough of a snob that I refuse to make brownies from those mixes you can buy at the store. Making brownies is so easy from scratch, it seems kind of silly to me to make them from a box. Of course even while I am saying this, I will admit that if the box brownies tasted like my favorite recipe, then I would happily make the ones from a box.


My main hang up with the brownies out of a box is the fact that instead of using butter (mmmm......butter!), they use oil. I know you think I'm nuts, but I can taste the difference, I really can. And here's the thing. I have a love affair with butter. I come by this love honestly. I come from a long line of butter lovers - going all the way back to (at the very least) my great grandma, who ate massive quantities of the stuff. I figure since she lived to the age of 93, I'll take all the warnings about trans fats with a grain of salt & indulge myself in this 1 vice.

Oh, butter, how I love thee...

What was I talking about again? Oh yes ...brownies!


I thought I'd share my favorite recipe since it's so easy. It's actually from inside the box of Baker's Secret unsweetened chocolate - the stuff in the orange box.



Just as an aside here, I can't be the only person who ignored their Mom's warnings & tried to eat a brick of unsweetened chocolate can I? I mean I know my Mom told me it wouldn't taste good, but it looked like chocolate & it smelled like chocolate, so I figured she was just trying to pull one over on me. That is one lesson that I really needed to learn the hard way. It was also a lesson I never forgot! You see my chocolate addiction started at a early age once I discovered where my Mom kept her stash of chocolate chips. It's my only vice so, I figure that's ok. (What?! You mean you remembered that I listed butter as my 1 vice? So sue me...I have 2. Ok, maybe I have a few more, but we won't talk about those now. Just humor me!)



Ok, without further ado, here it is... The recipe. I promise you that it's so easy you may never go back to the mix again (assuming you have unsweetened chocolate in your pantry. You should you know. You never know when you may need to whip up a batch of brownies in an emergency).



Baker's Secret One Bowl Brownies

4 squares of unsweetened chocolate
1 1/2 sticks butter
2 cups sugar
3 eggs
1 tsp vanilla
1 cup flour

Preheat oven to 350 degrees

Heat chocolate and butter in large bowl in the microwave until butter is melted. Stir until chocolate melts and mixture is completely smooth. Stir sugar into chocolate . Mix in eggs and vanilla until blended. Stir into flour. Spread in greased 13X9 inched pan. Bake 35 or 40 minutes.


That's it! See how easy it is? Really, you should try them. How about right now?
If you are really having an intense need for chocolate, I recommend adding semi-sweet or dark chocolate bits into the batter. Go on, you know you want to do it. I won't tell anyone.

I wasn't the only person here at the Cracker house who indulged in their love of chocolate today. After naps, the Cracker children wanted to go play in the 1 inch of snow that had fallen since this morning. We had some fun & made a few snow angels then headed back inside for the best part of playing in the snow - the hot chocolate.

As you can see, I have passed on my love of this dangerous substance to my children.

Here's C lovin' himself some hot chocolate

And my little K is addicted to the stuff

Seriously, right down to the last drop...

MMMmmmm.... Chocolate!

Fowl Play?

I went to dinner last night with the other Moms in my neighborhood for our annual ornament exchange. Right as dinner was winding down, I found out that our resident peacock was found poisoned over a month ago! Apparently, I was the only one at the table who didn't already know this. Now, you are probably brimming over with a lot of follow-up questions like:

1. What do you mean "resident peacock"

2. How do you know he was poisoned?

3. Where did go for dinner?

4. What did you order?

5. Should I get my loved one a peacock for Christmas this year?



I'll answer each of these pressing questions in turn.

1. First, and probably most importantly, I'll explain my relationship with the above peacock. When my husband and I bought our house 4 years ago, we thought there was something really special about the neighborhood . It didn't feel like a typical subdivision. There were just 60 homes situated on one dead end street, which was flanked on all sides by family farms & woodlands. There were sidewalks and tons & tons of kids. It really seemed like Pleasantville. All we knew at the time was that we loved the house, the property and the feel of the place. What we didn't know when we purchased the house was that the neighborhood came with an extra "amenity" - it's very own wild peacock.



We, or I should say, Mr. Crackers, didn't discover this fact until he moved into the house alone (while waiting for my son & I to sell our house back in Atlanta) in June - which he came to discover is near the end of the peacock mating season.

He discovered this one night at about 4:00am after he heard what he at first thought were a woman's screams coming from the woods behind our house. After a long and sleepness night, he met a new neighbor, who asked him if he got any sleep with all the racket the peacock was making. Ummm, what? Peacock?

Mr. Crackers, being the inquisitive sort, asked a lot of questions about our new "friend" and then called me the next day filled with all sorts of interesting tidbits. We learned that the peacock had lived in the neighborhood since it had been built 15 years earlier, that he loved peanut butter Captain Crunch and perhaps most importantly that he was a confirmed bachelor with absolutely no peahen with which to mate. This was good news and bad news... The good news, was that there would be no little peacocks running around the street. The bad news was that mating season for this poor guy was a sad and lonely time punctuated by months of loud (& I mean LOUD!) mating calls. A typical mating season lasted from about April - early July. Oddly, the previous owners of our home never mentioned this amenity during the closing process. Hmmmm..

2. Now on to the next question. You know, the one about the peacock poisoning. Outside of mating season, when the peacock understandably, got a little grouchy (19 years is a long time to go without a mate!), he was usually a pretty docile and decent neighbor who would come by occasionally for visits & poop on my front porch, but would generally leave everyone alone. That is, until this year. This year for whatever reason - old age, pent up hormone problems, loneliness - he became really aggressive. He was particularly combative with any service people who happened to be on the street. This meant that garbage collectors, lawn care specialists or anyone else driving a large truck in our little subdivision was subject to the threat of peacock attack! So, when these service people were on our street, we would try to ensure, usually by spraying the peacock with a water hose, that no harm came to these brave men and women.

Unfortunately, I learned over dinner, we were too late to help a garbage collector about a month ago, who fell victim to a peacock attack in my neighbor's driveway. To add insult to injury, he tripped over the curb while fighting off the peacock and fell hard to the ground face first. Thankfully, my neighbor and another garbage collector were able to rush to his aid and chase off the peacock, who felt much less aggressive now that we was being pursued by 3 angry people. Luckily, the man was unhurt and although my neighbor was initially very concerned that he was missing all of his teeth, she learned from him that they were not knocked out in the fall, he just had not put them in that morning (this is completely true - I am not making that up.)

It was the next morning, I was told, that the peacock was found dead in a different neighbor's yard. I am not sure that he was actually poisoned (I don't think anyone actually performed an autopsy). It may have just been a coincidence that he passed on right after this latest attack, but regardless, he has ascended to the big peacock farm in the sky. He was given a modest burial in the land he had called home for the last 19 years.

Now before anyone gets upset & reports this incident to any authorities, I must tell you that he had been increasingly aggressive this year. In addition to besieging the service people I already mentioned, he had also attacked several neighbors, many of whom he had known for years. He was a wild animal, and everyone had grown increasingly nervous about his existence in a neighborhood so filled with small children. And I will state again, that I am not sure that there was any fowl play involved (get it?, and yes I know I am I complete dork).

3 & 4. Next, I'll answer these 2 important questions in tandem. We went to the new Melting Pot restaurant that just opened up in town. I had some cheese fondue followed by fillet mignon and then topped off with dark chocolate fondue. Most importantly, perhaps, I had a couple of their Pomegranate Cosmopolitans, which may have just been my favorite part of the whole meal. Is that so wrong?

5. Now onto our final question. Would a peacock make a good pet for your family? Should you purchase this bird for your loved one this holiday season?

Umm, no. Not unless your "loved one" likes to clean up lots of poop while armed with a push broom and watering hose to fend off attacks from a bird to whom they just fed a handful of Peanut Butter Captain Crunch.

In closing, let me just say that I will miss our peacock. He was a beautiful wild creature who until this year was a pretty good (although sometimes loud) neighbor. I know that he is now living out the rest of eternity in heaven on a peacock farm filled to the brim with peahens. Lots and lots of peahens.

An assortment of crackers

Just a few updates today from the house of Crackers:

1. My addiction to Craig's List has paid off! Someone just left the house with our very large train table. Whoo, woo! To date, we ended up making over $200.00 selling off the kid's old and unused toys. I think my excitement over these sales has the Cracker children nervous. They have started screaming, "please don't sell that!" whenever I take a close look at one of their toys or scoop a stray doll or car off the floor to put it away. I have assured them that I have no plans to wipe out their toy stash, but they just don't seem to believe me.

I understand their concern. About a year and a half ago Mr. Crackers & I were hit with Garage Sale fever after a particularly successful day at our neighborhood sale.

We started hauling out tables, area rugs, and really anything else that wasn't nailed down and we thought we could "move" (& by move I mean sell quickly probably for a price well below what it was worth). Thankfully by the time the fever really hit us, the sale was winding down, and we ended up hauling much of our furniture and small appliances back into the house again.

Looking back I am glad our fever peaked so late since we were thinking seriously about selling our kitchen table. Never mind that we eat all our meals there, we thought it was perfect to sell for about $150.00. We wanted a bigger one someday anyway (we lacked the presence of mind at the time to realize that purchasing a new table to replace the one we sold for $150.00 would probably cost us at least $1500.00).

In light of our past behavior, I do understand their distress. But really, my main goal was to clear out some space for new stuff while at the same time helping out with the cost of Christmas toys.

Come to Momma!

On second thought, maybe I'll make one more pass through the playroom, just to make sure I haven't missed anything.....

2. Remember when I was talking about how much I loved our Fisher-Price nativity scene and how much fun I had watching the kids play with it? It seems like just yesterday. . . In fact it was just yesterday. Well, I take it back. I know winter is just starting, but I forgot how hard it is to adjust those first weeks when we realize most of our playtime will now occur indoors. I have to say, today proved to be a painful adjustment.

Both of the Cracker children decided to play with the aforementioned nativity scene this afternoon. I wish I could paint an idyllic scene of 2 children playing happily and quietly with the holy family near the Christmas tree (would it be even cuter if they were both wearing coordinating Christmas sweaters - or is that too much?). However, what I got instead was a 3 year old screaming and sobbing, "I want the Baby Jesus, I WANT THE BABY JESUS. GIVE HIM TO ME NOW!!!!!". All while my 6 year old screamed back "Then give me the Fairy (a.k.a. the Angel Gabriel). You've had her the whole time! IT'S MY TURN TO HAVE HER. I WANT THE FAIRY!!!!"

For some reason, instead of leaving the room & hiding somewhere letting them work it out, I launched myself into the fray trying to dodge flying wise men while screaming at the two of them " JUST GET ALONG AND PLAY NICELY!". Needless to say, I was unsuccessful at forcing, threatening, coercing them to get along.

Finally I gave up & spent a little time with Mrs. G at Derfwad Manor . She always makes me laugh & by the time I was done the children had worked out their own problems and had moved on to other toys.....

3. A little update on Mr. Crackers who is looking mighty fine these days... Mr. Crackers ran a 10K race on Thanksgiving day & did a great job! He's been training since the spring and although he says he wanted to lose more weight, I think he looks great.

Did I fail to mention that Mr. Crackers is growing out his hair a bit? I have to say I do love that salt and pepper coming in around the temples. Why is it that he looks so good with some gray in his hair while my grays just make my hair look a little more dull and dried out? It hardly seems fair. I think I will lodge a complaint with our hairdresser when I see her in a couple of weeks.

Did I also fail to tell you that Mr. Crackers not only got himself new glasses (that I love, love, love) but that he also got his first pair of contacts? Hmmm..... should I be worried?!

Perhaps it is time Mrs. Crackers updated her look a bit as well.

That's all that's fit to print from the House of Crackers!

Our Christmas Tree, Darth Vader and the Tooth Fairy

Since it was a cold, miserable rainy day today, it seemed like the perfect time to stay indoors and decorate our Christmas tree. While both kids napped this afternoon I went ahead and strung the lights.

I need to do this while they are napping to spare them the pain and agony of watching me spend 2 hours trying to hide the cords that attach the lights to one another from view. I rest all blame for this somewhat neurotic behavior squarely on the shoulders of my Dad. I remember watching and waiting (not very patiently) for him to finish this same task when I was as child. It was like torture. There we were, my sister and I, all ready to hang all the ornaments, but first we had to wait for my Dad to hang the lights in such a way that there were no visible cords. The entire time he was working, we would pepper him with the standard question "Are you almost done yet?" endlessly. It took a long, long time and by the time he was done, I think he was just as frustrated as we were (If memory serves, I think he actually walked off the job one year & handed the responsibility over to my Mom who being less of a perfectionist probably had all the lights up in about 20 minutes or so...). Sorry Dad!



So, you ask yourself, why do I do the same thing? Why not just throw them on the tree with abandon so I can get to the really fun stuff? Words fail me....I'll just say that I try to do my kids a kindness by doing the task while they sleep, so as not to inflict them with my crazed behavior. Mr. Crackers can't even watch me do it anymore - I think it gives him hives.


So, I poured myself an eggnog (with a little extra enhancement to make the task more fun) and proceeded to hang about 800 white lights on our tree. When I started I was listening to some Christmas favorites, but about 30 minutes into the task, Mr. Crackers broke out the Lego Star Wars game and I lit the tree to the sounds of battles in a galaxy far, far away.



I also got to listen to a steady narrative stream from Mr. Crackers that went like this...


"Why is he jumping? Aaaarrrrggg!!! Tell my why he keeps jumping!"


"I'm gonna kick your booty!" "Aaaaaaaahhhh"


"GOD BLESS AMERICA, WHY DOES HE KEEP DYING!!! Aaaaarrrggg!"


Not as soothing as Nat King Cole, but entertaining nonetheless.



When the kids got up, we had a great time hanging the ornaments on the tree. I always love looking at them and reliving memories. Ours is not a designer tree, but a tree made up mostly of homemade ornaments and gifts from friends and family members. Here are a few favorites:

My mom made this one

And these I think

Glass ornaments we got as gifts long before we had to worry about little hands


Once the decorating ended & we finished dinner, it was time to unwind. K and I played with the kids' Fisher Price nativity scene. We've had this set for years. It was bought for us by my Mom when C was a toddler & I love it. The kids get to play with it and there is no worry about them breaking anything.

Before we started playing, we reviewed all of the main players and I was corrected by K when she perceived I had made a mistake. The angel Gabriel, will now be known to K as the Tooth Fairy. Her job is to bring the Baby Jesus, his Mommy and Jofus (this is my fault. I pronounced Joseph's name the same way when I was little) pennies while they sleep. It was unclear whether or not the family had lost any teeth. She seemed to be giving them the pennies because it was Christmastime. The fairy also serves as a middleman between the 3 princesses and the holy family (I could not convince her that these 3 were really Kings - they wore dresses and crowns and to K that means only 1 thing - Princess!). It is the Fairy's job to take the gifts from the 3 princesses and fly them over to the family. I'm not sure why the 3 can't deliver the gifts themselves, maybe it's a union thing...

While we played with the nativity set, the Cracker boys helped out with the rebellion in a galaxy far, far away...

You'll be happy to know they were successful.

Tomorrow our long holiday break is over and everyone here at the Cracker house returns to the normal routines of work and school. But it was a good vacation and we all had fun with the tree, Darth Vader and the Tooth Fairy

What a nice passport...

Our new passports are here!

Our new passports are here!

The Cracker Family will be going on a cruise this February thanks to the generosity of Poppa Cracker. Last year he took our family and my brother-in-law's family to Disney World for a week. It was a complete blast and one of the best vacations I have ever been on. This year Poppa C will be taking all of us (11 total) on a Disney Cruise. The entire family is practically vibrating with excitement.

The one catch to going on a cruise, is that we needed to obtain passports for the entire Cracker clan. The trickiest part to this (at least for us) turned out to be obtaining the passport photos. After successfully managing to put off the photography for several weeks, we decided we needed to get our act together & get the process rolling before we were too late to get them. Unfortunately, we decided to do this after church one Sunday, when (as you could probably have guessed) all of the photography shops & studios were closed.

After pulling up to a couple of closed stores, we decided to hit a discount drug store on the way home to see if they could take our pictures. After a quick verification made by Mr. Crackers, we all piled out of the van & into the store.

I should probably point out that this store is no ordinary CVS or Wal-Greens. This particular drug store has a bit of everything including groceries & videos to rent. It is a veritable potpourri of various discounted & off-brand products. I am still unsure why we decided to go to this store rather than wait 2 more hours for the other places to open, but we were inside and there was a very nice woman who seemed eager to help us out.

It's good that she was both so eager & so nice, for that helped to make up for her total lack of knowledge about photography and passport photos. Our first clue that we had probably come to the wrong place should have been when she first pulled out the camera she was going to use. It was an antique...

OK, so it wasn't quite that old, but it was a 2 mega pixel camera from a manufacturer I had never heard of. I was able to study it so closely during the 5 minutes or so it took her to realize that the reason her camera wasn't working was because it had no batteries in it. That should have probably been our second clue....(did I mention how nice she was?).

Once the batteries were finally in the camera, it was time for her to start taking pictures, so she pulled down the white shade to hide the discounted tobacco products from view and asked my husband to smile (we later learned you really shouldn't be smiling in passport photos).

Now came our final clue that we had (perhaps) chosen our photography venue poorly... In order to take the picture she placed her left hand over her left eye while holding the camera up to her right eye (I guess she never learned how to wink). Then slowly as she swayed back and forth on the balls of her feet she began taking photos. I really wish I had video of this process, it was (while not conducive to taking good passport photos) entertaining to say the least.

She repeated the strange swaying, hand up to the eye process for all 4 of us and then informed us we could pick up the pictures the next day. She also informed us that she would gladly retake any pictures that didn't turn out, free of charge. Needless to say, both Mr. Crackers and I were looking forward to seeing the pictures with a combination of curiosity and dread.

When I picked up the pictures the next day, I was pleasantly surprised that 1 of us actually got something that could be submitted to the State Department. However, the other 3 of us would clearly have to sit for re-shoots. My picture was so blurry & I was smiling so hard (almost laughing really - I'm telling you again she was really entertaining to watch) that mine would definitely have to be retaken. The kids' pictures were no better. K's head was tiny & her head was so low that the woman nearly cut off her entire chin. C had a similarly tiny head and his was also way out of focus.

Since I had come alone, I went ahead & had my photo re-done and got to once again witness her in all of her comedic swaying-picture-taking glory. I told her that Mr. Crackers picture looked fine and that I'd return later to check out the latest version of my photo and would probably bring the kids to have their pictures redone at that time. She was very nice & told me to come back anytime and that she would keep taking pictures of us until she had it right. I was starting to think that we perhaps hadn't left enough time to get our passports after all.

I returned a third time to the store (without the tiny headed Cracker children) to see how my second picture turned out. I figured there was no reason to get the kids involved until I knew we could get at least one more good picture out of her. To her credit, it was slightly improved over her first picture, but still kind of blurry - probably from all of the swaying. At this point I decided it was time to cut my losses & find another place to take the pictures. I mean, I am a sucker, but even I have my limits. So I paid for the pictures (yes, even the tiny headed ones of my kids. I didn't want to hurt her feelings. Did I mention how nice she was? Have I mentioned my fear of conflict and my tendency to be a complete sucker? Sorry Mr. Crackers you married a complete and total marshmallow - of course you probably already know this.) and the next day I took the kids to have their pictures taken in the place that had been closed the previous Sunday.

Wow! What a difference - they had a special camera just for taking passport photos. It was awesome and best of all the pictures were clear and in complete focus. My kids had normal sized heads and K even had a chin! The only downside was that the woman who took our pictures lacked the pizazz of our previous photographer. She was able to hold one eye closed without the use of her hand and there was no swaying. She stood absolutely and completely still - where is the fun in that?

But you know what, I have to say, she was sure was nice too!

Happy Thanksgiving

Since we are only 2 days away from Thanksgiving & I have 15 people coming over from dinner, this will be the last anyone hears from me for awhile. I have a house to clean and lots and lots of food to prepare, so my days of hanging out on my computer are coming to an end for awhile.



If you are still getting everything ready to go and need some Thanksgiving ideas, I recommend you check out this website. I love the Pioneer Woman & everything she cooks (& her stories, & her photography & everything else she does). Some of her lip smacking recipes will be finding their way onto our table this year.



I wish you all a Happy Thanksgiving. I hope that you enjoy the time you have with whatever family or friends you have assembled around you. I know it gets said a lot this time of year, but let us not forget to be thankful for all the wonderful blessings we have around us.



In closing, I thought I'd share A Pilgrim Story, written by my very own son C Crackers. This is his first novel & I being the proud Momma that I am, thought I'd share it with you:

Native Americans lived all over.

Pilgrims left England. The king was mean.

(so true...)

The Mayflower sailed for 106 days.

(at least that is what I think it says here)

They landed on Plymouth Rock.

Native Americans watched the Pilgrims.

(Somehow, I don't think they were quite this happy about seeing the pilgrims, but it makes for a nicer story this way)

Many Pilgrims died.

Squanto and Samoset came to visit.

The harvest was good!

(Should I be troubled by his use of the exclamation point at such a early age? See previous post)

A feast was planned.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Now, I'm headed downstairs to try and scrape a blackened layer of soot from the bottom of my oven, so I won't set off the smoke alarm every time I open the door on Thanksgiving day. May your your turkey be juicy, may your gravy be smooth and may you enjoy the smiles and laughter of those around you.

Happy Thanksgiving from all of us at the House of Crackers!