California Trip

We have had a busy busy 10 days visiting family in California. Joseph did a great job traveling on the plane and the drive to Bakersfield. Shortly after our arrival Matt was put to work doing some manual labor assembling a play structure for his neice and nephew. Joseph had lots of fun playing with his cousins and reading with grandparents. We had some family pictures taken. We don't have them back yet, but I'll post them when we do. We did some geocaching, played games, and ate WAY to much junk food (that is what the holidays are for right??) We head home tomorrow and we are very excited to sleep in our own beds!!
Took tons of pictures. Here are just a few of them.

 

I think we will show this to Joseph's first girlfriend :)



Love Uncle Matthew



TRAINS!!!



Dr. Joseph Divelbiss



Daddy passed his exam with flying colors



Already driving :(



Chloe and Hudson



Reading with Papa



Christmas Morning- Opening Stockings

JJ and Daddy with our new Mickey



Christmas Disaster!



Reading the paper with Papa

Don't have the professional pictures back yet but here are some we took.

Awwww

Feeding a bunch of very aggressive ducks and geese

 


This is Grammy's dancing duck. "If you're happy and you know it clap your hands"

"If you're happy and you know it stomp your feet"



"If you're happy and you know shout horray!"

Fun Times :)

Finals are a stressful time, but we can still have fun! Here is a video of Matt on a break from studying.

Joseph and I have had lots of fun baking this year. I already posted about our Peppermint Bark. Here are some more baking pictures :)

Oreo Truffles.
I didn't get pictures of the creation process, but Joseph loves "smooshing" the Oreos!

Making Cookies- eventually they will be Peppermint Sugar Cookies!

Ready to bake!

Joseph doesn't like to get his hands "dirty" so frosting wasn't for him.
Sprinkling the candy canes was ok though!

Holiday Traditions

One of our favorite holiday traditions is dipping chocolate. We are breaking it up over several nights this year (instead of one massive dipping night). Tonight we made Peppermint Bark. JJ helped me smash the candy canes. He was really excited! Our later dipping adventures are going to include something new... Oreo Truffles :) We will also probably dip pretzels and homemade thin mints :)

Smashing candy canes. For a toy hammer it works really well :)

The final product!

A few have requested the recipe. Its ridiculously easy :)

Ingredients:

-1 1/2 packages of Bakers Milk Chocolate

-2 packages of Bakers White Chocolate

-7 Candy Canes (less if you want a more subtle peppermint)

Directions:

Place wax on a cookie sheet. Melt milk chocolate via double boiler. Pour over wax paper. Don't worry about covering the entire cookie sheet. Put in freezer. Melt white chocolate via double boiler. Put in candy cane pieces. Smashing them with a hammer while they are still in the wrapper is the easiest. I put about 5 candy canes in the chocolate. Pour the white chocolate over the milk chocolate. Spread it to cover all of the milk chocolate as best as you can. Sprinkle more candy cane pieces on top (I do about 2 more candy canes). Put back in the freezer. Once completely solid brake it into pieces and ENJOY!