Wordless Wednesday: Flannel

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Tuesdays With Dorie: Red Velvet Cheesecake

This week's Tuesdays with Dorie recipe was chosen by Anne Strawberry. You can view the entire recipe on Anne's site or buy purchasing the book, Baking: From My Home to Yours by Dorie Greenspan.

Dorie includes an extensive area for playing around with this cheesecake, so I decided to do some playing around of my own and combined Dorie's recipe and this intriguing Red Velvet Cheesecake recipe from RecipeGirl.com to make a beautiful Red Velvet Cheesecake for our Christmas Eve celebration.

The first step was to crush Oreo cookies in the food processor and combine with melted butter to make the chocolate crumb crust! Yum!

Then I pulled out my trusty mixer and made the cheesecake batter. And included 2 full bottles of red food coloring to give it that gorgeous red hue. (Still looks a little pink doesn't it? I was out of food coloring and I wasn't going to go buy more...)
I poured the batter on top of my chocolate crumb crust and prepared to put my springform pan into a water bath to bake.
After the cheesecake was baked I let it setup overnight in the fridge. When I finally released the sides of the pan it looked amazing.
I added a cream cheese frosting -- which you might think would be too much for a cheesecake, but was really amazing! And then cut a few branches off of one of our holly bushes outside to give the cheesecake a festive holiday look.


This cheesecake was very good and something that I would definitely consider making again for a special occasion. I think it would be a pretty cheesecake for Valentine's Day with heart shaped candies sprinkled on top.

And if you can't tell from the picture, Bo was also a big fan!

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Thank Yous

The holiday hustle and bustle at our house is on-going throughout the first of the year, but I'm feeling a sudden need for a return to normalcy. I'm ready to take down the decorations, clean the house, and mail out the Thank Yous. Christmas isn't over until it's all cleaned up, put away, and everyone has been properly thanked.

This time of year has been filled with many, many Thank Yous for the last several years. Last year, my hand about fell off after writing numerous Thank Yous after Bo's birth, followed quickly by Christmas cards, and Christmas Thank Yous. This year, it was Bo's Birthday Thank Yous, followed by Christmas cards, and now Christmas Thank Yous (which reminds me, Mike, have you sent your birthday Thank Yous yet??).


For Bo's birthday, I turned this design into cards and hand wrote notes from Bo in each of them.

For my Christmas Thank Yous, I think I'm going to let Shutterfly do all of the work for me. I'm adding pictures and typing in my personalized Thank You note and letting Shutterfly mail the cards for me (it doesn't cost any more than a stamp!!). Probably not easier than the traditional Thank Yous but definitely more of a keepsake with pictures from Christmas Day. Plus, I can type instead of write, and I type much faster than I could ever dream of writing!

Also, I want to share with you the calendar I made for several family members for Christmas (I couldn't post about it before because several family members read the blog). I was really impressed with the quality of the calendars. If you're looking for a new calendar as we enter the New Year, I highly suggest you make one of your own featuring your favorite people. :)

I know I plug Shutterfly all the time... So I'm sorry for another shameless plug, but I really do love their products! Right now, you can also receive 75 4x6 prints for only $9.99 with the promo code GOPRINT.

If you click below, a portion of your purchase from Shutterfly will go to support Bo's college fund!

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Our Christmas Story in Photos (Part One)

Christmas for our family always lasts at least a week. We celebrated with my family on Christmas Eve and Day and Mike's parents will be here this weekend. Next weekend we're headed north to visit with the rest of Mike's family. So this is definitely Part One of our Christmas celebrations!

Bo plays at my cousin's house on Christmas Eve. We enjoyed good food and opened gifts with my extended family. We got home past Bo's bedtime, but overall he did really well. And yes, his shirt is wet a combination of spilled water and his typical drool! :) This barn was one of Bo's gifts and he loves it!

Despite our good intentions not to buy Bo anything besides his stocking, Santa ended up leaving a few gifts, plus a few things that wouldn't fit in his stocking on the mantle for Bo to find Christmas morning.

Bo is laughing at me as I show him the clothes Santa brought him. I am not sure what was so funny... Maybe Santa isn't suppose to buy clothes?
I'm showing Bo how to open his gift. He did figure it out. :)

Opening a gift. Notice the sheep from his barn in one hand. He was ready to play!

Bo is in awe of his new car track. When we opened this he immediately said "car". We've definitely found our first official word that he can say and understands the meaning! Too cute!

In Bo's stocking, Santa left him his very own remote. He immediately licked it. But it's much better he lick his remote than our real remote downstairs. Drool and working remotes don't seem to go well together.

After Bo opened his stocking, we headed to Grammie's house to open more gifts. In this picture Bo is helping Grammie open a gift. Aww!!

Bo wasn't a fan of sitting still and watching everyone else open gifts. I know you're surprised. :) While Mike was opening a gift I caught this picture of Bo on his rocking horse holding the Santa Shrek that Grammie bought him. Silly boy!

The best present of the day came from Grammie -- Bo's very own car. Numerous laps were completed around Grammie's house. She has her very own race track!

Look at this smile! This is going to be fun when it warms up outside. Grammie has already said she doesn't plan to push him in this for four hours around the house every day. But, you should hear his protests when the car stops moving!! Uh oh!


We ate brunch at Grammie's and then came home so Bo could take a nap. Grammie came over to our house for lunch and then we watched movies in the afternoon and made dinner together. It was a relaxing day. Before dinner, I decided we needed to take a few pictures of the three of us together. One day I'll learn to do this in the morning when we all look better. :) My mom couldn't hold the camera still so these were the only two that didn't turn out blurry. :)

I did manage to get good pictures of each of us individually yesterday. That never happens. Isn't Bo a cutie? :) I'm not biased.

My Mikey. :)

And me.

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