santa! i know him!

…is what MacKenna can now say if she had the ability to talk!

We took our little peanut to go see Santa Claus Saturday morning.  I am extremely impatient and hate waiting in lines, so I made sure that we avoided the Mall Santa Claus and opted to go see a cute Santa at the local music store.  We walked right in, gave them all our information, and plopped our little girl down on his lap.

She did so good!  Of course, I doubt she even realized some big scary man was holding her, but she was awake and didn’t fuss one bit!  She was more interested in looking outside than anything else, but once we got her head turned, we ended up with a pretty good picture.  (The store is supposed to send out their pictures via email later on this week.  They gave us a sneak peek of the one they took and it is SO cute!  Much better than mine!)

Saturday night was our second family progressive dinner.  I can’t say annual because this is only the second we’ve done since Matt + I got married and my brother and his wife moved back to St. Louis 4 years ago.  I hope that we can make it a tradition though because it’s so nice to spend time with family and see each other’s Christmas decorations.

Of course, you-know-who was the life of the party…

We started with appetizers at my brother’s, followed by dinner at my parents’, and dessert at our house.  I decided to try my hand at my own recipe and although it was sinfully rich + delicious, it still needs a bit of tweaking, so no recipe to share.

I’m honestly just thankful it turned out at all.  After 3 failed attempts at making caramel and one failed attempt at making dulce de leche, I wasn’t sure I was going to have a dessert at all!  But luckily, Matt came to the rescue and whipped up a batch of caramel while I cleaned the house.  The caramel was a little too thin + runny, so I’m still working on that.  But, Oreo cookie crust, caramel, and chocolate ganache?  Can’t really go wrong there!

I was hoping my weekend would end with some Fritz’s since Sunday was their last day of the season (WHAAAAAA!), but after putting MacKenna to bed and taste testing some of Matt’s cookies for his cookie exchange at work, I was too full to head the few minutes up the road to bring some home.  Luckily, we stocked up with some quarts this weekend, so I can have me some Fritz’s a little longer…

Do you avoid the crowds at the malls during Christmas?  Any suggestions for how I can curb my frozen custard craving until February when Fritz’s opens back up?