Annalie and I woke up this morning to the sound of rain on the roof. I was awake before Annalie for once, but I stayed in bed where it was warm, listening to the rain. It wasn’t long before Annalie woke up. She immediately hopped out from under the covers to stand on the bed and peer out the window, then turned to me, all excited. “Mom! It’s raining! Can I go outside and play?”

Whaaaat? What do you mean, it’s not everyone’s first impulse to go outside at 8am and play in the rain in their pajamas? This does not compute.

I know some people despise rain. They dread days without sunshine. All I can say is, I sympathize but I don’t really understand. I love rain. I have done for as long as I can remember. Days when I wake up to rain are just about the only days when I’m happy to get up early. When Troy is home he normally lets me sleep in on Saturdays but if it’s a rainy morning he wakes me up, because he knows I won’t want to miss the rain. I’ll go to the kitchen and get myself a cup of coffee and then position myself near a (preferably open) window so I can watch and hear the rain.

Rain is my happy weather. It’s next to impossible for me to be in a bad mood when it’s raining.

Annalie loves rain too. I have many, many photos of her playing in the rain, jumping in puddles, holding an umbrella, even drawing with sidewalk chalk in the rain. Rain is fun! Not to mention the cup of hot chocolate she knows she’ll get when she goes inside.

Rainy days are also good for baking. Today I cranked up some Christmas music and got a whole bunch of my Christmas baking done, which means in the next day or two I’ll be getting a whole bunch of Christmas mailing done. And I only ate a half-dozen or so of the World’s Best Apricot Cookies. Maybe a few more than that.

Unfortunately I had to refrain from eating these pretzel pralines. They’re all going into gift packages soon. I only ate a couple of pieces to make sure they were good. Maybe three or four. You should make some and eat more, though, because they’re quite tasty!

Pretzel Pralines
based on Ideas in Food’s Pretzel Pralines (via Brownie Points)

• 2 cups sugar
• 2 tsp. kosher salt (or half as much table salt)
• 4 Tbsp butter, cut into small pieces
• 1 tsp. vanilla extract
• 6 cups of sourdough pretzel nuggets (or broken-up pieces of sourdough pretzels)

Butter a large cookie sheet well and set it aside on a heatproof surface. (Note: Don’t do what I did and assume that you can just line a pan with waxed paper, because the waxed paper will stick to the bottom of the caramel-coated pretzels and you’ll waste a good 15 minutes peeling all the bits of paper off the candy at the end.)

In a large stockpot, begin melting the butter over medium heat. Combine the salt and sugar, then add to the melting butter. Add the vanilla. Stir constantly, watching carefully, over medium heat with a wooden spoon.

After a couple of minutes, the sugar mixture will begin to melt and the sugar will caramelize. Once the mixture is smooth and no longer grainy, add the pretzels and quickly stir to coat the pieces evenly. If you leave the pot on the heat too long the sugar will burn, but if you remove it from the heat the mixture will quickly harden and it’ll be nearly impossible to stir, as I learned the hard way. So keep it on the burner but work quickly.

Once the pieces are all coated, dump the caramel-covered pretzel pieces out onto the buttered cookie sheet. Using the spoon, quickly spread the pieces out in a single layer. They’ll cool fast. If you want, you could drizzle a little melted dark or white chocolate over the cookie sheet at this point. Then you can break them up into bite-size pieces and package them to give away as gifts.

Or you can keep them all for yourself. I won’t tell.

We got our first Christmas cards today. Two from kc (one for me and one for Annalie, which Annalie loved) and one from Grace. Grace is a member of my parents’ church and has known me since I was younger than Annalie. She is one of those sweet old ladies that every church seems to have. She loves everyone, and everyone loves her. Her personal ministry is sending greeting cards for every occasion. When I went away to college, I got Thanksgiving, Christmas, birthday, and Easter cards from Grace without fail, and I wasn’t the only one. Many members of my parents’ congregation have gotten their share of cards from Grace. She writes a letter in every card, too, with news about her husband, her dog, her great-grandson’s latest visit, the weather.

When Annalie was born, Grace sent a card and a small gift. Every Christmas since then she’s sent a small gift for Annalie—usually a book or a little stuffed animal—and every May she sends a card for Annalie’s birthday too. Whenever we’re at home visiting my parents, I make a point of finding Grace after church to say hello give her a hug, and I send Christmas cards to her and her husband, but that’s about all the contact we have. I feel a little guilty sometimes that I don’t make an effort to reciprocate with more letters, but she really doesn’t expect anything in return. She’s sending cards out of love, not expectation. She’s a wonderful lady.

When I opened the Christmas card from her today, I found two ten-dollar bills tucked inside. Inside the card, she wrote that health troubles have prevented her from shopping much, and would I please use the enclosed money to buy a gift for Annalie from her? I shook my head in affectionate exasperation when I read that. Grace recently had a heart attack, and she’s close to 90 years old. I wouldn’t have expected a card this year, let alone a present! But cards are her thing, and like I said, she’s a wonderful lady who gives because she loves.

I read the card to Annalie, and told her that we could go to Target so she could pick out her present from Grandma Grace. Annalie had a few dollars left from some birthday money, so she put that and the two tens into a little blue drawstring pouch that she wore on her wrist. When we got to Target, there was a Salvation Army bell-ringer outside the store. Annalie loves putting money in the bucket, so I expected her to ask me if she could have a coin. Instead she took the pouch off her wrist and fished out a quarter. She held it up, looked at the bell-ringer, then looked back at me with her eyebrows raised, grinning. I nodded, so she skipped off to put the coin in the bucket. Granted, she doesn’t have a strong grasp on just which coins are worth how much, but it still made me happy that on the way to buy herself a toy she didn’t hesitate to give some of her own money away.

We went to the toy section and Annalie wandered up and down the aisles, oohing and aahing over things, checking the price tags carefully. When she saw the Easy-Bake oven she stopped and said, “This is what I want! Can I get it? I have enough money, don’t I?” She did, just the right amount. Annalie insisted on carrying the large box all the way to the registers and reminded me several times on the way there that she was going to pay for it. On the way home, she regaled me with all the things one can make with an Easy-Bake oven. “You can make cakes, and cookies, and even pretzels!” That last one was news to me.

When Annalie chose an Easy-Bake oven, I had two reactions simultaneously:

1. Grooaaaannn, not one of these things! They don’t make anything but dried-out cakes, and Annalie can bake with me in the real oven anytime she wants! I’d much rather do that with her than supervise her using this thing.
2. Yes!!! I’ll finally get an Easy-Bake Oven!

I always wanted an Easy-Bake oven. My mom had one as a kid and knew how disappointing they were, so she always told me that I would likely be disappointed in it too, and that I was welcome to make a real cake with her anytime I wanted. I knew she was probably right, so I dropped it from my Christmas list. Even so, I always thought those tiny pans and little mixes sure looked like fun.

Once we were at home and had the box open, I read the instructions as Annalie bounced in her seat at the kitchen table, exclaiming over the cool stuff (cake & frosting mix, pans, mini spatulas, etc.) that came with the oven. I knew that it would require a light bulb and I knew we had a container full of those, so I wasn’t worried about it. But it turns out that you can’t use “soft white” bulbs with an Easy Bake oven and those were the only kind we had, those and a billion fluorescent compacts. I couldn’t even steal a bulb from one of our lamps because most of those have fluorescents in them.

We hoppped back in the minivan, bedtime drawing ever nearer, and zipped over to CVS to buy a plain old 100-watt bulb…and we couldn’t find one! Apparently the new thing with light bulbs is to shave a few watts off the usual amount and call it energy-saving. So there were 38-watt bulbs and 71-watt bulbs galore, but no 100-watt bulbs except for one of the “soft white” kind which put me back at square one. I went with a crystal clear 95-watt bulb, figuring it would be close enough. And it was.

Annalie mixed up the cake, spread it in the pan, and put it in the oven. When it came out, she frosted it, added sprinkles, and declared that it was delicious. I guess it would be a good idea to add “Easy Bake mixes” to Annalie’s Christmas wish list!

Photo taken by Heather Sanders

See this girl? You might recognize her as OMSH’s daughter Emelie. She is in the Top 10 for the National Geographic Kids DogEared Blogger contest! She’s hoping to get into the top 3, and she (and her momma!) sure would appreciate your vote before December 10th. On the voting page, look for Emelie, 12, Dizzy in the right sidebar. Vote for Emelie! Thanks!