Chocolate Peppermint Crinkles

I'm trying sooo hard to get caught up on Christmas recipes before Valentine's day rolls around.  It's a little bit hard when your kid is STILL out of school.  Whose idea was THAT?  I mean he only goes to preschool for 4 hours a week but it's sure killing me to have two toddlers home alldayeveryday.  Is this how it feels when your kids are off for summer vacation?  Seriously.  Somebody needs to invent a daycare "holiday camp" where you can send kids when they're off-school and they're supposed to be on "vacation".  And since it would be called "holiday camp" no one would be like: "Wow, you're a lazy butt mom because you don't want your kids home 24/7 to spend quality time with you".  Instead they'd be like: "Awww.  You're so nice to let them do that, I bet your kids love it!"   And secretly you'd be nodding inside thinking about how you're going to be able to vacuum in peace without anybody using the cord as a lasso or chasing after you with the sucker piece while you scream that dead spiders live in there.

It could be a moneymaker!

For best results, this dough should rest in your fridge overnight, so keep that in mind before you make it. The dough can be made up to 4 days in advance. Also- you can omit the peppermint extract if you'd like to make the plain chocolate version of these.

New Year's Pop Rocks Rims

Have you noticed I'm into rims lately?  Mostly because they're so quick and so easy and kids flip for them.  We used Martinelli's with watermelon pop rocks today.  I don't personally care for the carbonated drink WITH the carbonated candy, but the kids are all about it. Next time I'll pair mine with a non-carbonated punch instead.  I like to do my rims deep so the kids get more pop-rockety-goodness, but you can do sophisticated super thin rims if you like.  These can be adapted for all holidays and occasions just by varying the color scheme.

This has been a great year for my family and I'm so pleased to have been able to share some pieces of our lives with you.  Best wishes for a wonderful 2012 to you all!

PS- In case you're wondering if that's a super huge bag of poprocks...  The wine glass is actually super small.  It's the perfect size for our 4 year old who gets to use it at Christmas and New Years so he can feel all sophisticated-like.  I bought it at World Market.