Our Annual Treat Making Fest

Well, it is that time of year again, Christmas, which means of course celebrating Jesus' birth, his life, and his sacrifice. It also means a time of family, love, and giving; it also means it is time for our annual treat making fest. Every year, we pick a goodie to make for friends and neighbors, and then we as a family load up in the van and go out to deliver the goods. This year things were a little different though; with Rich being the bishop, I knew we would have A LOT more people to add to our delivery list, so I made sure to pick a treat that was easy to quadruple and still tastes good.

To begin, I first gathered all of our ingredients:

For each batch of candy, you need one bag of peanut butter chips, a bag of chocolate chips, a bag of butterscotch chips, and two cans of Spanish peanuts.

Next you need to gather a chef's assistant to help with all of the fun; if no one seems willing, bribing them with full chocolate licking rights always helps! My very willing assistant for tonight was Braden.

Here is the little stud now.

Next, you have your assistant open all three bags and dump them into a micro cooker, or other microwave safe container (while you snap your camera wildly as to insure that not a moment will be forgotten); you then nuke all of the chips for two minutes in the microwave.

After removing the chips from the microwave, stir quickly to mix all the chips into a smooth mixture.

Next, have your assistant pour the two cans of Spanish peanuts into a large bowl.

Once both cans of Spanish peanuts are in the bowl, it is now time to pour all of the melted goodness over the peanuts; then you and your assistant take turns stirring the melted goodness and peanuts, guaranteeing that each peanut is well coated.

Now comes the tedious part, using an awesome Pampered Chef small scoop, or a spoon (not as much fun though), drop candy onto wax paper, and allow to firm up (usually takes about an hour or more, putting them in the fridge speeds up the process). Each batch can yield anywhere from 60 to 70, depending how big you make your scoops.

After Braden and I finished with our first batch, we had three more batches. Luckily, Braden was quite the trooper and stuck by me until the sweet end; it was probably because at the end he and Brooke got to do this:
While they were busy working on their sugar rush, I got the candy ready to deliver.

Once everything was ready, we loaded up in the car to commence delivery, and can I just say how much I love spending time with my family?!!!!! I think the best part for me was traveling in the van with everyone. As I listened to Emma and Braden singing along with O Holy Night, Emma belting out the words she knew (mainly night divine), Brooke in the back pretending to be the little girl on Frosty the Snowman (her imagination never quits these days), and looking at the Christmas lights on the houses we passed, I couldn't help but feel blessed. I also thought about how important it is that we do spend this time together as a family; we are making memories that hopefully the children will always remember, and they are learning to serve others. I sure hope my family knows how much I love and treasure them, and the time we have together!