Christmas & Dulce de Leche

The nice thing about living in a city that has a "small town feel" (but actually is growing rapidly in population) is all the fun "town traditions". This past year our town restored it's historic town square building. So this year instead of having our town's gigantic tree near the railroad depot they put it in the town square. So on November 30th Santa came to town to help light our tree and listen to all the kids wish lists.

I like this shot because of how Santa is looking at James. The kids were excited about telling him what they wanted. In the past few years Madeline has questioned why some Santas look fake. So I told her that since Santa can't make his visits before Christmas to all over, that he has helpers that come and dress up like him. Well after we left this one she said, "This might have been the real Santa mom!"

Here you can see the tree next to the building and light pole in the distance. A lot of people showed up for this event, we waited nearly 1.5 hours in line to see Santa.

On the other corner of the town square is this gigantic lit up sign that counts down the days until Christmas. I love it! Gets everyone so excited.

This past week I tried another recipe I found on Pinterest. Making Dulce de Leche! If you haven't tried this thick,creamy, caramel-like milk-based sauce...you're missing out! The recipe is so simple. Take the label off of a can of sweetened condensed milk, place in a large pot submerged under water (this is important, it must always be fully under water otherwise the change in pressure can make it explode), bring to a boil and simmer for 2 hours. I checked on it about every 30 minutes refilling with a couple cups of water to make sure the level never got too low. Once done remove from heat and let it cool. Pop open the lid and this is what you get!

The kids and I used it to dip apple slices in. We also topped it on ice cream 

So good!!!!