Celebrating Epiphany

Soon after waking on the 6th, Caroline was eager to move our wise men into the nativity. They had traveled from the china cabinet to the radio to the curio cabinet over the course of the 12 days, and Caroline had them take their place in admiration of the Christ Child (note that Caroline has all the nativity figures encircling Jesus, as they are so amazed... even the sheep are about a quarter inch away from his face).

The night before, we made the Gifts of the Magi Bread to have for breakfast the next morning. Well, okay, my husband made the bread after I handed him the recipe while I gave him guidance as I worked on the Epiphany gifts alongside him in the kitchen. I gave him a few alterations: Sucanat instead of sugar, half whole wheat flour instead of all white, and no marishino cherries (have you seen the ingredients on those things???)... and we only made one loaf (half the recipe). It is full of "treasures" (chocolate chips, coconut, mandarin oranges, raisins, almonds) to represent the gifts given to the infant Jesus by the wise men. It turned out very yummy... between the three of us, it was nearly gone by the end of the day!! I will definitely be filing it away as a "do this again" recipe!

I decided kind of last-minute to do three gifts... representing the three gifts given to Jesus by the three wise men. We had only given Caroline three gifts on Christmas anyway, and I made these gifts as things that were more practical anyway. We had been talking about replacing the rocking chair in Caroline's room with a "big girl" chair so we could move the rocker into our bedroom so I'd have a place to sit while nursing Cecilia to sleep in there (ha! she prefers the stand-and-sway-while-nursing method). We found this purple saucer chairat Wal-Mart and thought it would look great in her room! The color goes wel with her bedspread and curtains.

Second, I made Caroline a new "work activity," as we call them (various manipulative-type fine motor activities... I should do a post about them sometime!)... I had not made anew one for her in ages. This one I cannot take credit for - I found it online somewhere. I glued a strip of paint chip to several clothespins. Put together with corresponding paint chips, they make a matching game. The finger work required to open the clothespins is good for fine motor development.

And finally, another homemade gift: a bow storage device. They had been jumbled in a bathroom drawer, and now we have a place to keep them organized. We plan to hang it in the bathroom on the wall.

Caroline and I made a king cake by pouring th batter into a tube pan to make a crown shape. I had planned to make the points of the crown with graham crackers, but somebody had eaten them all! So we made paper points (which Caroline drew "jewels" on) instead.

The recipe we used was for a chocolate pumpkin bundt cake, which was okay, but not incredible, so I won't link to the recipe unless somebody is just dying for it. I baked a bean inside the cake (tradition is that the person who finds the bean - or almond, or tiny baby doll - is "king for the day" and gets to host the Candlemas party). Nobody found the bean that evening... having only three people to eat a bundt cake does have its drawbacks!

Happy Epiphany, everyone!