Yo Ho Ho and some Hot Buttered Rum

 I ran into another tiny roadblock with today's celebratory food.  Namely that half of the people in the house couldn't have it.  While Hot Buttered Rum certainly sounded like a yummy cold weather treat to Grant and I, I knew the kiddos wouldn't be able to appreciate it.  So I came up with Plan B!

Some research led me to a couple of recipes for Hot Buttered Rum cookies, but nearly every recipe I came across still contained at least some trace of rum.  And I know, it'd be mostly cooked off by the time it got to Thing 1 and Thing 2, it still just felt a little wrong.  So I kept looking.

And found a great recipe for Hot Buttered Rum Chex Mix!  Mixing it up created wonderful smells through my entire house, which I am assuming would be about the same as if I had made actual hot buttered rum.  But it still felt like something was missing...

Then it dawned on me - you can't have rum without one thing; Pirates!  So Grant checked out a copy of "The Pirates Who Don't Do Anything" (Veggie Tales) for us to truly celebrate the rum filled day.  Right now we're all enjoying the movie with some yummy hot buttered rum chex mix.  What a great evening at the Gatchel's!

Also, it is Kid Inventor's Day.  I wanted to celebrate somehow,  though Noah and Kayla are still a bit young to 'invent' anything on their own.  (Though Noah informed me earlier this afternoon after we talked about inventors that he was one because he had made up his own game - Moster Truck Smash)  So I pulled out a couple of things and set up one of the greatest inventions ever - a catapult!  Complete with marshmallows.  My apologies for the blurry quality of the pictures, we were having a lot of fun flinging marshmallows!

I'm off to enjoy the movie.  Check us out tomorrow to see how I chose to tackle my other hurdle this week - Peking Duck!  Until then...

Ready....  Aim...

 Fire!

 Hot Buttered Rum a la Gatchel's!

 Enthralled by the Pirates

The cutest Hot Buttered Rum eating Pirate I've ever seen ;-)