2011 was a big year for our family with the addition of Zelda in September.  After an initial trip to Dallas in August to meet our birth mom and test whether we could survive the Texas heat, we headed south again over Labor Day weekend and then awaited her arrival.  She showed up right on time and we spent the next couple of weeks getting to know each other before we all returned to Alaska as a family of three.

Of course with the addition of a baby, our fall and winter have been filled with firsts for Zelda.  Her first Halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas.  

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Potica is a Slovenian holiday bread and is an annual tradition in the Zaletel family.  It is a sweet yeast bread that is stretched as thin as you dare stretch it, covered with a mixture of walnuts, honey, sugar, sweetened condensed milk and spices, and then rolled into a log, roughly the size of your arm.  After it rests and doubles in size, it is baked for about 45 minutes.  You end up with a tasty horseshoe of sweet treats that always disappears too quickly.  

I mixed things up with the recipe a little bit this year, and allowed the dough to proof in the refrigerator overnight before stretching it out.  The results are promising, though if I manage to plan my time better next year, I'll probably stick with the regular recipe.

After the dough is mixed, it proofs until doubled.

The filling is prepared.

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The dough is stretched thin and covered with the filling.  After the filling is spread all around, the dough is rolled up into a log and placed in a horseshoe shape on the pan.

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After the potica is baked, cut into thin slices and enjoy!

Zelda and I had Auntie Karen over yesterday to make gingerbread houses. The night before I baked the house pieces wanting them to taste good as we plan to dismantle them on Sunday for dessert when Karen and her family are over for Christmas dinner.

As you can see Zelda was in her festive head attire looking cute and ready to decorate.

My house, unfortunately, didn't make it. After some initial excitement that the peices were all together, it collapsed. As Karen commented, it looked like the cabin just south of Girdwood that nature is slowly reclaiming.

Karen's gingerbread house fared better. And as of this morning, it was still standing!! Each of us, including Zach who returned from some final shopping, added some decorations to the lone standing house. I focused on the yard since I'm leary of the structural integrity.

The house will be a great centerpiece for dinner. I think next year I may buy the pre-assembled houses to ensure that they'll stand and stick to eating my gingerbread through cookies, which we made too with the leftover dough. Either way this was a great way to kick off a new Christmas tradition for our family.

Picking out what to wear to Zach's holiday company party. Lil Z had a sitter - thanks Auntie Karen! - so I wanted to dress up. Here were the options. I went with the last one (everything looks better holding baby Z). After all that my closet now resides in a pile on my dresser. Glad to have options, hate to rehang/iron what I didn't wear, but that's something to worry about tomorrow.

We hope that you had a wonderful Thanksgiving holiday, whether you're in the US or located further afield.  Here are pictures from our first Thanksgiving with Zelda.

Zelda awake and smiling and ready for turkey.

Cranberrys with apples in the works.

Zach peeling garlic for potatoes.

The snow on the deck.

The cutest Thanksgiving turkey ever!

And her tail feathers.

Hanging out after we arrived back home from an awesome meal.

Out skiing as a family to burn some of those calories.

Zelda's post ski snooze.

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After a hearty beef & chicken soup that I made today, we headed into the snow with Zelda to go trick or treating.

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We went downtown yesterday for Trick or Treat Street.  Zelda slept through the entire thing, which is her stamp of approval of any almost any activity.  

A quick note about Zelda's costume.  In case you can't tell, she was a strawberry.  Since its always cold and likely snowy for Halloween, the costume for the really little ones either has to be a sleeper pj suit of some sort or its mainly got to be in the hat since the kids have to stay warm.  Since she was going to be in her carrier, we decided to go the hat route, but did have other strawberry embellishments for when she wasn't in the carrier, like a red onesie and tights and berry buttons on her sweater. 

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We decided for our adult Halloween celebration that we'd have a couple of friends over for food and to watch Nosferatu.

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