The Holidays Have Come and Gone

I hope everyone had an amazing Christmas! Ours was wonderful and very blessed...but I'm kind of glad it's over. Maybe because of the very warm weather, it just hasn't felt like Christmas this year and it took away from my jolly-ness a little bit.

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas!  The picture is me when I was a little thing.  This picture makes my mom and my older sister happy inside.  They just loved me in the big ole Santa head.  My sister still cracks up about it!

I hope everyone has the most wonderful Christmas ever!  I hope if you were blessed in 2010 that you paid it forward and blessed someone this holiday season.  And remember not all blessings are in monetary form!  I have had an amazing blessed 2010 and I have done my very best to bless others too.

I am so excited about Christmas this year. 

The girls are really excited about Santa coming and I think he is bringing some wonderful things!

The girls made an awesome gift for Tuck this year!  I'll have to wait to tell you what it is because he's a good hubby and reads my blog.

I did more handmade gifts this year, which is what I am good at so I can't wait to give them to their assigned recipients!

Teeter is excited because we hung a stocking this year for the dog and Santa has a few items to fill it with.

It's finally starting to cool off outside after it was a record breaking 85 degrees on Tuesday!

Me and my girls will be making cookies for Santa this evening!

My excitement just continues to increase!

AND!  I'm bummed and excited all in the same breath about this part.

Carolers came to the house last night!!  I was just saying last week how people don't carol these days and I wish they did.  I have never seen carolers going door to door.  I'm bummed about it...because I missed it!  I know!  I was at my company's Christmas dinner and I missed the carolers.  Tuck said the girls were so excited!  They loved every minute of all 4 songs they sang.  Then the carolers gave the girls candy canes.  Teeter Bees was so excited about it when I got home, she was telling me all about it.  "And they gave us something.  It was red and it was white and it was candy!!"

Merry Christmas everyone!

God bless

Gift Ideas

I know Christmas is only a week away, but I wanted to share a gift idea that could be used for any occassion.  My grandmother is a mother of 9.  Yes, 9.  They are all grown and have children of their own.  She has 29 grand children to be exact.  And now the grandchildren have started having children.  So far she has 40 great grandchildren, and there are still 17 grandchildren that haven't started having children or are too young to have children.  It's a big bunch!  So I worked and got all the names together and put together a family tree of her children, grandchildren, and great grandchildren. It is beautiful!  I took it to Michael's craft store and had a custom frame made for it.  It was really stunning, even the ladies working at the store were asking about it.  I gave it to my grandmother, as her Christmas gift, when we went to see her at Thanksgiving.  She really loved it. 

Neighbor Gifts

Last week the family and I had a great time making and handing out Christmas gifts to our neighbors. 

We made lots of tasty treats!

 

Chocolate Peppermint Sandwiches

Fudge

Snowballs, Mexican Wedding Cakes, or Russian Tea Cakes whatever you like to call them

Biscotti

Cherry Almond Cookies

Peanut Clusters

We picked out a bunch of boxes and tins in all different shapes and sizes

We made little tags and put the sames of the treats on the back, so our neighbors would know what they were enjoying!

We filled up the boxes and tins

Tied a little ribbon around them with the tag in place

Loaded up our wagon

Bundled up the babies

And hand delivered treats to our neighbors.  We picked the size of the box or tin based on the size of the family.  The lady next door lives by her self, but the family directly behind us has six daughters.  Different sizes for different families.  It was so much fun!  The girls loved it and the smiles on our neighbors' faces was completely worth it!

Yum

Today we received a catalog in the mail for Allen Brothers, The Great Steakhouse Steaks.
Holy Moly!  I've been drooling over these pictures all day.  This Stuffed Pork Crown Roast particularly caught my eye.  Even the pictures of the raw steaks look so good!  You can see more of these beautiful cuts of meat at http://www.allenbrothers.com/

Pancake Molds

I have really been wanting to get some pancake molds.  I think Teeter Bees would LOVE to see a cow shaped pancake on her breakfast plate!  How much fun are these?  Williams Sonoma, of course, has the most adorable selection.  I did find a few other places online that offer pancake shapers.

Farm Animals

Holiday Shapes

Perfect for Valentine's Day or an Anniversary

Posters About My Girls

I made these for my girls.  I want to have them printed on to little 10 x 10 canvases to hang in their new rooms or maybe their bathroom so guests can enjoy.  Bowbas is not really bulbous, but her little round tummy landed her the nickname Colbis Bulbous that turned into Bowbas so bulbous had to be on her poster.

Eye Mask

At night I sleep with an eye mask on.  Nights when I don't sleep with one I seem to wake up a lot, but if I remember to put it on I sleep like a champ! There is no light to effect my rapid eye movement, it's soft, and wonderful!  I am on my second one and it has seen it's better days.  The elastic is starting to get stretched and it's just time to trade 'er in.
I have found these that just look Heavenly! 

Fluffy and Soft!

Reminds me of Spring

Love!

I don't know what it is about this one, but I'm really in love with it!

Every girl loves zebra

Gingerbread House Tradition

This is our 2nd annual gingerbread house decorating mini party with E & Mr. H.  The girls of course love it!  Last year I bought, at Michael's Craft Store, cookie cutters for gingerbread houses.  One cutter is the roof pieces, one cutter is the wall pieces, and one cutter is the front and back pieces.  They were adorable and turned out great, but they were so large that I had to do a batch of gingerbread for each house!  It was too much.  So this year I made one batch of gingerbread.  I found a template online of the house I liked and printed it out.  Then using my copier, I reduced the size of the template.  They were perfect! 
I added a fun little touch too!  I used the wrong side of a piping tip and cut one circle dormer window out of each house.  Then I crushed up an over sized green jolly rancher candy, put it in the cut out and baked the cookies again, until the candy was compeltely melted.  The kids loved it!  Suggestion:  If you want to make the jolly rancher windows.  I lined my cookie sheet with parchment paper so the melted candy wouldn't stick to or ruin my cookie sheet.  I was able to peel the paper right off.