April's Homemaking

The Versatile Blogger Award

2012-02-17T12:44:00.000-08:00

Here are the RULES for the Versatile Blogger Award-

1. Add the award to your blog.
2. Thank the blogger who gave it to you.
3. Mention seven random things about yourself. (see below)
4. List the rules.

5. Award to 15 bloggers.
6. Inform each of those 15 by leaving a comment on their blog.

This morning I had a nice surprise in my comments- I have been given the Versatile Blogger Award by Corn in My Coffee Pot - Thank You! :)

Part of the versatile blogger award rules are to list 7 random things about myself, so here goes, here are a few things you might not know about me.
#1- I enjoy my collections- I collect vintage View-Master reels, Kaleidoscopes, and also have a few other toy collections, and a rock and mineral collection.
#2- I enjoy Cryptozoology and learning about Mysterious places and creatures like Big Foot, Loch Ness, Stonehenge, Bermuda Triangle etc. It all started with a tape cassette series my elementary school had, that I would sit and listen too, with big chunky headphones, during rainy day free time in the library. I've been hooked since, and have fun watching shows and reading about the subject.
#3- I fell in love with Little House on the Prairie around the fourth grade, and ever since have loved the idea of pioneer living. This translated into my love of simple living, gardening, and crafting. I loved this show so much as a child, if I was naughty, my punishment was to be grounded from that evening's episode, which to me was such a serious punishment, so funny!
#4- I love exploring nature, and living in Oregon is a wonderful state to explore, with its beautiful forests, and awesome coast (which I love to visit immensely), and mountains, lakes, rivers, and high dessert. Such an awesome state! #5- I am a true introvert (Myers- Briggs INFJ ) and love my alone time!
#6- In high school I was obsessed with astronomy, saved up bought my own telescope, and spent a couple summers, star watching every night. Seeing Saturn's rings was amazing! I also joined the Planetary Society and bought my own ticket to a Carl Sagan lecture when I was 16, and was probably one of the youngest ones there, all by my lonesome, downtown, I felt very scholarly. As you can imagine I am also a bit of a sci-fi nut, and have been watching Doctor Who ever since the Tom Baker years and love Star Trek the Next Generation and all that good stuff. Okay, so a little geeky :)
#7- Most important for last- I am a Christian, who loves the Lord with all my heart, attends a small rural church where I have loved teaching Sunday School for the last 15 years, and have been a stay at home wife and mother for the last 17 years.
~Now to pass this award on to 15 other Versatile Bloggers that I enjoy. Here are my picks:
Crafty Moms ShareBending BirchesBig House in the Little WoodsCreating a Family HomeExplore and ExpressHope and ThriftFrontier DreamsGrowing Home BlogHandbook of Nature StudyHappy Whimsical HeartsHarvest Moon By HandLife Through My LensMy Rhythm and Rhyme in Motherhood That British WomanMy Simple Country Living
Fun way to spend the morning. Thanks Again Corn in My Coffee Pot! :)

Four Wonderful Children's Books

2012-02-15T20:19:00.000-08:00

Yesterday was a very nice Valentine's Day, Gary surprised me with a few goodies as well as the Bakepop pan set that I have been eyeing. I look forward to baking up some and blogging my results. He also brought home a beautiful bouquet of red roses over the weekend, which are brightening my kitchen window. We also decided catch a movie together while the kids were at school for a fun Valentine date.

Valentine evening my daughter had her physics project partner over to work along with Gary, on designing their Catapult - they will be having a contest on Friday to see how far everyone can get their catapult or trebuchet to launch. Sarah really loves her physics class and is looking forward to this project.

Spring is definitely around the corner, two bulbs have just blossomed in my front yard, always nice to see the color returning to my garden. A little dwarf iris and a clump of Narcissus.

Today I thought I would share about a four of my favorite children's books. I just love children's literature, and can't visit the bookstore without a stop to the children's section to see what new wonderful stories are out and what old classics I can find. Here I the four I chose to talk about today.

I'll start with my oldest favorite in this group- A Bear Called Paddington by Michael Bond I have loved Paddington Bear stories since I was a child. This story introduces the reader to Paddington Bear, who emigrated to London from Darkest Peru, where he used to live with his Aunt Lucy, but she now lives in a home for retired bears. Paddington has a little tag around his neck that say Please Look After This Bear, and loves to eat Marmalade (so do I). He is found by the Brown family at Paddington station, and they bring him home and name him Paddington after the station where they found him. Paddington is a sweet little bear, but gets into all sorts of troubles and mishaps, making him, in my opinion, all the more endearing.

Paddington stories are wonderful chapter stories for children starting out with chapter books, and also make a great book to read to a younger child for story time. I loved Paddington so much, I decorated my children's nursery in Paddington Bear when they were babies. It would be very fun to have a Paddington Story time, then serve Marmalade on toast.

Here is my Amazon affiliate link for this book.

As I was looking up this book on Amazon just now, I came across another Paddington favorite- when my children were young, we were also fond of the old stop motion Paddington cartoons, we also enjoyed the newer Paddington Cartoon that came out in the late 90's, but no where near as much as the old stop motion series. For years I have been carefully keeping my old VHS copies as I was unable to find the series on DVD. They now have the entire series (56 short episodes!) on DVD for an extremely good price. This is a wonderful cartoon for kids, much slower paced than some of the cartoons out now, which is nice for quieting down time, or if you want a nice sweet children's show for the children or grandchildren to watch. I am looking forward to having this on DVD.

The next book I thought I would review is Hello, Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle written by Betty MacDonald. I first read Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle stories when my children were in grade school, and we all really enjoyed these fun stories that were written in the 1950's. Mrs. Piggle -Wiggle is a kind old woman, who loves and understands children, whenever parents are having a struggle with their children's bad behavior they can call on Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle for a cure. Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle has an old sea chest full of magical cures for children, that was left to her by her husband, a pirate- Cures such as leadership pills, or crybaby tonic, or show off powder. All of these cures have an interesting way of curing the behavior problem. These are fun, read aloud stories, and a nice way to discuss behavior issues as well. Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle stories are great for 1st- 3rd grade story time.

I am a big Elsa Beskow fan, and little by little am attempting to collect all of her books. One of my very favorite stories by Elsa Beskow is Peter's Old House. Peter is a retired sailor who lives in the village. He speaks many languages and welcomes visitors to the village and is able to be a translator for them. He tells the village children stories from his travels around the world, he plays musical instruments, and feeds the sea birds. Peter makes sailing boats and gifts them to village children. He is the village doctor and veterinarian. If anything is broken, the villagers bring the item to Peter who can fix it. Peter was always busy, working very hard. But he was very poor, because no one ever thought of paying Peter. His house was in quite a sad state. One day an inspector came, and told Peter his house was a disgrace, and if he didn't mend it by next week, it would be torn down. Peter had no idea what to do because he had no money to buy the items needed to repair his home. The children of the village wanted to help- so the carpenter's son, the bricklayer's son, the painter's son, the wagon driver's daughters etc. all pitched in along with their parents and other members of the village pitching in work and supplies to fix up Peter's old house. They fixed up the house and had a nice party. The inspector came, ready to pull the house down, and was surprised to find it all fixed up.

This is such a nice story about community effort and working together, I just love it. The illustrations are beautiful and sweet. A wonderful story for any children's library.

Lastly I thought I would talk about The Ox-Cart Man by Donald Hall. I first discovered this Caldecott Medal children book at the pediatrician's office when my children were babies. I just fell in love with this simple, beautifully illustrated book.

The story starts with the Ox-Cart man loading up his wagon with all of the bounty that him and his family have made or grown on the farm all year that was left over. Things like extra wool, a shawl his wife made, mittens his daughter made, candles they made, linen from flax they grew, shingles he split himself, birch brooms his son carved, various produce, goose feathers, maple, honey etc. He loads it all up in his wagon pulled by his ox, and walks with it all the way to town for ten days. He sells all his goods, including the wagon, ox yolk and harness, and even the ox who he kisses goodbye on the nose. He uses some of the money to buy an iron kettle, some new sewing needles for his daughter, a new knife for his son, and two pounds of wintergreen peppermint candies. He then makes the long journey home with his new purchases and left over coins. He returns home to his family who is eager to see him, they have a nice supper cooked in the new kettle, and a candy treat for dessert. Then they all start to work, the daughter sewing, the son whittling, the man stitching a new harness for the young ox in the barn. The story then goes through the other things they make on the farm again in the following year.

Wonderful illustrations of New England style country-side and towns, wonderful description of the farming year. A nice simple story, describing the seasons and cycle of the year, wonderful book to share, just as enjoyable for the adult to read as it is for the child listening. I just love this book.

All of these books would be great additions to a children's book collection and perfect to check out if you spot them in the library!

Hope everyone had a nice Valentine's Day! Any bulbs popping up around your yard yet?

Linking to:

Raising Homemakers, Titus 2sdays, Women Living Well Wednesdays, Domestically Divine Tuesdays (Buttons to these links can also be found on the right side of my blog)

The Country Homemaker

Jane Austen Giveaway Winner

2012-02-13T11:29:00.000-08:00

Just writing a quick post to announce the winner of my Jane Austen Giveaway.

Comment #5 is the lucky winner.

Congratulations Renee!

Thanks to everyone who entered!

Two Valentine's Day Desserts

2012-02-12T19:32:00.000-08:00

This weekend I was busy in the kitchen. My son had his friend over to work on a school project, and they needed a snack, so I went to my easy, go to cookie recipe Big Fat Cookies, but gave the recipe a Valentine twist.

Cherry Chip Chocolate Chip Big Fat Cookies

Ingredients:

1 Cherry Chip Cake Mix
1/2 cup water
2 eggs
A few drops of red food coloring
1/2 bag of chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 375 F.

Mix Cake Mix with 1/2 cup water and two eggs until well combined, then add a few drops of red food coloring to make the cookie a nice pink for Valentine's Day. Drop by large heaping tablespoons onto a parchment lined or greased cookie sheet. Then sprinkle the top with chocolate chips. Bake for 8-10 minutes, until no impression remains after light touch and cookies start to be a very light golden brown on edges. Make about 18 cookies.

I also needed to make a special Valentine snack for my Sunday school class, since I had been busy all day with other cooking, I decided to make a few more batches of these Valentine Big Fat Cookies instead of frosted sugar cookie hearts. They were a big hit with my class, the cookie is a lighter cookie than a traditional chocolate chip cookie, and the kids always love how big they are.

I also had company today for Sunday lunch, and wanted to try out another Valentine dessert. Again I tweaked an old favorite recipe. I took my favorite Pudding Bundt Cake recipe that I learned from my Mother-in-law's Pistachio Bundt Cake, the same one I altered for the Vanilla Rum Pudding Bundt Cake I made for King Cake Day, and this time turned it into a Chocolate Pudding Bundt Cake topped with Chocolate Whipped Topping and Cherry Pie Filling. Very moist and delicious treat.

Chocolate Pudding Bundt Cake with Chocolate Whipped Topping & Cherries

Ingredients for cake:

1 Devils Food Cake Mix
2 boxes Instant Chocolate pudding
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1/2 cup whole milk
1/2 cup water
7 eggs

Mix all ingredients in one bowl, for five minutes on high speed. Bake in a Bundt Pan thoroughly coated in baking pan spray at 350 F. for 45 minutes to an hour, until knife inserted in center comes out clean. Let cake cool for about 5-10 minutes in pan, then invert on cooling rack to cool. (I made mine the night before and covered it loosely with wax paper)

Chocolate Whipped Topping

2 boxes instant chocolate pudding
2 cups whole milk
2- 8 oz. tubs regular cool whip

Mix the pudding with the milk until well combined, then fold in cool whip until combined. Chill in fridge until you are ready to serve cake,chill for at least 15 minutes. ( You can make half a batch if you don't think you will want too much topping, my kids love this fluffy stuff, so I like to be sure and have enough)

To serve- Slice a piece of Chocolate Pudding Bundt Cake, top with a large dollop of Chocolate Whipped Topping, and a large spoonful of canned Cherry Pie filling. I love the cherries with this super moist cake. Very nice Valentine dessert.

I look forward to Valentine's Day on Tuesday, and had a nice pre-Valentine weekend. Hope everyone had a nice weekend.

Linking to:
Monday Barn Hop (see button on right side of blog)

52 Weeks of Fairy Tales Week #6- The Frog Prince

2012-02-10T19:46:00.000-08:00

This week, with Valentine's Day less than a week away, I wanted to do a fairy tale that would be fun for the holiday, so I chose The Frog Prince. I think the Frog Prince is a fun little tale, and I have always been fond of frog princes for Valentine decor. You can see my little frog prince candle holders below.

We have little frogs all through the garden, such cute little creatures. Maybe a prince in disguise?

The Frog Prince

There once was a very beautiful princess. She spent most of her days playing down by the well with her golden ball. One day she was playing with her golden ball, tossing it into the air and catching it, and accidentally the golden ball fell into the well. She peered into the well, but the water was so deep she couldn't even see her golden ball. She became very sad, and began to cry. Just then, out of the water, appeared a frog. The frog asked the princess why she was crying. The princess told the frog how her favorite golden ball had fallen into the well, she asked the frog if he could get it for her. The princess said she would give the frog her ruby ring, but the frog had no use for a ring, she offered the frog her string of pearls, or her crown, and the frog had no interest in either. The frog told the princess that he would go to the bottom of the well and get her golden ball, if she would promise to let the frog sit with her at dinner, let him share her plate and cup, let him sleep on her pillow, and then kiss him good morning. The princess really wanted her golden ball, so she agreed.

The Frog went to the bottom of the well, and brought up the princesses golden ball. The princess was so happy to have her ball she ran off back to the castle, and left the little frog behind. The frog called after her, but she was already too far, and could not hear him. That evening at dinner, the princess was dining with her family, when there was a knock at the door. The little frog asked to be let in, and said that the princess had promised him he could be her dinner guest. The King asked his daughter if it was true, and she said yes, she told the king that she didn't want to have dinner with the frog, and that she thought he was disgusting. The King reminded his daughter that she gave her word to the frog, and that the most precious possession anyone has is his good word. He reminded her that as a princess of the kingdom, keeping her word was very important, so reluctantly the daughter obeyed her father, and let the frog dine with her, and share her plate and cup.

Soon it was time for bed, and the frog reminded the princess of her promise to let him sleep on her pillow, again she was angry, but her father insisted again that she keep her word. So the princess brought the frog to her room. The frog asked the princess to lift him to her pillow, but she became angry, and said she didn't want to let a gross frog sleep on her nice pillow. She became so angry that she threw the frog across the room. The princess felt very bad that she lost her temper, never had she hurt a creature before, she went over to see if the frog was alright, but there he lay on her floor. She lifted the frog, and told him that she was sorry and tried to revive him. She bent down and gave him a little kiss, and all of a sudden the frog turned into a handsome prince! The prince explained to the princess that he had been turned into a frog by an angry fairy, and that only a kiss from a true princess could break the spell. They soon fell in love, and became married, and lived happily ever after.

In the Grimm's version of The Frog Prince, the frog turns into a prince as soon as the princess throws him against the wall, and there is no kiss to break the spell. Also in the Grimm's version of this story, the prince brings the princess to his Kingdom, and his faithful servant Henry, who was so sad that his master had been turned into a frog, had three iron bands put around his heart so his heart would not break. As Henry is bringing home the Prince and his new bride, one by one the bands fall off because he is happy again.

There isn't much back story on Henry or even how the prince came to be turned into a frog, I had never read the Grimm's version of this story, until I was preparing this post. I had only read American adaptations that include the kiss, and no story line for the faithful servant Henry. As a child in the 80's, I enjoyed the Fairy Tale Theater fairy tale show, one of my favorite episodes was The Frog Prince, starring Robin Williams as the Frog Prince.

I had a hard time deciding how I would make the frog prince this week, I couldn't decide between a paper craft, or a sewn doll or needle felt. I decided to try needle felt, and I thought I would try needle felting around a cotton pipe cleaner armature, so I could move his arms and legs.

I decided to take a picture of the wool core wrapped around the pipe cleaner arms and legs. I decided, after promptly breaking a needle, that I am not fond of needle felting over a wire frame, you have to be much more careful while needle felting to not hit the wire.

Here is how he turned out, not quite what I envisioned at the beginning, but sometimes needle felting goes that, and the little fellow is growing on me. He is holding the princesses golden ball.

I gave him little froggy spots on his back as well.

My frog prince will join my growing cast of fairy tale characters on the book case.

I would love to hear what version of this story you are most familiar with, the original Grimm's version or the version with the kiss. Anyone else remember Fairy Tale Theater?

Hope everyone has a great weekend!

There is still time to enter my Jane Austen Giveaway which ends Sunday February 12th at Midnight.

Linking to:
The Magic Onions, Crafty Moms Share, Fun Stuff Fridays, For the Kids Fridays, Creative Friday, Once Upon A Weekend, Beneath the Rowan Tree, Home School After School ( Buttons for these blogs can be found on the right side of my blog)

Evening of Beautiful Music

2012-02-10T00:27:00.000-08:00

Tonight we had a real treat. My daughter, as some of you know, is in her high school's concert choir. This year they had the opportunity to have a song commissioned especially for their choir. The choir, along with the community, as well as some generous local businesses, were able to raise the money to have a wonderful composer named Ola Gjeilo (pronounced Yay- Lo) write them their very own song.

Ola Gjeilo was born in Norway, and moved to New York to study at Juilliard. He is now a full time composer based in New York. A quick search on YouTube and you can hear some of his music. You can read more about him at olagjeilo.com.

Today Ola Gjeilo was able to spend a portion of the day working with the concert choir, and this evening the concert choir got to preform their song for the first time. Ola Gjeilo also played an amazing improvised piano concert. What a talented musician! I was thrilled that Sarah and her choir have had this opportunity. I really enjoyed the beautiful music this evening.

The song he wrote for them is called Sanctuary, and is lovely. The song lyrics are from Psalm 33 in both English and Latin. I believe the song was recorded, and hopefully will eventually be put on Youtube, I look forward to hearing it again, and sharing it with you. Sarah's Choir will be preforming Santuary at their competitions, as well as spring tour.

After the event all the choir got to have their Sanctuary Music signed by Ola Gjeilo, which they all were very excited about. My daughter, who is left-handed was even more pleased when she realized he was signing with his left hand! Her smile says it all.

You can check out some of Ola Gjeilo's music at Amazon or itunes.

Here are my Amazon Affiliate links for some of his albums, if you would like to check them out.

I am downloading this one tonight. :)

Thanks to Ola Gjeilo for flying clear out here to our small town in Oregon clear from New York, and sharing your beautiful music. Thanks to Mr. Friesen, Sarah's choir teacher, for putting this all together, and working so hard with the choir. Thanks to the Molalla Concert Choir and all their beautiful voices! What a wonderful evening!

Valentine Burlap Bunting & Sunday School Craft

2012-02-08T22:23:00.000-08:00

Valentine's Day is just around the corner, so today I thought I would finish the Valentine Burlap Bunting that I have been wanting to make. During the fall I made our Thankful Bunting, during Christmas I made our Joy Banner, each banner/bunting having one word that represented a concept for our family to learn about and focus on during the season.

For Valentine's Week what better word than LOVE!

Love is mentioned throughout the Bible, a quick Google search will give you a multitude of wonderful verses about Love.

When asked what the greatest commandment was -

Jesus replied: " Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: Love your neighbor as yourself. All the Law and Prophets hang on these two commandments." Matthew 22:37-40 (NIV)

I also think the following verse really explains how we are to love, and what love is. I shared this verse in my 17th Anniversary Post this year, and I have also chosen this verse for my Valentine Sunday School lesson this year.

Love is patient, love is kind, It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.
1 Corinthians 13:4-7

Such a rich verse, full of guidance!

For our Sunday School craft, I have printed out the 1 Corinthians 13:4-7 verse, using a playful font, and rotating between pinks and reds, then glued it on a large heart cut from 12 by 12 pink cardstock. I will also bring red hearts for this craft. We will have fun embellishing it with red and pink glitter. Here's how it turned out.

Of course we will also have to have a fun Valentine snack, I am hoping to make giant heart frosted sugar cookies.

I hope everyone is having a nice week!

P.S. There is still time to enter My Jane Austen Giveaway - giveaway ends Sunday February 12th at midnight :)

Linking to:
Teach Me Tuesday, Titus 2sdays, Domestically Divine Tuesdays, Women Living Well, Kids Get Crafty, (see buttons on right side of blog)

The Country Homemaker

Pin'spirational Thursdays

Monday Ramblings and a Jane Austen Giveaway

2012-02-06T13:23:00.000-08:00

We have been having the most beautiful weather for February these last few days ~ Sunshine and spring temperatures.

The garden is showing lots of signs that spring is on the way, the heather is in full bloom, and was covered with busy bees, I was surprised to see them out and about.

I have been eager to see if the new bulbs I planted last fall would come up, and I can see tulips peeking out of the ground.

I am also seeing some grape hyacinth, which are coming up much earlier than normal this year.

I am hoping that the rest of our winter remains mild, since we are getting a lot of early plant growth that I would be sad to see damaged by a late winter cold snap. In Oregon the weather can really go either way. For now though- loving the sunshine.

I had an appointment last Friday that had me about an hour from home, and took the opportunity to visit a Whole Foods Market that was in the area. We do have two grocery stores in our small town, but the selection isn't quite the same, it was really fun getting to see such a nice selection of interesting foods. I felt like a tourist and had to get a few pictures of all the foodie goodness.

The cheese counter was huge!

The bakery was inspiring. :)

We ended up buying a fun little selection of goodies to bring home.

I found the aluminum free baking powder I had been looking for and wanting to try, I bought some Celtic sea salt to add to the spice drawer ( I am looking forward to trying the Hawaiian Black Sea Salt next time), a bag of black lentils, whole milk in a glass bottle to show the kids (turns out it is from a dairy about 15 minutes from here so we are going to call this week and see if they sell it there), and I chose a small wedge of Huntsman cheese ( Layers of Blue Stilton and Double Gloucester) to try, along with crackers, and a selection of mineral waters.

Gary surprised me with a cup of drinking chocolate from their coffee counter and we shared a very yummy double espresso with whipped cream (doppio con panna). So it turned out to be quite a fun little impromptu date, and the drive back home through all the beautiful rural roads was nice with all the sunshine, we had a perfect view of the snow covered mountain (Mt. Hood) and saw a coyote walking though a field (watch out sheep). We were too busy chatting and enjoying the scenery to snap pictures. Very nice day.

Saturday I got a nice start on my Spring Cleaning while my son went to his first Drama Regional competition, which he enjoyed very much. Sunday we had a relaxing day watching the Super Bowl and enjoying homemade nachos. Fun weekend, and I'm looking forward to getting ready for Valentine's Day this week!

Now on to my Jane Austen Giveaway.

I haven't done a book giveaway in a few months, and with Valentine's Day just around the corner I thought it would be fun. I am giving away one new Jane Austen 3 book set, titles included in this set are Pride and Prejudice, Persuasion, and Sense and Sensibility. I have enjoyed many movies over the years that were based on Jane Austen Novels, but have yet to make my way through one of her books, and I am hoping to read one this spring. Any Jane Austen Fans out there have a suggested book to start with?

This Jane Austen Giveaway will start Monday, February 6th, 2012, and end at Midnight (Pacific time) on Sunday February 12th. Winner will be announced Monday, February 13th. Giveaway rules are simple, just leave a comment below, one comment per person. You can see the official rules below for more details. Good Luck!

Here is my Amazon Affiliate Link for this book set.

Official Giveaway Rules:

#1-No purchase necessary. Void where prohibited. Must be 18 years or older to enter. Giveaway open to readers with United States shipping addresses only.

#2- To enter, leave a comment below, one entry per person please. Your entry is your comment, and will be assigned a number based on the order in which it was received. By entering you agree to these official rules.

#3-Winner is chosen by a number generated at random through Random.org. If your prize number matches the number chosen, and you meet giveaway requirements, you win the prize.

#4-Winner must claim prize in 7 days from the day the winner is announced or a new winner will be selected.

#5- Winner may not substitute prize for any other prize or cash, however, if the prize becomes unavailable through reasons beyond my control, April's Homemaking reserves the right to substitute with a prize of equal or greater value.

#6- April's Homemaking reserves the right to cancel, suspend or modify giveaway, if in the opinion of April's Homemaking Blog, any fraud, technical failure, or any other factor affects the integrity of this giveaway.

#7- General Release- By entering this giveaway through this website, you release April's Homemaking Blog and; April :) from any liability whatsoever, and waive any and all causes of action, related to any claims, costs, injuries, losses or damages of any kind arising out of or in connection with the giveaway or delivery, misdelivery or acceptance of any prize (including, without limitation, claims, costs, injuries, losses and damages related to personal injuries, death or damage to or destruction of property, rights of publicity or privacy, defamation or portrayal in a false light, whether intentional or unintentional), whether under a theory of contract, negligence, warranty or other theory.

#8- Winner is responsible for all State, Federal and local taxes associated with receipt of this prize.

Linking to:

Homestead Barn Hop (see buttons on right side of blog)

Tuesday's Giveaway Linkup

On Your Heart Tuesdays

52 Weeks of Fairy Tales Week #5- Rumpelstiltskin

2012-02-03T23:57:00.000-08:00

This week I have chosen the classic Grimm's tale - Rumpelstiltskin.

Rumpelstiltskin is an interesting fairy tale, and like most fairy tales, there are multiple versions. I will include some of the variations in parentheses.

There was once a miller, and in order to impress the king, he boasted that his daughter could spin straw into gold.

The king demanded that this girl be brought to the palace so he could see for himself if she really could spin straw into gold. The miller's daughter was brought to the palace, the king brought her to a room filled with straw, and demanded that she spin all of the straw into gold in one night or she would be sent to the dungeon forever (or executed - in some versions). The poor girl, who of course could not spin the straw into gold, sat amongst all of the straw and wept. Soon, however, a little man, who had heard the girl crying, appeared in the straw filled room and asked why she was crying. The miller's daughter explained that she must spin all of the straw into gold by morning or be sent to the dungeon, and she didn't know what to do. The little man told the girl that he would spin the straw into gold in exchange for a gift. The girl didn't have much, but offered him her necklace, so the little man spun the straw into gold in one night.

The next morning the King came in, and saw that the straw had been spun into gold. The king became greedy, and brought the girl into an even larger room, filled with even more straw. The king again demanded that the girl spin all the straw into gold by morning ,or down to the dungeon she would go. Again, the girl sat in the room, and cried, not knowing what to do. Again, the little man appeared, and offered to spin the straw into gold, in exchange for a gift. The girl gave the little man her ring, and the little man went right to work and spun all of the straw into gold. The next morning the king was pleased to again see a room full of gold.

The Miller's Daughter was brought to a third room, even larger than the last, again filled with straw. The king told her that if she could spin all of the straw into gold by morning, the girl would become queen. If she did not, she would be sent to the dungeon forever. One last time, she sat in the room, surrounded by straw, and began to cry. The little man appeared, and again offered to spin the straw into gold for a gift. The miller's daughter was not a wealthy girl, and she had nothing left to give the little man. She explained to the little man that if she could spin all of the straw to gold she would become queen. The little man then told the girl, that if she would promise him her first born child, that he would spin the straw in to gold. The girl didn't know what else to do, and not really thinking of the consequences, she agreed. So the little man spun the straw into gold.

The next morning the King saw that the room, was filled with gold- so he married the miller's daughter. A year passed, and the miller's daughter, who was now the queen, had a little baby. She loved her little baby very much. One day she was rocking her little baby, when the little man appeared. He reminded the queen of her promise, to give the little man her first born child. The queen begged the little man to not take her child, she promised him all the riches he could want. The little man wanted the child. The queen burst into tears, and the little man gave her one more chance, he told the queen that if she could guess his name in three days, he would not take her baby.

The queen spent the first day guessing all the names she could think of, but none of the names were right. She sent out the servants to find as many unusual names as they could, the second day she guessed again, but still could not guess the little man's name. Again the servants were sent out to search the countryside for any unusual names they could find. Late that evening one of the servants came upon a little house in the woods, in front of the house was a strange little man, dancing and singing around a fire. The servant ducked behind a tree to listen.

The little man sang:

" Today I brew, tomorrow I bake,

And then the little child I will take;

For no one knows my little game

That Rumpelstiltskin in my name! "

The servant went straight back to the queen and told her what he saw. The next day when the little man came to get the baby, the queen pretended to guess a few more names, the little man said no, and demanded the child. The queen then asked "Is your name Rumpelstiltskin?" The little man grew very angry, and demanded to know who told her. Rumpelstiltskin grew so angry he jumped up and down, over and over again, so hard, that broke a hole in the ground and fell right in, never to be see again. ( In other versions, he runs away in a fit of temper, or flies away on a soup ladle, and I will let you read the Grimm's version which has a little darker ending for Rumpelstiltskin.) The Queen and her family live happily ever after.

The scene in this fairy tale that has always stuck with me the most, is Rumpelstiltskin dancing and singing around the fire in the woods. So I decide to make a little Rumpelstiltskin doll and set the scene.

Here is a closer picture of the Rumpelstiltskin doll.

I set the scene with some of wooden trees, and my little gnome home. The fire is made from cut up twigs and some wool roving.

I am hoping to work with some photos of this scene to make a page for the fairy tale scrap book I started with last week tale - 52 Weeks of Fairy Tales Week # 4 ~ The twelve Dancing Princesses .

I also decided to add to my dollhouse miniatures collection, and placed and order for a miniature spinning wheel, which will come in handy, as the spinning wheel is an important part of another Grimm's Tale called The Three Spinners, which I will be sharing next month.

Instructions for making wire wrapped dolls, as well as some of the patterns for their clothing, can be found in Sally Mavor's Book Felt Wee Folk.

(My Amazon Affiliate Link)

I just found out today, that the author of this book, is coming to Portland, OR. in April to show some of her work and talk about her new children's book, I am looking forward to attending. I have enjoyed her creations for years.

Hope everyone has an enjoyable weekend!

Linking to:
For the Kids Friday, Fun Stuff Friday, Magic Onions, Creative Friday, Sharing Saturday, Family Ever After,
Home School After School, Beneath The Rowan Tree
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Groundhog Day 2012

2012-02-02T00:26:00.000-08:00

Happy Groundhog Day! I have enjoyed celebrating Groundhog Day since grade school, I look forward to hearing what the Groundhog predicts. Will it be an early spring? Will I have a bit more winter? You can watch the big event at Gobbler's Knob and see what Punxsutawney Phil predicts at www.groundhog.org .

When the kids where younger we always had fun stories and activities planned for Groundhog Day. My latest favorite Groundhog Day book is Groundhog Day! by Gail Gibbons. I really enjoy Gail Gibbon's books, always full of great information. Her book about Groundhog Day is full of interesting facts about the holiday and its history, as well as facts about groundhogs.

This book is a fun read for both children and adults alike, me and hubby both read through it while it was sitting out today, fun quick way to absorb little facts about Groundhog Day.

Here is my Amazon affiliate link for more info on this book.

Another fun Groundhog Day tradition we have enjoyed for the last few years, is baking a batch of Groundhog frosted sugar cookies. I found a very easy sugar cookie recipe online a few years ago that I enjoy using for our Groundhog cookies - here is the link for The Best Rolled Sugar Cookies recipe. This recipe makes a lot, so I only made a half batch, which still made a little over 3 dozen cookies.

Here they are right out of the oven.

In years past I have piped on frosting, this year I decided on a Maple Glaze with a current for the eye.

The Maple Glaze is very easy- I used about a pound of powdered sugar, and thinned it with a little milk, and flavored with Maple flavoring about 3/4 of a teaspoon and maybe a drop more if needed- I use Mapleine brand , we love maple frosting and glaze. If your glaze is too thin add more powdered sugar, if it is too thick add more milk. Super easy. :)

I found the groundhog cookie cutter at Amazon, here is my affiliate link for this cute little cookie cutter.

In addition to watching the famous Phil's predictions I will also be tuning in to local news to find out what the Oregon Zoo's hedgehog predicts. Whether an early spring or not, I plan on starting Spring cleaning next week, and am looking forward to the upcoming spring holidays.

I would love to hear your customs for this day, anyone live near Phil? Maybe you have your own local weather predicting critter?

Here is a link to my Groundhog Day 2010 post.

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Sweet Treats Thursday

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Hearty Vegetable Soup & Felted River Rocks

2012-01-30T22:45:00.000-08:00

Today I decided to make a hearty vegetable soup for dinner, I hadn't purchased a Rutabaga or Turnip in so long that I thought it would be fun to buy a couple for the soup. This soup is packed with veggies, just the thing to keep everyone healthy as we inch closer to spring.

Here are the ingredients:

Hearty Vegetable Soup

1 bunch celery chopped
1 large or 2 medium onions peeled and chopped
1 package mushrooms coarsely chopped
1-2 turnips chopped
1 rutabaga peeled and chopped
1 bag frozen classic mixed vegetable
1/2 bag frozen crinkle cut carrots
1- 14.5 oz. can diced tomatoes
1 can beans drained and rinsed (I chose Great Northern, just about any would work though)
64 oz. of Vegetable or Beef Broth
Water as needed to cover veggies
Salt, Pepper, Dried Italian Seasonings, Dried Parsley - season to taste
Dash or two of Tabasco if you want a little spice - to taste- a little goes a long way

Put all ingredients in a soup pot, bring to a medium boil, then turn down to simmer, simmer for a couple of hours, check how the veggies are coming along, check seasoning. I like to add seasonings at the beginning middle and end of cooking a soup, checking the flavor of the broth to adjust the seasoning just how we like it. The soup is done when the veggies are all cooked through and tender.

This soup is loaded with veggies!

Serve with sourdough bread, you could also make up some tiny soup noodles like orzo or stelline or even mini alphabet noodles. I prepare my noodles separately and just scoop in a serving to each soup bowl, that way the pasta doesn't get soggy, and you can control the amount that you put in each bowl. I also like to set out Parmesan cheese to sprinkle on the top of the soup.

I also did a fun craft today that I have been wanting to do for quite some time- I wet felted some river rocks. I used Valentine colors so they would be a nice decoration to set out for Valentines Day.

First I got out some river rocks, I bought a big bag from the garden department last summer to use for crafting.

I used thin layers of wool and wrapped around the rock in various directions, like this.

Then I filled a bowl with hot soapy water, dunked the wool wrapped rock in the sudsy water and worked the felt by dunking it in the water and squeezing the water out, until it started to hold its shape, then I used a terry cloth dish rag to rub the wool to help it felt. When the water cooled, I dumped it out and filled it with more hot water and dish soap. The instructions I read said to use water as hot as you can stand for quicker felting, of course with children, the process would be slower in not as hot of water. Here is the link with instructions I found for felting rocks.

After I felt the rocks where to the shape I wanted, and felted enough, I rinsed them out well under running water, and set them out to dry. Tomorrow I will trim away some of the fuzzy bits, I may also try wet felting some of them more, one of the rocks had exposed rock, that I couldn't get worked back into place. I do like the swirls of valentine colors.

Here they are, not quite dry yet, but I wanted to see what they would look like with some of my driftwood.

Overall I enjoyed this project, my hands did smell of wet sheep while I was working on these rocks, but that's okay. The hot soapy water was nice on my hands, and it is a fairly relaxing craft. Next time I would probably make one or two at a time, because I did start to lose patience after the first two. I do prefer the needle felting process more, as the work is more controlled and you can get the colors just where you want them, but for felting over a solid object, wet felting is the only way to go. Surely I will be pulling out my green shades of wool for St. Pat's and making some more wet felted rocks.

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52 Weeks of Fairy Tales Week #4 - The Twelve Dancing Princesses

2012-01-26T21:33:00.000-08:00

For week four of my 52 Weeks of Fairy Tales Series I have chosen another of my childhood favorites- The Twelve Dancing Princesses.

The tale of the Twelve Dancing Princesses is a story about a king who had twelve beautiful daughters. The king had a mystery to solve, every day he had to replace all of his daughter shoes because they were worn through, and the king could not figure out how the shoes were being worn out. The king tried locking his daughters in their room every night, and posting guards at the princesses' door. But, every morning the King would find his daughters' shoes were again worn through.

So the king made a proclamation, anyone who could solve this mystery would marry his choice of the king's daughters and one day inherit the kingdom. Many princes came from far and wide, and none could solve the mystery. One day a soldier was returning from war and saw the king's proclamation, so the soldier decided to make his way to the kingdom and try to solve the mystery. Along the way he met an old women, and because the soldier was friendly to the old woman, she gave the soldier a gift and some advice. The old woman gave the soldier a magic invisibility cloak, and she told the soldier not to eat or drink anything that the princesses offered him. The soldier thanked the old woman and continued to the palace.

When he arrived at the palace he was treated very well, and shown to a room adjoining the princesses' room where he would be able to keep watch. He was given three nights to solve this mystery. That evening one of the princesses brought the soldier a glass of wine mixed with sleeping powder, which is how the princesses had foiled the other men trying to solve the riddle. The soldier remembered the old woman's advice, and thanked the princess for the drink, then dumped it out when she was not looking. He then pretended to fall asleep, but secretly kept watch of what the princesses would do.

When the princesses believed that the soldier was asleep, the oldest princess pressed a carved wooden leaf on the end of her bed, at which time, the bed lifted to reveal a secret stairway. All of the princesses went down the stairs, the soldier, quickly covered himself with his invisibility cloak, and followed the princesses down the stairs. He was in a hurry and accidentally stepped on the youngest princesses gown, tearing the bottom of her dress. She looked back but saw no one, her older sisters told her that her dress must have caught on a nail. Then they all continued on. The stairway led to an underground path, the path went first through a forest of silver trees, the soldier broke off a branch and tucked it in his cloak. The youngest princess heard the snap of the twig, but again could see nothing behind her. Then the path led through a forest of golden trees, again the soldier took a twig. Lastly the path led through a forest with trees that had diamond leaves, again the soldier took a twig. The end of the path came to a lake, upon the lake were twelve boats, each with a prince waiting to row the princesses away to a secret underground castle. The soldier slipped into the boat of the youngest princess, the prince rowing her could not understand why the boat was heavier.

The princesses and princes arrived at the castle, and the soldier followed and watched. The princesses and princes spent the entire evening dancing, until the princesses' shoes were worn through, at which time they made their way back across the lake, and through the forest path, and up the stairs back into their bedroom. The soldier hurried on ahead, and took off his cloak, and went to bed. When the princesses arrived back, they checked the soldier to see if he was still sleeping, and since they saw he was, they thought their secret was still safe.

For the next two nights the soldier again followed the princesses to their evening of dancing, on the last night he brought with him the golden goblet that the youngest princess had been drinking from. The next morning, the king gathered the princesses, and summoned the soldier to see if he had solved the mystery. The princesses were shocked when the soldier said that he had solved the mystery. The soldier explained to the king that the princesses danced through their shoes every evening in an underground castle. The princesses denied this, and the king demanded proof, at which time the soldier brought out the silver twig, golden twig, and diamond twig, as well as the golden goblet. The king believed his claim, and the soldier was given his reward, he chose to marry the youngest princess because she was the kindest, he would also one day inherit the kingdom. The king is very glad to have the mystery solved. They all live happily ever after.

There are of course other variations of this tale, as there are with most of the fairy tales, but this is the version I grew up reading. I love the thought of secret passageways, how fun it would be to have a doorway to an underground kingdom, as a child I loved imagining what the kingdom would look like.

For this week's craft, I decided to do a paper craft, I would love to make 12 dancing princess dolls, but that would take much longer than a week. Because I am very fond of forests, I decided I wanted to do a craft involving the silver, gold and diamond forests. I decided I would make a two page picture, for the beginnings of a fairy tale scrapbook.

Here is how it turned out.

Here it is put into a scrapbook.

I really enjoyed working with paint for this project, I haven't played with paint in quite some time. I made a special trip to the craft store on Sunday, on the way home from church, to pick up some very pretty silver and gold paint, as well as a pack of 12 by 12 black cardstock ( I also found 3 pieces of wonderful fabric that I will have to show in a later post).

I also found this little pack of paper which worked perfectly for the twelve princesses, and I'm sure will come in handy for more fairy tale crafts.

I found a stencil for the princess shape online here, and reduced it down to the size I needed. Then I traced the figure onto different patterns of paper from the above mat stack, I picked out six patterns and cut two princesses from each one. First I traced the princess onto the back of the paper, and used a craft knife to cut them out. After I painted and glittered the silver, and gold forest, and glittered the diamond forest, as well as painting a path, I let the project dry, then glued the princesses along the path.

Making notebooks, scrapbooks, and books is one of my favorite learning tools. I have made notebooks and mini books with my Sunday school class, and when I home schooled my son in the fourth grade, we made a wonderful Space unit notebook and history notebook. Notebooks are a fun way to incorporate art into lessons, and very good for hands on and visual learners. I think it would be wonderful to make a fairy tale notebook with your own art for each story to share with a younger child, and of course it would be wonderful for a child to make their own fairy tale book.

I also made a second project for this story. After Christmas, my sweet husband, who is used to my funny requests, cut up a whole large storage tote full of twigs from our Christmas tree for me to use for various crafts throughout the year. Thanks Gary!

One of the twigs was begging to be turned into a silver branch from the underground silver forest. Perfect storytelling prop for this story, and a very fun and easy craft for any child. It was difficult to capture the silver twig in this photo, I first painted the twig with metallic silver paint, after the paint dried, I painted on a thin coat of clear glue and applied some fine silver glitter. The twig turned out very pretty, and is currently adorning one of my side tables.

If you would like to read more of the story of The Twelve Dancing Princesses, there are various versions of this story online that you can find through a quick search. I also have included a link to the story at Amazon below.

Here is my affiliate link to The Twelve Dancing Princesses story book.

Also last week I found a wonderful deal on all twelve of Andrew Lang's Fairy Tale Books, I do not have a kindle or e-reader, and have hesitated buying one because I love paper books so much, then I found out you could download a kindle reader for free to your computer. I thought that that would be a good idea because a lot of older books are free or around a dollar. Then I saw all 12 of Andrew Lang's Fairy Tale books in e-book format for under a dollar, so I downloaded the kindle to my PC and bought the book. I was pleased how easy it is to navigate, very handy for reading a multitude of fairy tales. I still hope to collect the whole set of his books, I currently only have the Blue fairy Book, but for now, this e-book is pretty fun.

Here is my Amazon link for Andrew Lang's e-book.

I am looking forward to the weekend, and am hoping to get started on some Valentine projects, I see a few bulbs starting to break through the ground in the garden, and am getting very eager for spring. Hope everyone has a fun and relaxing weekend.

Here are links to the previous 52 Weeks of Fairy Tales Posts- Week #1, Week #2, Week #3

Linking to:

For the Kids Fridays, Fun Stuff Fridays, Creative Fridays , The Magic Onions, Sharing Saturday,
Family Ever After, After School Party, Beneath The Rowan Tree ( Buttons to these pages can also be found on the right side of my blog)

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"

Beef Stroganoff & Lemon Glazed Pound Cake

2012-01-25T16:15:00.000-08:00

Toady I was in the mood to try a new recipe, I found a very simple recipe called Easy Pound Cake at Cooks.com. I was intrigued because it was a cake recipe that required no baking powder or soda, and very few simple ingredients. The Recipe calls for 5 eggs, when I went into my egg drawer in the fridge, I found only 3- yikes! this baker is never down to three eggs. Anyway, I decided that I would cut the recipe in half, and use my last three eggs to try out the cake.

Here is the halved recipe:
1 cup flour
1 cup sugar
1 stick butter, softened
2 tsp. vanilla extract
3 eggs

I creamed the sugar and butter, mixed in the eggs, then the flour, mixed until well blended, and mixed in vanilla. Then poured the batter into a greased loaf pan. Baked at 350 F. for 35-40 minutes, until knife inserted in the center comes out clean.

Removed from pan, cool for 15 minutes, then I decided to glaze the cake with lemon glaze.

Lemon glaze- Mix 2 Tablespoons of lemon juice with 1 cup powdered sugar. (add a few more drops of lemon juice if glaze needs more thinning.)

This cake is very good, a nice crust, with a rich moist buttery middle, perfect for an afternoon snack.

Beef Stroganoff

Last week we found a good bargain on chuck roasts, I always wait for roasts to come on sale then I buy a couple, One for the freezer, and one to cook right away. Usually I use them to make a delicious pot roast meal- you can read my Pot Roast Dinner Post Here. I had planned on making a pot roast right away with one of the chuck roasts, but different things kept coming up, and I put it off for a couple of days, then the kids were off to youth group, so they wouldn't be here for a big meal, but I knew I had to cook up the roast anyway so it wouldn't spoil.

I decided I would cook up the roast, and turn it into Beef Stroganoff, for the next night when the whole family would be home, and able to enjoy a nice meal.

Here's How I turned an inexpensive Chuck Roast into delicious Beef Stroganoff.

First I browned the roast on all sides, seasoned it with salt and pepper, then I covered the roast with water, and added a chopped onion to the pot, and brought it to a low boil.

While the water was heating up, I cleaned and quartered a package of baby portobello mushrooms, I then added those to the pot roast pot. Once the water reached a low boil I turned the temperature to medium low and let it simmer on a low boil for the evening, about 3 - 4 hours.

Since I was going to turn the pot roast into stroganoff, when it was done cooking, I packed it away, broth, beef, mushrooms, onions and all into the fridge.

The next day, to prepare dinner, I took the meat from the broth, and sliced it into bite size peices, and set the meat aside. Then warned up the broth and mushrooms, and onions. I also started boiling water to cook up a package of wide egg noodles.

To make the sauce for the beef, in another pan, I melted 4 tablespoons of butter, then to the melted butter added 1/3 cup of flour, mix until a paste, and cook on medium high, stirring constantly for about a minute, to that I added the warmed broth/mushroom/onion mixture, and half a cup of milk, and a teaspoon of Worcestershire sauce, and salt and pepper to taste, and stirred until thickened. I then added a rounded half cup of sour cream, and all of the sliced beef. Stir until sour cream is incorporated, and warm on medium heat until beef is warmed through.

In the meantime, finish up the egg noodles, then drain. Serve Beef Stroganoff Mixture on top of noodles. Here is how it turned out.

Very tasty, next time, I would add a little parsley for color, and maybe a dash more Worcestershire sauce. Overall, a wonderful way to cook up inexpensive chuck roast, and a perfect comfort food meal for all this rainy cold weather we have been having.

Linking to:

Farmgirl Friday

Country Homemaker Hop

Chinese New Year

2012-01-23T20:40:00.000-08:00

Gung hay fat choy!

Happy Chinese New Year. The above greeting means "May you prosper." and is a traditional Chinese New Year greeting. When our children were young, we started celebrating the Chinese New Year. Learning about different cultures around the world has always been important to me, and what better way to do that than to enjoy some of the different holidays celebrated by those cultures.

So today we are recognizing the Chinese New Year- this year is the Year of the Dragon. I have been wanting to make a felt dragon since I saw this pattern at Rhythm of the Home. Since the kids and hubby were busy with various activities yesterday, I decided that it would be fun to make this dragon for Chinese New Year. Here's how the dragon turned out.

This dragon took quite some time to make, but he turned out really cute, the kids think he looks pretty great, and we will have to name him.

Every year on the Chinese New Year we have Chinese Food for dinner, some years we have take away, and other years we make something. This year we are having Orange Chicken and Rice with veggies. We also have a silly tradition that started the very first year we celebrated Chinese New Year. I had purchased some really fun Dragon Picks for our celebration, and wanted a dessert to put the dragon on. I couldn't really find a recipe that I could make up quickly, and since it was a busy day that year, I made a pan of brownies, and stuck the dragon pick in the brownies. We have celebrated with a pan of brownies, with a Dragon Pick, every year since. I bought the Dragon Picks in bulk from Oriental Trading Company and still have enough for a few more years. So even though they are in no way traditional, we still look forward to our Chinese New Year Brownies every year. :) Here's our dessert for tonight.

I found this book years ago, that I have used to teach our family Chinese New Year customs. This is a great book, packed full of interesting information and great pictures that would be perfect for teaching young ones about this holiday.

Along the side of the book are red envelopes that are traditionally filled with a money gift for children on the Chinese New Year. Here is the Wikipedia Chinese New Year link with lots of info about this fun and interesting holiday.

Below is my Amazon Affiliate Link for the children's book Celebrating Chinese New Year.

Hopefully everyone has a nice day, and a Happy Chinese New Year!

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52 Weeks of Fairy Tales Week #3 - Thumbelina

2012-01-19T23:56:00.000-08:00

This week I chose the story of Thumbelina for my 52 Weeks of Fairy Tales- Week #3. I was browsing through my children's books, to decide which tale I might read this week, and stumbled upon my Tasha Tudor's Fairy Tales Book. The first story inside was Thumbelina.

My Tasha Tudor's Fairy Tales Book

Thumbelina was written by Hans Christian Anderson, published in Denmark in 1835.

The story of Thumbelina begins with a woman who wanted very much to have a little child. So she seeks the advise of a wise old women, who gives her a barleycorn, and tells her to plant it in a flower pot. The women goes right home, and plants the barleycorn. Within a few days a beautiful flower grew from the seed, the bud was still closed, and the women thought it was so pretty that she gave her flower a kiss. The flower opened up, and inside was a beautiful little girl, no bigger than your thumb. So the little girl was named Thumbelina.

The women made a little walnut shell cradle for her tiny girl, as well as petals for bedding. She gave Thumbelina a plate filled with water, and Thumbelina would sail around it on a leaf, or play among the flowers.

One night a horrible thing happened to Thumbelina- and old mother toad stole Thumbelina from her tiny bed, and brought her to the muddy stream where she lived with her ugly son. Old Mother Toad thought Thumbelina would make a lovely bride for her son. They kept Thumbelina out on a lilypad while they prepared a home for her and her groom to be. Thumbelina was very sad, and the fish took pity on her, so they nibbled away at the stem of the lily pad, and the lily pad and Thumbelina floated downstream. The birds all thought she was very pretty, then a white butterfly let Thumbelina tie her scarf to the butterfly to pull the lily pad along safely. All would have been fine if it wasn't for a June Bug spotting her, and carrying her off into a tree.

The other beetles thought she looked strange though, so the June bug carried her down to a daisy plant, and left her all alone. All summer she stayed there and lived off of the honey in the flowers, and dew from the grass. As autumn came, Thumbelina wandered, now her clothes were rags, at last she found the home of a field mouse. The field mouse welcomed her, and let Thumbelina stay in exchange for housekeeping and stories of the outside world. The mouse introduced Thumbelina to their neighbor Mole, Mole fell in love with Thumbelina, but Thumbelina did not like him. Feildmouse fancied herself a matchmaker though, so she began planning the wedding for Mole and Thumbelina.

One day all three were walking through the tunnels between the mouse home and the mole's home, and came upon a sparrow who had fallen down the hole and become stunned by the cold. Thumbelina took care of the sick sparrow, when spring came she let the sparrow free, the sparrow offered to take Thumbelina with, but Thumbelina didn't want to be rude to field mouse who had taken her in. Soon however, mouse became cross with Thumbelina for not being excited about the wedding she had planned for her and mole. The mouse threatened to bite Thumbelina if she didn't show more gratitude.

The wedding day arrived, and Thumbelina went outside to look at the beautiful sky one last time before she was to be wed to Mole, and live in his dark tunnels. As she was bidding the sun farewell, her friend swallow saw her, and offered to take her to a land that is warm and full of sunshine. Thumbelina decided to go, climbed on the swallows back, and flew with the swallow to a warm country. The swallow set her down in a beautiful garden, she was delighted to see the flowers, and clapped her hands. Then the largest flower opened and inside was a man no larger than Thumbelina, who was very handsome. He wore a crown, and had wings. Then Thumbelina noticed all of the flowers held a tiny person. The tiny man with the crown was king of them all. The king took off his crown and put it on Thumbelina's head, and asked her to be his wife. Thumbelina became Queen, Thumbelina was renamed Queen Maia. Everyone brought her gifts, including a pair of wings, which she attached to her shoulders, and now she too could fly around. Her and her husband lived happily ever after in the sunshine filled country far far away.

I enjoyed this story, and have always loved the idea of little miniature people and lands. Probably one of the reasons I collect miniatures, and enjoy making fairy gardens. As a child I enjoyed making miniature scenery in shoe boxes, and very much enjoyed any miniature type of doll I was given.

So for this weeks craft, I decided to make another doll, since I am on a doll making kick right now. I am enjoying seeing a new little doll added to the bookcase shelf each week. I normally make dolls 3 1/2 inches tall, since Thumbelina is supposed to be the size of a thumb, I used the 1 1/2 inch doll pattern. Here is how she turned out.

I found a perfect flower for her in my silk flower bin. I really want to make her a felt swallow, however, I am still trying to make the best pattern.

I think it would be fun to read this story to a child then let them make their own little Thumbelina world in a shoebox. It would also be fun to look up pictures of mouse and mole tunnels to see what it would have been like for Thumbelina while she was living with mouse underground. Also, I wonder what ever became of her mother, the women who planted the barleycorn and hoped for a child of her own. I would hope that maybe the King and Queen would visit her to say hello, or maybe send a note back with sparrow.

I found this website the other day when I was reading about Thumbelina, and you can read the story here online.

http://www.kids-pages.com/folders/stories/Thumbelina/page1.htm

Here is the link to 52 Weeks of Fairy Tales Week #1 and, 52 Weeks of Fairy Tales Week #2

Here is my Amazon Affiliate link to the book I use to craft my little dolls:

I would also like to note that Mr. Groundhog has taken up residence on the book shelf as well, only a couple of weeks left before he comes out to let us know if we will have six more weeks of winter or an early spring.

We have been having quite some rain around here the last couple of days, check out my post about our visit to Molalla River as it has risen quite significantly.

Hope everyone has a nice weekend!

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For the Kids Fridays, Fun Stuff Fridays, Creative Friday, Friday's Nature Table , Family Ever After , Beneath the Rowan Tree (These buttons can be found on the right side of my blog.)

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Kids Get Crafty

Rising Molalla River

2012-01-19T19:00:00.000-08:00

I was planning on doing my 52 Weeks of Fairy Tales-Week 3 Post this afternoon, but with all of the rising rivers around here, we decided to take a quick trip to the Molalla River to see how high it is getting. The rain has been coming down pretty good the last few days, and with the snow melting, the rivers and streams all around are rising. So we headed over to Feyrer Park, which is about ten minutes outside of town, and right on the Molalla River.

We often visit Feyrer Park during the spring and summer for a nice walk or an impromptu picnic, so we are familiar with what the river normally looks like. We were surprised how high and fast it is today. Here are some of the pictures we took.

The river is level with the grass, normally it is a good five feet down below.

The water is normally not brown like this, and the whole time we were noticing large tree trunks and branches moving down the river at a very fast pace.

I had to get a picture of this tree covered in pretty ferns.

You can see how high the water is compared to the picnic benches, which are usually not right next to the water.

Had to get a few family pictures next to the interesting trees.

I loved this knobby tree, looked like it would start talking in a low deep voice any minute!

We then took a walk to the other side of the park, where a tiny creek winds through the camping area, the creek was much wider and quicker than normal.

I love all of the cedar trees.

Joseph checking out the water.

Gary and Sarah looking up into some cedar trees.

After enjoying the little creek, we walked back over to the river, and got a picture of it's depth under the bridge, so we will be able to compare it this summer.

A few last looks, and the boys skipped a few rocks.

Here is a short video of the river, this gives a little better idea at how quick the river is moving.

On the way home we drove around some of the back roads, and realized that some of the houses and roads were flooding, so we decided to head home. Then Mom called to make sure we were okay, she had no idea we were off exploring, she had heard on the news that the highway had gone out near Molalla, fortunately we were not near there, and the road was shut down before anyone got hurt. I knew the water was high, but I hadn't realized the level of flooding, so my prayers go out to the people who will be dealing with flooding homes, and to all of the workers who will be out fixing bridges and power outages.

Linking to:

Farm Girl Friday Blog Hop

Seed Catalogs Are Here

2012-01-17T17:56:00.000-08:00

One thing I love about mid January is the arrival of all of the seed catalogs. Even though winter is in full swing, and spring planting is still a way off, January and February are great months to plan out my garden. I love pouring through all of the pages, deciding what new flower varieties I might try, and what veggies I will plant.

I love to look at all of the different varieties of plants. So many tomatoes to choose from, I want to try a few heirloom varieties this year, and the Big Pink Tomatoes look like they would be so pretty in the garden.

I try to choose new colors of Zinnias every year, Zinnias are one of my favorite flowers to grow, I love the Queen Red Lime colored Zinnia, that will definitely be on my list.

I also pull out last years garden plan and use it to make a new plan for each year, so I can make sure to rotate my garden beds from year to year to prevent disease and insect problems, and to decide where I want to put different flowers and any other changes I want to make. I like to get a jump start on making my gardening seed list so I can fit it into my budget.

So even though it is snowing and finally wintery around here.

The blossoming Heather reminds me that spring is just around the corner.

Every year I like to plan a few new projects to improve or expand the garden, this year we are putting in some new raised beds to add to the veggie garden, as well as updating the flower and shrub beds. My poor flower and shrub beds have taken quite a beating this year from puppy. I will be adding low fences to some of these beds while I get them repaired and hopefully teach Zoey puppy to behave herself in the garden. She has the most peculiar habit of relieving herself on top of my lavender, yep, she climbs into my lavender bed, climbs upon a lavender plant and does her business. It makes for interesting work cleaning up the yard- apparently she likes her rest room smelling of lavender. Funny, interesting, but annoying, because my lavender bed is the central focal point of my back garden, a little pruning, a couple new plants to fill in damaged area, and a little fence and time ought to bring my lavender bed right back.

Here is one of my lavender plants from last year, before Zoey discovered it as her favorite "spot".

Here is the culprit, enjoying a sunny day in the yard.

It is fun to look back at my summer garden pictures, all of that pretty green!

I have been enjoying the little bit of snow we have had, it is pretty to see the snowflakes falling, we have yet to have anything more than a thin dusting, but it is still very pretty. This morning the snow is mixed with rain, but the kids still got a two hour delay to start school this morning, as many of the students are up at a higher elevation.

With Christmas over, both Sarah and Joseph are preparing for Spring events in school- my daughter Sarah is in the concert choir, and they are preparing for Spring performances. My son is in his first high school play- The Giver- and will be playing the Father. Joseph is spending a lot of time memorizing his lines, and enjoying play practice. I love that they have the opportunity to take part in events like this.

Here are a couple of YouTube videos of my daughter's concert choir group during last spring's competition. They always sing such beautiful songs, I have heard a few of the songs they are learning this year and can't wait to hear them perform.

Both gardening, music and plays remind me of my dear grandma. My grandma is one of the best gardeners around, she even taught her Meals on Wheels delivery volunteer how to grow tomatoes, he now grows a huge supply of tomatoes in many varieties and donates them to people he delivers food to, and he fondly calls my grandma his "tomato guru", which really pleases my grandma. My grandma spent her younger years, back in the 30's and 40's singing and doing plays, she even had her own radio show! Boy would I love to have recordings of that. Along with all of that, she has traveled to Egypt, England, and France- she has such fascinating stories to share.

Here is a picture of my Grandma at the entrance to Karnak in Egypt back in the 1970's.

So that is what I am up to this week, enjoying the winter weather, and planning my spring garden. I am also looking forward to getting out some of my Groundhog's Day and Valentine Day decorations this week.

When do you start planning your garden? Do you have a favorite place to get seeds?

Linking to:
Domestically Divine Tuesdays, Titus 2sdays, Women Living Well Wednesdays - these links can also be found on the side of my blog.

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Mushroom Chowder

2012-01-14T23:11:00.000-08:00

I spent today making a nice big pot of Mushroom Chowder, thinking it would be perfect for a cold day, and in anticipation of some snow. Although we have yet to see a single snowflake, the chowder was delicious.

I love chowders, a few years back I made a point of trying as many different clam chowders as possible. Whenever we went to the coast (Oregon), I would try a different place for clam chowder each lunch and dinner. It is amazing how many different ways this soup can be made. I would love to try East coast chowders one of these days as well. I have also made my own clam chowder in the past. The last couple of years I have been avoiding shellfish, and clams, so no clam chowder. I have been wanting to come up with a substitute, and I had a feeling mushrooms might just be the trick.

Here is how I made my Mushroom Chowder.

Mushroom Chowder

2 packages of Crimini or Mini Portobello Mushrooms
1 package white mushrooms
10-12 peeled and chopped red potatoes
2 medium onions chopped
1 bunch celery chopped
1 cup frozen crinkle cut carrots
1- 32 oz. Chicken broth
1 stick of butter
1/3 cup flour
2 cups whole milk
salt & pepper to taste
Italian seasoning for mushrooms

First, peel and chop the potatoes, onions, and celery, put them in a soup pot also add one cup of frozen crinkle cut carrots, add broth, then add water to bring liquid just to cover veggies, add some salt and pepper to taste. Cook on medium high checking and stirring occasionally, turn to medium once it reaches boiling and keep it at a low boil and covered.

In the meantime, wash and chop mushrooms, in another pot melt half the stick of butter, add mushrooms, and a few dashes of Italian seasoning. Cook the mushrooms for about half and hour or so until they are cooked down a bit.

Here are the mushrooms before they are cooked.

Here are the mushrooms when they have cooked for about half and hour.

When the mushrooms are done, use a slotted spoon to transfer the mushrooms to the soup pot, there will be a nice rich mushroomy liquid left in the bottom of the pan, not a lot, but enough to help make a delicious roux to thicken the chowder, leave the leftover mushroom liquid in the pan used to cook the mushrooms.

Here is what the soup pot will look like after the addition of the mushrooms.

Cover the soup, and let it simmer at medium low, stirring occasionally. Cook the soup until the veggies are thoroughly cooked ( roughly 1 1/2 hours ), then it is time to make a roux to thicken the chowder.

Melt the other half a stick of butter into the pan used to cook the mushrooms, with the reserved mushroom liquid. Add to the melted butter, 1/3 cup flour and whisk the flour into the butter & liquid. This will form a paste, continue cooking this for a good minute or two, whisking so it doesn't burn, over a medium high heat. Then add one cup whole milk, and whisk until combined and thickened, then add the second cup of milk and whisk until combined and thickened. This will make a nice thick gravy like white sauce.

Here is the white sauce. The mushroom liquid gives it a nice color.

Remove white sauce from heat and set aside. Using a potato masher, mash the veggies in the soup pot, just a bit, not a lot, just enough to break up any big chunks of potato and carrot. Then add the white sauce, and stir the soup until the white sauce has been thoroughly incorporated. Check the seasoning in the soup, add more salt and pepper if needed. Continue to let the soup simmer on low, stirring fairly often so it doesn't stick to the bottom. I let the soup cook for about another 40 minutes at this point, just to make sure everything was cooked and incorporated.

To serve, ladle into a bowl, then top with a pat of butter. Serve with a slice or two of french or sourdough bread. The whole family really enjoyed this chowder.

Snow update: Just as I was finishing up this post, I looked out my window, and the snow has started to fall-Woo Hoo! I couldn't get a good picture so I took a two second video. It isn't cold enough to stick yet, but is is nice to see some snow.

Linking to:
Monday Barn Hop, Midweek Fiesta (see links on side of blog)

52 Weeks of Fairy Tales Week #2 - The Brave Little Tailor

2012-01-12T19:47:00.000-08:00

Before I share my second fairy tale post of the year, I thought I would share some wintery pictures from my garden. We still have not had snow here in the valley, but the weather is getting colder and colder, and the last two mornings Jack Frost has been at work. The weather man reports we may have snow this weekend! I would love for it to look a little bit more like winter, at least for a couple of days, it has been feeling a bit too much like Spring for mid January.

The Red Barberry berries look pretty among the frost thorny branches.

The angels on the little birdbath have spiky ice crystal hair, and the glass floats have frozen in place.

All of the leaves have wispy little ice fringe.

I love the way the frost looks on the fence post.

Maybe I'll get to post some snow pictures soon...

I have been enjoying planning out my 52 weeks of Fairy Tales that I will be reading and crafting through this year. Last week was the first week, here is a link to 52 Weeks of Fairy Tales Week #1. This week, since I have been working on hand sewing projects, I thought that the perfect fairy tale for this week would be The Brave Little Tailor.

(Picture from The Book of Classic Fairy Tales by Kincaid)

The Brave Little Tailor is about a young tailor who has a delicious piece of bread with jam waiting for him to snack on after he finishes up some work. Some pesky flies smell the delicious bread and jam, and try to get a taste, but the tailor quickly swats them away, and manages to kill seven of the flies in one blow. He is quite proud of his accomplishment, and quickly sets about sewing a belt with the words "Seven in one blow" embroidered on the front. Feeling confident, the Brave Little Tailor decides to set out and tell the world. He tucks a piece of cheese in his pocket for a snack, and heads out. Along the way he finds a little brown bird trapped in a bush, and removes the bird and tucks the bird in his other pocket.

On his journey, he encounters a giant, the giant assumes the "seven in one blow" is seven men that the tailor killed. The brave tailor is quite confident, so the giant decides to test the tailor. First the giants picks up a large rock and squeezes it so hard that water drips from the rock- then asks the tailor if he can do that. The brave tailor is clever, and pretends to pick up a rock, but instead pulls out his cheese, which he squeezes until it drips water- the giant is impressed, and gives the tailor another test. The giant picks up a stone, and throws it quite far away, again the tailor pretends to pick up a rock, but instead pulls out the little brown bird from his pocket, when he throws the bird it flies away making it look like the tailor was able to throw much further than the giant. So the giant tells the tailor if he is so strong, then he can help him carry a giant tree home, the tailor agrees, and says he will carry the roots, since they are the heaviest part. The giants picks up the tree and the tailor pretends to be carrying the end, but really just jumps up onto the trunk and the giant carries him home, he jumps down before the giant can see, so the giant believes that the tailor has helped with the large tree.

(Picture from The Book of Classic Fairy Tales by Kincaid)

By now, the giant is a little worried about the brave little tailor, if he is that strong, maybe he will endanger the giant? So the giant invites the tailor to stay at his house and meet the giant's brothers. The tailor agrees. That night the tailor goes to sleep in a giant bed, because the bed is so big, he crawls into the corner, which is very fortunate, because the giant and his brothers came in and beat the bed with an iron bar in order to kill the tailor. The giants thought that they had rid themselves of the tailor who killed seven in one blow, but were very frightened the next morning when the tailor came out for breakfast. All of the giants ran away.

(Picture from The Book of Classic Fairy Tales by Kincaid)

Feeling confident, the brave little tailor then enters the royal service in a nearby kingdom. The knights, who also believe "seven in one blow" are men that the tailor has killed, are frightened of the tailor, and ask the king to send him away. The king is concerned this may make the tailor angry, so instead sends him on a quest to rid the kingdom of two troublesome giants, thinking the giants will kill the tailor. The king promises his daughter's hand in marriage to the person who rids the kingdom of these giants. The Tailor again uses his wits, climbs up in a tree above the two giants, who happen to be napping, and drops rocks on one giant, the giant thinks it is the other giant, and tells the other giant to stop throwing things at him, they go back to sleep and the tailor throws rocks at the other giant this time, who wakes up, and gets into a fight with the other giant. The two giants end up fighting each other to death. The king is impressed witht he tailor, but gives him another quest before he gives the tailor his daughter's hand in marriage- the tailor must trap a unicorn. Again the tailor achieves the quest by tricking the unicorn into charging him and getting his horn stuck in a tree trunk. The Tailor is then sent on one more quest- the trap a wild boar. The nimble tailor had the boar chase him right into a chapel, and the tailor jumped out a window, and the boar was trapped inside.

Finally the king agrees to let the tailor marry his daughter. After they are married, the princess hears the tailor talking about being a tailor in his sleep. The next day she asks her father to send him away because he is only a common tailor. By this point the brave little tailor has made good friends with a squire, who overhears the kings plans to bind the tailor, and send him on a ship far away, the squire tells the tailor. So that night the tailor pretends to be asleep, and in his sleep calls out commands to his men and his tailor, making it seem as though he was a powerful leader. The knights who were going to take him away become frightened and leave. No one ever bothers the brave little tailor again, and eventually he became a great king.

This fairy tale is one of the tales collected by the Grimm Brothers, and is also known as The Valiant Tailor.

This was a fairy tale I read often as a child. I used to love that the Brave Little Tailor was so clever. Today I read this tale from the original Grimm's Fairy Tales, as well as a version from my childhood Book of Classic Fairy Tales by Eric and Lucy Kincaid.

Because these tales were originally passed down orally, through story telling, I think it is important to become familiar enough with fairy tales that you could tell a version of the story without a book if needed. When you include Fairy Tales often in your children's story time, they will start to remember them, and be able to tell them back to you, or at least parts. I think this kind of learning is a wonderful exercise for everyone. As I noted in my last Fairy Tale post, most of the Grimm's Stories are online for free, including this story. The Brave little Tailor is included in most Grimm collections, as well as Andrew Lang's Blue Fairy Book.

I had a very fun time making a little Brave Little Tailor Doll this week, along with his "7 in 1 Blow" Belt. This is the first boy doll I have ever made, I am happy how he turned out. Here are a couple of pictures. I am looking forward to sharing this story with my family, as well as bringing both my Rapunzel doll, and My Brave Little Tailor doll when I go visit my young niece and nephew so I can have a story time with them as well.

I am looking forward to the weekend, and the possibility of some snow! Anyone else waiting for some snow, or have you already had snow and are ready for the spring?

Linking to:

Friday's Nature Table,Toys in the Dryer, For the Kids Fridays, Creative Fridays, After School Homeschool, Family Ever After, Crafty Moms Share- you can find the links to these sites on the side of my blog.

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Grocery Savings Tool & A Casserole

2012-01-10T13:26:00.000-08:00

What is this?

Saving money on groceries is one area that can really have a big impact on your monthly budget. Not keeping an eye on grocery purchases can be one of the biggest ways money gets wasted in a home. I cringe when I think back to the first few years of my husband's and my grocery shopping trips. We would go to the store with only a basic list made, and pretty much toss whatever we fancied into the cart. Both my husband and I are pretty expressive, so we would get excited about any new item we saw, and buy all sorts of ingredients with little or no thought as to how we would use up all the groceries before they went bad. Yikes, to think of all the beautiful produce and fresh foods that we wasted, it was cringe worthy!

In our defense, we were young and just excited about stocking our home with good foods for ourselves and our two little ones. It wasn't long before we realized that we needed to do something about the waste, and get a handle on our grocery budget. I started making better lists, and planning out meals. For awhile I tried coupons, and looking for sales. Coupons are okay, but only if you are very organized with them, and only use them to buy things you would normally buy.

All of these things helped, but I would still find myself at the check out, surprised at the total. I am not mathematically gifted in any way, and keeping track of the amount I was spending while shopping with little ones, was difficult. I tried bringing my calculator, but the total would accidentally get cleared, and then I would try my best to re-add the cart to no avail. I did my best and the calculator helped some, but not as much as I would have liked.

Then in 1999, we finally got the internet, and a used computer. I was leery about the whole computer thing, what was this "world wide web" ? So funny to think about that now. What a world of information it opened up, one of my favorite things to do was look up old things from my childhood on eBay. I loved finding pictures of my long lost toys and reminders of old favorite cartoons.

Then one day, while thinking of my grocery shopping conundrum, I remembered a fun little item that we used to bring with us to the grocery store when I was a child in the 1970's and '80's, and that was always for sale right by the check out. A little handheld price tabulator, that had four little clickers on the top, that you could press for the dollars and cents that you were adding to your cart. We had a brown one, and I remember that I loved playing with it while we shopped. Why did they ever stop selling such a useful tool? I searched and searched for one on eBay, but not remembering what they were called, had a very difficult time finding one. One time I found a similar item, but it was not quite right, and was in pretty bad condition.

Then I remembered that when I was in college, and worked at a eye glass manufacturer, we had to keep track of items that we finished and sent through our individual stations on a little tally clicker. I thought, well this would be even more helpful and easy to add things up at the grocery store, just round up to the nearest dollar, and click the tally. Again, not knowing what this item was called, it took me awhile to find one.

Finally I did. They are called Hand Tally Counters, and can be found on eBay for a very low cost. Apparently in addition to keeping track of production at factories, they are used by golfers. This little device has saved me so much money. We have been using our Tally Counter for the last 7 years now, and it is by far, the easiest method for keeping track of your shopping total. Whenever I am going on a shopping trip, I have a well thought out list, backed up by a meal plan, and my handy counter. Every item we add to the cart gets clicked into our counter, sometimes we put the kids in charge of this, now that they are teenagers. It is shocking sometimes, how quick the money adds up, when we see the total nearing our budgeted amount we can make adjustments. If a product is more than we thought, we can make a conscious choice to either buy it and buy less of something else, or substitute it for another item.

I believe that keeping track is the very best way to save money on purchases. We always love to see how close we calculated our purchases.

It is so easy to go over budget when you aren't keeping track of the total. With grocery prices going up every month, it is more important now than ever. I have been grocery shopping for our family for 17 years now, I am pretty familiar with what things should cost, and I have been continually shocked this year while buying regular every day items, at how much the prices have jumped.

Just to give an example of how much not keeping track can cost, we were shopping for Christmas items last month, and had stuck to our budget very well with our handy clicker. We were in a rush towards the end to get back home in time for the kids to arrive home from school, and we just needed a few last things, hubby ran to get a couple items from the back of the store, while I finished shopping at the front. I became enthralled by some silly Christmas themed food items, and carelessly tossed them into the cart without my clicker, thinking, how much could these little things possibly add on. Well about $50 extra dollars is how much, I was shocked at myself, luckily I had been very frugal all the way through the store, but what a silly way to take away the savings I had worked so hard for. Lesson learned, if it is not clicked off on the clicker, it doesn't belong in my cart.

You can find these clickers on eBay, a lot of them are international sellers, I purchased mine from an international seller. Just search HAND TALLY COUNTER - For the most part they are between five and ten dollars and worth every penny and more. I intend to buy a few more of these to give my children when they are ready to start shopping for their own families. One last look at one of my favorite household tools ever!

I also thought I would share a frugal recipe today. One of my favorite frugal meals is the humble casserole. The best ones are often made of leftovers from the fridge. Sunday night we had Taco fixin's and I cooked up more taco seasoned meat than needed, for another meal the next day. Along with left over corn (hubby likes sweet corn on his Tacos), the Taco seasoned hamburger was a wonderful addition to Monday's casserole. Here is the recipe-

Mexican Casserole

3/4 - 1 pound of Taco seasoned browned hamburger (I have also made this with seasoned black beans as well if you want to make this a vegetarian casserole)
1 box of casserole noodles, I used Mini Penne, but any macaroni type noodle would work - Cooked and drained. ( I stock up when they are $1 a box )
left over corn, about half a can
1 can of fire roasted diced tomatoes ( these cost the same as regular diced tomatoes at our grocery store and taste great, regular would work as well)
1 small can sliced black olives
1/2 teaspoon cumin
1 cup Mexican or cheddar jack blend shredded cheese
1/4 cup sour cream

Here is a look at the Fire Roasted Diced Tomatoes

Using the pan the Pasta was cooked in, after the pasta has been drained, put it back in the pot, add the rest of the ingredients and stir until everything is combined. Transfer to a casserole dish sprayed with non stick cooking spray, cover and bake at 350 F. for about 40 minutes or until heated through. This filled my regular sized casserole dish as well as half of a small casserole dish. The family gobbled it up for dinner, and it will make a perfect lunch for Gary and I. Perfect served with a salad and some cornbread, or just by itself for a one dish quick school night dinner.

Thanks for reading this extra long post :) Hope you have a great week!

Linking to:
Monday Barn Hop, Titus 2sdays, Women Living Well Wednesdays, Domestically Divine Tuesdays, Homemaker by Choice, Raising Homemakers, Teach Me Tuesdays, and Midweek Fiesta all of these links can be found on the right side of my blog, so many wonderful ideas are shared at these hops!

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Three Cups - Give Save Spend Review

2012-01-08T17:29:00.000-08:00

Story by Tony Townsley

Written by Mark St. Germain

Illustrated by April Willy

The Three Cups is a nice book to introduce children to basic money management. The concept of breaking money into three groups- give, save, spend is explained nicely. This hardcover book is well made and nicely illustrated with warm colors.

In this story, a boy receives a gift on his fifth birthday. He opens it to find three old cups from the cupboard, with the words, give, save, spend, written on the sides. He is promised that this gift will take him on many adventures. Then he is given his first allowance that will increase in amount as he gets older. His parents help him split the money into the three cups. We are shown examples of him saving to the point of bringing his cup to the bank to open a savings account. He saves enough in his spending cup for a new baseball glove. And he uses the money in his giving cup to by food for a food drive. Then we get a one page synopsis of how he used the cups while growing up, and even took them to college, and then gifted them to his son when he turned five.

I have one issue with this book- The Cups. Using cups, in fact old cups from the cupboard, including one with a crack, is not very practical at all. In reality, I cannot see putting money into cups in a children's room, the money would not be contained very well, and a cup would only hold so much, I think a jar with a lid would have been a much more practical idea. The thought of the money spilling out was distracting me through the whole book, if you were to really put this into practice I think children would find it distracting as well.

As a concept, the book is nice and would work to introduce basic money management to a young child. I would use it in conjunction with another money container though. Perhaps decorating some nice mason jars with lids would be a fun project to go along with this book.

Surely an important concept to teach children, and certainly an important reminder for adults as well.

Here is my Amazon affiliate link for more info on this book.

Disclosure of Material Connection: I received this book free from the publisher through the BookSneeze®.com <http://BookSneeze®.com> book review bloggers program. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255 <http://www.access.gpo.gov/nara/cfr/waisidx_03/16cfr255_03.html> : “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”

Epiphany, King Cake, and 52 Weeks of Fairy Tales - Week #1

2012-01-06T19:31:00.000-08:00

When I was in second year high school French class, our teacher taught us about the French custom of Le Jour Des Rois, and how people in France make a special cake with a bean or Almond hidden within, to celebrate the visit of the 3 Wise Men (Kings, Magi) bringing baby Jesus his gifts. The person who finds the hidden almond or bean in their cake gets to be the King. Being an eager student of many various world customs, I was glad to learn a new one, and went right home to make a special cake for my family. My whole family was glad to participate and we really had fun finding out who was king of the day. I continued celebrating this Day of the Kings, with King cake every year.

Little did I know, until years later, that this day was Epiphany, celebrated in many countries, and in many ways. Here is the Wikipedia link about Epiphany. According to the Wikipedia article, Epiphany is an older holiday than Christmas itself, and is considered an important one in many churches. Having attended Baptist churches, I had never heard of the holiday. This holiday marks the end of the Christmas season, and is a nice quiet little holiday to say farewell to the Christmas season, hear the story of the wise men visiting Jesus, and have a fun King Cake dessert.

I do not make any specific cake, every year I make something different, there are traditional cakes for many countries, as well as the King Cakes made in New Orleans. One year we even let my daughter make the cake in her new Christmas Easy Bake Oven, which made her very happy. This year I am making a Rich Pudding Bundt Cake. Instead of a nut (tree nut allergies), or a bean (yikes on teeth), I ordered years ago from a bakery in New Orleans little plastic Babies that are meant to represent Baby Jesus. I DO NOT bake the plastic Baby into the cake, it might melt, and of course it just doesn't seem right :) , I push it into the cake after it has baked, since my children are older teens, I do not worry about choking, plus we all look for the hidden baby first to find out who is King, we eat the cake only after the item has been found, to be on the safe side.

DON'T give a young child King Cake with a choking sized item hidden within, that would be a dangerous choking hazard. ( I'm sure you knew that, but the Ol' Mother in me just had to say it.)

Here are some of the little plastic King Cake Babies-

I also made a crown out of gold cardstock for the top of the cake.

The cake I am making this year is inspired by a wonderful cake that my Mother-in-law makes- a Pistachio Cake, before I started being more cautious with my Tree Nut allergies, I very much enjoyed this cake. Now I make cakes using the same process, just switching the flavor of pudding. Instead of Pistachio, I have used lemon, this year I am trying Vanilla with a tiny bit of Artificial Rum extract, and I hope to try this with chocolate some time this year as well. Here is the recipe-

Vanilla Rum Pudding Bundt King Cake

1 box Moist Yellow Cake Mix
2 boxes Instant vanilla pudding
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1/2 cup whole milk
1/2 cup water
7 eggs
1 teaspoon rum flavoring

Mix all of the above ingredients in 1 bowl for five minutes on high speed. Bake in a bundt pan coated in cooking spray or shortening at 350 F. for 45 minutes to an hour, until knife inserted in center comes out clean, and cake is starting to pull away from edges. When the cake is done baking, remove from pan and turn out onto a cooling rack.

Vanilla Rum Frosting

2 boxes instant vanilla pudding
2 cups whole milk
2- 8 oz tubs of Cool Whip Topping
1 teaspoon rum flavoring

Mix pudding with milk until combined well, then stir in rum flavoring until combined, then fold in cool whip. Chill in fridge until cake is completely cooled, and chill frosting for at least half an hour to help it set up. Frost when cake is cool, keep cake stored in the refrigerator.

Side note- The above frosting recipe is actually a double batch, I always make this large batch because I think a lot of fluffy frosting looks beautiful, if you need less frosting just cut the above recipe in half.

Here is how our cake turned out-

Our daughter was the lucky finder of the little baby this year, and has been made Queen for the evening, she will pick out any programming we watch as a family, as well as the ability to opt out of whichever chore she prefers.

We read the story of the Wise Men visiting Jesus in the book of Matthew, chapter 2. I also made a new transparency for today, you can see it at the top of the page. Thank goodness I got a picture, just before our King Cake dessert, our young lab Zoey decided to chew up my Wise Men Transparency, guess I'll be making a new one to share during Sunday school :). For instructions on how to make a transparency here is a link to my Winter Transparency Craft Blog Post.

I also like to share a little book I found years ago that tells about the wise men visiting Jesus, and has little samples of Gold, Frankincense, and Myrrh , the book is called Gifts of the Magi. It is fun to look at these items, we all enjoy it, and the kids in my Sunday school class enjoy looking at this book every year. Here is a picture-

I am unsure if this book is still in print, but you can still find copies through Amazon's Marketplace, here is my Affiliate link.

52 Weeks of Fairy Tales

In addition to getting the house back in order, and putting away the rest of the Christmas decorations, I have started a new project for the year. 52 Weeks of Fairy Tales. I grew up reading Fairy Tales, I loved them all, I have read many different versions, of many different tales. Here is the Fairy Tale Book from my childhood, this book remains one of my very favorite books on the bookshelf.

So this year, I intend to read a different Fairy Tale every week, learn a bit of its history, share the story with my family (good lesson in cultural literacy), as well as work on a related craft or activity if possible, and Blog about the Fairy Tale each week. It took me a couple of days to compile my list, I still have 9 open spaces, and I still have a few of my books to go through to pick out the rest. I am sticking with tales mostly from Western History, such as Grimm, Perrault, and Anderson. These were the Fairy Tales I grew up with and want to revisit again.

Week #1 - Rapunzel

Rapunzel, Rapunzel, Let Down Your Hair...

I chose Rapunzel first, because it is the first Fairy Tale in my Book of Classic Fairy Tales, the picture above is the first page of the story, I used to spend quite some time looking at these illustrations, full of such wonderful detail.

In this version of the story Rapunzel has been kept locked in a tall tower since she was 12 years old by an evil witch, this version gives no background as to why. A handsome prince hears Rapunzel singing, and must find the woman behind the beautiful voice, try as he might, he cannot get into the tower. He comes back repeatedly to listen to the singing, and one day sees the old witch call up " Rapunzel, Rapunzel, let down your hair" at which time a long golden braid comes down and the witch uses it to climb up. After the prince sees the Witch leave, he goes to the foot of the tower and calls out "Rapunzel, Rapunzel, let down your hair". He climbs up and sees the beautiful Rapunzel, and vows to rescue her from the tower with a tall silken ladder. He leaves to get a ladder, and the Witch comes back, Rapunzel accidentally makes the comment that the Prince was much lighter than the Witch, and the witch becomes enraged that a prince has found Rapunzel, she cuts Rapunzel's hair and banishes Rapunzel to a far away village. When the Prince returns it is the Witch who lowers the golden braid, and when the prince reaches the top and sees the witch, she releases the braid and the Prince falls and becomes blind. The Prince wanders around, blind and in sadness, one day he comes upon a village where he hears Rapunzel singing, he calls for her, and she comes. When she sees that her prince is blind she cries, her tears fall onto the Princes face, and magically heals his blindness. They live happily ever after... as for the witch, no one knows what became of her, since she dropped the braid, was she able to get down?

Here is the Wikipedia link to Rapunzel you can read a short synopsis of the story here, as well as why the witch took Rapunzel in the first place, as well as its history. Anyone interested in reading this story needs only to search the title, Grimm's fairy Tales are found all over the web for free, it is fun to read different versions.

I also have recorded Tangled, Disney's new movie based on Rapunzel, to my DVR, I always enjoy comparing the original version to the Disney version, plus the kids in my Sunday school class have told me I must see this movie, and were very surprised I hadn't seen it yet. I enjoyed this movie today while I was sewing, and overall it was a nice movie, I enjoyed the singing, and although there were some changes to the original story, which is to be expected, it was a nice story, perfect for my day of sewing.

My activity this week was to make a Rapunzel doll, I had fun embroidering her dress, and braiding her hair. Here's how she turned out-

Now we just need to make her a tower, a witch, and a handsome prince.

I learned how to make this style of doll from Salley Mavor's Felt Wee Folks book, which has great patterns, and instructions, and pictures that will inspire lots of doll making. I really enjoy this book.

Here is my Amazon affiliate link:

I hope everyone has a lovely weekend. Do you celebrate Epiphany with a King Cake or some other tradition? Do you have a favorite Fairy Tale?

Linking to: Toys in the Dryer, For The Kids Fridays, Creative Fridays, Friday's Nature Table, Homemaker by Choice, After School Homeschool and Family Ever After - you can find the links to these sites on the side of my blog.
and-

New Year's Soup

2012-01-03T00:41:00.000-08:00

We are enjoying the last few days of our Christmas vacation with the kids. We had a very nice new year's eve and new years day. For the last few years I have served black eyed peas on New Years Day after learning that it was a new year tradition common in the South. Here is a Wikipedia link if you are interested in learning more about the history of Black Eyed Peas. I love fun customs, and have enjoyed coming up with my own way to serve these to my family on New Years. Last year I went with the traditional black eyed peas with Ham hock and corn bread. This year I decided to incorporate them into a soup.

Here is my recipe for New Years Soup

Ingredients:
Soup broth- I used broth from a beef bone I had from a pot roast, as well as an additional box of beef broth because we love lots of broth in our soups, along with some extra beef, this would also be great with vegetable stock.
2 bags frozen black eyed peas
2 medium yellow onions chopped
1 bunch chopped celery
1 can diced Italian style tomatoes
1/2 bag frozen carrots
1/2 bag frozen chopped broccoli
1/2 a bag of stir fry blend veggies with asparagus, golden carrots, french beans & mushrooms (one of my favorite frozen veggie blends)
Salt, pepper, Italian herb blend, and a few dashes of Tabasco sauce to taste

This soup can be made on the stove or in a crock pot depending on how much time you have. Prepare your broth or used boxed variety, add cooked meat, like roast beef, if desired ( my hubby and kids are not huge bean fans, having a little meat in the soup made them happy), add the chopped onion, and celery, along with the two bags of frozen black eyed peas, and seasonings. Cook until celery and onions are close to being cooked through, then add frozen veggies, if you are using a crock pot pre-steam the veggies so they don't lower the temperature of the soup or it will stop cooking, if you are cooking on the stove adding them frozen is fine. Check seasoning add more if necessary. We don't like a ton of spice, but just a nice zest, a little Tabasco goes a long way, I like to add it a few dashes at a time so I don't end up with too spicy a soup. Cook your soup until all veggies and beans are cooked through.

Here it is just about ready to serve-

This soup is loaded with veggies, which makes me happy, I love frozen veggies, they are so nice to always have on hand. They are quick to prepare with no prep work, they are ready to be cooked when you are ready to cook them, unlike fresh produce, that must be cooked before it goes bad, even if you would rather cook something else. Frozen veggies are especially nice in the winter when the garden is not putting out all of its fresh produce. I always have a nice selection in my freezer ready to go.

I served this soup with both French Bread and Sourdough Bread, I think corn bread would be just as good. We all really enjoyed this soup, I think soup is my family's favorite meal, whenever I have a pot on, no matter what variety I am making, everyone is eager for dinner.

Now that the holidays are nearing their end, I am looking forward to working on many fun projects that are bouncing around in my head. We still have yet to have any major winter weather around here, in fact I was feeding the birds some bread crusts the other day, and noticed that my lettuce patch was growing rather nicely, yikes! I may have to drive up to the mountain ( Mt. Hood ) to see some snow this year.

Does any one else serve black eyed peas on New Years? How do you fix them? Or do you have another traditional New Year meal, I would love to hear :) Hope everyone is having a great week!

Linking to:

New Years Eve

2011-12-31T23:07:00.000-08:00

I am excited to ring in a new year this evening. Every year on New Year's Eve, I like to spend the day getting the house in order, tidying up some of the Christmas messes that still linger, and getting my house nice so I can start the new year off with a tidy home.

I am also packing away some of the Christmas decor, not all of it, but some, so we can make that transition back into our everyday decor. I had to take a picture of the elves in my office, they look like they are marching off somewhere, maybe back to the North Pole? I have been collecting these cast iron elves from CB2.com a Crate and Barrel Company for the last few years, I just love all the new colors they keep bringing out.

Besides tidying, I have cooked up some fun treats for our New Years Celebration.

We are having Bacon Wrapped Dates- I kept seeing these and they looked so yummy, I have sampled a few and they are very tasty. I am keeping it simple, just a plain whole date, wrapped with half a piece of bacon, and baked on a cooling rack set into a baking pan, at 350 F. until bacon is crisp.

We are also having a crescent wrapped baked brie served with apples and grapes and little toasts made from sliced baguette. I found the recipe at Pillsbury's website - Crescent-Wrapped Brie , I took the advice of a comment on the recipe to add a few tablespoons of brown sugar and some little bits of sliced butter along with some dried cranberries to the top of the brie before wrapping it. It is cooling and I can't wait to try it.

New years eve is the perfect time to play some fun family games - we love Apples to Apples and one of my favorite family games Blokus. Apples to Apples is fun for a crowd and gets people laughing, and Blockus is a four player strategy game, very easy to learn and play, I would highly recommend Blokus. We also like to pull out classics like Yahtzee and Clue.

Here are my Amazon affiliate links for these games.

We always keep our eye on the clock, and turn on the TV to watch the ball drop. At the stroke of Midnight we pull out our metal noise clackers, and step out on our patio to make some noise, and listen to everyone in town making all of their noises.

Then we toast the new year with sparkling cider, this year we will be toasting in my favorite green goblets that I thrifted years ago, I love these goblets.

I always enjoy starting a new year! I hope everyone has a wonderful evening, and a very Happy New Year!!

Linking to:

Winter Transparency Craft

2011-12-27T19:08:00.000-08:00

Today was a nice quiet day. After all of the festivities over the last two days, and visiting with all of my family, which I very much enjoyed, this introverted gal needed a peaceful day at home. So after a nice relaxing morning, I decided to work on a craft that I have wanted to try for quite some time- making a paper transparency.

So, I went online and searched for some winter stencil images, and settled on an angel and a snowflake. I printed them out, then gathered my supplies- Black and Dark Blue cardstock, glue sticks, scissors, craft knife, and cutting mat. First I carefully cut out my snowflake. Then, carefully using a glue stick, glued it down to my blue cardstock, like this.

Then I put the paper on top of my cutting mat, and carefully cut it out with my craft knife.

Carefully cut around the entire snowflake, until you can remove the entire snowflake.

Then using glue stick or a thin layer of standard glue, glue down a small sheet of kite paper to cover the snowflake. You could use tissue paper, but the kite paper is stronger, and will be less likely to tear.

Here is what it looks like from the front. Fold the sides of the paper so it can stand, and round off the top of the paper if desired.

Then you can set the transparency in front of a battery operated candle or a lamp. You can also leave it flat and hang it on the window using double stick tape.

I made another one in the shape of an angel with dark yellow kite paper. I love the way these turned out. I can't wait to make more! They look really pretty with the light coming through the lamp in the evening when the lights are low.

I think for a window transparency, I would cut out the image from a stack of two sheets of cardstock, then sandwich the kite paper between, so the image would look nice from both the front and back, I will have to try that project next time.

I found this craft idea in two of my favorite craft books, that I have had since the kids were little. The Christmas Craft Book by Thomas Berger, and the book called All Year Round, full of crafts and activities for the entire year.

Here are my Amazon affiliate links for these books.

I found my kite paper from an eBay store called Hedgehogfarms.

Tonight the weather is cold and rainy, we still have not seen a snowflake yet this season, often we don't get snow in the valley until January. I think an evening of board games and popcorn might be in order. I enjoy spending this extra time with the kids during school break.

Linking to:

Merry Christmas 2011

2011-12-26T01:31:00.000-08:00

Today we enjoyed a very nice Christmas celebration.

We all spent Christmas Eve getting our gifts wrapped, and preparing for Christmas day. This year I kept our gifts simple, and I wanted to reflect that simplicity with simple wrapping. I have always wanted to wrap with Kraft paper, tissue paper, jute, twine and simple ribbons. I love the way our packages looked, and I had fun wrapping them.

I love giving books as gifts, and chose to wrap some of them in white tissue with jute.

For the packages under the tree I used red plaid kraft paper, red snowflake Kraft paper, and brown postal wrap, with jute, twine, red velvet, and a few gold ribbons and bows. I also used these cute little gnome tags that I purchased last year, and was eager to use.

I loved the way the red and brown gifts looked under the tree.

Before the Sarah and Joseph went to bed, we lit the Christmas Nativity pyramid, and enjoyed watching it spin around with the lights turned off, so we could enjoy the candle glow.

Santa left Sarah a basket full of beautiful yarns and some new knitting supplies, and he left Joseph with a tool box with some nice starter tools, work gloves, and a pretty cool Tomahawk Axe. We all had a great time in the morning opening our gifts.

After gifts, we headed off to church and had a nice time saying hi to everyone, and singing ( I still have Go Tell it on the Mountain stuck in my head, I just love that song). Then we went to My hubby's parent's house for the day, and had a nice Christmas lunch and a fun time socializing and playing games. When we came home I made our traditional Christmas dinner of Duck a l'orange with all the trimmings.

We enjoyed our Christmas Dinner while watching Shirley Temple's Heidi. I really enjoy this movie every winter.

Here is my Amazon Affiliate Link for Heidi, such a nice family film.

Tomorrow we will have another day of Christmas festivities, as we head off to my Mother's house, and spend the day with my Mom, my sister and her family, and my Grandma. We will have have fun exchanging gifts, and the kids will have fun seeing some of their cousins.

I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas, and will continue to enjoy more celebrating throughout the week.
December 25th marks the First day of the 12 days of Christmas, so we still have 11 days to go :) Here is a link to Wikipedia's interesting article about the Twelve Days of Christmas.

I will leave you with a little bit of "Go Tell It On The Mountain"

Down in a lowly manger

Our humble Christ was born

And God sent us salvation,

That blessed Christmas morn:

Go, Tell It On The Mountain,

Over the hills and everywhere;

Go, Tell It On The Mountain

That Jesus Christ is born.

Linking to:

Christmas Cookies 2011 - Part 2 - Gingerbread Boys, Sugar Cookies, Cherry Date Balls & More

2011-12-23T02:02:00.000-08:00

Today I finished up baking the majority of my Christmas cookies, I have sent boxes out the door and have a few more to deliver.

I'll start with Cherry Date Balls, a delicious Christmas treat. My mother found this recipe when I was a child and made them every year. Originally they were called Date Nut Balls, because of my tree nut allergies, I have omitted the nuts from this recipe, use butter instead of margarine and I doubled the original recipe (because they are so good you need more) and have renamed them Cherry Date Balls.

Here is the recipe:

1 cup butter
3 cups chopped dates
1 cup drained and chopped maraschino cherries
1 1/2 cups sugar
6 cups Crispy Rice Cereal
(If you are not allergic to tree nuts you could also add 2 cups of chopped pecans as the original recipe included add to the recipe along with the cereal)

Directions:
In a large saucepan, combine butter, dates, cherries and sugar. Cook over medium heat, stirring constantly, until mixture becomes a smooth, soft paste. Remove from heat and mix in crispy rice cereal. Mix Thoroughly.

Portion using a cookie scooper (slightly smaller than an ice cream scooper) or rounded tablespoon onto wax paper or pan spray coated baking sheet. Like below-

Then comes the tricky part, turning them all into nice round balls, while they are still warm without burning your hands- careful sugar gets HOT! I spray cooking spray onto my hands, and a spoon, I scoop up a pile into the spoon and turn it around in the spoon pressing it into a ball shape, that way, if it is too hot the spoon can hold it. For the most part they cool pretty quickly to a temperature that is easy to work with, but you do have to work quickly so they don't cool too much before you get them all shaped into balls. I let them cool on the wax paper completely before packing them in their container.

I put them in mini cupcake papers on the cookie trays, these would also be a real treat to serve at a Christmas buffet.

Every year I make Spritz- these are an easy cookie as long as you have a cookie press. I just use the recipe that came with my Cookie Press that I bought at a Pampered Chef party years ago.

Classic Spritz
1 1/2 cups butter (3 sticks) softened
1 cup sugar
1 egg
1 teaspoon vanilla
3 1/2 cups flour
Color sugar sprinkles

Mix Butter and sugar until creamy, then mix in egg and vanilla, beat well, then mix in flour one cup at a time. Put this soft dough into your cookie press and press the dough onto baking parchment lined cookie sheets, sprinkle with sugar, then bake at 375 F. for about 10 minutes until firm but not brown. I use food color to dye mine pink and green, they add nice color to the cookie trays, and are a nice simple butter cookie.

Next I finally got to my cookie doughs that had been chilling in the fridge. Roll out cookies are the most time consuming cookies, but they are well worth the effort, because they taste so great, and we all have fun frosting them.

For my Christmas Sugar Cookies I use a recipe passed down to me from my mother, these are the same cookies I enjoyed as a child, and a little different than the standard sugar cookie, they are called Soft Sugar Cookies. Here is the recipe:

Soft Sugar Cookies

Mix:
1 cup shortening
2 cups sugar
3 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 cup sour cream

Add to the thoroughly mixed wet ingredients:
5 cups flour, 1 teaspoon salt, 3 teaspoons baking powder, 1/2 teaspoon baking soda.

Mix until thoroughly combined.

Wrap dough in plastic wrap, and refrigerate overnight or at least half a day. I sometimes make mine an entire day in advance.

Then prepare a surface to roll out your cookies with flour, and roll out about 1/8- 1/4 of an inch thick, and cut with your favorite cookie cutters. I bake mine on baking parchment lined cookie sheets at 400 F. for 7-8 minutes until lightly browned on bottom and slightly browned on edges.

Here they are cooling on racks.

When they are all baked and cooled I make up bowls of frosting from powdered sugar a few tablespoons of shortening and milk until it reaches a nice spreading consistency, and divide it into four bowls and dye it with food coloring. Then I set out sprinkles with our bowls of frosting on the table and we all have fun frosting our very yummy sugar cookies.

Our next must have cookies are our Gingerbread cutouts- I love Gingerbread, it is one of my favorite flavors. Again this is a recipe straight from my childhood, passed down from my mother, who, by the way, made these so beautifully, she perfectly crafted her gingerbread people to the delight of our friends and family who received plates of her cookies every Christmas.

Here is our old fashioned Gingerbread Cookies recipe-

1/3 cup shortening
1 cup brown sugar
1 1/2 cup molasses
2/3 cups cold water
6 cups flour
2 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon allspice
1 teaspoon ginger
1 teaspoon cloves
1 teaspoon cinnamon

Mix shortening, sugar & Molasses, stir in water. Blend all dry ingredients, mix into wet ingredients. When thoroughly mixed, wrap dough in plastic and chill overnight. Roll dough out thick (recipe says 1/2 inch, I make mine a little thinner like a tiny thicker than 1/4 inch) on a lightly floured surface. Cut with cookie cutters, place on greased cookie sheet ( I use baking parchment). Bake at 350 F. for about 14 minutes or until no imprint remains when toughed lightly.

Here are my cookies all rolled out and cut ready to bake.

When they are done baking I put them in a container with a few slices of white bread to soften over night- these cookies taste better with age, so if you can leave them for a couple days before frosting, even better, the spices tend to blossom more. I can never wait that long, so I give them overnight, then, I make up an icing, again with powdered sugar (2 lbs), a few tablespoons of shortening, and milk I make this a little thicker than a spreadable icing, then separate it to four different bowls to add food color. Some years I get out frosting tips, but this year, I went the quicker route, and spooned each color of frosting into a gallon sized freezer bag, down into one corner, seal up the bag after getting out the air, then make a tiny tiny snip out of the corner, and it works great to ice cookies, and of course is so easy to clean up. Again, I set out the frosting and gather the family, and have fun decorating out gingerbread cutouts.

One of my hubby's favorite cookies are these lemon bars, so I make a pan every year. I found this recipe from a Pillsbury Cookbook awhile back- here is the link to the recipe at Pillsbury. Sunburst Lemon Bars Recipe. Easy, and very lemony lemon bars with a wonderful buttery crust!

The last cookie I made were Meringues- my kids enjoy these, and they are nice and light. I use the Martha Stewart recipe - here is the link- Martha Stewart Meringue Recipe. The recipe link says a pinch of cream of tartar but the recipe I originally had from a Martha Stewart Magazine says 1/2 teaspoon cream of tartar, I also add vanilla flavoring. I also don't bother with the star tip, although I have in the past, I just put the meringue into a plastic Ziploc bag and cut out the corner and pipe onto baking parchment. I also piped on flat mushroom tops and mushroom stems to make mushrooms for my Buche De Noel Cake. Here are my Meringues.

I had grand plans to make my first rolled cake, Buche De Noel, to have an early Christmas treat and celebrate the first day of Winter. I'm not quite sure what I did wrong, it may be because I used a boxed mix, it may be because I forgot to add one of the eggs to the cake, I found it when I was cleaning up my mixing bowl after the cake was already in the oven. I rolled up the cake to cool in a towel like the directions said, but when I unrolled it to fill it with the wonderful Mocha Chocolate frosting I made, it just fell apart. I attempted to frost it back together, then rolled it up, and transferred it to my serving platter to frost the outside, but me and my daughter, who was watching this crazy experiment of mine, had to start laughing, as I was frosting it it kept flattening and cracking and spreading apart. I frosted it anyway, and it is a very flat and crazy looking log, I still put on my Mushroom meringues which turned out just fine, and dusted it with powdered sugar for snow.

Here is my sad little Buche De Noel, I will have to go back to the drawing board and try again next year, despite its look, it is very tasty.

I will leave you with a picture of my new little ornament I found on eBay, I love this little wooden mini Santa & House Cutout, such a cute little ornament to add to our shelf.

Tomorrow I will spend the day finishing up last minute Christmas Preparations, and watching more Christmas specials with the kids. Wishing you all a wonderful Christmas!!

Here is the link to my Christmas Cookies 2011 - Part 1 Post.

Linking to:

Friday's Nature Table

Creative Friday

Christmas Cookies 2011 - Part 1 - Currants, Pfeffernussen, Spice Pigs & more

2011-12-21T01:42:00.000-08:00

Monday I began my yearly Christmas Cookie baking week. It has been a tradition in my family to bake lots of wonderful Christmas cookies every year. I make some of the same cookies that my mother and grandmother made when I was a child, and I have added in many other favorites over the years as well.

I always start the first day of baking by mixing up any dough that needs refrigerating, like my gingerbread boys, sugar cookies, snowballs, and refrigerator cookies. So Monday that is mostly what I did, but I ended the night by making Pfeffernussen.

When I was a child we used to buy Pfeffernussen at the store every Christmas time. I loved them, so when I saw a recipe for them a few years back I had to add it to my cookie list. I use the recipe from Martha Stewart- here is a link to the recipe on her website - Pfeffernussen Recipe . I did make one change, instead of rolling them in powdered sugar I glazed them. I make snowballs and didn't want two powder covered cookies on my trays, and the kind we bought when I was younger were glazed. After doing a little research I found out that some recipes call for anise extract either in the glaze or in the dough, I may make another batch and add a very tiny smidgen of anise extract to the glaze, because the ones I had as a child had a taste very similar to anise. But I may just leave well enough alone, because they taste wonderful as they are. This is a wonderful spicy cookie.

Here is a picture of my Pfeffernussen half are glazed and half are waiting to be glazed- my glaze was just powdered sugar, water and half a teaspoon of vanilla, I dunked the whole cookie in the bowl of glaze and gently removed it with a fork.

Today I started by baking two of my favorite Currant cookies- every Christmas I stock up on currants!

The first cookie is a Currant Slice and Bake cookie that I found on the back of a Sun Maid Currant box years ago, it has been one of my favorite cookies ever since- and it is sooo easy to make.

Here is the link to the recipe at Sun Maid - Sun Maid Slice and Bake Zante Currant Cookies

Mix 1 cup of softened butter with 1 cup of powdered sugar, 1/2 cup sugar, 1 egg and 2 teaspoons of vanilla, beat until light and fluffy, then add 2 1/4 cups flour, 1/2 teaspoon baking soda, mix well then fold in 1 cup of currants. Shape into two logs, wrap in wax paper or plastic wrap, chill until firm (I leave mine overnight). Then slice into 1/4 inch slices - I bake mine on baking parchment at 350 F. for 10-12 minutes. This makes close to 4 dozen.

Here's what they look like rolled into a log.

Here are the Currant Slice and Bakes fresh out of the oven, this is a wonderful light and tasty cookie!

I also use my currants in this English tea cake recipe that I found in my copy of 1001 Cookie Recipes. I love this cookie book, you can find a cookie for whatever baking ingredients you happen to have on hand.

Here is my Amazon Affiliate link-

This recipe for English Tea Cakes is very simple-
Cream 1 cup shortening with 1 cup sugar, then beat in four eggs one at a time ( I mix mine in all at once), then mix in 1 cup of flour until mixed well then fold in 1 1/2 cups currants. Pour into a greased 9 x 13 inch baking pan. Bake for 25-30 minutes until lightly colored on top. Cool then Sprinkle with powdered sugar and cut into squares or little triangles.

Here is the cake ready to go into the oven.

Here is my English tea cake cut into squares- perfect with a cup of tea!!

Next I tackled a roll out cookie- Finnish Spice Cookie Pigs. I first made Spice Pigs when I saw the idea in a magazine, I lost the recipe and found it a few years back at TLCs website- here is the link- Finnish Spice Cookies . I don't make these every year, some years I just cut out pigs from my standard gingerbread dough, but this spice cookie is different from gingerbread dough, and has a wonderful spice flavor. Here are my pigs cooling on the rack.

Here they are frosted- the recipe calls for Royal icing, but I prefer an icing made from powdered sugar, a few teaspoons of shortening, half teaspoon vanilla, and milk to thin until it is the right consistency. I ice all of my cookies using plastic Ziploc freezer bags, just spoon in the icing, and cut a very small tip in the corner, works great every time, and clean up is a breeze! I love the look of these sweet little pigs, and they taste wonderful!!

I finished out the night with a batch of classic Snow Balls aka- Russian Tea Cakes. This is the recipe I grew up enjoying every Christmas.

Russian Tea Cakes-

1 cup Butter (the original recipe called for margarine- but I prefer Butter)
1/2 cup powdered sugar (plus lots more for rolling cookies in)
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 1/4 cups flour
1/4 teaspoon salt

Mix butter, sugar, vanilla until combined, mix in flour and salt until thoroughly combined. Chill dough. Roll dough in 1 inch balls, I bake mine on baking parchment at 400 F. for about 10 minutes- or until set but not brown. While warm roll in powdered sugar using a spoon because the sugar gets very hot. I like to store mine with extra powdered sugar poured around the cookies, it helps the sugar stay on nicely.

Here are a few of my snow balls, I always make a double batch, because they go quickly. Yum!

I also have a tray of Fantasy Fudge cooling and waiting to be cut into squares- I use the recipe right off the back of the Marshmallow cream, turns out great every time.

Tomorrow I will be back to work, with my Gingerbread cutouts and Sugar cookie cutouts, I also made some Cherry Date Balls that I will be sharing in my cookie post - part two, along with a few more recipes. I hope everyone is enjoying this week with all of the baking, and wrapping, and Christmas preparations.

Linking to:

MidWeek Fiesta

Baby Jesus Paper Craft, Christmas Appetizers & Italian Sodas

2011-12-18T18:37:00.000-08:00

Today was a day full of Christmas fun. I started my morning teaching my Sunday school class. I made a fun Baby Jesus paper craft for our lesson, so I thought I would share it.

I started by drawing a tree shape on a sheet of green construction paper folded in half so I could cut out two trees at a time. I also made two tabs on each side of the tree. Draw a line down the center of the tree, top to bottom.

Then cut the tree in half down the center, like shown. Then fold the tabs under the tree, you will use these tabs to glue the tree down, so it will open up.

For younger children you could make a single tab on one side of the tree, and not cut the tree in half, like the tree on the left.

The idea is to glue the tree down by the tabs, so it opens up revealing the greatest gift- Baby Jesus. Baby Jesus in the manger is made by cutting fringe into a circular piece of yellow construction paper to make hay, glue the hay down to brown construction paper and trim it to leave a 1/4 inch brown boarder around the hay to represent the manger. Then cut out a oval shape for the swaddled Baby Jesus, and a little pink circle for his face, and glue on like shown. Then glue Baby Jesus under the tree.

I also printed out the verse- For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. John 3:16 (NIV) We discussed that Jesus was our greatest gift from God, and the eternal salvation that Jesus offers us.

I also printed out a mini book of the Christmas Story to staple in the front of the book- I will include a link below for the reproducible mini books I use.

We decorated the front of our tree with foil star stickers. Just a side note- foil star stickers and colored circle blank price stickers, the kind that can be found very inexpensively by the office supplies are probably some of my most used supplies, after paper, glue and scissors. Kids love these classic foil star stickers, a very useful item for any Mom or teacher.

Lastly, I printed out the title of our lesson- The Greatest Gift, and glued it down so it would cover the stapled in mini book.

This was a fun lesson, I started out discussing with them gifts in general, and of course, being only a week until Christmas they all got very excited about their Christmas gift wishes, then we discussed that Jesus was our Greatest Gift and then I shared the Christmas story.

Here is my Amazon Affiliate Link for Take Home Bible Stories- they also have it in Old Testament- very great resource!

I also brought in My Medieval Pop Up Nativity Book to share.

The kids enjoy looking inside this pop-up Nativity.

I also brought a Nativity Moving Music Box Picture- You pull a string on the side, and the wise men, shepherds, and angel all move. I found this when my kids were little and bought it for them to enjoy, my Sunday school class enjoyed this as well. Just a fun little novelty to help them remember our story.

After church, I came straight home, and got right to work cooking up appetizers. My children are teenagers, and in our church's youth group. Every Christmas they go shopping together as a youth group to buy gifts for their family, then afterward have a party. This year our Youth Group leaders came up with a great idea to have a "Progressive" Christmas Party, where the youth group would travel to a few different homes throughout the afternoon and evening enjoying Christmas festivities at each home.

So after the youth shopping trip they all arrived here for gift wrapping, appetizers, and Italian Sodas. Here are some of the appetizers I made.

These are bell pepper pinwheels, using red and green bell peppers since it is Christmas time. You can read the recipe in my Tea Sandwich Tutorial Post.

I made the wonderful cheese spread that my sister taught me- Two softened blocks of cream cheese, mixed with chopped up sliced ham probably about 10 pieces, and chopped green onions (I used about 3/4ths of a bunch and included both the white and green parts). Mix together with electric beaters, transfer to serving bowl, and it can be chilled or served right away, if it is chilled I would set it out about 15 minutes before serving so it softens a bit. Perfect to spread on Ritz Crackers.

I made the Mushrooms Pinwheels that I made for Halloween- you can find the recipe in my Halloween 2011 Mushroom Pinwheels Post toward the bottom of the post. These are quickly becoming one of my favorite appetizers, I am a big mushroom fan.

Of course I had to make a tray of Li'l Smokeys Wraps, and I am glad I did, they were gone within the first 10 minutes, I will have to make more next time, so yummy!

For a small dessert I used my trusty mini cupcake pan to make a tray of mini Devil's Food Cupcakes, frosted with Cream Cheese Frosting and topped with a slice of cherry and red sprinkles.

For a fun beverage we made Raspberry Italian Sodas. Italian Sodas are very easy to make.

You will need your favorite flavor of Italian Soda Syrup- I love Cherry, Pomegranate, and Raspberry for the holidays. Fill a cup about halfway with ice.

Then pour in syrup about a quarter of an inch in the bottom of the cup, maybe a splash more if you like your soda sweet.

Then add seltzer water leaving about an inch of space left in the cup.

Like this.

Then add a little half and half to the top like about a quarter of an inch at the most, the half and half looks very pretty floating through the seltzer water.

Use a straw to very gently stir the syrup and soda and half and half together, then top with whip cream and enjoy!

We had quite a houseful of youth, I really enjoyed having them all over along with some of the youth group leaders, such a wonderful bunch of people!! When they were done wrapping their gifts, and enjoying snacks, they all headed off to the next house for more fun, can't wait to hear about it when the kids get home. They will be having a white elephant gift exchange and lots more food and treats and fun. Perfect way to kick off the final week before Christmas!

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Ornaments, Needle Felted Elf & Golden Brownies

2011-12-16T23:58:00.000-08:00

The children are finally out of school for Christmas break, and I am very glad, now we will have time to watch our favorite Christmas shows and make cookies. We have done lots of Christmas projects over the last couple of days. First I would like to share about our tree.

I love ornaments, and have been saving them since I was a child. My grandma would add one to my collection every year, and I would also pick one out as well. Over the years I have had many tree styles, when I was first married I had all Victorian looking ornaments, later I had a rustic tree, then a Scandinavian tree, then mid-century modern, and the last few years we have even added modern Hallmark ornaments (we just couldn't pass up on original Star Trek ornaments, like Tribbles falling on Capt. Kirk, or the transporter that has a working "beam") So what we have now is the very definition of an "eclectic" tree- and somehow it all works together to be both fun and very pretty, and we all love looking at our ornaments during Christmas time.

Here is a box of ornaments that my mother passed down to me- these were the ornaments that hung on my tree as a child. We carefully hung each ornament, and I would sit and stare at that tree every evening, I loved these ornaments.

I loved the way the lights would shine off the center of the ornaments with the indented center- so pretty- every year I hang a couple of these ornaments on the tree, I hope one day to pass these on to my children.

This is the oldest ornament on our tree- this little angel was passed to my mother from her Grandma, my great grandma, and my kids great-great grandma- it is very delicate, and I am amazed that the string has held all these years, every year we place this on one of the top branches.

Yep, our Star Trek transporter, with light up and sound beam up- very fun, and everyone who visits loves to give it a try. We are all fans of classic sci-fi and really enjoy this ornament.

Here is a pile of my ornaments waiting to find a spot on the tree- I had a little carol book ornament like this on my childhood tree, and it was one of the first ornaments me and hubby bought for our first tree.

Here at the top of the tree, along with the angel, is my wooden violin ornament with a wind up music box, and the glass ball next to it was made by an art glass artist at a Christmas tree stand we went to one year, we all enjoyed watching him blow these pretty glass balls then roll them in multicolored glass pieces- each one turned out so pretty.

Here's the whole tree, we have colored twinkle lights, and I love the way this tree looks all lit up. The whole family decorates this tree together every year, it is so fun remembering the story behind each ornament. My children already have a very nice collection of their own ornaments, and will have a nice starter collection when they have their own first tree.

Tonight I did a little holiday baking, and made some snacks for my husband and son's bible study group- they had Christmas themed ice cream sundaes with peppermint and egg nog, ginger bread, and vanilla ice cream and lots and lots of topping choices, I also made a pan of crsipy rice squares dyed green with green sprinkles, and a pan of Golden Brownies.

My Mom found the Nestle's Toll House Golden Brownies recipe when I was a child- they are delicious and an easy recipe that turns out great every time. Golden Brownies are a family favorite, they are not as dense as a chocolate chip pan cookie, and lighter than your typical fudge brownie, very delicious. I found the same recipe I use at Cooks.com, here is the link to Golden Brownies Recipe . Very yummy treat!

Here are the golden brownies right out of the oven.

Golden Brownie Squares and Festive Crispy Rice Treats all ready to serve!

While the men and boys were doing their bible study, my daughter was off at her teen girl bible study, and I had the evening to myself, so I got out my red wool that arrived this week, and finished needle felting my little Elf, if I have time I would like to make some tiny elves as well. I also repaired a needle felted tree that my lab puppy thought was a chew toy, and decided to make the tree a Christmas tree. Here they sit next to some of our Christmas books.

Speaking of Christmas books- one of my favorite Christmas book creators is Robert Sabuda- Robert Sabuda makes the most wonderful Pop-Up books you can find. I started collecting his Christmas books when the children were little- I then went on to collect his other books as well- they are all so fun to look through. Robert Sabuda is an amazing paper artist, I have even given his Christmas books as gifts- they are wonderful even for adults.

Here's a look inside a few of my Robert Sabuda Christmas Books.

Here are my Christmas Robert Sabuda books on the book shelf. Such fun books to look through, I enjoy them all!

Here are my Amazon Affiliate links to some of these wonderful Christmas books.

Winter's Tale is probably my favorite of his Christmas books.

These two books are mini Sabuda Christmas books- perfect Stocking stuffer size, and a good little gift.

I hope everyone has a wonderful weekend- Do you have a special heirloom ornament on your tree? I love hearing ornament stories. :)

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Joy Banner & Gift Tag Craft

2011-12-13T16:28:00.001-08:00

I love the look of vintage paper and glitter crafts, I have been wanting to play around with Mod Podge, newsprint and glitter for a Christmas project. So I spent the day crafting and glittering away.

My first project was a Christmas JOY banner. I found some wonderful cardboard pennants while I was out Christmas shopping last week, and I knew they would be perfect for my project. I started by covering them in newsprint. I used Mod Podge, but I think glue would work fine too.

Our town paper is not that big, and it was difficult to find newsprint in the size I needed, with only positive articles, I couldn't see making a Christmas craft with a police report or an angry political opinion. But finally I found a piece for all 5 pennants.

I let them dry, then cut them out and folded the newsprint over the back of the pennant about a quarter of an inch- like this.

While they were drying some more I printed out the letters for my banner- after searching the web for some good letter printouts, I found the perfect design at Marthastewart.com here-

Martha Stewart Christmas Letter Printables . I printed these out on some shimmery gray cardstock that I had in my scrapbook supplies.

I also wanted a bell on either side of the word JOY, I found a bell pattern and reduced it to fit my pennant. Here is the link to the bell pattern- Bell Pattern . I printed them out, and traced it onto the same cardstock I used for the lettering, and cut them out.

Next I covered the pennant in Mod Podge and glued the letter in the middle then added a nice layer of Martha Stewart Course Crystal glitter to the entire pennant except the letter. Then I let this dry.

Finally, using glitter gel glue, I outlined the letter circle and the pennant in Martha Stewart Sterling Tinsel Glitter- Tinsel glitter is not like regular silver glitter, it looks like little tiny sections of a very thin tinsel, and it has a more vintage look to me. I found a pack of Tinsel Glitter at Michael's Craft store last year, here's a link to the product online at Martha Stewart Online Shop- Tinsel Glitter. I think I may have to order some more sterling tinsel glitter after today.

Here is how the banner turned out.

While my banner was drying, I wanted to make tags for some silver gift bags I purchased, so I printed out the word JOY on light gray card stock. Mod Podged some more newsprint to another piece of card stock- like this.

When it was dry I traced a circle, and cut it out. I also traced a small circle around the word Joy and cut it out. Covered the newsprint covered card stock circle in Mod Podge-glued down the word JOY then Course Crystal Glitter everywhere but the JOY circle. Then, same as the pennant, rimmed the edge of the Joy circle and the outer edge in Sterling Tinsel Glitter.

When these where dry I hot glued them onto the side of the silver gift bag.

I love taking inexpensive plain bags and dressing them up- I think this would work with plain brown sacks as well, you could use any color of tinsel glitter to match the look you want.

Why JOY?

Christmas, to me, is a very Joyful time of year- the word JOY reminds me of the Joy the Lord has given us, and it is the word I would like our family to focus on this Christmas time. You can find so many Bible verses having to do with joy, here is one I really love.

Jesus said-

9. As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love. 10. If you obey my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have obeyed my father's commands and remain in his love. 11. I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete. 12. My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you.

John 15:9-12 (NIV)

I had a very nice day crafting, my dining room looks like Santa's workshop with my various projects in progress. I will be happily busy this week finishing up my Christmas crafts. Hoping you are all having a nice week!

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Christmas Tree Time & Baked Cranberry Orange Donuts

2011-12-11T21:47:00.000-08:00

What a wonderful pre-Christmas weekend we had. We started this weekend by attending a performance of our town's Singing Christmas Tree, my daughter is in the high school concert choir, and they did an amazing job. The whole event was great, and we heard some beautiful music from all of the different choirs around town. My husband was hard at work with the Singing Christmas Tree Committee this year, and they built a really great set, the tree was set among snowy mountains.

Sarah did four performances with her choir, such a fun Christmas tradition. They always end the night with a mass choir singing of The Hallelujah Chorus, I tried to get a clip of it, but my camera's sound does it no justice. Such a beautiful song, I look forward to it every year.

With the Singing Christmas Tree over, today I decided to put on a nice pot of Chicken Soup, and get ready to put up the tree. The state of Oregon grows the most Christmas trees in the United States, and we live in Clackamas County, the county that grows the most tress in Oregon - so we are surrounded by fields of Christmas trees.

We chose to buy our tree this year right from the farmer who grew the tree and cut it down. We met this tree farmer last year, and he sells his trees next to the feed store right here in town. I love supporting local growers, he knew the day he cut the tree down and was even talking to us about how he grows them. We get a Douglas Fir every year. Here in town, buying right from the growers, our 7 foot tree was only $10.00. Wonderful price for such a pretty tree!

With a little help, the guys got it on the top of our little Camry, we joked that it looked like the Griswold Family Christmas Tree.

Gary taught Joseph the fine art of tying a Tree to the roof of a car, with all the clever knot tying and everything.

We made it home, and Gary & Joe got the trunk trimmed, and into the tree stand. Tomorrow we will have fun decorating the tree after school.

After the tree was up, we went and got some peppermint hot cocoas and drove around town to see the neighborhood Christmas Lights, we like to do this a few times in December, I love Christmas lights!

We came home and relaxed with a bowl of Chicken soup and a holiday show. For dessert I made some yummy Baked Cranberry Orange Donuts. I love my doughnut pans, it is so easy to bake up a batch of nice warm donuts, you can use just about any moist muffin recipe.

Here is my Amazon affiliate link for the Donut pans I use.

I used my favorite Cranberry Orange Muffin recipe that I found at Foodnetwork.com- here is the link- Cranberry Orange Muffins I did add a half a teaspoon of cinnamon to the recipe to give the donuts a little more of a Christmas Spice taste - also they bake in half the time because the doughnut pan is shallow. I made the glaze with Powdered Sugar, a teaspoon of vanilla, and Orange juice until it reached a nice glaze consistency. They turned out great and were the perfect treat to finish our meal, I look forward to enjoying one with tea in the morning.

I am excited to decorate the tree tomorrow, as well as start getting the house ready for company this coming weekend, the first of our holiday entertaining.

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Needle Felted Nativity

2011-12-09T14:49:00.000-08:00

Today I was in the mood for crafting, I have many projects that I am excited to make throughout this December. I was in the mood to needle felt today. I have some little Christmas elves I want to make, but halfway through felting the core, I decided to check how much red wool I had, and as it turned out I had enough red wool to make only a tiny toadstool. So I took a short break and went online to place an order for a quarter pound of red wool- I order a lot of my felting supplies from Weircrafts.com. Then I got back to my felting and decided to make a Nativity.

I am looking forward to bringing this Nativity along to Sunday school this weekend for our Christmas story lesson. Here's how my Nativity turned out.

I may make some animals, and eventually I would even like to add shepherds, wise men, and an angel. I so enjoy needle felting!

Tonight I will be attending our town's Singing Christmas Tree, I am really looking forward to hearing my daughter's concert choir preform, as well as all of the other choirs in town. Before then however, my daughter has just informed me that in health class they were assigned their "baby" egg, so we must fashion him a carrier so I can "eggsit" baby Lorcan tonight while she is preforming. I look forward to hearing about what lessons the teacher has in store for this unit.

This is also the weekend we put up our tree, I am excited to get out all of my ornaments, and have a fun evening decorating our tree. I hope everyone has a wonderful weekend!

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Creative Friday

The Magic Onions

Christmas Decorations & White Chocolate Cranberry Cookies

2011-12-06T22:16:00.000-08:00

The weather was much colder today, and although we haven't got snow yet, we have had a pretty winter fog, and a frost in the garden. I love the crisp cold air, for some reason getting out in the fresh air always does wonders for me. So today, hubby and I went on a nice walk in one of my favorite little parks.

I love the fog and trees off in the distance.

The park is situated right next to very large field of berries, I love the way the rows look.

The park is surrounded by a wetland area, and many interesting plants, I love the red against the frosted brown twigs.

We saw a few frost covered spider webs, Gary spotted this one on a park bench.

I really enjoyed our walk, we were the only ones in the park, and it was nice to chat and stroll through this lovely area.

I just have a few finishing touches until all of my holiday decor is in place. In addition to changing things around this year, I also have the challenge of not being able to put any thing out on my lower tables, our little lab Zoey is quite a little explorer and would make quick work of any decoration in her reach. I shutter to think what she might do to the tree, I guess we will see this weekend. :)

Here are some of my favorite decorations.

These trees are made of felt.

I love paper board Christmas villages. I started my collection with these tiny houses.

These are reproductions of vintage Christmas houses.

Then I found these bigger paper board houses and churches. I think the pink church is so pretty.

Here is another little village, this one is made of wood, and covered in glitter

This is my Celtic Nativity set- I love the simple look of this set, and I look forward to putting it out every year.

I think it is nice to set out candy dishes, I have one out year round, and at Christmas I put out quite a few around the house, it is nice for guests to have little things to nibble. The candy in the green dish below are classic butter mints- yum!

Here are a few of my Nutcrackers.

I also have out all of my Christmas books, I hope to share some of my favorite holiday book selections in upcoming posts.

This is one of my favorite books and radio show- I listened to this way back in grade school , and I try to listen to the radio show every December. The Cinnamon Bear.

I have the audio version on both tape and CD, and can't wait to listen to it. This book is wonderfully illustrated and goes along well with the radio show, but I will make a suggestion to listen to the radio show first, it is so much better to imagine this story in your head.

Here is my Amazon Affiliate link for the book.

Here's the YouTube link of episode 1, it looks like you might be able to listen to all of the episodes on YouTube, which is great, such wonderful memories!

With all of these Christmas decorations up, we had to have some cookies, so I made up a batch of White Chocolate Cranberry Cookies.

I make these by using the recipe for Nestle Toll House Cookies- which can be found here, with the following changes- instead of 1 cup of butter, I use 1/2 cup of butter and 1/2 cup of shortening. I leave out the nuts and chocolate chips, and add in a rounded cup of Dried Cranberries, and two-thirds of a bag of white chocolate chips. Stir together and bake as directed in recipe. I love cranberries and white chocolate together, perfect after dinner treat for the family!

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Operation Santa Claus Parade

2011-12-04T21:47:00.000-08:00

Today was the day of our Town's annual Operation Santa Claus Parade. The first year we moved into town, during the first week of December, we found a paper bag from the local grocery store, with a note attached announcing the Operation Santa Claus Parade, and instructions to fill the bag with food drive food, as well as a time when volunteers would come around with a parade to pick it up. We filled our bag, and on the scheduled day, we were alerted to the parade's arrival by sirens sounds through town. This parade has become a Christmas tradition that I look forward to every year.

The parade lasts for 3 days, every evening for a couple of hours, the local police and fire station, along with volunteers, parade through the neighborhoods collecting the food donation bags. Our street is on one of their routes. So when we heard the sirens today, we quickly put the dogs in my bedroom (they aren't too fond of the sirens), and went outside on our front porch with our food drive bag.

One of our local police officers leads the way.

Then some of the fire station vehicles, and ambulance.

Next are the fire engines.

Here comes Santa riding on one of our town's older yellow fire trucks- I love this old fire truck! The volunteers collected our donation and passed out candy canes.

Hello Santa! Santa also visits during our Singing Christmas Tree Production at the High School every year, my daughter is in the concert choir, and Dad's been helping put together the set for the last couple of weeks. This Thursday is the first of 4 shows- can't wait!!

Here's the other yellow fire engine.

More siren's and emergency vehicles.

See you next year! I love parades, what a great way to drum up support for a food drive, as well as a fun town tradition.

Today I decided to stay home from church so I wouldn't pass my cold on to my Sunday school class, my daughter taught class for me, she does a great job. While the whole family was gone at church I unpacked more Christmas decorations.

Here are my Christmas Carolers, I have had these for years, and I love bringing them out every year.

We were a couple of days behind, but the kids started their advent calendars yesterday, I love advent calendars, when I was a child we had beautiful papers advent calenders, I was always excited to see the picture behind the door. When I was older we started getting chocolate filled advent calendars, and I have purchased these for my kids ever since they were toddlers.

Last night was the Winter Formal at the High School- Sarah and Joseph looked great, I had fun taking tons of pictures. Such a nice picture of brother and sister! They had fun along with all of their friends at the dance.

I am looking forward to lots of baking and more decorating this week. What are your community Christmas traditions?

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