Love In A Jar

For Christmas this year I received "Some Love" in a jar.

The first one is lemon butter. It is an old family recipe that my daughter Maria has lovingly continued the tradition of making for the holiday's. She has shared the recipe and a tutorial for making it on her blog over at RAINY DAY FARM. Yummy stuff I tell ya. Slathered on french toast on Christmas morning...ummmmmmmmmmmmm, nothing better. Thanks Maria. Take a minute to browse her blog, she is amazing. Ahhh, smooth, sweet and lemony.



The next "Love in A Jar" came from my DIL Randy. She is really a creative and talented gal, (although she doesn't think so but she continues to amaze me with her talents) You can check out what she drew for her mom for Christmas at her blog "Hall's and Critters". Butterscotch Snaps cookie ingredients just waiting for some eggs, veg. oil and vanilla to turn into some magic. Check out the cute fabric and ribbon, she is a girl after my own heart, I love black and white. The whole thing looks almost too good to open and use, I just want to put it on a shelf for a display or something.

See what I mean, it's sooooooo cute.

WHAT DOES A MILLION CALORIES LOOK LIKE?

WARNING:

THIS IS NOT A POST TO LOOK AT IF YOU ARE HEATH CONSCIOUS AT ALL This is our #1 bestest family cookie. Everyone likes these {peanut butter kiss cookies}, they are the first to get eaten.

This recipe is a very guarded family recipe that is only shared by the most trusted people. Well, not really, it is the start of Crunchy Peanut Butter balls.


The island in my kitchen is transformed once a year into a confectionary delight. My two daughters and two daughters-in-law get together to do our holiday baking. Everyone brings their favorite holiday cookie and candy recipes to make and share. This year we made fifteen different items. There was fudge (with and without nuts, and there is a story behind that but I don't think this is the place to share it), four different kinds of cookies, almond roca, peanut brittle, cream wafers, peppermint bark, red velvet cake balls, crunch peanut butter balls, turtles and a few more I can't think of off the top of my head.



Grandpa, Matthew and Logan were ever so eager to taste test everything after their day of Christmas shopping.




Daughters Natasha and Maria enjoying a little break with some pomegranate 7-UP. We all tried it and gave it a thumbs up, it was tasty.

Our sweet sister-in-law/daughter-in-law Randy is the official sugar cookie maker. We appreciate her so much for enduring our whacked out sense of humor in our family. Yep we really got into the spirit of things with some 'get down' holiday dancing. (And she didn't even roll her eyes or anything, thanks Randy.) Courtney, the other daughter-in-law wasn't able to make it this year, she hurt her back at work and wasn't feeling up to joining us, we sure missed her.

What's Christmas without Sugar Cookies? They are a MUST!

HERE IS A RE-CAP OF ALL OF OUR DAYS WORK.

'Til Next Year Girls...

{It is going to take all year to get rid of the lbs. gained)

Couldn't Resist 'ONE MORE' Christmas Craft

Well I thought I was through putting up my Christmas decorations but I couldn't resist making this canvas saying. When I get an idea I MUST act upon it or it drives me crazy. Do you do that too or is it just me?


I am joining up with the CREATIVE CATS linky party, (the last one until after the new year).

Around The House Christmas Decorations 2009

Here are some pictures of some of my Christmas decorationg. I know I posted this collage a few posts back but decided to post it by itself so I could join up with a linky party over at The Girl Creative blog

GLOBAL WARMING...WHERE?????????????

I hear that there is a conference on global warming going on. I would personally like to invite all of the world leaders to my home this morning for my input on this matter. The temperature on the left is all the heat my heaters inside could muster up while the "warming" temperature is on the right. What do you think??? By the way, I live in western Washington where our temperatures are usaully a little more mild during the winter so these temps are not very well tolerated, I feel it in my bones.

The Halls Are Decked...FINALLY!

Having spent the last five days trying to get all of my holiday decorations up I finally finished tonight. I swear each year that I am going to scale back, I just can't help myself. I was at Target on Saturday night and couldn't resist picking up two packages of ornaments. Now I am going to admit something that not many people know. I have at least 12 rubbermaids full of decorations, and that doesn't include three full sized artificial trees. It's a sickness I know, but I just keep adding stuff each year. I just can't resist "cute".

Doors to the living room. (above)

Entryway shelf. (below)

Another view of living room doors.

We don't have a fireplace to hang our stockings so I made this stocking hanger a couple of years ago.

One of my holiday houses.

The living room tree is white with blue, green, and blue/green ornaments.

I always try to tuck in a bird or two on each tree.

Here is a Santa I made when the grandchildren started coming along.

A jolly little soul.

Here is a shot of the family room tree taken so that you can see that we got snow the other night. Now it really feels like Christmas

Here is a collage of some random shots of the decorations.

MERRY CHRISTMAS to all.

TRIMMING THE TREE

Head on over to Mormon Mommy Blogs for their first annual virtual home tour. I have joined up with some very talented gals to share some of our own homes and what we have done for the holidays.

I found the cutest little tree decorations today and just had to share them in all of their Super-Duper Delicious Cutness. They look almost good enough to eat. OK, now I can't wait to get the whole house decorated. (I've been dragging my feet about getting everything out of the attic and set up...but now I CAN'T WAIT)

An Auction For A Great Cause

John Jones a 26 year old BYU graduate and a U of Virginia Med student passed away recently after a tragic accident in some caves in Utah. John leaves behind a his young wife, a 14 month old daughter and another baby on the way. Stephanie from A Daily Scoop is sponsoring an auction in behalf of this young mother. Please go check out the auction and see if you might be able to help by donating an item for auction or bidding on one of the many great items offered.

What a tragedy this is. We all can't do everything but we all can do something.

Holiday Blocks

Here are two sets of blocks that I made for the holidays. Using scrapbook paper is my new "most favorite" medium to combine with vinyl lettering. The possibilites are endless.





Another fun thing to do is to lightly sand the edges of the paper to rough it up then gently rub an ink pad (I used black) around the edge to give it a worn look.



I will be joining the the DIY Show Off Holiday Highlights party here.

Girl Time Crafting

My grandaughter Addison got to spend a few days with us. She is such a little crafty diva that I thought I would have her help me put together a wreath that I saw over at Amy's blog "Keep'n the Sunny Side.

I purchased about 12 packages of Christmas balls from the dollar store, (2 boxes were from Michaels). This is a quick and fun craft to make and it looks like a million bucks.

I am hooking up with the gals over at Funky Junk Interiors for the Saturday Nite Special linky party.

One More Show Finished

Well the 2009 Bazaar is over. All of the months and months of crafting and creating are now done and put to bed. Each year I say this will be the last but then along about June I start getting my "crafting itch" and just can't help myself.

Below are a few pictures of the displays and items we had for sale.
Old wood windows go really well. I sold all but one this year, which is really good because I don't need anymore windows stored in the garage. I am now down to about six old windows and hope to get rid of them all. (Hubby would be overjoyed to say the least.)


Here is my daughter Maria taking down the displays after it was over. The take down was done in a record 45 minutes this year. Putting up the whole thing only takes about 4 hours.
This is the only picture I got of my helpers. From left to right: Maria, Natasha (both are my daughters), Elaine and Lynn. Lynn and Elaine make the best hand dipped chocolates in the world and bring them to sell along with my other stuff.

Oh ya, they also make the best tasting pretzles, in the basket on the left. They wrap homemade carmel around a large pretzel then dip it in chocloate then roll in peanuts (they also have rolled them in chopped peans, cashews and almonds which I prefer over peanuts).

Well that's a wrap for this year.