A Beautiful Christmas

Here are a few glimpses of our Christmas season:

Merry Christmas!

Blessings and Merry Christmas!
Last night we made and decorated sugar cookies using America's Test Kitchen's recipe. It was very yummy but also very tedious! But hey...it was worth it! You know it's good when it calls for 2 sticks of butter. We doubled the recipe and ended up with enough to give some away and some to enjoy for ourselves. Chilling the dough is definitely a huge help when making sugar cookies. As far as the other secrets..they definitely helped though I did not go to the added expense of buying parchment paper. I had pretty good results with rolling the dough out on wax paper and then transferring the cut out cookies directly to baking sheets as long as the dough was nice and cool. It would have been less mess with parchment paper, but my awesome husband helped me do all the dishes! :-)

Today I'm hoping to have a chance to work on the stockings I'm making for the kids!!
Merry Christmas!

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year!

I hope you all had a great finish to 2008 and a wonderful start to 2009!

We brought in the New Year with a fun family night full of Boggle, Guitar Hero, and Apples to Apples!

Boggle is a great new game we have that is fun because it only requires two people! It's a great game for couples (mental note - good wedding gift!) I'd never tried Guitar Hero before but after my brother-in-law convinced me to try it, thought it was great fun. And then of course Apples to Apples is a great and hilarious game for a crowd!

Christmas Postcards

It took me awhile to get this shot for our Christmas cards this year! Photographing a toddler is certainly it's own art form.

I'm planning on turning these into postcards using a technique similar to this. The plus to creating your own postcards is that they are cheaper than ordering them online and you can ship them for just a postcard stamp if you choose. The only change I'm making this time, is that the photos that I ordered have print stamped on the back of them, so I am pasting a pre-printed note to the back to cover up the ugliness! I'd better get to work on this so they arrive on time!

Visit Biblical Womanhood for more frugal ideas.

Leftover Pumpkin Experiment

Am I the only one who still had a pumpkin sitting around until this week?! It seems that most of the world has moved onto Christmas, while I'm still figuring out what to do with my Halloween and Thanksgiving pumpkin!

Here's what I came up with!

I followed Monica's advice and baked my pie pumpkin to perfection. My small pumpkin yielded 3 cups of pumpkin puree.

Then I followed Megan's recipe for pumpkin muffins! Delicious, frugal, and toddler approved! Make sure to check out Biblical Womanhood for more frugal ideas!

Happy Thanksgiving!

I hope you all have a wonderful Thanksgiving!

Enjoy some special time with your family. I won't be back for a few days as I'll be spending time with family and friends. I hope you have the chance to do the same!

Pumpkin Pizza Results

Here's how our pumpkin pizzas looked prior to baking! They were tasty and cute! Plus here's a picture of our little dinosaur enjoying his treat from Grandma - marshmallows!

Halloween Pizza

On the agenda for tonight is homemade Pumpkin Pizza! Aren't they adorable? Have a happy halloween filled with fun family activities!

Memorial Day Activities

For Memorial Day we started off the day with working in the yard and then enjoyed a bike ride! Luke loved his first bicycle ride. He is using his cool new bicycle seat he received for his birthday and the nice helmet that came with it to keep him safe! In the evening we got to go to a family picnic where Luke wore himself out playing! We hope you enjoyed some special family time over the weekend too!

Happy Mother's Day

I hope you all have a wonderful Mother's Day!

Today I would like to share a message about motherhood with you. This is an excellent, free audio download from Visionary Parenting! Simply scroll down to The Noble Calling of Motherhood and click. It is about a half hour. Enjoy!

Green Today!

Don't forget to wear your green today!

If you are looking for some fun, last minute activities to celebrate I've complied a list for you to browse through!

- Green drink recipes

- St. Patrick's Bingo

- Shamrock cookies

- Pictures to color

Have fun and remember to pinch any family members who forgot their green!

Valentine Coupons

Happy Valentine's Day!



My husband and I exchanged Valentine's Day coupons today! We agreed on giving each other coupons that we made instead of a store bought gift. It was a fun idea and worked out great! I get to look forward to some time to myself, not scooping cat litter for a week, not making dinner one night, and more! Whoohoo - I am excited!

He gets a steak fajita dinner, homemade bread, the trash taken to the curb, and more! I also received a cute card from my baby featuring some cute pictures (see above) and his adorable little hand print!

I hope you had a great Valentine's Day!

Happy New Year!

New Years Resolutions:

• Prepare healthier yet inexpensive foods for my family
• Stick to my budget for groceries, entertainment, clothing, and more!
• Keep the house organized and follow my cleaning schedule
  
• Continue to work on ways of bringing in extra income
• Read the Bible to Luke during our breakfast time
  

Related to sticking to a budget you can be expecting some posts in the near future on having fun on a budget in 2008!

Last Minute New Years Ideas

Happy New Years Eve!
In case you are looking for a few last minute New Years ideas, I thought I would post a few simple but fun ideas for your family!

• Game Night - Pull out all those old board games and the kids will love it!
• Festive Hats - Get all the craft supplies out and make hats! You can use up your bits of Christmas wrapping paper for this idea too!
• New Years Pancakes - use your regular pancake mix but shape them into numbers for 2008!

Have a wonderful New Years Eve!