Our New House

Hey Readers if you want to check out our new house head on over to our family blog and take a tour.   Hope you enjoy our new pad.  Stay tuned for decorations, new paint and lots of organization tips.

So come on in and take a tour!

Girls night

This weekend I had a few new friends out for a little Christmas girls night, even though we had the boys with us to, it was still a girls night.   We started the night off with a yummy feast.  My friends brought some delicious shrimp and noodles and we made homemade baked chicken wings a this new appetizer. 

They are called poppers and they were so delicious.  I will for sure be making them again for our Christmas gatherings this year. 

After supper we did a craft together making these paper trees.  I saw the idea from one of my friends blogs (scrap and doodle) and thought I would give it a try. 

They turned out very nice.  I am so happy with the paper pack I picked up that day at Winners.  It was an American Crafter pack called Jolly.  All the paper is so beautiful and I can't believe that it was so cheap.  I didn't realize how good of deals you can find at winners on scrapbooking stuff.

Christmas Cookies

Last week or maybe it was two weeks ago we had a big snow storm here so we decided to take the day and decorate the house for Christmas.  And how can you really decorate without any Christmas cookies to snack on!  

Hubby is the best at rolling out the cookie dough so that is his job.  

This year Jaelyn got to help out by making her own cookie.  Daddy gave her a little piece of the dough they patted it out together and then put the cookie cutter on it. 

Once the dough was all rolled out Daddy and Eben worked on cutting the cookie out.  They do such a great job of making use of all the cookie cutters.

Now all we need is some pictures of the finished cookies but they still aren't iced yet.  Maybe we will get that done this weekend.

DIY Christmas Cards

It seems early to be thinking about Christmas cards but I like to have mine done early that way when there is a 10 cent sale at a local print shop I can be ready to print them out.  For the past 4 years I have been doing our own Christmas cards.  Here is our Christmas card from last year.  I simple took a picture that my talented friend Kait took and used a free Christmas card template.

This year to find my templates I did a search in Pinterest and found some great templates.  Here are 3 that I really like from one site called Simple as that. 

Now all I need to do is find the picture that I really like.  So that you wonderful friends and family can stare at our pretty faces all year long! hehehe  Enjoy making your own Christmas cards this season!

Movemeber

Our whole family is getting into the Movember mode as we work together raising money for prostate cancer.   If you would like to donate to our family please visit my hubby's Mo space HERE.   

Now on to the crafty part of this post.  I made these cute little stach's using a template from easy makes me happy blog.  She suggested using stiff felt but since I didn't have any I just used black card stock.  For the stick I used a small skewers with the sharp tip cut off and to attach it all together I used a glue dot cause I can't find my glue gun.  

We had lots of fun laughing together yesterday as we took these shots.  Here is Eben and daddy.

Lady J showing us her stash

We even got the photographers on the other side of the camera and got them involved as well.

Don't forget to give some cash to someone for their stash!!!

Sweet and Salty Cookies

I love love love sweet and salty things so when I saw this on Pinterest I knew I needed to try them.  I was not disappointed.  They were as delicious as I knew they would be.  If you like sweet and salty things head on over to Sugar Cooking for the recipe.  I didn't add the peanut butter chips but added more pretzels instead.

Shutter mail holder

Summer is a time for weddings and like every other summer we had a few weddings to attend.   Weddings are always such a fun time for gifts and I always use the excuse to make or create new projects. 

I love the idea of using a shutter to hold mail.  I first saw this creative idea back in 2005 we I was planning my wedding and was hoping to make one for the wedding to hold wedding cards in.  I didn't find any shutters so my idea was put on hold.  Then about 3 years ago at a 50% off sale at value village I scored this shutter.  I can't believe I had been hanging on to this gem for that many years but I have been so finally this summer I got it out and made my project.  First I painted it up, sand papered it and then I applied the couples Monogram on it using vinyle and my Cricut. 

And here is the finished product, hanging on the couples wall, complete with the shelf hubby added to it and the key hooks.

Mini Album

Today we are going into one of my craft room projects.  This was my first mini album I put together for my mom as a Christmas present last year.  We decided for a Christmas gift we would get our awesome friend Kait to take our family photos.  With the photos I would make a scrap book for my mom. It was my first time doing that many layouts so to get a little help I used page maps mini maps to help me with my layouts. 

So here it is the front cover. This book is double sided so I started off with the Family and then continued on with my mom and dad and me with my parents. 

 The next way the book opened I wanted to do the kids so I did from Generation to Generation.

 I add the kids into these layouts. 

 I am really happy with how this book turned out.  I used K&C company paper pack of raspberry something along with some fall harvest paper I had.  I think with all this rain that we are having I will be spending my free time in my little craft space I have at my in laws place.

Pasta with Zucchini Sauce

I saw this Pasta with Zucchini Sauce recipe from friend who found it on the net.  She has two little girls who loved it so I thought with lots of Zucchini growing in the garden I would try it to.  With bacon in it I was sure it would be a hit. 

You can find the recipe and directions over here.  Along with some great step by step photos.  This was the only one I got! heheh

The only changes I made to the recipe was I saved some bacon to crumble on the top of the pasta and I added some left over chicken to it. I also may have added some fresh herbs do to the pressure from a friend and my mother in law.  But it did turn out.  We were very happy with the outcome.  Everyone eat it all up!

1st birthday

This month we celebrated our little Jaelyn's first birthday.   There are really only 2 things that will make Jaelyn happy.  1 swimming and 2 ice cream.  So we combined those two things to have a FUN family birthday party for our little girl. 

I searched pintrest for lots of ideas and loved this party hat idea so I had to make one for Jealyn.  I started with a sugar cone.  I glued the base of it and rolled it in ice cream sprinkles. Next I poked a hole in the top of the cone and stuck a few ribbion curls in there.  For the base I used funky designed cup cake holders then glued the hole thing onto a small head band. 

I think it turned out so great!  She actually wore it when we sang happy birthday and maybe it was cause she was so distracted by the ice cream that she didn't bother with it.

here we are on Jaelyn's actually birthday signing happy birthday and letting her have a little piece of chocolate cake with real whipping cream. 

We started the party off with some swimming.  The kids had lots of fun having canoe rides and playing in the water. 

Next it was time to pray and dig in to yummy BBQ burgers and corn on the cob.   You see the pink pom pom in the top of this picture I made those to. They are so easy to make!!!

So then it was time to dig in to the ice cream...you can tell that Lady J is VERY excited to see the sundae buffet. 

We had waffle cones and sugar cones.  Some of the cones where dipped in chocolate and rolled in sprinkles. Then we had an 11.4L jar of vanilla ice cream, banana's, peanuts, Reeses, M&M's, score, sprinkles, peanut butter cups, Oreo and chocolate, caramel and strawberry sauce. 

We put a scoop of the ice cream in the cone stuck a candle in a sang again to her.  She screamed the whole time until the ice cream was in her hand! 

And what would a party be with out presents.  I couldn't believe how animated she was to open her gifts.   Thank you everyone who celebrated with us.

Frozen S'more

So I saw this awesome treat on Pinterest and knew I had to try it for a dessert some night. These frozen smore treats where so simple to make.

First I started out with the crackers, marshmallows, mini chocolate bars, Popsicle sticks and chocolate for melting. The chocolate I melted was a solid Easter bunny.

First you lay out your crackers and place your chocolate on it. Next I placed the marshmallows on top of that. The original recipe used flat marshmallow but since I didn't have any I decided to cut the marshmallows in half and placed them cut side down on the chocolate.

Next you melt them in the oven for about 5-8 minutes until the marshmallow is goooey and the chocolate is soft. Then place the top cracker on and stick the Popsicle sticks into the marshmallows. Put smores in the freezer for a couple of hours.


Now I don't have a picture of the next step but we melted the chocolate Easter bunny down and dipped our frozen treats into the melted chocolate and placed them back into the freezer for a couple more hours.

Here is Eben enjoying one of our yummy yummy treats!!!