Time Out

Sometimes Moms need a time out too!

This is MY kind of time out!     I forget to get out and enjoy the beauty around me!

What a fun time out…thanks friend!

20 Years

My husband had to bring it to my attention!  Today is the 20th anniversary of our engagement.  We will celebrate our 20th wedding anniversary later this year. 

Check out the heart shaped strawberries he cut for the pancakes he made for us this morning.  We all enjoyed a yummy breakfast and then tonight we had our Chinese food on our good china. 

We are carrying on a tradition my mom and dad started, giving each of my children a small heart shaped box of See's candy.  We also decorate their bedroom doors with hearts...which was easier this year, because I cut them all with my Cricut, and I also added their name and some "We Love You"s.  Miss K says she's going to leave it up on her door all year.  We'll see how long it lasts on the boys' doors.

Thanksgiving Food and Fun

Last Thanksgiving our whole family (almost) was able to be together.  It was so wonderful! 

This year was great too, but it was just us and my Dad.  It was so fun having him here for Thanksgiving!  Miss K drew him this picture.

 

We made these cute turkeys for our Thanksgiving Table.  Miss K actually had fun making them with her friend; I helped with the glue gun.

She also made the name tags, the jello jigglers and the pasta salad. 

All these things helped her to have a fun Thanksgiving, since it's not her favorite holiday.  (she's not a big food person!)

Everyone helped out with the Thanksgiving Feast.  #1Son & Dad worked on the potatoes:

 

#2Son made the yams. 

Grandpa helped with the clean up.  Everything was delish.  We were just disappointed that we left the green beans in the microwave! 

We also did gingerbread houses.  Miss K worked on hers with her friend and Grandpa.  Thanks Grandpa!  It turned out really cute. 

For those that asked, we make our gingerbread house parts with a Pampered Chef stone.  Here it is filled with the gingerbread dough and ready to cook:

It's always tricky getting the house put together with the icing.  I need to remember to have the houses assembled a day ahead so they're ready to be decorated on Thanksgiving night.  That way the icing is all dry and the houses are nice and sturdy for decorating!  I love the smell of the gingerbread as it is baking!

If you celebrated Thanksgiving this week, I hope it was wonderful.  We all have so much to be thankful for!

Wow, what a busy October!

You can tell by my lack of blogging that things have been crazy around here, and it's not over yet.  But I'm hoping that things will settle down in November.  (Did I just say that???  ...the holidays will be upon us...and that's always a busy time!)

Recently I've been working on some more bibs, and took some to a baby shower last night.

There were 2 events I needed cookies for on one day...so I made some sugar cookies.  Miss K and a neighbor friend helped frost them...

These are our family's traditional Christmas cookie (cut in Christmas shapes...of course!).  When I started frosting (before the girls showed up) I was listening to Christmas music as I got set up and started to frost the first few.  I had just grabbed a CD to test out a boom box and it happened to be Christmas music. It was strangely familiar decorating sugar cookies to Christmas music, and just strange since I was frosting pumpkins and ghosts!

The neighbor girl said she had never frosted cookies before, and never made or had homemade cookies.  Now that was sad to me! Glad she came over and got to participate!

I've also been sewing a vest for my son's vampire costume.  The vest turned out great and looks perfect with the store bought vampire cape.  But unfortunately it's really too small for my son.  He can wear it, and already has to one event, but it really is too short.  My lack of experience in sewing clothes stuck out with this one!

Miss K will be in her first play in November.  I took her to get her character shoes on Saturday.  She's practicing walking on them...she needs a lot of practice...she's pretty wobbly! But she looks so grown up in them!

Easter Weekend

Well, we ended up spending Friday at Sea World!  We spent most of our day going to the shows and seeing the exhibits.  We avoided the long lines for the rides, which is perfectly fine with me, I'm not much of an amusement park ride kinda girl.  I'm usually the one holding all the jackets, etc. while everyone else is going on the rides.

We've had a very nice Easter.  Our house is quiet now, but we had some friends over and there was lots of activity going on with all the kids.  It was very enjoyable and I was very relaxed the whole time, that's what it's like when friends are like family!  No stress. And the food was delicious!

Here are some pictures from our day:

Easter flowers for the table.

Easter Egg decorating:

The kids table...Miss K designed the plates and helped make the little bird's nest place cards.

 

Here's the adult table.  I guess we were so busy eating I didn't get a picture of the food!

But here are some pictures of the orange rolls before they were cooked:

Yum! Hope you all had a wonderful Easter too!

Happy Valentine's Day

The kids love to get their doors decorated.

J's Valentine was a basket of fruit. The kids loved the donuts and the fruit basket for breakfast. Along with their Valentine goodie bags.

And I realized that my Valentine Dear Jane is still hanging up from last year. I guess it's an all year round quilt!

Hope you're having a sweet Saturday!

Shower Fun

I gave this quilt to a friend at her baby shower tonight, so it can finally be revealed! This is the first time I have made a quilt with these soft colors, and I really like it! She is having a girl, and this fabric just seemed right for her and her new little baby girl that will be arriving in the next month! I had fun with the free motion quilting, adding some curves to all those straight lines.

K helped me with the dessert that we were asked to bring to the shower. She had so much fun arranging the fruit on the fruit pizza, she wanted me to take a picture of it and post it here. So here it is too:



It went fast! So that always makes you feel good. Here's the recipe if anyone's interested...

Fruit Pizza
Makes 2 pizzas (24 servings)

Sugar Cookie Crust:
1 C butter or margarine, softened
1 C sifted powdered sugar
1/3 C granulated sugar
1 egg
½ tsp vanilla
¼ tsp almond extract
2 ½ C all-purpose flour
2 tsp baking soda
2 tsp cream of tartar

Orange Sauce:
½ C granulated sugar
¼ tsp finely shredded orange peel
¼ tsp finely shredded lemon peel
1 C orange juice
2 Tbsp lemon juice
4 tsp cornstarch

Filling:
2- 8 oz packages cream cheese softened
1 C sifted powdered sugar
1 tsp vanilla
Fresh fruits of choice (7 cups total): sliced peaches, nectarines, strawberries, kiwi fruit, bananas, grapes, apples, mandarin oranges, and/or raspberries

Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Lightly grease two 12 inch pizza pans.

To prepare the crust: In a large mixing bowl, cream the butter or margarine, powdered sugar and granulated sugar until light. Add the egg, vanilla, and almond extract, beating well. Combine the dry ingredients and add to the creamed mixture, blending thoroughly. Divide the dough in half. With lightly floured hands, pat the dough into the prepared pans. Bake in a 325 degree oven for 12 to 15 minutes or until golden; cool.

To prepare the orange sauce: Combine the sugar, orange and lemon peel, orange and lemon juice and cornstarch in a small saucepan. Cook and stir over medium heat until the mixture is thick. Cook and stir for 2 minutes more. Cover and cool the sauce without stirring.

To prepare the filling: In a medium mixing bowl, beat the cream cheese, powdered sugar and vanilla with an electric mixer until fluffy.

Spread the cream cheese mixture over the cooled crusts. Decorate with fruit. Glaze the fruit with the cooled sauce. Chill the pizzas until ready to serve. Enjoy!

Happy Father's Day!

Happy Father's Day! We love our Dad! He's the best.

Thanks to Marie for the yummy recipe for rosemary peasant bread. I made it to go along with our roast and potatoes and salad today. It was a big hit, and easy to make!

Here are the cards I made for my husband and for my dad for father's day. I'm so blessed to have both of them, and my father in law in my life! Thanks to them for being such great men, and examples to me.

This and That and a Giveaway!

Have you ever tried these mint crisp m&ms? They are dangerous! Man they are good, they remind me of the thin mint girl scout cookies. The Activity Days girls at church gave them to me as a thank you and farewell since I'm not working with them anymore. I'm going to miss them!

Here's the tote for my daughter's teacher with the star tags I made. We gave it to her today and she loved it.

I finally got around to making balls for my kids with their fabric choices. Hmmm, can you tell which one is the boy's and which one is the girl's???

Giveaway! If you would like to be the proud owner of this darling pincushion, then just leave me a comment and tell me: If you had a whole day to yourself, how would you spend your day? Post your comment here by Thursday night and I'll choose a random number and announce the winner on Friday the 13th. Good luck!

Broccoli Salad

I am participating in the Recipe Swap Box today. Here is a simple and quick salad recipe:

Broccoli Salad

Combine in a bowl:
2 heads of broccoli florets
1 cup raisins
1 cup sunflower seeds
½ small chopped red onion

Dressing:
3 teaspoons apple cider vinegar
¼ cup sugar
1 cup mayo

Beat dressing if necessary to make smooth. Pour dressing onto salad ingredients and toss. Enjoy. Best when eaten right away.