Lovely Christmas

Hello!!
I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas!! I couldn't post anything during the holidays!! My daughter Taylor had asked for a cookbook for Christmas - a family cookbook. One with recipes we have been making along with stories of where they came from. She had asked for it way back in July but we didn't start on it until much later. For a few weeks all we did was work on it - every free minute we had!! It ended up being about 85 pages - even has some secret family recipes - the children have been threatened with certain death if they share some of the ones that ended up in there!!

 Here is Scott and Mo working hard on the cookbook!

front and binding

 it has recipes the kids remember

and even pictures

  the section dividers have cooking information I found online - this one is from Chasing Delicious

or a page of the actual recipe cards I have in my recipe box

 sometimes pictures of food

 or the products they will need  - or tips they need to know to make certain foods

or pictures of the people we got the recipes from. I think it turned out wonderful. We gave one to Ryder too. They can add recipes too it and pass it along someday.
So we worked on that - then we decided to bake cookies to send to the kids and our traditional breakfast roll (which also made the cookbook!!). I made the rolls and Scott made the cookies. By the time we got their boxes shipped out we had not even put up a Christmas tree and it was a week to Christmas! We still had a lovely Christmas. I will show you a few things I got -

 a box carved out of cinnamon bark made in Vietnam - smells like cinnamon!!

 a starlight from artecnica

Heart of Christmas gnomes by Enesco if you click the link you can see the front and back - they are adorable!! They have little hair-ties and they are each numbered - I love them!!

a lovely sterling silver and swarovski crystal bracelet.

Some wonderul patterns!!!
 I also got a lovely coat - which I did not get a good picture of so I will post the link. It's a company called Greater Good that says they give proceeds to different charities. Buying this coat is suppose to be helping animals. Who knows if they really do it - I did look online and some places said they were legitimate and some sites said they weren't. I love the coat though!! So you can see I am a spoiled girl - I know I am very lucky!! We went the day after Christmas and bought a fake tree - great sale of course. So we will never be without a tree because we didn't have time to go get one!! It's set up with no ornaments right now and it is very pretty. The best part of Christmas was 4 days home together. We missed seeing our family - we did get to skype with the kids - gotta love technology!!!
As for stitching - I did finish the L but that is a post for another day... if I can get the finishing done!!
Hope you all had a lovely Christmas!! Hope you have a wonderful New Year's Eve - be safe!!

Can I buy an E?

I really wish I could actually buy the L because I am so darn sick of this project!! I haven’t had much time to work on it so it is taking forever to get it done. *sigh* I desperately want to start a new project but I really don’t need another WIP *sigh*.

We have been working so hard on getting packages sent to our kids that we don’t even have a tree up – or any decorations at all. We do have cookies though because Scott baked several kinds. I think we decided to skip the tree this year. If we put it up now it would only be up for two weeks. It’s a lot of work to get it up for such a short time. I think Scott is a little depressed about it though.

I did make a cranberry crunch cake and then I made a gingerbread cake. 

We had the gingerbread at Bang! In Colorado – on DDD of course. I was dreaming about the cake the other day when it occurred to me that I could make one!! I looked online and Bang shared their recipe – yay!! If you make it be sure to serve it with whipped cream – makes all the difference in the world!!

 Skinnytaste has a new cookbook out – I checked it out from the library – love it!! I have made two recipes from it already – and plan on making several more. I will photocopy the recipes I like . I don’t like having cookbooks because when I plan my menu I don’t want to have to drag out a bunch of books. I have photocopied every recipe I use and stuck it in my book. She posted an older recipe on her blog – beef and barley soup. Holy cow is it fantastic!! I can’t wait to have it again – such a good rich flavor!!  

my camera doesn't do a very good job - it was delicious!!

Scott always writes my menu on the blackboard he made me - he has lovely handwriting. Some of the pictures he does are funny - I forgot to show you the Thanskgiving one on my last post....

Not much to chat about this blog but I do hope you all have a very merry Christmas.!!

Thanks for stopping by!  HO HO HO

Gimme an O!!!

Two down......two to go!