"Gingerbread" Men (and Women)

Well, they're not technically made of gingerbread, but they are in the shape of gingerbread people! I went over to Erika's on Friday and we baked sugar cookies. Then I came home and decorated them that night! It was my first REAL foray into color flow frosting, and I had fun experimenting. I hope to get a lot better - but I thought these guys were pretty cute!

I decorated lots of cookies, so be on the lookout for more cookie posts!!

Daily December List

What's on your Daily December activity list? So far this month we have...

1. Made cookies (though there will be more of that, for sure!)
2. Wrapped gifts (and more of that, for sure!)
3. Made Christmas gifts
4. Devoured the gingerbread house we made
5. Gone to the Christmas Stroll
6. Given to the Salvation Army

Still to do on my list...

1. Make Peppernuts
2. Look at Christmas lights
3. Take family Christmas picture
4. Take pictures of our decorations
5. Watch "How the Grinch Stole Christmas"
6. Drink some eggnog
7. Read some Christmas books by the Christmas tree
8. Open "12 Days of Christmas" gifts
9. Sing Christmas carols
10. RNT Holiday party (next Friday night!)
11. Build a snowman
12. Finish and send out Christmas cards
13. Open Christmas gifts
14. Have early Christmas with the Wicklands
15. Make salt dough Christmas ornaments

I'm sure there are other things I have on the list to do, but this will at least give me ideas as we think through what to do each day!

Guess what we did yesterday....?

Yup! We made this:

When 20 below is a beautiful thing....

Temperatures at 20 below zero are rarely a beautiful thing. Good for freezing all the bugs and keeping them at bay during the summer, yes, but good for getting out and playing in? No.

Unless you're making peppernuts.

Every year I make peppernut cookies for the holidays. My grandmother always did and I'm happy to carry on the tradition. Our recipe makes a ton of cookies, and if you're going to run the oven for half the day making them, it's best to do it on a cold day when you can enjoy the warmth.

But that's not why 20 below is beautiful on peppernut day. This is:

You see, you have to freeze the ropes of dough after you've formed them so they are solid enough to cut into cookies. I'm usually fighting to find enough space in my freezer for a few cookie sheets full of dough and it takes a long time for them to freeze. When it's 20 below out, though, you can just pop them outside in the snow and they freeze pretty quickly! It's sort of like flash freezing, I'd guess. It's great!

And then it occurred to me (well, actually it occurred to my brother, but he was nice enough to share this thought with me...) that the good German peppernut tradition probably predates the electric freezer. So I'm guessing putting the dough outside in the cold to chill is not something I am the first to do. Perhaps that's why they're winter cookies after all.

Holiday Ornament Making

This year Eliana got into the holiday spirit with hand crafted gifts, too! She and her little friends made some salt dough ornaments and painted them to give as gifts to the grandparents. Nothing like seeing your little girl get excited about crafting to make a mama's heart proud! =D

Ellie and J flattening out the salt dough.

Painting the ornaments at home the next day... Eliana painted them all by herself!

I think they turned out very nicely for ornaments made and hand painted by a 2 year old! I hope they were appreciated by the grandparents. I kept a couple for her to have as keepsakes, too.

Holiday Self Portrait

With Leif's new D300! =D

Happy 4th of July!

A little peek at our 4th of July party...

I made up some infused simple syrups (cherry, cinnamon, and vanilla) to sweeten the sparkling lemonade, dressed up some pixy stix for some cheer, and cut some flowers from my garden for a little red, white, and blue. And I topped it all off with a little star banner decorated by Eliana, who will turn 2 in just a couple weeks! We had just a small gathering, but there were burgers, there was fun, and it was a refreshing way to spend a hot holiday! Hope your 4th was wonderful, too!

Happy Mother's Day!!

Here's the project I made my mom for Mother's Day. I originally got this idea from Kristii and was going to take her class on it at the LSS, but it got canceled so I just made my own. And I LOVE how it turned out!

Happy Mother's Day, MOM! I love you!

(The best part is that my mom flew in yesterday, so I really DO get to spend Mother's Day with her! I had this waiting on her bed for her when she arrived yesterday.)

Here are a few more details of the project...

Instead of the single large photo used in Kristii's project, I chose to use a cascade of photos from several generations.

I guess I'm not completely over the butterflies yet, but I love that the music from these comes from some antique sheet music I have that I scanned in and printed out. A little touch of digital goes a long way!

I'm especially excited about the cameo I used as a flower center. I knew I could do something cool with this when I bought it a year or more ago. But what has me excited most is that I painted it with my alcohol inks to get it just the right color for this project. It's always exciting when something works the way you want it to!

And just for good measure, another look at the whole project, with the shadow box lid open to remove any glare from the glass. I'm sorry the class I was going to take got canceled, but I love how this turned out, so I guess I'm glad after all! Thanks for the inspiration, Kristii!

Peppernuts!

Christmas is just not the same without peppernuts. They're little German spice cookies my grandmother always used to make. They're perfect for dunking in coffee and great by the handful. And Christmas is just not the same without them. So... today is Peppernut Day! I started making them yesterday, let them freeze overnight, and baked them this morning. Well, I baked half of them. The other half will have to wait until later because I have plans in a little over an hour and I don't want to pull out the other pan of frozen dough. There are dozens of recipes for peppernuts, and it seems that every Mennonite family has their own version. I've tried a couple other varieties, but nothing beats what *I* know to be peppernuts: 1 C. shortening 1 C. white sugar 1 C. butter 1 C. evaporated milk 2 C. brown sugar 1 egg Mix ingredients together. Add in: 1 tsp each: salt black pepper cinnamon nutmeg ginger baking powder baking soda 1/2 tsp each: allspice cloves anise oil 6-7 C. flour The dough will be thick, kind of like gingerbread. Refrigerate dough until chilled through. Roll chilled dough into long 3/4 inch diameter ropes. Freeze. Cut ropes into 1/4 inch cookies and place on baking sheets. Bake at 350 degrees for 8-10 minutes. Makes a few hundred cookies... That are perfect for gift giving!! Wrap them up in the cutest way you can think of and hand out to everyone you know!!

Thanksgiving 2007

Simplicity. It's a beautiful thing. Because I chose simplicity over perfection this year, I looked like this:

happy, calm, collected, and relaxed instead of like this:

which I look like most years. In case you can't tell, this is the "get out of my kitchen before I stab you with this little paring knife" look. I'm often a little more than on edge when I'm preparing a nice meal and trying to get it all on the table, hot and perfectly presented. Especially when there are extra people in my kitchen. I often want to wield a threatening paring knife and menacing scowl at those who step foot in my kitchen uninvited on a day like today, but I'm too nice. So I swallow the menacing scowl and rename it stress.

But not today. No, today I relaxed. Dinner was 5 minutes late. And I forgot to add the cranberries and almonds to the stuffing. And I smiled. It did help, though, that I didn't have extra bodies in the kitchen. It also helped that I'm learning how to make things ahead of time so that I have less to do the day of. I'm also learning how to ignore those who mock me for setting out the dishes the night before. But because I planned ahead and relaxed today, the paring knife stayed in my hand in not in them. So they should be thankful. They should also be thankful that they got to eat pies like these:

and sit at a table like this:


Yes, simplicity is a good way to go. I'll have to try it again next year.

Katakeimai

Mmmm... SO FULL. I had to leave the table and go lay on the couch I was so full. Here's the sad part... I didn't even get any pretzel salad, didn't have seconds, and had to feed the rest of my stuffing to Ellie. Darn that moderate eating for the last few months! Maybe in a couple hours I can eat some pie.

Good news: I can eat the yumminess all week long. Mmmmm. Leftovers.

Fairy Wings!!

Ellie is a fairy for Halloween this year. She's all pink and tulle with pink sparkly wings!! Thanks to some inspiration from Martha I made the little fairy wings you see above. I made mine a little differently than the ones Martha did, but they work pretty well, especially for Ellie! They are made from 18 gauge wire and an old pair of tights Ellie ripped the toe out of. I'm sure I could have fixed the toe, but this was way better! The best part is that the waistband of the tights is what secures the wings to Ellie's shoulders. No sewing or cutting involved! Add a little glitter paint design and *voila!* you have a cheap pair of fairy wings perfect for Halloween!

National Scrapbooking Day

Do you know how MUCH scrapbooking I have done today, on this great holiday?

NONE.

nope. none. I haven't scrapped one bit today. It's sort of sad, really. I've talked to my best friend and my mom on the phone, I went to the library and park with Catherine and Tjabe, I went garage sale-ing with Taylor, but NO SCRAPPING.

*pout*

... and I wanted to. I really did. I might have to go to the scraproom and make something now before Leif comes home from study group. But there's this pile o' laundry that needs to be put away.

Life. You want to scrapbook it, but it keeps getting in the way of scrapbooking.