Merry Christmas

I hope you all had a blessed Christmas and are able to enjoy this time of year with special family and friends! Here are some images from our day:)



Pilly hasn't quite gotten into the whole present opening thing.



Here is Pnut with her baby doll quilt. She loves to open presents!



Pilly was much more interested in the Christmas tree.



This was the hit gift of the day! We must have listened to it five times through!



Tonight we iced gingerbread cookies. "Mother, I am a professional. Don't worry about how many sprinkles that I am piling on this cookie!"



"Why yes, these sprinkles are delicious! Look how many I have scattered over the table to clean up with my wet fingers. I am only eating them to change the color of my tongue to purple."



Here are some of our decorated ones! We had a lot of fun doing it together.

We are going to Baltimore for a few days and so the posts will be on hold for a little while. Have a great weekend!

Finished handkerchief case

I only have one itty bitty project to show for tonight. I worked on something else for over an hour, but it is not quite finished. Hopefully, tomorrow.



This is a handkerchief case from Kathleen's tutorial. Isn't it cute?! It was so easy. I love this whole project. I wish more people used handkerchiefs!

One more thing.

Are you ready?

Are you excited?

I am excited but you don't seem excited enough!

It's here!



We have a stove again! We have plans for Christmas cookie making:)

Pnut's Baby Doll Quilt-Finished!

I have finished all of the girls' Christmas presents now! With two days left no less! I did want to make them stockings, I have a really neat pattern and material, but the pattern is actually in a book and has to be blown up 200% so I can't do it without that. But anyways, I finished Pnut's quilt tonight. I love these little quilts. They take me less than four hours, which is pretty good for me!



I don't think the colors show up as good as they are in real life. I entered to win Pioneer Woman's camera. I would love it! Then maybe I can get some better pictures for on here. Or possibly it would just prove that I can't really take pictures, regardless of how good the camera is!

I will get to make one more baby doll quilt for Laine for her birthday. I won some fabric from Lolly as soon as she orders more so that is really exciting. I wish that she were going to have yards of it made so I could get a lot! I think it is really cute!

In other news, we get our stove tomorrow! I will have an oven again. Pnut and I have some cookies planned. I am sure Pilly will watch, but she likes to eat things too much to do more than that! Speaking of ovens, Pnut pulled the oven door open and smacked Pilly in the head and knocked her down today. They are not allowed to play in the kitchen anymore. They just get into trouble out there! That little Pilly was walking all over the place tonight. It is so sad. She is really growing up too fast!

Ok, these late nights are starting to get to me so I need to go get some sleep. I have plenty of energy for the night, but then it disappears the next morning! Have a good sleep everyone:)

That Pnut and some more handkerchiefs

Have I introduced you to my Pnut yet? Apparently, she is from the South, somewhere around Georgia probably. I am not sure how this happened since we are from Pennsylvania. She says things like "What is that over they-uh?," "Let's go up the stay-uhs," and "Yey-uh I made that mess." I cannot get her to say it normally. If she starts saying ya'll, I am going to be sure that she is sneaking out at night.



I made these for the volunteer that rides with Joel on Mondays. He is this really neat man, somewhere around 75 years old, who does more in a day than I do. He walks every morning something like two miles, volunteers several places, runs his grandchildren around to help out his children, attends every sporting event that his grandchildren are in, all this stuff. He is really nice, and Joel really enjoys having him in the truck!

In case you didn't know, I really like polka dots. A lot. And Kacy, isn't that an awesome color green?!



Lastly, can you guess what that is? That, my friends, is the rose that my sweet husband brought me home when he walked to the comic book store today. He is a very thoughtful man!

Double Chocolate Gooey Butter Cake...and some Christmas!

I love this cake! Some people, weirdo's that they are, think that it is too sweet. Not me!! It is so full of deliciousness, and now I have half a pan of it left that I will probably eat all by myself. Not good!



1 c butter, separated into half cups, melted
1 pkg chocolate cake mix
3 large eggs
8 oz cream cheese, softened
3-4 T cocoa powder
1 box (1 lb) powdered sugar
1 t vanilla

1. Heat oven to 350 degrees and place rack in center. Lightly butter a 13x 9 cake pan. In a large bowl, stir together cake mix, 1/2 c butter, and 1 egg until well combined. Evenly pat into prepared pan and set aside.
2. Beat cream cheese on medium until smooth. Beat in 2 eggs and cocoa until well combined. reduce speed to low and add sugar. Beat until combined well. Gradually beat in 1/2 c butter and vanilla, beat until smooth. Spread over cake mixture.
3. Bake until set around edges but center is a little gooey, 40-50 minutes. Do Not Overbake! Let cool slightly before serving.

I made this yesterday for Christmas with my grandparents. We went up early to visit my other grandparents first and I made the cake at their house since we don't have our oven yet. My grandmother has a hand mixer. I am pretty sure it is from like 1956. It was terrible. I thought I was going to burn the motor up mixing just the cream cheese. Thank you Lord for my stand mixer! There was so much delicious dessert yesterday. My Uncle Roger makes a wonderful cherry cheesecake that was entirely consumed, but other than that everything was half-eaten!

The Christmas party was at my cousin Jess's house. That was nice because they live slightly closer to us so the trip back wasn't as long. We had lots of fun. I enjoyed spending time with my sister Randa and Jess. My other sister wasn't getting off of work until 4:00 so she was coming as we were leaving. The children had the most fun of all though. Jess has stairs and no baby gate so they were really happy. They were climbing them and sliding down on their bellies and probably would have played their most of the afternoon.



Aren't they so cute? Anthony was keeping Pilly from escaping!



Look at her making a break for the top with her grandmother right there pretending to watch her!



That's right Laine, you have to feed Pilly to keep her at the bottom.

It was such a nice day. I really enjoy being with my family! Unfortunately, we don't get to see them very much since we live here now and don't go there very often so I really look forward to the holidays!

Well, church was canceled because of the sleet covering the roads so we are going to have a nice, relaxing day at home!

Receiving blankets

I took a break from Christmas-present making to work on a baby gift tonight. I didn't have a choice. It has to be ready for tomorrow. In my defense, I only bought the fabric today! My cousin just had twins, and I made a receiving blanket for each of them. A friend of mine who recently had a baby raved about this large receiving blanket that she had. She actually had her mom make her a couple more because she liked them so much. She said it was so much easier to swaddle the baby in. So I decided to make them for the twins. I won't actually get to see them. I am giving them to my parents who will be seeing her parents. That is disappointing. I'm afraid to hold a baby though. It may bring back that baby desire that I successfully killed by visiting my friends that have five children. Anyways, back to the blankets. I did a zig-zag stitch in an effort to cover up my inability to sew in a straight line. Plus I think they look neat. However, I forgot how distracting that needle is when doing the zig-zag stitch. There were no major mishaps thankfully! I hope that she likes them. She should tell me that she likes them regardless of whether she does or not to protect my delicate sensibilities. Or I may just take them back because I think they are super cute!



This monkey one is for the little boy. It is my favorite out of the two. I just love the fabric! How cute is it?!



This sweet pea one is also cute. Sorry about the picture quality. Our camera is acting up and likes to spontaneously shut off. Did I mention that we do not have overhead lighting in the dining or living rooms? That makes taking pictures hard too! We will eventually get those lights fixed! Anyways, boy am I easily distracted tonight, I like this one, but the material isn't as soft and it isn't as bright. I like bright things!

Well, we have four hours of driving tomorrow for a family Christmas get-together so I guess I ought to get to bed! Happy Saturday everyone! Finish up that shopping!

Sugar Cookie Frock GIVEAWAY!!!!

Sugar Cookie Frock GIVEAWAY!!!!