The New Year

I am about to start my going to Disneyland diet....right after I finish off the other half of that baked brie. Would somebody please come get all the crap out of my house!

Flower tutorials

If anyone is interested in making more of the flowers I made you for Christmas the tutorials are here and here. And they are so easy.




And this is what I gave away to my neighbors/friends this year. They are pretty delicious and also super easy.

Spiced Nuts Recipe

1 lb mixed nuts (unsalted)
1 T butter (melted)
1/2 t cayenne pepper
2 T coarsely chopped fresh rosemary
2 T brown sugar
1/2 t sea salt

Roast nuts on a baking sheet for 10 minutes at 350 degrees. Mix all the other ingredients in a bowl. Put nuts in a bowl, pour mixture on top and stir a lot.

You should all post your favorite holiday recipes.

Christmas Gifts

Here are some Christmas gifts, now that everyone has gotten them! 

Sweaters for the girlies.

Flirty apron for Becky.  My first time doing ruffles like that!

Some onesies I did today for our friends’ little boy James.

Stockings

I finished the embroidering and I wanted a picture of the cute insides but it is kind of hard to see.



btw - we each chose our colors and we all think our own is the cutest.

Scherenschnitte

My friend Cindy is a super talented graphic designer - but on the side she has this scherenschnitte (papercutting) blog where every tuesday she posts templates so you can make your own. These are especially cute for christmas. I probably would have made you all one if I found them earlier.

Christmas stuff

I feel like this blog is getting neglected - but you can't really post gifts you are making and you don't really have to time to look at all the cute stuff on the internet to post because you are too busy making gifts. Christmastime.

I did finally make our stockings. I am embroidering our names on them today.


And I have wanted to post about two of our favorite new Christmas traditions this year. The first is the elf on the shelf (see below).


The elf comes with a book that explains that he is a scout elf from Santa Claus and reports back to the North Pole each day to tell Santa if you are being a good little (boy). The boys are so excited to wake up in the morning and find where the elf is sitting that day. They love to tell him their wish lists for him to report to Santa and in general, respond to threats about the elf telling Santa if they don't start behaving. I kind of love it.

The other tradition we started is on the day that we got our tree the boys were surprised with new Christmas pajamas from Santa with a note that said "Have fun decorating the tree in your new pajamas and don't forget to be good..." We thought we would have them sleep under the tree that night with the tree lights on but I think we might wait a year on that part because they might never have gone to sleep that night.

Now, if we were just going sledding in NY and all sleeping at Grandma and Grandpa Clays house so we could all wake up together on Christmas morning and spending time holding baby Victoria Christmas really would be perfect.

P.s. Curt keeps asking the boys if they want to have Christmas early. I think he might be as excited as they are.

Craft Weekend

Amy and I did lots of shopping AND crafting while she was here. We can't show them all- but here is a shirt for James.

And more onsies for Zoe.