Three Word Wednesday

Big

Boy

Haircut

The Halls are Decked

I've pretty much finished the inside of the house. I dread the outside, but want to make it fun for the baby. Our next door neighbor has his yard packed full of the blow up decorations and LMW is in awe.

My inside decor....

I have no mantle, so this is the closest I can come to it. SR cut some blocks for me out of scrap boards, and I Modge Podged scrapbook paper to them, then painted the letters. The elves were made by me when my children were very small. They are named accordingly.

The top of my pantry cabinet.

 The carolers and Santa picture on the front entry table were my mother's.

This is one of the stuffed gingerbread folks my Mom had. I took some of her Christmas fabric and draped it over the lamp shade so it would blend in.

 I added some balls, candy canes and lights to the top of my living room window. LMW loves it.

I also added lights, garland and carolers to the buffet my tree is on. It makes it a bit more festive.

I'm pretty pleased at how this corner turned out. If you'll notice there are no pulls on the buffet doors. It's the only way to keep the baby out. LOL!

Tiny Post

I have a tiny tree so this is a tiny post. Since LMW is into everything, and likes to destroy, we had to use a very tiny tree and sit it out of reach.

I couldn't do much with it, since it's so small, and I wound up getting LED lights, which I'm not really happy with. But it will do well enough.

What I Did on Thanksgiving Vacation

Since our family gathering was last Saturday, I spent the morning in the process of decorating for Christmas. I'm not finished, and it usually takes me about a week to get it all like I want. Well, it never really gets there, but enough that I can relax and let it go.

I received a wonderful ornament from my friend Y. She actually gave it to me for my birthday in September, and I'm so glad she did! I L O V E it!!

Truer words were never spoken! Invariably, when I am trying to rush through something, the sewing machine starts doing weird things that slow me down. That ever happen to you??

I"m not going to show my entire tree yet, as I'm not finished with it yet. But, here are some odds and ends I did get around to this morning.

I got this idea from Pinterest. I didn't have different sizes of the same color, so I used what I had. It looks better in person.

I had this wreath last year, but when I unpacked, it looked a little sparse, so I added more to it.

I made this last week. I think it needs a little more peppermint.

My Mom loved Gingerbread folks, and had several little stuffed people in her decorations. I was blessed enough to get them. LMW likes them too, and they are something he can play with, and me not worry about him breaking them. When he gets finished, I just put them back where they were. I have a few more scattered around the living room.

Mom also had that little Christmas china set. I thought it would be a nice thing to remember her with, on this shelf in my bedroom.

I painted the "Comfort" and "Joy" plaques a couple of years ago.

Well, that's all I'm going to add for today. I took a "Morning" for Me instead of  Minutes for Me this time. I'm thankful I had the free time to do these things, and the freedom to do them. I'm also thankful for something else...

I'm thankful I didn't fall and break a limb. While climbing down from a step stool, I lost my balance when I put my foot on the floor. To catch myself from falling, I wound up sticking my foot in LMW's toy box. One of his blocks sheared the skin off the bottom of one of my toes. A bit of blood, wailing and gnashing of teeth, but otherwise I'm ok. Thanks be to God, because I was alone. I'd have been that famous woman who cries, "I've fallen and I can't get up!" if God hadn't protected me.

Happy Thanksgiving!!

 

I pray each of you have a wonderful Thanksgiving holiday. And I thank God for you all.

With Love,

Belinda

Trying to Be Gourmet

With all the new cupcake shows these days, I began to think I might just wanna try something new. I'm a decent baker. Nothing out of the ordinary, and I usually stick with my tried and true recipes. But, I have had a hankering to branch out and try some gourmet type cupcakes.

I looked online for recipes, but nothing really appealed to me. Or if it did, it called for all kinds of expensive ingredients I never buy. So, I improvised.  I bought a package of Hershey's peppermint kisses and some butter recipe cake mix and experimented a bit.

First, I chopped up some kisses into tiny tiny pieces.

Because my first experiment with regular vanilla chocolate chips ended with all the chips on the bottom of the cupcake, I thought to try just putting the little pieces on the top of the batter, thinking they would sink a bit.
(Aren't you supposed to coat the chips in flour to keep them from sinking?)

This is how they turned out.

No sinkage. So, I tried adding batter on top of the little pieces.

This is how they turned out.

Not very gourmet looking are they? But, I learned that I can mix them up in the batter and they won't sink to the bottom. That's helpful! I made the icing from cream cheese, real butter, and powdered sugar, then dusted the top with bits. They tasted really really good. So, I will definitely make them again.

So class...
Butter recipe cake mix + Hershey's peppermint kiss bits + cream cheese icing with peppermint kiss bits = Delicious!

Fun in the Mail

Woo Hoo! Lookie see what I received in the mail the other day...

My bloggy/quilty friend Sharon sent them to me with lovely little stories about them. How she does that tiny work is beyond me, but she seems to like doing the tiny things...don't you Sharon?!

I had to wade the lake and streams in our front yard to get to the mail box. Here is an idea of how it looked outside our front window.

Poor little tike kept saying, "Ssssiieeeed" pronounced, " Sigh-eeee-d. He wanted out so badly.

Thank you Sharon. You rock!