Christmas 2013

Our Family Portrait
Christmas Eve 2013

Hello December

Hello blog readers,
I did not forget about you, or the posts I have been 'working' on ...
I've just been busy. With life and what not.
We celebrated Thanksgiving, did some holiday shopping, just celebrated my husband's birthday, and are celebrating my sis-in-law's birthday this coming weekend. Plus getting ready for Christmas. Yesh!

I leave you with a cute picture to enjoy:

My cute kid, eating 'Kwunchy Unyins' from the can.
He took the can from the food table and sat down with it.
He loves those things!

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported License.

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Thanksgiving Wreath

I know everyone is busy getting ready for the holidays, us too. I wanted to share an easy little craft for Thanksgiving, the Turkey Day Turkey Wreath.

It's really easy to make: Wreath form, colorful foam or felt, googley eyes, curling ribbon, hot glue ...

Love Printables

Just a quick drop-in:

I've made some printables for the 14 days of L-O-V-E challenge,

or just because ... 

There are some cute love notes,
and some blank love coupons. 

Feel free to use them to show your significant other some love ;)

https://sites.google.com/site/emuadventures/printables

... So This Is The New Year.

"... So this is the new year
And I have no resolutions
For self assigned penance

For problems with easy solutions ..."
Death Cab for Cutie "The New Year"

2013 is upon us now. 

Which means everyone is creating their resolutions,
and letting the world know them.
The problem with resolutions is who ever creates ones they can actually achieve, or remembers what they want to achieve by December.
Most likely you forget by February, or you said you were going to do something rather dumb, like fly a box to the moon. Good luck with that.
I have a problem with making too vague of resolutions.
Blog more.
{How much more? About what? Why?}
Get organized.
{Organize what? How?}
Loose weight.
{By ... magic beans?}

Vague resolutions that by February I have lost hope in achieving.

So this year I am challenging myself to make more achievable monthly goals.
They can be personal, family, blog related ... whatever.
But they must be achievable, and not vague.
I need to have steps to achieve my monthly goals.
And I need to try my hardest to get them done.

Sure, I have some all-year goals
{home improvement projects, keeping us healthy, building our savings}
and some goals we will just have to get to when there is time/money
{renovating our bathrooms...}
and my goal of us taking a family vacation somewhere, sometime,
since the little guy is now old enough to go on family adventures.

And with that, I am now off to think of my January goals ...

And Then It Was Christmas ...

Around our house, we have 3 Christmas's.
Yup.
3. 

Well, technically 4. 

We have my family on Christmas Eve.
Then our little family Christmas morning.
We go to my in-laws around lunchtime,
and then to the grandparent-in-laws for supper. 

It's a big 2 day sweep of family, food, and gifts galore.

Christmas Craft - Easy Outdoor Tree

Ok, first, Yes, I am still working on my 30 Days of Thankful.
Second, let me have a moment here
{*gasp* *ugh* *barf* *uuuuhhh*}

Ok.

Yeah, I'm going to do a Christmas post.
Before Turkey Day.

Sue me. 

I seriously just complained about my neighbor putting up christmas lights.
So, here ya go!

I just want you to have a craft in mind when you're doing your Black Friday power shopping.
(and, by black friday, I mean black thursday...)

Shortbread Sugar Cookies

I follow this recipe, just, half as much. Since I'm not baking for an army.  I also use cookie cutters, instead of a cookie press.

http://allrecipes.com/recipe/shortbread-cookies-ii/detail.aspx

Ingredients

• 2 cups butter, softened
• 1 cup white sugar
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 4 cups all-purpose flour

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (180 degrees C).
2. Cream butter and sugar until fluffy. Stir in vanilla; add flour and mix well.
3. Put through cookie press and form cookies onto baking sheets. Bake for 10 - 12 minutes.

If you're using a cookie press, after you make the dough, you can fill your press and go.
If you're using cookie cutters, form dough into a ball, wrap in clear-wrap, and refrigerate for about 30 mins. {I also place the cookie cutters I'll be using, and my silicone mats in the fridge to cool}
After 30 minutes, roll out and cut your cookies. (I also keep a dish of oil nearby, to dip my cookie cutters into, so they don't stick)  Bake, cool and decorate.

I used wheat flour this time, and added more vanilla extract (and some almond). You can actually use any extract you want, add food color, even add cinnamon, nuts or chocolate chips if you want.
{And, since there is no raw egg in this, its safe to eat as you go}

Cinnamon Ornaments

I like Martha Stewart's 'recipe' for cinnamon dough the best.


http://www.marthastewart.com/how-to/cinnamon-bird-ornaments#

I didn't have enough cinnamon, or any apple sauce - so I made my own version. Follow Martha's directions for the dough. They are much better than what I ended up with (mine have almost no cinnamon smell).

Mix together 1 cup cinnamon, 1/4 cup apple sauce, and 1/2 cup craft glue. Roll into a ball and let set about an hour. {Or, roll into ball, wrap in clear-wrap, and pop in the fridge for 15 mins. or so} Roll out dough and cut out shapes. Use a straw or skewer to place a hole in each ornament (so you can hang it up). You can let dry out over night, or place into the oven on 200 for about 2 hours (flip over at 1 hr).  Let cool, place ribbons through, and decorate.

It's begining to look like ...

... A warm, rainy Christmas.

Seriously, it's about 60 degrees here, and pouring down rain. No cold, no snow, just yuck. It doesn't even seem like the holidays. I've had no motivation to really do anything seasonal, just because it doesn't seem like winter. It's like Christmas in Florida or something. But I've sucked it up and have been decorating and wrapping gifts. Last week I put up lights outside, and today I did some inside decorating and wrapping. It's all a lot harder to do when you're 8 months pregnant. 1 trip downstairs is now about 5 trips. 

The lights outside

Front door wreath

Our Winter Evergreen Bush

Our Evergreen Bush isn't a christmas tree. It's not. It's a tree to hang the ornaments I've been given over the years on and put our gifts around.

{ I have my views on what Christmas is, which I''m not going to go into here, but there is a Hanukkah bag under there too}

And, every year I look forward to putting out my cinnamon ornaments. I made them when I was working at a private school, and they smelled so good, year after year. And the smell of cinnamon just puts you in a holiday mood.  Umm, except this year ...

Here is what I found when I opened the box.

Granted, this is probably my fault, usually I put them in a baggie, then into the box. But that's not the point.
The mice that keep getting in our basement decided to eat cinnamon us. Yup. They took off John's head and arm, and both of my arms. And snacked on the candy cane and present too. A serious bummer. I had made cinnamon us the christmas before we got married, and now we're mangled. But, I will make more. And when I do I will post the directions.

I'm also hoping to do a post on Fudge soon. :)