Ta-Da! The Cookies............and a story.

We had so much fun - made a huge mess - ate lots of cookies and frosting - and wound up with some very cute cookies. My little one sure has come a long way in her cookie baking skills. One little Gingie (gingerbread man), broke a leg - it was mended.....just mended backwards! Oh well, he still tasted goooood.

I've been getting messages lately I believe from the good Lord above - one received last night - "SLOW DOWN!" Wanna know how this message was delivered?

Well....thinking that I was taking a little shortcut, I ordered a pizza to be delivered (online nonetheless) - decided that it would be very smart of me to use my Pampered Chef Pizza Stone - which I never use - so I put it in the oven to be nice and hot (hot being a key word here) for when the pizza arrived. I also decided to use the handy metal carrying thingy. Children are crying...."when are we gonna eat Momma??? waaaaaah!!!" Door bell rings - hot pizza delivered - pizza goes on the counter - I get hot pads from the drawer (still "waaaaaaah" Momma, I'm hungry!) - get pizza stone out of the oven and carry it to the kitchen table - oops - it's sitting cockeyed, better straighten it up......bad idea (well, the bad idea was that I skipped a step - I forgot to grab my hot pads again) - Yes......, I grabbed the metal carrying thingy with my bare hand - and Yes....it hurt like a you know what! I think I got a little faint and nauseous.....

Oh well, alls well that ends well. I just wrapped a dish cloth with ice around it all night (all night...as in I slept with it) - and viola! The only damage is I now have no feeling in my left fingertips. That's not necessary, is it? At least now I'll have matching scars on my fingertips to match the scar on my pinky where I sat my steaming iron on it a few weeks ago!

And I AM trying to slow down - but wow, its hard to do this time of year!

Merry Christmas Everyone!!

1 Week to Go~~

Can you say 1 week to Christmas???!! I am NOT ready. Guess I never would be completely ready though come to think of it. Still have some elf work to do for both of my little sugar plums. Tonight we are baking and decorating cookies with some much adored family members. I'm calling the pizza guy - no cooking tonight! I'll post some pictures of the cookies tomorrow - I'm sure they will be very original considering the input of my 5 year old!

What do you have left to do on your list?

Here's what I've got so far - and the list just keeps getting added to as the count down continues.

*Bake Cookies (check. at least after tonight)

*Elf work for both little ones (when is this gonna get done??? May need to call a babysitter!)

*Freeze breakfast casserole for company

*Freeze several dinners for company

*Freeze the dressing for Christmas dinner

*Wrap presents, wrap presents, wrap presents

*Pray for looooonnngggg naps from my children

*Christmas Cards (they ARE ordered, just not here yet. the recipients might receive them around Christmas day if we're lucky)

*Clean my house for company

*Order a gift for my nephew (better get on that one pronto!)

*Grocery Store - (that was going to get accomplished today, but the little darlings took such a loonnnggg nap, we ran out of time this afternoon! Be careful what you wish for as they say!)

Guess that's all I can come up with right now.

Here are some pictures from our household you might enjoy!

Happy Holidays and Merry Christmas!

Oh - and this is a picture of a little Christmas apron I made for one of my daughter's friends for her birthday

These are a Few of My Favorite Things

These little elves are some of my absolute favorite Christmas decorations. Ok, they ARE my favorite Christmas decorations - well, I love, love the Shiny Brites behind them also. These little elves are from my mother's collection. They used to come out every year when I was a child. I can remember seeing them perched around the house thinking that the elves really WERE watching to see if I'd been a good girl! If you like Hot Chocolate, then you have to try this. It is the absolute best - it's sooo rich and Yes, Indulgent. So, I feel that I need a cup every night. I'm choosing not to look at the calorie count until after Christmas. I AM adding milk - gotta get that calcium ya know. Besides, drinking hot chocolate fools me into thinking it's actually cold enough outside to feel like the holidays. Being in Texas, sometimes I need those little tricks. I was thinking of heading to the craft store to pick up a bag of fake snow to sprinkle all around the inside of my house. Have my fuzzy slippers and snuggly sweater handy too. Now I just need to turn up that air conditioning.

What a Fun Time!

Saturday turned out to be loads of fun! Here is a picture of what my little corner ended up looking like. The shutters against the wall were perfect - unfortunately they're not mine - I think I need to find some. Thanks Kim and Josh! We had a great turnout of festival goers and what fun to see so many friends out and about. Of course, I had to to a bit of shopping too - so I spent some of my hard earned money on a gorgeous necklace which I purchased from the ladies next to me. I'll have to post a picture of that later.


Speaking of pictures - I'm sick, sick, sick.....my external hard drive has crashed. Thinking I was being careful, I put ALL of my family photos on the external hard drive, thinking that if my computer crashed, my pictures would be safe. Duh...guess you have to back up the external hard drive too. It's a job keeping up with pictures, don't you think?? I'm cringing to think of what it is going to cost to recover those pictures - and of course, we have no choice. My list of things to do today involves digging out some CDs and backing up everything else on my computer. What a pain, a neccessary one though I suppose.


I'm off to start working on my to-do list while the little guy is sleeping peacefully!