Totally Cute Holiday Shirts

Just thought I'd stop for a brief post to share what I've been up to besides being a maid, chauffeur, and event planner for the family.

I've been making these totally adorable personalized holiday shirts.

I made these shirts for a good friend. I haven't photographed the ones I've made for my girls yet, but they've been wearing them and since then I've had a few orders. I wasn't intending on selling these, but a few extra bucks for the holiday season have been a nice treat for me. 

I don't have a Christmas tree yet, but hopefully I'll have one this week. My goal this week: CLEAN and dig out the Christmas decorations.

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas!

Now that the ghouls and goblins are behind us, it's onto winter holiday preparations. . . 

I'm having fun with my new embroidery machine.

And I have a few projects up my sleeve.

So stay tuned. . .

For a few up coming holiday goodies.

Conquering My Fear . . . .

of making gingerbread anything. For some seriously odd and unexplainable reason, other than perfectionism, the thought of making gingerbread houses/men has intimidated me. I hate being wasteful so I don't usually try to make something unless I know it'll turn out. Not very risky or fun, I know. Well, after much thought, self coaching, living with a tight budget, and a little research, I decided to try my hand at making my own gingerbread house this year instead of purchasing the premade kits.

I used this recipe and found it surprisingly easy to work with. So easy that I didn't even have to flour the counter to roll the dough out! I can't attest to the taste/quality as I've never made any other recipe, but I can pretty much guarantee that the candy embellishments will get eaten before the actual gingerbread house.

Not very appetizing, I know, but this was prior to kneading the dough.

Ten year olds are also perfect for kneading and kneading and kneading dough.

Once we were done kneading we rolled out half the dough and used our template to cut out the house pieces. The other half of the dough, we wrapped up and refrigerated as directed until we were ready to make more pieces for the project.

I thought they turned out pretty nice. Since daughter number two is on her way back from the boonies, we decided to hold off on decorating until tomorrow so she could participate in the family decorating party. Let's just hope the house will stand!

It stood! This was the easiest gingerbread house that we've ever put together. Good bye store bought kits!

What are 10 year olds for?

My 10 year old has taken on the cooking and baking duties lately. Not because I make her, but because she begs me to. I must admit though, she's a pretty good cook and I really enjoy the break from my kitchen duties. I love that she is interested in cooking. She's an extremely picky eater and the rule here is that if you make it, you have to try it. Needless to say, she doesn't volunteer to make many dishes that include vegetables.

Today, she wanted to make Krumkake. I have never allowed her to make it on her own before, but today, I just gave her the recipe and walked out of the kitchen.

She did pretty good. They turned out perfect and absolutely yummy. What is Krumkake? It's a Norwegian cookie made around Christmas time except in this house we make it year round. I'm not going to pretend I know a lot about my Norwegian side because I don't. Afterall I grew up in a remote Alaskan village thousands of miles away from Norway, but I sure know how yummy their krumkake is. Another Norwegian favorite of mine is lefse and one of these days I will learn how to make that as well.