This Christmas...

5 days till Christmas!  Wow!  Where has the time gone?  Where has the year gone?

My Holiday tree that is kept up year round in my dining room is decorated with cookie cutters, homespun, a few fabric hearts and a Christmas present from my dear friend, Donna-- the adorable Gooseberry Patch Cookbook ornament!  I LOVE it!  It's so cute!  Thank you Donna!

A few things sitting on my husband's grandmother's hutch.  I decorated with fresh greenery all over this year and I love the pine smell!

My very favorite Christmas piece was made by my mom in 1986.  She made six of them!  One for each of her children!  Although it would be a decade later before I married, I have treasured it because I know how much love and time was put into this beautiful village!

I am so very thankful for this Christmas compared to last Christmas. Last year I had to work more days at my part-time job. I was working four days a week. This year I am only working two days a week. It has been so wonderful to accomplish so many things I wasn't able to last year because of time restraints. Even though my job is part-time, working retail at Hobby Lobby is hard work! Most especially at Christmas time and the month following it! I work in the Seasonal department and it is ever evolving! Constant change is going on. Right now we are in the process of setting out garden and spring items. Valentine's has arrived also! As much as I despise pink (sorry for all you pink lovers!), I am always so delighted to see some pink after all that red and green!

Anyway, it has been a most enjoyable Christmas for me this year. I have been able to focus more on Christ and share more of Him this year. That is always such a thrill for me! My most favorite thing about Christmas is spending time with family and friends. I had a wonderful weekend full of these! Some of my girlfriends and I had a cookie swap Friday night hosted at my home. We had a most enjoyable time... staying up till 1:35 AM catching up on each other's lives! We finally divvied up the cookies at 1 AM! Haha! It was fun and such sweet fellowship. Saturday night, we hosted the main course of a progressive Christmas dinner for our church youth. It was a house full! I was worried about 50+ people having room to sit down and eat dinner, but it worked out. Good times for sure!

After a week of baking and partying, I am ready to focus on a week of my kids being home on Christmas break. Together, we are going to build a gingerbread house (that was actually bought last year, but we never had time to put it together), make jelly and mini bread loaves to share with our family, wrap presents, watch Christmas shows snuggled up on the couch eating popcorn and nestle by the fire drinking hot cocoa. Now that is a Christmas I can enjoy instead of being wore out from working so hard!

Thank you Lord! I am most grateful for the joy in my heart this Christmas!

Wishing you and your family a most warm and blessed Christmas surrounded by lots of love!

Soup for the Soul

Our church had its Ladies Christmas Party Tuesday evening.  "Soup for the Soul" was the theme.  The whole evening revolved around this theme.  Our Women's Activity Team is awesome!  As always, they put together a wonderful evening!  We had a delicious smorgasbord of soups, salads, breads, and desserts!

Needing something to label my soup, I came across a very cute little soup label in one of my Gooseberry Patch cookbooks.  So I sat down one night and went through all of the 28 GBP cookbooks that I own and found tons of cute labels for us to use!  I copied them onto cream colored cardstock.  Then the real fun began!  I used my scrapbooking chalk and watercolor pen to color in the pictures.  It took longer than I anticipated, but I enjoyed doing it.  Robbie wanted to color and chalk with me, so I got his coloring books and he joined me.  I asked him if we should get his workbook and work on some pages.  He LOVES his workbook!  He said "No Mommy, I'm having fun coloring with you."  Ah, too cute!  =]

As the ladies came in the door, the labels were sitting on a table for them to write what they brought and tape to it.  There were so many mouth-watering dishes-- I'm glad we had the labels!  I was so excited about getting a night of sweet fellowship with my sister friends that I forgot to take a picture of the food tables before.

My favorite soup is "Granny's Potato Soup".  Funny... We don't have a Granny in our family.  I'm not even sure where the recipe came from.  But she sure made some delicious potato soup!

 

It's so delicious... I think I'll share with you:

• 6-8 medium potatoes
• 6-8 slices bacon
  
• 2 can cream of chicken soup
  
• 2 cups milk
  
• 1 stick butter
  
• 1 pt. sour cream
  

Dice potatoes and boil until tender.  Fry bacon until crisp.  Crumble bacon and put into crock pot.  Add 2 cans cream of chicken soup, milk, butter and sour cream.  Put drained potatoes on top and turn crock pot on high.  Cook until bubbles and well mixed.

Yum!  Only I cheat a little and use real bacon bits instead of taking the time to fry up some bacon.  I also leave out the sour cream.  And it is still very yummy and creamy!

Our leader of the Women's Ministry had a devotional for us about the different kinds of soups of our life and everything that we put into our soup.  I enjoyed the lesson and it touched my heart.  Amanda had a powerful way of presenting her message and she gently reminded us of the many, many blessings that we have!

 

We were blessed to hear the testimony of one of our youth girls.  The microphone was open to any others that wanted to partake.  It was a wonderful time of sharing.  Following this was a very compelling prayer time. 

To end the evening, we had a craft.  How fun!  There were tables set up with enamel paint and markers.  We painted on soup bowls!  It was hard to decide what to do, but I ended up painting a lime green and pink one for Amariah to use in her bedroom.

I am grateful for:

• my husband for encouraging me to attend this event
• my oldest son for watching his younger brother so I was able to attend
  
• my sister friends who are so fun to be with even when I'm dog tired
  
• my daughter who loved her bowl painted just for her
  
• my God who loves me, bestows His great mercy on me especially when my soup is scorched/burnt
  

Baking

It's extremely hard to have a favorite Gooseberry Patch cookbook... being that I have 27 of them now.  I love them each and every one!  The one that is open in my kitchen and getting ready to be used shortly is "Gifts for Giving".  I found a recipe for Brown Sugar-Oatmeal Muffin Mix.  I've not tried it yet, but it sounds scrumptious!  The recipe makes enough for three batches.  I am actually going to revise it a little and make mini bread loaves.  From my Pampered Chef party last month, I received the mini stone loaf pan for FREE with my hostess gifts!!  I have been oh so anxious to try it out!  Instead of loading my friends and family up on cookies and candies this year for Christmas, they will receive a mini loaf of bread with a jar of home-made cinnamon apple jelly.  Well, I just can't imagine a Holiday season with no cookie baking or candy making... so maybe I'll have to add a little of that to their Christmas plates.  =]

I am grateful for my love of baking.  I wish I could say it was instilled in me from my mom, but that wouldn't be true.  I do have fond memories of when my grandma would babysit me during the summer.  Every afternoon when we put the little ones down for a nap, we spent that time in the kitchen.  My grandma had cute little pans for me and my cousin to bake our little pies, cookies, brownies or fudge in.  I looked forward to our afternoon baking sessions.  Those are truly precious memories that will never leave me.

I'm really excited to get started on it all!  Working on my shopping list right now for the rest of the ingredients.  Thank you Gooseberry Patch girls for putting together such wonderful cookbooks!

Labor Day

It is okay to borrow something you really like from someone else's blog, right?  Well, I'm going to do it anyway.  This is a little poem from the Gooseberry Patch blog.  It's cute.  Oh, and I think you should go and join their blog.  They just started it a few weeks ago and they already have one of their yummy recipes on there! =]  They will also be having craft ideas and decorating tips.

Yay for Labor Day!

Top 10 Things We Love about Labor Day

Big pitchers of homemade lemonade

with raspberries and mint

Hometown parades complete

with horses & marching bands

Splashing around at the pool

for the last day of the season

Potato salad, corn on the cob

& fresh-picked tomatoes

Sun-warmed grass and cool shade

before the leaves fall

Messy ice-creamed faces

smiling in the sunshine

Cookout with family & friends

in the backyard

Tall sunflowers & hollyhocks

nodding in the breeze

Toasting marshmallows & squishing

'em into yummy s'mores

Watching fireflies, dreaming of

Fall, right around the corner

I am grateful for a holiday weekend to spend with my family.