What Do You Think?

I have been saving for 4 years and finally my jar is full! So I was going to go and cash in my change at our local Coin Star the other day but then I had a great idea! I will put a picture on my blog of my penny jar and you guys get to guess how many pennies are in it! I know, fun right? But to make it even MORE fun I will give whoever is closest a $5 gift card to Amazon or iTunes (your choice!), courtesy of my massive amounts of pennies :)

So just leave a comment with how many you think there are (I want everyone reading this to enter!) and if you want to, tell me how you came up with your number or how awesome I am for saving so many pennies or anything that will make it so your comment is more than just a number :) Have fun and good luck!

Injured Cookies

Before Christmas I started doing my usual holiday baking, one night Chantel (my younger sister) came over to help me decorate cookies. I had made gingerbread cookies and I thought it would be fun to have some help, I wanted them... Extra creative.

Chantel was a big help and made some of the more 'unusual' faces... You see these we no normal gingerbread cookies and they needed anything but normal expressions.

If you hadn't noticed yet, the cookies are missing something... I got these awesome cookie cutters last year from my sisters, Helena and Chantel. There we three different molds and each one looked like a bite had been taken out of it, either its head, arm or leg!

It was a lot of fun trying to come up with different designs for all the cookies, Dave even came and helped when he found out how much fun we were having.

We took turns with the royal icing so we each had time to come up the next idea we were going to use. It ended up being so much fun and creatively challenging! I can't wait until next year!

A better Late Than Never, Christmas Blog Post!

I stole this Q & A from Larissa (my sister-in-law) she had posted it on her blog for a Christmas countdown she is doing and I thought it would be a fun way to start of the Christmas blogging season :)

1. Egg Nog or Hot Chocolate? I Love them both! But if I have to pick I would say Egg Nog for the holidays (though I do think I am going to try Larissa's idea of hot chocolate with Egg Nog instead of milk!)

2. Does Santa wrap your presents or just sit them under the tree? Not only has Santa always wrapped our gifts but each kid in the family has a special wrapping paper each year that all their gifts from him are wrapped in! It was always exciting to see what your paper that year was and which gifts were from Santa!

3. Colored lights on tree/house or white? Solid colors on everything, I like how it looks when they are all solid strands. I usually like white on the house and then solids on everything else :)

4. Do you hang mistletoe? I think I did last year, though I usually pick some up but then end up misplacing it... I don't know what it is about the mistletoe! I just always forget where I put it!

5. When do you put up your decorations? In the beginning of December (not this year though, I have to unpack first) When I was living at home, I would stay up and decorate all night, so in the morning everyone would wake up to a Christmas wonderland :) My Mom used to do that for us kids and when it got to be too much for her I started doing it instead.

6. What is your favorite holiday dish? I have so many! I always look forward to sweet potato casserole (ones without marshmallows on top) and Raspberry soup are probably my favorites. I also love all the cookies and other treats that go along with the holiday season!

7. Favorite Holiday memory as a child? The holidays have always been really special, so I have so many! I think my favorite tradition is that throughout the holiday season my Mom would make (and now I do) a ton of cookies, dozens and dozens of kinds, making hundreds of cookies and then on Christmas eve we would (and still do) put them all out on the table and then we would get to eat as many as we wanted (this was a huge deal when I was a kid! No one told you when to stop and you got to eat as many as you wanted!) That has always been so fun!

8. Did you write letters to Santa? I don't think I ever did, but we would always go to see him at the mall or at another fun location when we were younger.

9. Do you open a gift on Christmas Eve? We didn't get to pick out a gift to open but my parents always gave us a pair of pajamas, a book and sometimes slippers. We would wear the pajamas to bed on Christmas Eve, then read the book to try and get to sleep and in the morning put on our slippers to open our gifts!

10. How do you decorate your Christmas Tree? Growing up the tree was full of eclectic ornaments that had been collected throughout the years and lots and lots of tinsel! I have many wonderful memories of my family trimming our tree(not to mention the tinsel fights!) My Mom sometimes had a few other trees also, her fancy tree (we were not allowed to touch!) it was full of beautiful ornaments that would break if you so much as looked at them :) and she had a Nativity tree (she really loved Nativities!) Now Dave and I decorate with red and silver balls, white lights and red ribbon. It turns out very pretty if I do say so myself :)

11. What is your favorite holiday tradition? Traditions are huge deal in my family, so there are many! I already wrote about the pajamas and cookies on Christmas Eve but I just don't know which tradition is my favorite... I love all the baking that I get to do in preparation for the Christmas Eve cookie feast... But maybe my favorite tradition is before bed. Chantel, David and I (sometimes Helena if she wasn't reading little women, her Christmas Eve tradition) would all crowd in the same room and have a slumber party. We had fun things we would do together before we went to sleep, we would search out the window for Santa, pick out our favorite cookies to put on a plate along with carrots for Santa and his reindeer, and then fall asleep listening to a tape full of Christmas stories that I had made (I would record new one each year). It was always a very fun and special time.

12. What’s the most important thing about the Holidays for you? This is difficult because it can be interpreted so many ways. It is important to me keep the focus on the true meaning of Christmas, not just giving and being selfless but the reason we celebrate in the first place, the Birth of Jesus Christ! It can be hard to 'fit' him in sometimes and I really try and keep the reason for the season in mind! It is also very important for me to make sure Christmas is memorable and wonderful for everyone, spending time with family along with expressing my appreciation and love to them!

I hope you all have a wonderful Christmas and are able to have joy during this Christmas season!
Feel free to steal this Q&A and post it on your Blog! I would Love to read about your Christmas memories and traditions!

The Perfect Solution

My new blog background

I have been trying to find a middle ground between what I want for my blog layout and what I should have for the layout and I think I found it! It is perfect isn't it? I found this basic design when I was browsing some Christmas backgrounds and realized it was exactly what I was looking for! It has white (Christmas) but is has pumpkins (Fall/Thanksgiving).

When I found this particular background I found that I really liked the pictures and design but the whole thing was missing something, it just wasn't spaced properly and a few of the colors were off. Dave seeing how much I liked it but wasn't going to use it because of those few off things, decided to go into the code of the layout and changed it! He had me tell him what I wanted different and then changed it to make it that way (Yeah, I know my husband has skills.) So now it is perfect and I am thrilled that I have found the perfect solution to my
'You can't uses a Christmas background... It is not even thanksgiving yet!'
Problem!