Old and New Family Traditions of the Season

We all have our own special traditions in our families and am so filled with joy to now have my own family to share the holidays with. As our little ones celebrate holidays, it is so amazing to see their little eyes bright with excitement. My husband works hard to let me be a stay at home mom. It is such and amazing gift, and I get to do things and teach the kids things I normally wouldn't get the chance to. I get so excited around this time of year, and I am always ready for Christmas to come again so we can do everything once more. It always for just a small break from the everyday grind. 

Here are few things our family enjoys during the holiday season:

• Talking about the 'Reason for the Season' and The Christmas Story.
• Drink cocoa and watch Christmas cartoons until the kids and Daddy passes out.
• Christmas stories- a story a day.
• Driving around to see Christmas lights around town and other large lit up neighborhoods.
• We always open a gift on Christmas Eve- New Christmas pajamas and socks!
• Bake cookies and other baked goods to share with our neighbors and other community folk.
• We buy breakfast for the garbage truck men and a soda as a Christmas thanks.
• Crafting time and making ornaments together.
• We actually do snack cakes in our stockings every year with a giant candy cane, a chocolate cross and little stocking stuffer gifts.
•  Driving down the road singing Christmas songs until the cows come home.
• Buy a gift for a boy and a girl for the Salvation Army's Boys and Girls Club.
• The kids are required to go through their toys and give up a majority of them in order to get new gifts. -We donate them to Salvation Army, Purple Ribbon thrift store that benefits a local Battered Women Shelter or the local Christian Ministries thrift store.
• Random Acts of Kindness when the moment arises.
• The kids take turns donating to the Salvation Army bell ringers at the store. (Sometimes I feel so guilty and wrong if we don't donate and walk past, but we don't always have cash or the extra to give)

New things we have started this year: 

• Elf of the shelf- acts of kindness with a little mischief fun. (I am not into wasting and writing notes to the kids of different things they can do to be good or do good is a much better option)
• Making a Gingerbread house as a family.
• Christmas tree silhouette dancing.
• We are scheduled to help with a bagged lunch put together at a local soup kitchen when the kids are out of school.
• Attend a Live Nativity Scene.
• Advent calendar with scripture, games, songs and other activities each day.

*Posts about all of our Christmas fun to come soon!

What are your favorite family traditions? Have you started any new ones? 

Chick and Bunny Cup Craft

We made these cute little candy cups!  I actually took these last year and it was pre-blogger days and I had did this as a tutorial as a post for the Green Thumbs and Glue Guns sections as a tutorial for others in the moms forums.  Basic crafting...no instructions just pretty self explanatory in the photos.

The orange was the beek and the arms.  We used tape, because glue just didn't cut it.  

My daughter and I did these together.  My son really could care less about this kind of stuff last year.  K finished the decorating and picked all the colors for the accessories.  Pink eye lashes on the little chicken...purple nosed bunny with pink and yellow whiskers.  Fun times right.  Love it!  

Random Acts of Kindness with Chocolate

We got together for a Valentines Day Hoopla with fellow mommas at the park to celebrate.  I thought how else to celebrate and spread cheer to others by giving out free chocolate.  The kids ran around and handed out Hershey kisses with our url on it.  Spreading the word of our group was a plus.  

This was the box I made for neighbors; my little ones and my big one(hubby). 

Each Hershey kiss is wrapped in a mini cupcake wrapper and taped around the top with the Hershey kiss paper sticking out the top.  The personalized ones are regular sized cupcake wrappers with 2 kisses in them. 

My son did a wonderful job helping put kisses in each paper and twisting them for me to tape.  He loved being able to help out.  He said "Momma, we should have a treat for doing something nice".  It made me laugh and I told him "Yeah, your right we are working hard huh".  : )  He said "Shooo, it IS hard work".  The things a 4 year old says.  He is awfully creative in trying to get some treats.

We hope you guys had a lovely heart day.

Sweet Potato Cinnamon Bread Pudding with Pecan Apple Butter

Homemade Sweet Potato-Cinnamon Bread with Pecan Apple Butter

The Sweet Potato Pecan Bread was not made in my home, but it was lovingly made in someone else's.  So simple, even someone that may have some difficulty cooking could make this tasty dish.

Here's the how to:

1. 1/2 loaf size- break into nice size chunks and layer casserole pan.

2. Beat 2 eggs with a sprinkling of cinnamon and mix well; add a splash of milk.

3. Make sure all your bread is well coated{sopped} with the egg/milk mix.

4. Cover with foil and let bake for 15-20 minutes at 350 or until egg mix is cooked.

5. Uncover and add your Pecan Apple Butter on top and put back in oven for a few minutes to warm it all up and let it blend together. 

It was just delicious and the kids loved it.  It was not a unhealthy breakfast casserole dish even though in my head I couldn't stop thinking of bread pudding.  Bread pudding is on my top desserts list btw.

This Pecan Apple Butter had- pecans, applesauce, seedless raisins and pineapples in the mix.  Made by McLeod Farms Inc. McBee, South Carolina. 

Thanks to my wonderful husband for always thinking of us while he is out working hard, but still brings us yummy treats home.

Happy Holidays.

Chocolate Chip Peppermint Cupcakes

* Vanilla cake mix prepared by box instructions

* approximately 25 peppermints-we threw ours in the coffee bean grinder and turned it into a peppermint poweder.  It tasted good, but I would add a few more and maybe not have it powderized.

* 1 cup of small chocolate chips- fold in

1/3 cup filled the cup cake papers at a good level. 

Yes, those are Candy Corn cupcake wrappers = }.  That is all I had in the drawer.

* Mix 1/2 a container of Butter Cream Frostening with a 1/2 a container of Cool Whip.

We only did a few not the whole batch so I did half and half but you can do all of it if you are doing them all.

This is how they turned out.

Happy Holidays!

Thanksgiving Recovery

Recovering from the thanksgiving holiday?  Normally this includes the cooking, over indulging on all that yummy food, cleaning, family and friends visiting or vice versa, fun, shopping, traveling and whatever else was done in excess at your house.  Now as our weekdays start, more than likely your still in relaxing weekend mode.  So how do you recover from all of this and start your normal routine? 

Well for our family, the time with my husband ended.  Oh and of course, the left over creations have begun.  There are many options for leftovers. Today was kind of busy for me cleaning wise. I ended up cleaning for the better part of the day because we just spent our time together just together and not doing much of anything else.  Much needed family time; especially between my husband and I.  We haven't spent more than 2 days at a time since at least July when we went to my mommas, so 4 days was a treat.  It normally goes in one of two ways: 1. He drives me absolutely bonkers and I can't wait for him to go back to work even though I love him still. 2. We have the best quality time with each other and hate to see the work week come so quickly. {--------this time was option 2.

How else to start your week back from the holidays with some left over turkey day recipes.  Here is our first left over turkey day recipe.

Turkey, Bacon and Potato Soup!

How'd we do it?

Simple, by mixing our left overs! 

I grabbed my pot and put my left over mashed potatoes(the kind from boiled potatoes not instant) from Thanksgiving in and gave them a good mixing. Once it got to a small boil, I threw in about 2 cups of cubed turkey and let it simmer a little longer.  Next comes 2 cups of shredded cheddar, 1 cup of sc, a cup of butter and mixed it.  I then added some instant mashed potato flakes to make it thicken a little.  Scoop it in your bowl, some saltine crackers or dipping bread and it is good to go. 

I normally make loaded potatoes for Thanksgiving and that involves: boiled potatoes-partially skinned, 8 oz of cream cheese, a little butter, a little cheese, a little sc and some crispified real bacon pieces.  I know SO unhealthy.....but so delicious.

Cranberry Shortbread Bars

For the Cranberry Filling:

12 ounces fresh cranberries

2/3 cups white sugar

3 tablespoons water

In a medium saucepan over medium high heat place all the ingredients in the saucepan and cook until boiling. Continue to boil the mixture until it is thick and syrupy, about 5 minutes. Remove from heat and let cool while you make the shortbread.

For the Shortbread:

2 cups flour

2 tablespoons cornstarch

1 cup butter

1/3 cup brown sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla

To Prepare the Bars:

Preheat oven 375 F. Butter or spray a 8×8 inch pan.

In a separate bowl whisk the flour, cornstarch and salt.

In the bowl of your electric mixer beat the butter until smooth about 1 minute. Add the sugar and beat until smooth 2 minutes. Then add the vanilla. Add the flour mixture and mix until just incorporated.

Evenly press 2/3 of the mixture into the bottom of the prepared pan. Then evenly spread the cranberry mixture over the shortbread base, leaving a 1/4 inch boarder.  With the remaining shortbread dough, crumble it with your fingers over the cranberry mixture. Then lightly press the dough into the filling.

Bake in the preheated oven for 30 minutes or until golden brown on top. Remove from oven and place on a wire rack, while still hot cut into 12 squares and allow to cool in pan.

From the Joyofbaking.com

Now this is something right up my husbands alley! Smash it all together and call it a sandwich.

There are so many recipes out there and the possibilities are as endless as your leftover stash.

Diy Centerpiece and Table Runner

Martini Glass/Wine Glass

Fruit Jar

Baby Food Jar

Tea light holder 

Glass candle stick holder

Decorative Plate

Cinnamon sticks glued into a platform for the candle sitting on the empty fruit jar

Pine Cone

Acorns

Popcorn Kernels

Cord from a gift bag

Artificial Fall Leaves

Champagne colored ribbon

I messed with a few options on a centerpiece and these are just the two that I ended up liking the best. You can always use what you have and make it your own.  I do have to admit something about this project.  I had scheduled an online chat in our mommy forums and I forgot about it until it had already started because I  just couldn't get that picture perfect shot I was looking for.  I quickly went to my laptop and turned it on to get to my really late chat session I had scheduled.  Bad me!  Well in the middle of pulling it up, I rubbed my itching eye. Guess what happened next?  In my hurry to get to the chat session I scheduled that I was over 30 minutes late for I failed to wash my hands off.  Yep, I had cinnamon stick stuff on my fingers and I wiped my eye, which now was on fire and watering!  I ran(wobbled with only one eye open) to the sink to wash my eye out and my hands off.  Lol, I know its funny and I laughed at myself in disbelief that I did that...well not really.  My eyeball ended up being just fine. 

Now on to that pretty little table runner sitting under the centerpiece.

Grab a role of brown craft paper from the Dollar Tree.

Trace out the shape you would like your table runner to be and use a X-acto tool to cut it out.

I went with this size due to our table having the ability to being extended from the center. With just the 2 sections it will overlap the ends of the table and with the inserts in, the tips will touch the ends of the table without overlapping.

I grabbed an old curtain, newspaper and white spray paint and headed outside.  The wind was kind of blowing pretty good so I put a few extra cans of paint on the ends to prevent it from blowing my curtain off.

That is Shiloh, our kitten I swear is kin to Garfield due to his eating ability.  

I spray over the curtain back and forth until it was completely sprayed.  I waited for a minute and then I lifted the curtain off and this is what it looked like.

Here is a closer look.  It was my first time and I can tell I over sprayed or sprayed too closely on some spots, but it still turned out pretty good looking. 

I had picked up a can of pearl spray paint on sale at Micheals the other day for a $1 so I lightly sprayed the surface, which gave it this look.

If you wanted to have a more natural look then you could just flip it over.  I am sure the more saturated the paint on the opposite side the more defined the back side would be. 

I grabbed some .33 Sherry colored ribbon from A.C. Moore this week and really liked the color combination.  I used Flexible Glue{$3} on the scrap booking isle from Walmart that was labeled for paper and fabric use.  Trace and attach your ribbon after it is cut to size.  I didn't worry about passing a lighter over the ends of the ribbon to prevent fraying because it will be glued down.

I glued the ribbon down while it was in this position:

All done......Happy Crafting!