Glitter, Paper, Scissors - OH MY!

I found this fun idea over at littlebirdiesecrets.blogspot.com quickly becoming one of my favorites for sure!  She made a beautiful Thanksgiving welcome banner.  I decided that since we are doing Thanksmas - Thanksgiving and Christmas in one weekend with our adult kids.....I of course needed a Christmas banner.   One of my favorite Christmas tunes to sing has always been the 12 days of Christmas so that became the theme for my banner.  What a great inexpensive way to add some fun new holiday decor!

First I cut out the shapes out of this pretty blue paper on my cricut.  Michael's had this huge pack of Christmas on sale last week so I snatched it up cut it to fit on 6X12 inch pieces of black paper.  Put the images for one-six on one side and seven - twelve on the other.

Added a few glitter emlishments!

And there you have it.  I hung mine in an "open wall" between the living room and kitchen - so much fun!  I think I've figured out why I loved teaching preschool for 20.2 million years.  And since I had the paper and glitter out I made some of these fabulous snowflakes to hang from my kitchen light.  Merry Thanksmas to all and to all a good night!

Best Bread Ever....or sudden need to bake syndrome

At about 2pm today hubs sent me an email stating he needed to bring treats to work tomorrow for the quarterly birthday celebration (good thing I was off work today).  For a moment I panicked then I remembered I had everything I needed for a favorite recipe that is loved by the masses.....Cranberry Bread!  Follow this super simple recipe and wow your friends and neighbors.





This is all you need.  1 yellow cake mix, 1 can whole berry cranberry sauce, 1/4 cup oil, 1 box instant lemon jello, 3 eggs and 8oz sour cream.  Bake at 350 degrees 2 loaf pans 50-55 mins, cool in pans 15 mins then remove and cool completely.  Today I used an over sized muffin pan and baked them 22 mins and cooled 10 mins in pan. 

Mix everything except the cranberry sauce, once blended beat at medium speed for 4 minutes. 

Fold in Cranberry Sauce.

Pour into pans sprayed with bakers joy or greased & floured.  Bake 350 22mins for large muffins or 55 mins for 2 9x5 loaf pans.

ENJOY!!!  

Therapy for the week.

One of the things I've found myself doing lately is honoring the childhood of my children.  That may sound a bit silly but....when they were little I had their artwork and pictures all over the place.  As they got older I began changing our home decor into something a bit more "mature".  I love the quote in this grouping I just completed, "don't cry because it is over smile because it happened" by Dr Seuss.  After using three 40%off coupon at Michael's for the shadow boxes and printing the quote myself.  Voila a wall of honor to the childhood of my kiddos.  The most enjoyable part was going through boxes for the mementos!

Just entered this contest and you should too if you are in need of kitchen updates - although I really want to win I just had to share the love. Enter here http://momitforward.com/pledge-contest?pledge_action=entercontest just don't laugh at my kitchen. A lot of great food and conversations have happened here.

Time is running out quickly aka; spaz mode

The hubs and I just arrived back home after a fun weekend with family in the country. While the menfolk hunted the women cooked and shopped and then we had our annual early Thanksgiving dinner. One of the dishes I contributed was a recipe from my old recipe club for pumpkin bars in foreground of pic to the left - huge hit. Now I'm home, weighing a few pounds more and starting to panic. In eleven days the kids will all be home for Thanksgiving. Since two of them will be traveling over Christmas we are having Christmas early with them at Thanksgiving (nothing like a little pressure). Since I work 6 of those 11 days (12-14 hours a day), that means only 5 days to finalize everything - YIKES!! How will I ever get it all done?

What a lovely weekend spent with my family. While the men deer hunted on Saturday myself, sisters, sisters in law, and step-mom shopped the local outlets. Really we all (7 total), chased my adorable 2 year old nephew around the stores with great joy doing it. It has been a while since we had a little one in our midst. I love making things for people and was soooo excited to give the girls one of these fab washer necklaces. Thanks to http://www.blogger.com/post-edit.g?blogID=2890362850652039146&postID=784480451223811653 and a bit of tweaking the girls loved them!