Merry Christmas!

My New Years resolution is to get back into blogging again. It just hasn't been much of an interest for me, but I miss writing. I would love to get back to blogging at least once a week, I so enjoy looking back at my posts of the things the girl's and I have done!

I truly can't believe that Christmas is THIS WEEK. Holy carp. Thankfully, I am DONE! Done I say! Yesterday the girls and I finished our baking, I don't do a ton, because nobody eats the stuff. Well, except for me, and I don't need it... We made a couple batches of cut outs, which took us about 10 minutes to roll out, cut out and decorate. I then spent the next hour trying to clean up all the flour off of the floor, counters, chairs, walls, knick-knacks......

After seeing Rachel's disappointed expression with us being done with cookies, we decided to make some truffles. They turned out very yummy, and were super easy (like, um, really easy. Cream cheese and chocolate). We then made my Grandma Omi's molasses cookies and date filled cookies (recipes in another post).

And in true Christmas fashion, here is a little glimpse of our decorations...

This is our entry way tree. It stays up year round (and yes I DO get teased that I keep a "christmas" tree up all year), and we decorate it for all the holidays. For Christmas this becomes our homemade ornament tree. I love seeing how full it gets every year!

This is my favorite ornament from this year, super easy, and the kids loved seeing how their hands turned into Santa!

The fireplace mantel all decked out. The picture above the mantel I got this year from At Home America, I only paid $7 for it because of all the bonuses I got for having a show, yay! The stockings I decorated. When Brad and I got married, and then had Rachel, I painstakingly sewed each of the little glitter balls on for the names. Then with each kid, I totally went for the hot glue:)

Our Griswold family Christmas tree, lol. We named it this last year because there are 800 lights on it. Yes, that's right, 800. When it was on, our house was darn near glowing it was so bright. Hubby whipped up an apparatus so that we can dim the lights, so we can actually see in our living room now.

So that's just a glimpse into the life of Christmas in our house. I LOVE this time of year. I have enjoyed evenings with nothing bu Christmas music on, and warming up with the fireplace. I am sad that it's coming to an end. If I don't get on here before Christmas, I wish EACH and everyone one of you an incredible, blessed holiday!

Linking to:

ABC&123

Creations by Kara

Finger Lickin Good!!

No, no, this isn't a shout out to KFC, sorry! In fact I've always hating that saying. Why in tarnation would I want to lick my fingers and tell people about it? Well now I know why!

A couple weeks ago I tried my hand at making ribs. I know, I know, I've never made ribs, you say?! Nope, never. I checked out allrecipes.com to see what I could find, and man oh man are there recipes to be found! After spending most of the morning looking at different ones, I settles on one that required you to boil the ribs, grill them and then crockpot them all day.
And this is how they came out....saucy...spicy....and falling off the bone. They were DIVINE! I have made them twice since then, and each time they are unbelievable!

Barbecue Ribs

Ribs (duh)
1 bottle of Famous Dave's Rich and Sassy sauce
1/2 bottle of Sweet Baby Ray's Honey Barbecue sauce
1/4-1/2 C of a hot wing sauce (I used Louisiana Wildly Wicked Wing Sauce)
1 bottle of dark beer (I used Leinenkugel's Creamy Dark)

Mix the two barbecue sauce's together; Boil a large kettle of water, and add ribs (cut ribs into sets of 3). Boil ribs for 20 minutes. Preheat grill, slather ribs with barbecue sauce; grill ribs about 5 minutes. Mix the wing sauce with the rest of the barbecue sauce, and add beer. Place ribs in crockpot, and add the sauce over the ribs. Cook on low all day, until they fall off the bone!

Now, you can use whatever type's of barbecue sauce you like, these were the ones I happen to have on hand, and it truly made those ribs amazing! Of course the boiling, grilling and crockpoting had nothing to do with it....ya....

Linked To:

CSI Project

The Season of Advent

I really can't believe that today is December 1st! We had an incredibly beautiful fall, but it seemed to fly by. Now begins the crazy month of Christmas. I hear people daily talking about how they wished they could skip this season, and that makes me sad. I LOVE this time of year. Love. I love the music, the sights, the smells. Absolutely everything.

My biggest complaint with this season is keeping our girls focused on the REAL meaning of Christmas, and not making it all about the gifts. We started doing an advent calender last year. I used my Cricut machine to make red and green tags, and then covered those with Christmas scrapbook paper. I got this great idea from Hattie over at Little Red Roost

She shared a great download of the scripture verses to attach to the tags. Each morning the girls take turns picking the right tag for the day (they are numbered) and read the scripture.

After we read the scripture, I have folded pieces of paper in a bowl that they get to pick out of. Each piece of paper has something fun for them to do, such as a pedicure night with mom (at home of course:), game night with mom and dad, cooking with mom, etc. They look forward to this every year, and it's nice to read the scripture about how Jesus came to be. Hopefully they are learning something from this, haha!!