Quilt for Ella's Room

While my mom was here, she brought the quilt she had made for Ella. We are going to use it for Ella's bed spread once she's big enough for a "big girl" bed. It is done in all shades of pink fabrics and really turned out beautiful. It was done with a Sunbonnet Sue pattern. There are so many variations on this old pattern, but I just love Ella's. It's going to go perfect with all of the pink already in her room!!!

Christmas Day :)

Just wanted to wish everyone a Merry Christmas and tell you we love you very much!!

On the First Day of Christmas, my true love gave to me...

We have been busy with the grandparents making visits and getting ready for Christmas! Ella has been enjoying the time she has spent with the family for sure! I can't believe how much stuff she has..her little room is going to be jam packed! There is still a TON under the tree, too! One of her favorite gifts is her new guitar, or "tar" as she likes to call it. She wants to play and sing all day. It's so adorable we just sit there and laugh like crazy the whole time.

Thought you might enjoy her latest video:

We also had a great time Sunday night at our Small Group's Christmas Party..got a couple of new pics that night :)

and last, but not least...

Ella got new EARRINGS!! She finally got her ears pierced on Monday and they are so adorable! She points to them and says that they're earrings and then says, "pribby" aka "Pretty"..so cute!

Thanks Dolly for a great visit..We miss you already!!

Ho Ho Ho...Merry Christmas!!

Ella says she doesn't want Santa coming anywhere NEAR our house this year..lol!

Christmas with The Stricklands

I have been having the hardest time keeping a secret these past couple of weeks. About two weeks ago, Randy's mom Teresa called and said they were planning a trip this way. We decided to keep the trip a secret so that Randy and his brother Justin could be surprised! While I LOVE surprises, I hate keeping secrets! I wanted to blab it to Randy right away! Well, thankfully I had a few trustworthy people that I shared my excitement with and Randy was really surprised. They got in Monday night and left out this morning. Randy hadn't had a chance to see them since Ella's Birthday in July so it was a real treat. Ella had a lot of fun playing with them and eating all of the yummy cookies that Mimi brought. We also went ahead and opened Christmas presents while they were here..It was a great visit! We weren't able to spend a lot of time with family last year so we are just *so* happy that we are both getting the opportunity to see some of our family this year.

How cute is this???

Hazel took this picture the other day while we were at Wendys.. I can't believe how many little heads could peek out!!

Christmas Cookie Exchange

One of my favorite traditions for the ladies at Discovery, is our annual Christmas Party and Cookie Exchange. It's very fun and festive so it always gets me in the Christmas Spirit! I decided to try out a new recipe I had never made before for the swap this year. One of my favorite treats, are Buckeyes. The gift shop inside cracker barrel always sells little packages of the yummiest Buckeyes ever!! On our last few road trips, I have made a habit out of stopping to pick some up (and usually making myself sick from eating way too many!!). So this year I thought I'd give it a try. I finally feel like I have some time to try out new recipes and such..at least until June :) then I'm back to square one!!

Here is the recipe I decided to use:
(There are many variations, for example, some people like to use rice krispies in them to make them crunchy,)

*Buckeyes*

Ingredients:

* 1 1/2 cups peanut butter

*1 cup butter softened

*1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

*6 cups confectioners' sugar

*4 cups semisweet chocolate chips

Directions:

1. In a large bowl, mix together the peanut butter, butter, vanilla, and confectioners' sugar. The dough will look dry. Roll into 1 inch balls and place on a waxed paper lined cookie sheet.

2. Press a toothpick into the top of each ball (to be used later as the handle for dipping) and chill in the freezer until firm, about 30 min.

3. Melt chocolate chips in a double boiler or in a bowl set over a pan of barely simmering water. Stir frequently until smooth.

4. Dip frozen peanut butter balls in chocolate holding onto the toothpick. Leave a small portion of peanut butter showing on top to make them look like Buckeyes. Put back on the cookie sheet and refrigerate until serving.

A few things I found after making them were:

*I doubled the recipe because I wanted to have a lot, but in the future I will do two separate batches. Getting the ingredients to blend becomes a little hard when you're dealing with 12 cups of powdered sugar!!
*I just melted my chocolate chips in a big bowl in the microwave. Every once in a while I would just pop it back in to soften it up some more.
*I also added a chunk of Paraffin wax to my chocolate chips while they were melting to help the chocolate form a nice shell. It worked great!!
*She's not lying when she says the dough will look "dry", it's kinda crumbly so you have to kneed it some in your hands to make a nice smooth ball.
Overall I thought it was a great recipe and mine came out really yummy. I think next time I might try to make them with milk chocolate chips instead because I like them a little better:)

They gave out some prizes for the cookies, and I actually got this adorable little platter!!

It was a super fun night with tons of yummy cookies and games! Can't wait until next year!!

Winter FUN!

Okay so I know some of you "facebookers" have already seen these pics, but I still have to post them for my family and all :)

Last Monday we finally made it out to get our tree. Randy was sick Saturday night into Sunday morning with food poisoning or something, so we had to reschedule or plans to get the tree Sunday.

So Monday we headed over to Wilson's Tree Farm on County Home Rd. We bought our tree there last year and loved how family friendly they are. Their prices are really great, too!! We found the perfect tree (which now that it's decorated, I think it's the best tree we've had so far!!) It really is beautiful! I will have to post some pictures of the decorated tree...I just need to take some!!Ella loved running through all of the isles and looking at the trees. It was weird to think that just last year she was there in the baby carrier!!

Anyways, it was alot of fun and we got some cute pics while there!

Enjoying this time of year!

Oh we have been so busy!!

I'm so happy that it's finally "Christmas Time". I look forward to the holidays every year. There is just something about them that makes you feel so good. I love the family time and the traditions. I've been flipping through a book Randy's mom Teresa gave me called Let's Make a Memory by Gloria Gaither and Shirley Dobson. It's full of poems, foods, songs, and activities that you can do with your family or use to start a tradition. Since Ella is still really small, we only have a few things that are traditions for now, but I can't wait!!

I put up a few new pictures and a little video for you to enjoy :)

The weekend after Thanksgiving, Randy and I decided to have our siblings over for what we called, "Chranksgiving". We had a traditional Thanksgiving meal (which I was really excited to cook all own my own this year!) , but we had the house all ready for Christmas. They came over in the afternoon and we had a casual lunch while the turkey baked. We played Monopoly and had a great time. Justin had to work in the afternoon so Randy took some of the dinner up to him, but Lynsey stayed and we ate. It was so yummy and so much fun. I'm so glad we were able to do it!

Here are some pictures of Ella's new Christmas apron set! They were sent to us from "Dolly" (my mom Kim) and she loves wearing them! They make me giggle :)

In this one she is pretending to call Dolly and say Thankyou. Cute!!


She also has a new trick where she will "Smile Pretty" for the camera and say, "Cheese!" Her face is so funny! I got a little video to show you..