Well Dana was supposed to share the wassail recipe today but something has laid her low. I hope she is feeling better before tonight's festivities. I am writing this from my android while a girlfriend is getting a manicure,  so if there are more spelling mistakes than normal thats why. :) I also apologize for the somewhat late sharing of this.

But, I am super excited to share with you guys the finished New Year's mantle and tablescape! I did not get all  of the projects done for this that I wanted to, but I'm still happy with the outcome!
The paper cone wreath can be found here!

So I started this blog back in February and my how its grown. This has become my job, which I love, because it gives me a purpose during my time. A purpose that is my own and not solely centered on the kids, which I need. I'm not going to lie to you guys and tell you that I'm one of these people who is wholly consumed by their children, because I'm not. I'd go insane. So I figured I'd share with you guys the top posts from then year and then fill in with a few that are my faves. :)

I know I said I'd show off my mantle....but its not done, so Friday will be a two-fer day. :) I know. It doesn't happen often so everyone get out those red markers :) These are in order of most visits, just lettin' you know.

The wreath is done! I'm so happy with how it turned out too. Granted, its not as full as some of the ones I showed off yesterday, but then again my dictionary was not made up of 8.5 x 11 pages. So without any further ado lets get to the show!

 There are 43 cones on the center and probably close to that many on the outside. I had wanted to buy a 12" MDF form, but when I went to Michael's on Sunday all they had was the 18" size. My poor 1974 dictionary.
I'm actually glad they only had the larger size, because I think that the size of the finished wreath is perfect for the space over the fireplace. So yay! I will be showing off my New Year's Mantle hopefully on Thursday. :)

Have a great day guys!

I had been planning on showing you guys my new wreath for the new year, but yea.....that's not going to happen because it still looks like this:
Not very attractive, right?

5 years ago, at 12:01 am I went into labor. On my due date. Who does that happen to? Oh well. 17.5 hours later the OB is telling me that you're a lot bigger than 8.5 lbs. Thanks Dr. OB guy. 18 hours later you joined our family with a very healthy scream. It was a blessing, because we'd been trying for a while and 2 miscarriages later we were excited and nervous when the 3rd round of pregnancy tests came back positive.

Daddy and I weren't able to hold you like other  parents. You were taken over to the NICU station because you had been in some distress, but you were big and loud. 10 lbs 5 oz, born at 6:30 pm, and completely healthy except for a small heart murmur. You would not believe how many people we had in that room. I was the only one giving birth that day, so EVERYONE was in our room to welcome you.

We later learned that there was a tissue mass in your left atrium which 6 weeks later was diagnosed as cor triatriatum. By the grace of God your heart condition has not affected you at all, aside from the occasional trip up to see your cardiologist at Children's. You have grown and developed into the most spectacular little guy, and we're so proud of you.

There's no recipe this week, as I don't tend to cook much when I'm about to leave for a week--more on that later--but I wanted to talk about some of the warm, fuzzy feelings I get during this time of year and during other family occasions.

We all know that we need food to survive. Duh. Food, to me, though, is an experience in itself. A lovely cup of tea all alone with a good book and a blanket can be an experience, as can a tub of chocolate ice cream with your best girlfriends. Of course there are those special dates when you're with the one you love more than anything else in the world and a nice meal. Lastly, though, there are those huge meals with the people who know you better than anyone else. These are my favorite, even if sometimes having those people who know you so well around is somewhat inconvenient.

See: Heather and I instantly understanding why the other is torqued off without even having to say a word.

I am very blessed in that I get along with my family very well. The intense separation between VA and TN may certainly help with that, but it also makes the times I get together with my family all the more special. I am SO excited for tomorrow (today for all of you reading now) because I am now in VA and I will be seeing both my mum's sisters, their families, my grandparents, Heather and her crowd, of course, my twin sister, Colie, my parents, and some parents-in-laws as well all at once for Christmas Eve. There will be about a zillion pounds of food too, which is always a mixture of classic, well-loved family recipes and exciting, new ones too. I know it's not everyone's cup of tea, but I absolutely love the chaos of being gathered all together in one room with more food than Peter Pan's table. Usually we're all maintaining at least three conversations at once. It's my time to catch up with everyone and simply enjoy company and food, and it's events like this that have created some of my warmest, most favorite memories.

I hope all of you have safe, wonderful holidays and can take some time to spend them with the people closest to you. God bless you and yours.

So I'm totally ruining a friend's Christmas gift by showing you guys this, but I can't not share it. Its too funny. :)
Oh and yesterday....I totally forgot that it was Tuesday when I wrote that.....guess what that means? I don't set the Christmas Eve table until Thursday night or Friday morning. I'm so scatterbrained sometimes. :)

Anyways, back to the ninji-ing of people. You have to see this video which said friend shared with us, which has spurned this gift for him. :)
Now don't go ninji-ing nobody that don't deserve ninji-ing. ;-) So here's my ninji tribute to WV.
 

These are store bought cookies, because I had a fail on the cookies I made. The box mix lied. They tasted like glorified cardboard. Oh well. The store bought ones are good. We couldn't fit all of them into the tin so we definitely enjoyed the overflow. :)

In case you guys aren't on the computer tomorrow. I hope all of you have a very Merry Christmas and on Monday I will be sharing a Super Mario Bros. birthday party for my big guy. He's lucky enough to have a  birthday two days after Christmas. ;-)

Take care guys!

So we've all seen the melting snowman cookies, and let me tell you. They're adorable. Well, they're not so adorable at 1:30 am but adorable nonetheless.  They were a tremendous hit, especially with the kids.  I have one problem with them tho. Well 2 problems. 1) they're not very easily stored and 2) I don't like sugar cookies.  The first problem is easily solved if all the cookies are eaten shortly after being created, but the 2nd problem... well I guess that it may never be solved. ;-)

I'm actually going to be nice and just share what I did and not make you go to any sites. :)

I can't believe that I forgot to write a post last night. I mean I have material for all week, and I forgot. I know why I forgot. I wanted to finish my sister's Christmas gift {which I did!} and then I joined the hubs and our friend, Evan, downstairs for some GT 5. Ok, so its decided....I'm blaming a video game. :)

Anyways, back to the task at hand. I'm going to be sharing a new cookie recipe that I debuted at the Bake-Off we had this weekend, but first I'm going to show off the table decorations and the mantle. Can you see what changed on it?
 Maybe this view will help you. Do you see what's different? I found some glittery ornaments in the $1 section at Target, and even though they were meant for the centerpiece they look just fine here. :)

I thought about asking if anyone got the song reference in the title, but it's really obscure, so I won't.

Spoiler: It's "The Nightmare Before Christmas", one of my most favorite movies ever.

Anyhoo, the title still applies in that I was busy, busy, busy this week making Christmas...gifts. What kind of gifts? Well, food gifts, of course. I really wanted to do something nice for all the girls at work, but there are nine or so of them, so it could have gotten pricey fast. Thankfully, Taste of Home had this fabulous page of the Top 25 Food Gifts. Now, one gift didn't actually come from this page, but the other, sweeter one did.

Fun title, huh? I couldn't think of a good title so I figured I'd go with what I've done to that poor 1974 Webster's Collegiate Dictionary. :)

I'm sure some of y'all have seen  this post: Woven Star from Book Pages, courtesy of House Revivals. When I saw that star it immediately went on my to do list. Then the subsequent stars came out, and while I didn't like the third one as much as the first two, they're all still incredible. So I decided to make them.

The first two were humongous! I gave them to my mom. I don't like really humongous ornaments. Not unless the tree is full of really humongous ornaments. Which mine are not. So I decided to try and make these ornaments a slight different.

We've all had those Eureka! ideas where we know its  going to turn out great. How could it possibly not? Then you execute the idea, aaaaand yea it didn't turn out half as well as it did in your head. I had that moment when making this ornament.

I had this grand plan to modge podge the back of this ornament with a vintage Santa Claus image from The Graphics Fairy. So I printed out the image. Trimmed it down to fit the back of the ornament from seam to seam. Yes, my ornaments are plastic. :) This is where Ruination entered his mean little head. The paper was not molding nicely to the back of the ornament. You couldn't see the image really clearly through the ornament, and the back looked like crap. I thought well maybe you can't see it real well because the glue is still wet and I can hide the back and raw edges with glitter. So the glue came out again as well as the glitter. Here's where Ruination tap danced all over my efforts. I can't even explain the horror. You will just have to see for yourselves. Here is Ruination's ornament.

Glue and Glitter...how I loathe thee. Oh wait...I meant love. No, I really meant loathe. Hrm. I seem to be confused. I really, really love glitter. I love the sparkle, shine, and prettiness of it. I loathe the mess, clean-up, and the mess. I really hate the mess. R.E.A.L.L.Y hate the mess. I also hate that it gets everywhere, especially on my chin. On my chin while driving down to my mothers to have lunch then take the boys to see Santa. Having Stephen trying to clean it off my face, cause you know I was driving, and telling me that I'll have to deal because it's clumping and not coming off. Great. I glued it to my face. Terrific. sigh.

OhMyGoSh! Seriously, I am so excited about today's post! I loved all of the trees that were linked up! Some of the trees spurned inspiration for a 3-D decoration for Dev's birthday party this last weekend (more on this later in the month) , some made me go......I wish I'd thought of that! And some of them were just too lovely for words.

So without further ado, let me show off mine and the kids favorites. :) These are in no particular order.

Well this is a bit bittersweet - the Open House is over. Well after today it will be, but I am excited about seeing all of your lovely Christmas trees!

Well let's get to the meat of it. The last Christmas tree. This guy is just a wee thing, but he's still apart of our tree family. The kids really like this one, because its usually the one that gets put up first.

I'm so excited that today is finally here! I get to show off my favorite room! This tree has been evolving for 8 years. Its almost perfect. It doesn't hurt the rest of the elements also fell into place. :) I love it when  plan comes together!

Every year, when we pull it out I wonder how on Earth am I going to fit all of these ornaments on here, but every  year every single ornament makes it on there. This year I even feel like I could fit a few more. :)

So let me show you our Family Room!
This room is situated in the back center of our house. It is the epicenter of the house. As you can see there are lots of toys, dogs and boys in this room at all times. Except right now, at 10:36 pm, I am the only one in this room, at 10:37 both dogs and the hubs invade....so does the noise. The minute of silence was nice. :)

I'm so glad to have you guys back for Day 2 of the tour. I'm excited about today's feature room, because it's had the most work done to it by far. It doesn't look like it, but in the 18 months we've lived here the room has been painted twice, and the dear sweet hubs let me. :)  I also remembered that Picasa has a collage feature. So there will be the same amount of pictures, but a lot of them will be in one picture. :) So hopefully that will save on loading time. :)

Let me introduce the Dining Room!

I'm so excited that the Open House is here. I'm also very excited to be sharing our home with you. I'm going to warn you that the pictures for the tour are taken at all  points during the day, so you may see some pictures during the day, evening or at night. Our house faces almost due west so the best light is at opposite ends of the spectrum for either side of the house. :)

Not too long ago, Mike walked into the house talking on his phone, and I heard him say this: "Oh, Dana would love to host your party". Well, Mike was right. He was talking to our good friend Wes, who is getting married to a wonderful girl named Hannah. The party in question was Wes and Hannah's Nashville bridal shower. Seeing as how the shower was scheduled for the Saturday after Thanksgiving, though, I wasn't really in the mood to do a lot of cooking. I didn't think I could buy enough pre-made stuff without spending a fortune, so amatuer super-event-planner Jennifer suggested croissants and chicken salad. Brilliant! Then I just needed a recipe. To Taste of Home!

Have I mentioned that my hubs is amazing. He's amazing for several reasons, the biggest of which has got to be what a great Dad he is to the boys, but before the boys came along the biggest reason was because he would put up with me and usually do whatever I asked of him. Granted, I nag. I nag a lot, and he {for the most part} does not complain too much about it. I have a schedule. He doesn't know my schedule because I keep it locked in my head because this schedule can morph at any time,, in any situation, and if I were to keep a running dialog of the changes and updates then I would never shut up. Seriously. I would never shut up. Being as there is already a person in the house that can't keep quiet to save his life {Dev, I really do love you and all you have to say, but really I can't wait for the day that you learn about the absolute bliss of silence} then me talking incessantly would be obnoxious.

Keeping this information to myself has its drawbacks. I forget that this information has not been spoken aloud and therefore I expect him to know that I've changed things and would like them done this weekend, today, right  now, please. This is not fair, but he puts up with me and my internal dialog of updates and changes and usually with a smile or at least a smirk of amusement. He's sweet and I love him.

Hey guys! I don't know if you've noticed, but we're up at 260 followers. How exciting is that?

I'm super excited about that. So I thought today I'd show you guys a post from way back when and what I did to update it. :)

So the original post is HERE! This post is originally from April!

Here's a picture of what I made though.

I had such trouble on what to post today. I have such a backlog of things to share with you. How did this happen?!?!?

Oh well, just means I'll have lots of posting material for you guys. :)  I want to share with y'all a craft that Dev and I did for the kids' Christmas tree. I ended up having to recycle a bunch of the ornaments that he and I made last year, and I needed something quick and easy until I can fill the gaps.

Today I had a hard time deciding what to write about. I mean....all my Christmas decorations are up and almost all of the boxes are back down in the Christmas closet, and I really really want to show all them off, along with the ornaments that Dev and I made for the kid's tree, but I got the thinking right before I started writing this post.
I got the thinking about luggage. I mean everyone has it. Our luggage is several years old and is teal and black. It was a set that we got from Target for like $80, and its perfectly fine for a trip that lasts several days long, but do we have anything that would be perfect for an overnight visit? Not really.

Well I was cruising around CSN and came across  sling backpacks . These things are adorable and their uses go far beyond just an overnight jaunt to your favorite shopping destination! 


Take a look at some of these styles. 

I am thankful for so many, many things. I'm thankful for Jesus first and foremost, for my wonderful, loving husband and for my sweet, little dogs. I'm thankful for my family and my friends and job and so much more. I'm also very thankful for electricity. As the power went out yesterday an hour before I was supposed to serve dinner, and Mike peeled potatoes by candlelight, I said, "Lord, thank you so much for the gift of electricity. I am happy that I have the serenity to accept that there is nothing I can do about this power outage. Now that I have this acceptance, can I please have power back?" Everything turned out perfectly fine, but I do not wish that kind of Thanksgiving adventure on anyone, haha.

The table is set.

Well the baking is in full swing to get ahead of the roasting tomorrow. My hands are so dry from all the hand washing, but while waiting for all the baked goodness to get done yesterday So I decided that needed some new napkin rings. I busted out my old napkin ring projects and moths flew out.  Hrm. Ok so its been a while, but never fear. I have a plan! So on to the show!

Well here is another pleated pillow. I am in love with pleats. I love my boys, but boys do not like girly pleats or girly pillows, and husbands do not like girly pleats or girly pillows in their sons' rooms. So I will make these girly pillows for you guys and then put them up in my shop so that someone else can enjoy them. :) I like this plan. Do you know what's nice about this particular pillow? Imagine doing it with a boldly color variegated thread against a gray. That's not girly at all. Maybe I will end up with a full on boy pillow that's pleated. Ruh roh...the gears are turning. Ok well I'll consider the most recent idea that just vomited itself from my keyboard, I will tell all of you how to create your own square pleated pillow.

Can you believe that Black Friday is 4 days away?!?!? Cyber Monday is a week away! Eeeek! Are you guys already behind on your Christmas lists? I know I am! I have a list a mile long of things that need to be made for people, and we've only gone shopping for a few people. You'd think we'd be better planners than this. Its not like Christmas is at the same time of year every year. ;-)


Well if you guys are anything like most of my family then you're going to love what I'm about to share. Gina over at The Shabby Chic Cottage is hosting a Christmas Carnival and a day of giveaways! How amazingly awesome is that? Who doesn't like free stuff.....especially at this time of year?!?!

Well the news gets even better.....I'm participating in Gina's carnival, which means that the shop wares are up for grabs, but if you're impatient (and I sincerely hope that one of you is!) I have decided to give everyone a little bonus. I know that I rarely ever win giveaways and I know that a lot of you feel that way so I'm going to try and give everyone something. :) For the next week, from today, 11/22, to Cyber Monday, 11/29, I am offering a 10% discount to all of you, my faithful readers!

This could also be called "Cooking At Work", but more on that later. I am incredibly blessed to work for a company that I love, doing something I really enjoy. There are lots of reasons I love the company that I work for, but one in particular is that we do things together. Aegis has numerous company events throughout the year, many of which are potlucks. These are really fun in an organization that fosters great relationships. Some really amusing food-rivalries develop, wherein you see items like "Rob's Better-Than-Jen's Deviled Eggs" on the potluck sign-up sheets. Well, we just had our annual Thanksgiving potluck, and I had a lot of trouble deciding what to bring. This was my issue: There are about 150 people in my building and seven microwaves. You do the math. There was no way I was going to try and fight for a microwave, but I really don't do cold dishes (I am my mother's daughter) unless it's a dessert. Well, don't you know that a lot of people had the dessert idea before me? Dang. What now? Slow cooker! The only problem with that was that I didn't really have a slow cooker recipe that I wanted to try, so I converted an oven recipe...sort of. Here's what I started with.

Well as promised here is the first of a few pillow tutorials for pillows that I made for the Gift Fair this past weekend. The pillow we're making today is a nod back to when dresses had smocking and intricate pintucked patterns. So without further ado, lets get started!

So yesterday I showed you guys my window art {this post}, and I was quite happy with how it turned out. Then I hung it on the wall and I couldn't get it too look quite right. Then I started wondering how the heck I was going to get the main attraction {for this season} to hang correctly on it. So I went back to the drawing board, but before I get to  that I want to share my other project for the window.

Ever since I started blogging I have wanted to make a wreath for inside the house, but I did not have a good place to put one because of where I had put our art. So this started a long thought process over what I wanted to put above the mantle. Then fate stepped in and I ended up a with a bunch of windows, which I am thinking of selling some of them so if you're interested email me.


Oiy, I'm getting off topic, I'm so scattered brained today so back on track. A few years ago I saw a nut wreath in Martha's magazine {I think} and I have wanted to make it since then so without further ado.....On to the show!

I'm not going to lie when I tell y'all that I love having a pile of wonderful old windows at my disposal. I've been wanting to update the space over my mantle for quite some time now. Its not that it looked bad or anything, but I just wanted a change. So I pulled out some windows. :)

I took the oldest two of the pile and cleaned them up (and got splinters in my hands) and then set them aside for about 3 weeks. Then when I was searching for windows for the display I came across two other windows that would be perfect for my burgeoning idea for the wall space. So out they came and along with the hose.

I played with a couple of configurations for the windows and then finally decided on one. I attached all of the windows with braces. For the little windows I elevated them with small blocks and then attached the braces to them.

Saturday was my very first gift fair, and it was a learning experience. I met a lot of nice ladies, and chatted with them throughout the day. There was not a lot of traffic, but for the traffic we got I'm quite happy with what we sold. I got a lot of ideas about where to head with the etsy shop and what changes to make to what I sell.

I want to share with you guys what the booth looked like. It did change a couple of time during the day as I rotated the pillowcases around and what not, but I am quite happy with how our space turned out.

I need send out a big thank you to Marian for all of her help and advice on setting up the booth. She answered all of my questions, because I was quite apprehensive about how it was all going to come together. :)

So without further ado, here is what the space looked like Friday night.

I have a confession. I cheat...sometimes. With food that is. I once said there's a thin line between laziness and creative genius. I also said that I like to think I walk that line everyday. I definitely walked it this week when I bust out a fabulous soup mix. Yes, I know mixes are what has killed many a great homemade recipe, but they're just so darn convenient! At least it was healthy.

There's a really great place called Great Harvest Bread Company. They sell a lot of all-natural, made-from-scratch mixes and foods. This is one that I got a while back.

I hope you guys didn't think I'd forgotten about my laundry room. I didn't. In fact, I was trying to hold off on posting anything until she was 100% completely done, buuuuut yea, that might take a while. I am hoping that it doesn't take too long. I'd like to have her completely done in the next week or so.

I'm so jealous of the people that have these nice walk-in laundry rooms that have room to maneuver in. Mine is ok....but it'd be better if there wasn't a nook in it. Oh well. I will work with what I have.

So I'm sure that you all remember the haphazard state that my laundry room was in before. Oh that's right. I didn't really show you anything. :) I really can't believe that I'm showing these pictures to you guys, because the room has looked worse and better. This would probably be on the worse side.

I seem to be on a food quick this week. Its not really that shocking because none of what I'm sewing can be shared yet, so we'll just have to make do on food. :)

Here's a  super simple dinner that we had last week. The squash takes some time, but its so worth it. I love that Acorn Squash is back in season. I love Acorn Squash. So I'm going to share this recipe with you. Its from Taste of Home, of course. :)

It feels weird to have skipped a day on this blog. I know. I don't really have any excuse except to say that I was tired. We drove 20 hours over three days, and then today I drove another 3 hours to get the boys home. I am tired of our car. If I don't see the inside of that car for another week then I will be very happy, but with that being said...I've been meaning to share this recipe for a while now. It started off as a chili recipe that we got from my mom way back when, but then we started playing around with it. :) This is a highly customizable recipe, for whatever taste you want. So here goes!

It was one of those days. One of those days where you clean up after other people and put out their fires. All you parents know what I'm talking about, I'm sure. Well, I could at least go home and switch off at the end of the day. I know so many of you brave, selfless folks can't, so well done you for carrying on! Despite my rather-small-in-comparison struggles, I really, really didn't want to cook that night. That's when my hero, my knight in shining armor, my wonderful husband swept in and made my day. Here he is, folks! Meet Mike!

Sup?

I'm such a bad planner sometimes. I'm impulsive. I'm impulsive about a lot of things, but I love to have a plan. Confused? Me too. I change my plans, and then expect people to keep up with me because I've  spoken out loud about the changes I've made. Even if I've gone over a couple of different scenarios. I can keep up.....can't everyone? :)

So as to the chili recipe....sorry. Plans changed. :) I'll share it next week. Steve suggested that I show you guys a sneak preview of the laundry room, which is coming along. Its taking a little longer than I anticipated because  I found a project that I've asked Stephen to help me with, and a sinus infection has decided to come visit me.

I was going to share my favoritest chili recipe. I know I already shared the chicken chili, but this one has red meat, but it will have to wait.

I would like a mulligan. A do over. My day back. Yesterday sucked.

First, Stephen found out that one of his closest childhood friends very unexpectedly passed. He honestly scared the hell out of me, because he found out while I was napping and when he woke me up, after I told him that I didn't want to move because I was warm. He'd just gotten off the phone with his friend's mom, and I'm sure you guys can fill in the blanks.

During dinner we got a call from my dad and were told that our last remaining dog from childhood, Rascal, had passed last night. Rascal was 16 or 17 years old. He was such a character. Total goofball. He will be missed.

I had an idea that maybe some great prose would sprout and I'd at least be able to leave you guys with a thoughtful and meaningful ending to this very uncharacteristic post, but I don't have it.

I'm sorry guys, but I'll be back tomorrow with some happiness. For now I need to figure out if I need to change weekend plans.

Much love and happiness to all of you. Give those you love gigantic hugs.

So as any Mom knows, sometimes common foods get simple names. Other times we rename foods so that the kids will eat them because of association. Last week we had Cherry Cheese Blintzes, but Dev has no idea what a blintz is so I told him we were having cherry pancakes with icing. He was super excited for them and ate two of them! This is what Moms do. So when I wanted  to have Banana Fritters later that same week, I told him they were Iced Banana Donuts. He was excited.....until he ate one. He did not like the lemon icing. Oh well, at least he liked the banana fritter donut. :)  So here's what I am sharing with y'all today. I hope you enjoy.

This recipe is from a cookbook that my mother-in-law gave Steve and I when we were just starting out. It's called Pass the Plate. It's by an Episcopal church down in NC circa 1981. This particular recipe was submitted by Annie Kinsey Whitford.

I hope that everyone had a terrific Halloween. We sure did! Stephen and I are now enjoying candy. Not Dev's candy as I think he's probably taken a tally of his take, but Harrison's. He doesn't mind. :)

Here's all of us in our costumes.

Clafouti! Say it with me. Cla-fou-ti. I also sometimes resorted to calling it Cloud-footie. For those of your who don't know what this is--I certainly didn't before I saw Alton Brown make it on "Good Eats"--this is a really simple French dish. Here's the recipe...