Happy Birthday to Me

Last night the kids and I had a birthday party sleep over at my mom's house *grin*. Hubby is still away at work so we packed up our jammies and headed on over for movies, cake and pillow fights. Okay maybe not pillow fights but the kids giggled and mucked around in the dark well past their bedtimes!

This morning they woke me up for a special breakfast... a mountain of fresh baked bread and poached eggs. I'm thinking that 'Mt. Toast' was really for the kids but it was sweet :)

L surprised me with a special birthday card that she had made with a little quilled balloon, a lace bunting and a whole lot of hearts *grin*. I'm such a lucky mama to be loved so much :)

This afternoon I thought that I would do a little prep work and whip up some batches of sugar and gingerbread dough to chill in the fridge for tomorrow. We're going to have a baking marathon and having the dough made will make our morning go much quicker :)

Hopefully we'll have time to run down to the post office at some time tomorrow to so that we can get our christmas swap cards off to the families waiting for them :) I just love this little gnome santa stamp that I found to. Isn't he cute!

Hope you all had a wonderful weekend to :)

Hugs,
Rosina

Quilled Christmas Cards

Here's the first of our Christmas cards for this years Kids Craft Weekly card swap :) The kids are crazy about quilling so I thought that it would be great to incorporate it into our project.

If you don't know what quilling is it basically is just the art of twirling paper into coils and manipulating them into different shapes using the nifty little tool above :) It has two metal prongs on one end that have a tiny space between them for slipping the end of your paper strip into and then you just wind it up.

So we've been twirling balls for snowmen and teasing curly trees out of our paper :)

With our snowflake punches, sparkle papers and buttons we glitzed up our trees and my oldest was in charge of handwriting merry christmas on each one :)

Of course I wanted to play with the quilling to!
So after the kids went to bed I just had to make a card of my own and made this super cute button snowman to go along with my quilled tree :) You know I just couldn't let the kids have all the fun *grin*.

If you want to give quilling a try I recommend Twirled Paper by Klutz. We have this book and it comes with the tool, tons of multi colored paper strips, glue and oodles of great animals to make :) We have a whole quilled paper farm on the fridge right now and they are darn cute *grin*.

Hugs,
Rosina

Looking for more crafty ideas or inspiration? Pop over to Natural Suburbia's Creative Friday and see what others are up to :)

Holiday Slices

We've been busy little bees today making Christmas cards and drying slices of apples and oranges for decorations :) Every year we dry a fresh batch of fruit slices for garlands and tree decorations.

To make quick work of the slicing I used my mandolin slicer creating these lovely rounds with their pretty star centers :) I made them as thin as possible to help speed up the drying time.

I pulled out both of the big oven racks and the kids placed them on them as I kept reminding them not to eat to many *grin*. I swear my two youngest ones would have gobbled up the entire tray if I hadn't cut some extras just for them to munch on :)

With one rack loaded with slices I headed downstairs and balanced it on top of an empty coffee tin on the woodstove :)

I don't know how many trips I made up and down those stairs today as I kept a close eye on them. We had a few incidents of fallen apple slices which sizzled and blackened almost immediately and I learned that I have a super hot spot on the back left portion of the stove top that charred the bottoms of a few of the orange slices despite being flipped and watched closely! Thank goodness the majority of them survived *grin*.

Hugs,
Rosina

right now, I AM

....one proud mama :)
Today was the end of our swimming lessons and two out of my 3 children passed their levels. Above is my little guy who took lessons for the very first time. He was bursting with pride when he ran over to show me his book with its sticker in it indicating that he was ready to graduate from 'sea turtles' to 'salamanders'. For me it is neither here nor there if they actually pass. I just want them to get comfortable being in the water although knowing how to actually swim will be a bonus next summer when we get to go camping on the lake again *grin*.

Hugs,
Rosina

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Yarn Along

A post of my current read and what is cast on my needles ~ Inspired by Ginny over at {Small Things}

Actually today's yarn along post isn't about knitting but crocheting :)

I found some super cute patterns for these little mini snowflakes here, here and here. I love crocheting and find it much easier to do than knitting so this is a great little project to work on while watching a movie in the evening *grin*. I can't wait to get some more done so that I can starch them nice and flat for hanging on our Christmas tree and giving as little gifts :) Now that I think of it these might make great little embellishments to tuck onto the top of gifts along with a gift label!

On the book front I just picked up a copy of this Mason-Dixon knitting book from the library and it is full of sweet little knit projects....

like this little 'Fern' sweater. Oh my goodness do I just LOVE this! I'm not sure if it will fit L though. I think she may have grown to big for it but I'm going to measure her anyways.... just in case *grin*.

Hugs,
Rosina

Roasted Potato & Leek Soup ~ Recipe

Remember those leeks that I mentioned having left in the garden? Well I did finally pull them up but not until after they had been hit by a hard frost *grin*. I had planned to make soup with them so I wasn't to worried if they froze but you know what, when I pulled them out of the frozen soil they came out perfectly clean! Now if only I could pull them out of the ground like that all the time :)

I was really excited to try making a creamed leek and potato soup using some of the potatoes and rosemary that came out of our garden as well.

I started by cleaning 12 of my leeks by trimming off the hard green tops and the roots leaving the nice white fleshy bottoms and then splitting them in half. My leeks were only 1/2 - 1 inch in diameter so if you are buying leeks you could use 4 really nice large leeks :) I then added 8 peeled and cubed medium sized potatoes, 1 large sweet onion such as a walla walla quartered, 1 large red pepper cut into large chunks and 2 sprigs of rosemary.

Place all of your vegetables into your roasting pan, toss with a generous splash of olive oil, some salt and pepper and roast at 400 degrees Fahrenheit for about 30 miutes or until all of your vegetables are fork tender. Mmm, the smell of them roasting is delightful *grin*.

Once your vegetables are cooked and slightly cooled it's time to pureé them in your blender :) Place a couple large scoops of vegetables in your blender with a good splash of milk and blend until smooth.

I decided to make my soup milk based but you could use chicken or vegetable stock in place of the milk if you like! I also found that the potatoes made the mixture quite thick while they were in the blender so if you have one of those stick blenders that might make quicker work of the blending so that you don't have to do multiple batches in the blender :)

Once you have pureed all of your veggies you can adjust the thickness of your soup by adding more milk or stock and season with additional salt and pepper to your liking :)

This is a delighfully filling soup and the roasted vegetables give it a yummy flavor. Plus with it being so smooth and creamy your children will have NO idea what is in it *grin*. The perfect solution to the picky eater LOL.

I paired it with homemade cheese buns and everyone loved it :) I hope you enjoy making some for your family.

Hugs,
Rosina

PS. Looking for more great recipes? Check out the Hearth & Soul Blog Hop

Tagging Along

With Hubby home for only a couple of days we thought that we would make the most of our time together and tag along when he went down to the wharf to check on the tugs this afternoon :)

Bundled up for the frosty weather we carefully made our way down to the end of the wharf finger peeking over the sides as we went hoping to catch a glimpse of some jelly fish or star fish but there were none to be found today. The kids were more successful at scavenging through the boat cupboards looking for treats *grin*. They know exactly where to find daddy's stash of chips, cookies and sometimes chocolate!

Of course a trip to the boat wouldn't be complete without spinning the big wheel while navigating to pretend destinations :) Today we were pirates in search of our stolen bounty... somehow though I nearly ended up walking the plank *grin*.

The imaginations of children are such treasures :)

Hugs,
Rosina

Big Truck Christmas Parade

The kids and I snuck away for a night and had fun in the city :) It was my sister's birthday yesterday so we met up with my mom and dad and my sister and her husband for dinner and a little moonlight shopping and parade action *grin*.

It just happened that there was a 'big truck' christmas parade happening just before our dinner reservations so the kids and I thought that we would brave the freezing cold and take part in the festivities. It was so busy that we could barely find parking and ended up walking a block in the dark to make it to the main street just in time to see the trucks going by. It was actually quite cute as we made our way through the crowd in a long chain of four all holding hands :)

There were fire trucks, police cars, semi trucks, a cement truck, a backhoe on a flatbed Santa Claus and the Mrs.... what a great idea! What kid doesn't love to see all the big trucks decked out in bright lights and by the size of the crowd I'd say it was a huge success :) My little guy was just captivated with all of the action going on around us as we got to get an up close look at all of the trucks once they had finished their route. We had to rush off to dinner just after the parade ended but not before we got to see the big Christmas tree lit up in the town center.

It was a night full of surprises for the kids. First they had no idea that they were going to see the parade and then we all got to spend the night at my sister's house :) She has enough room for all of us to stay so they got to watch a movie, camp out in the living room and then we spend half of today with her before heading home. It was so nice to just hang out at her house that I could have stayed another night *grin*.

We had to get back though and it just happened that Hubby came home tonight to! Yay :) I think we have a couple of days with him before he heads back out on the water for one last trip north before Christmas. I can't believe how quickly this year is unfolding. Not to many days left for making presents so I better kick my butt into high gear! How about you, are you ready?? I'm not *grin*.

Hugs,

Rosina

Cinnamon Christmas Stars

We're kicking the holiday season off with some fun crafting :) I had ran across some twig stars on flickr and thought that it would be fun to make some with the kids but instead of using twigs we used cinnamon sticks so that we could have a little bit of christmas scented aromatherapy *grin*.

We headed outdoors after breakfast to cut some fresh cedar branches and collect any miniature pine cones we could find that the squirrels hadn't already striped and hidden away for winter. We were lucky to find a few out by the chicken coop and I had some star anise, bells and red berries from last Christmas still in the craft cupboard for gussying up our stars :)

To keep things moving quickly so the younger two wouldn't loose interest by waiting for glue to dry I pulled out my trusty hot glue gun *grin*. I swear everyone should own one of those! LOL. We had our cinnamon stars assembled in not time and were ready to add our greenery :)

They each took turns picking out which pinecones, bells and such they wanted to use and I helped them glue everything on to their stars. We even made a couple of extras to share with my mom and friends :)

They smell awesome! We have five of them hanging all along our big picture window in the family room and they have scented the whole area. Now we just need a garland to go with them :)

Looking for more crafty ideas or inspiration? Pop over to Natural Suburbia's Creative Friday and see what others are up to :)

Hugs,
Rosina

right now, I AM

...being silly!
I told my daughter I had thought of a new way that we could warm up her pajamas so they wouldn't be so cold when she got dressed for bed. So I stuck them on the brick wall *grin*. Our main woodstove chimney is right behind the bricks and the wall gets super toasty. The fuzzy jammies stuck to the rough bricks like velcro and they warmed right up for her :) Definitely got some giggles out of her before bed *grin*.

PS. please excuse my massive laundry pile. Anyone feel like folding? I'll pay you in cookies :)

Hugs,
Rosina

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