whoopie pies!!!!

lots of orders for whoopie pies made for a very busy day yesterday :)
i made almost 12 dozen!!!!



i made chocolate, pumpkin, and red velvet peppermint
def. a lot of work, but such a blessing as well :)
i enjoy baking so much, and since i can't work, it gives me a perfect way to help out w/ the bills :)

sorry, no pics of the final products...we were in a hurry to get them all to their homes before we left for va...but i assure you, they were very pretty and very yummy :)

o christmas tree, o christmas tree...

saturday i came home from a church tea party to this poor little thing...

i'd been oohing and ahhing over cute little christmas trees when dave and i went to winnipeg, so i guess dave took a hint :) he went out and found this little booger half buried under the snow and brought it home for me.

he asked me if i would help him decorate it using whatever we could find around the house...he ordered an amazing mediterranean pizza for supper, and then we set to work :)

it was fun trying to be creative with what we had around...and i think it turned out pretty cute :)
we made little gingerbread man ornaments, strung popcorn, and made an angel out of tissue paper :)

a perfect first christmas tree :)

i used the extra gingerbread men to spice up my soon-to-be-painted crosscut saw :)

gifts :)

this past week i have been busy making different gifts for different things :)

here's a fun gift...a good one for men or women :)
i've taken it to 2 different christmas partys, and it has always been a favorite...

buckeyes!!!!
chocolate covered peanut butter rice krispie balls to be exact :)


so you make a whole bunch of them, and then depending on the price range that you are going for you pick out a fun plate to put them on

for easy wrapping just put saran wrap over them before using actual wrapping paper

the other gifts i have been working are these 4 hats for a friend :)
she's getting them from me for her 4 nieces...a 5 year old, a 3 year old, a 2 1/2 year old, and a 4 month old...can't wait to see pics!

what a man :)

i got a good one :)
i have just been so blessed by him lately!!!
one thing dave told me before we got married is that he wanted to give me a date night every week...so far he has done really really well.
this past week he asked me if we could make supper together for our date. we had so much fun :) we wrote 4 different courses on little slips of paper, and then each took 2 and made those. we had an appetizer, a main dish, a side dish, and a salad. i got the appetizer and side dish. he got the main dish and the salad.
we didn't tell each other what we were going to make, we just went to the store, picked up any ingredients that we were missing, and started cooking :)

this was the result :)

this is the appetizer i made. it's an ethiopian lentil dish served w/ warm injera bread.

dave made us some amazing salads!!! fresh lettuce and spinach, red peppers, bacon, onion, and feta cheese...served w/ his very own homemade hot bacon and mustard dressing :)

for the main dish, he marinated chicken breasts, seared them, and then baked them with salsa and feta cheese...amazing!!

and lasty we have the side dish...bang bang shrimp :) we absolutely love this dish! i had never attempted it before, but it actually turned out amazingly good! we had it for the first time on our honeymoon at the fishbone grill. i did a little googling, found a recipe, and tried it out :)

it was such a fun date night :)

so just in case you haven't quite got the hint that i love my husband and that he is pretty much the best thing that's ever happened to me...

the other day he surprised me with a baby poinsettia when he came home from work :) i kept oohing and ahhing over them when we were in winnipeg...i guess he picked up the hint :)

the little candy dispenser beside the poinsettia was made by my grandaddy :) notice how full it is in this picture...

and how empty it is in this picture :(
unfortunately i absolutely love m&ms...and unfortunately dave isn't a big fan
it's just so convenient to pull that lil' handle when i walk past!!! lol

christmas decorations :)

i so love decorating!!!!
this past weekend my hubby and i went to winnipeg where he let me pick up a few things to decorate for christmas :) yay!


this is my absolute favorite :)
a moose!!!!


isn't he a cutie?


i have him set in our window seal with some greenery that i picked up

i got the greenery at walmart, and it's so perfect...i just love the snow-dusted pinecones and the little red berries that run all through it


it was a 9 ft. piece so i even had enough to put in our other window :)


also, we have a lovely wreath on our front door that my baby picked up for me last week as part of our date night :) he was so so sweet :)
he had me go upstairs to our bedroom while he set up our date downstairs. he bought this wreath and some christmas lights to decorate, and served me a lovely chinese meal :)

this is above our tv

i don't remember where i picked up this little snowman candle, but i think it's a cutie too :)


now, i know this isn't exactly "christmasy" but it is a decoration!!! i saw it while we were shopping in winnipeg and loved it! it is so rich in color and texture, and it just makes me happy :) it was a really good price for an original painting so my baby said it could be an early christmas present for me!!! :) yay!

it's pained on canvas, but i'm not exactly sure what kind of paint was used...i'm guessing acrylic or oil...isn't the texture amazing??

and lastly, here is our lovely lake :) as you can see, people have been out on it already...not w/ vehicles yet, but w/ snow mobiles! and this morning i saw a man walking across it :)

it's finished!!!!

perhaps you remember my post from a while back about the quilt that mom and i were making for her new book...well, it is now complete!!!

it began as a pile of 45 fabric strips

then we cut it into quadrilaterals...6 of each fabric

we then laid all of the pieces out on the floor so that we could begin to sew!!!

first order of business was to piece the quadrilaterals together to form triangles


which were then sewn into strips
we then sewed strips together, added the border, and quilted it :)

what can i say? my mom is pretty amazing :)
the pattern is available at her website: http://www.delightfulpiecing.com/