tasty treats, a few traditions, and a white Christmas

I didn't do much baking this year. Jeremy had a cookie exchange at work, so that gave us a huge platter of goodies. The extent of my baking/candy making stopped at cherry mash and spiced nuts.

My bff Amy always makes the yummiest cherry mash. She had this really complicated recipe that called for cherry chips, which aren't always the easiest thing to find. But those cherry mash candies were so worth the trouble of scouring every grocery store in this county and the next one over just to find the cherry chips!!

And then a few years ago, I found a super simple recipe for cherry mash in our church cookbook! Imagine my excitement!! It calls for only 4 ingredients. And they are so dee-lish!!



Look at that scrumptious taste of cherry chocolatey heaven. Is your mouth watering yet?
Here's the recipe so you can enjoy them as well:

Cherry Mash

1 can cherry frosting

1 box powdered sugar

1 bar almond bark

1 lb dry roasted peanuts, chopped

Mix cherry frosting and powdered sugar. Roll into nickel sized balls and place on waxed paper lined cookie sheet. Chill until firm.

Melt chocolate in double boiler. Add chopped nuts. Dip cherry balls into chocolate; lay on waxed paper to cool.

And here's my recipe for Spiced Nuts:

2 egg whites, beaten

3 cups nuts (I used almonds and pecans); stir in egg whites to coat.

In a gallon sized bag, place 1 cup sugar, 1 t. cinnamon, 1 t. cloves, 1 t. nutmeg and 1/2 t. salt. Add nuts and shake to coat. Place on ungreased baking sheet at 350 for 20 minutes. It will look foamy. Stir and bake 5 minutes. Cool.

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In addition to opening advent gifts to countdown the month of December and enjoying chocolate fondue, we have a few other Christmas traditions.

We go to the candlelight service at church on Christmas Eve. I think it's a beautiful way to start of the celebration of Christmas. And a wonderful opportunity to reflect on the true reason for the season.

We do a lot of celebrating with family. We spend part of the day with Jeremy's family and part of the day with my family. We also try to see my grandma, aunts, uncles and cousins on my mom side of the family. And usually the weekend after Christmas, we travel to Springfield to see my dad's side of the family. I feel very fortunate to have such a large extended family and can't imagine not seeing them at Christmas.

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It looks as though this year, we will have a white Christmas. I doesn't happen too often.
And it's not just a white Christmas; it's a blustery, bitterly cold Christmas. Can't you just see the cold wind in the picture?

Have a very Merry Christmas!!!

chocolate fondue...a Christmas tradition

We had a lovely day on Monday. And the kids redeemed themselves after a miserable time driving around and looking at Christmas lights the night before.

We watched The Nativity Story on tv. It's such a beautiful story about the birth of Jesus. And one of our Christmas favorites.

Then we enjoyed chocolate fondue. With all sorts of goodies for dipping. Yummy!!

Notice the sausage and cheese. That countered the sweets so I could call it dinner!!

So what if we ate dessert first.

first haircut

After a little incident involving a tangled curl, I decided the time had come to trim up Delaney's hair.

Usually I consult Jeremy on such big decisions as these.
But he was at the grocery store.
So I took things into my own hands. Literally.

It's probably hard to tell much difference. But try to imagine uneven, straggly ringlets. With stringy, sort of straight sides. That's what it looked like before.
Much better now.

I'm still on the fence about bangs. What do you think?

teacher gifts

Being a teacher myself, I know that the last thing Nate's teachers want for Christmas is a mug!! This year I decided to get a little crafty.
It was fun to be creative.

I started out with a plain brown clipboard from Wal Mart. Spent a whole 97 cents each! I found some coordinating scrapbook papers and ribbon to match. I also picked up some white and brown tulle, just to add a little more texture.


I cut the paper into smaller pieces, allowing the paper to hang over the edges. I used Mod Podge to attach the paper to the clipboard. Then I put several coats of Mod Podge over the top. At least three coats.

For the final touch, I tied pieces of ribbon and tulle onto the clip.

I also made spiced pecans and almonds and put them in these cellophane bags. Throw in a gift card to Barnes and Noble. And, voila....happy teachers!!

at least we found the ghetto...revolve tour 2009

Why is it, that no matter where you are when you get lost, you always manage to find the worst part of town?

This past weekend I went to Norman, OK to The Revolve Tour with our middle and high school girls' groups from church. Our leader printed out maps with detailed directions for each of the vehicles. But then she decided to use the GPS in her vehicle, which led us astray. And that's when we discovered the ghetto in Oklahoma City. I didn't even know there was a ghetto in OKC!

We did eventually make it to our destination. Only one hour late. No biggie, really.

This picture is for you, Kristine! I thought about you as I sat in Lloyd Noble Center. (She's a Sooners fan. Or at least she's a fan of one of those OK colleges. I get them confused!)

Revolve Tour is a conference for teen girls. It's put on by Women of Faith and was just an all-around excellent event! There were a couple of bands (Group 1 Crew and Stellar Kart) and Britt Nicole sang. There was a drama team and a praise band. And Jenna Lucado (daughter of Max Lucado), Chad Eastham and Austen Gutwein were speakers.

This is Austin. He has raised a ton of money (I forget the exact amount, if they said) for World Vision through a foundation he started, Hoops of Hope. He had a great message. And Allison was able to get his autograph. She was excited about that!

Britt Nicole (she sings The Lost Get Found).

Jenna Lucado.

The cutie patootie lead singer of Stellar Kart.

Our neighbor from across the street is proudly displaying Austin's autograph. Later in the day, she managed to also get Britt Nicole's autograph. You go, girl!!!

All the lovely First Baptist ladies who went to Revolve.

These were my roomies. Such good girls!

I think the highlight of the hotel was this luggage cart. The girls were living out their "Suite Life with Zach and Cody" dream. It's amazing what excites a 13 year old girl!!

After the conference, we went to a fancy shmancy restaurant for dinner. Seven47.

The birthday girl. We surprised her with a little flaming cheesecake. See, she totally deserved those autographs...it was her birthday!!

Allison ordered a yummy dessert and then got to eat it in "the lounge." Oh, the life!!

And would you believe, that even at fancy shmancy restaurants, you can get s'mores? Well you can. And you even get to roast your marshmallows right there at your table! What fun!!

Seats are already reserved for the next Revolve. Feb. 2011. At least it's in Kansas City. More familiar territory.

And I'm pretty sure I've already seen the KC ghetto!