"Journal Your Christmas" Album

This is my second year to create my Christmas album with shimelle.com,

I love her prompts and forum that she shares with us.  Through doing this I found

Purple Mailbox who has shared her album....she has inspired me so much and I have

used her ideas in many of my pages. 

Christmas Joy

Our Christmas was spent in South Carolina with my parents, and was able

to see my brother & his family as well.  Tons of food.....which did

NOT do my diet ANY good!!! And nice weather - no coats....however,

on the way back to Pa we ran into snow and today we are having a snow storm. 

Now, I MUST admit that I do not really enjoy the cold and snow, but it does seemto make things feel a little more like Christmas (maybe its just because I am use to that...orthat all the photos and movies depict Christmas with snow....hummmmm)

The fireplace -- gift from my honey

 

 Gotta have the red velvet cake

 

 

 Tracking Santas progres

 Picking up pecans from mom and dads tree

Lyssa made this beautiful blanket for mom & dad



No Place Like Home

 We have been enjoying many wonderful times just close to home

this year...plan to visit my parents soon but for now, just content

to enjoy family at home.  We have been doing a countdown...and enjoying fun

activities every day....above....we enjoyed red velvet hot chocolate with cream cheese

whipped topping.

 Visiting the ChristKindle Market.....good and cold but so many pretty

sights....and LOTS of food.

 Love visiting Country Cupboard and looking at

all the wonderful things there.

The elf has been getting into trouble.

 Fit some time in to scrabpook with my wonderful friend Sue...

she is such a honey.

 Getting gifts together for neighbors.

And sealing up some deer jerky that the great

white hunter got for us!!

Gingerbread House

This is our second year to do gingerbread houses....believe it is a  new tradition in the Stahl household.  Last  year I purchased the houses at our local Mennonite store.....And this year I did

the same for the kids but wanted to give a shot at making my own...and decided that if it works, we would do this in the future.  So, I went searching on a site that I find to be drool worthy!!!

PINTREST!!  Found this site....Sweetopia, on this site you will find a short video with tips on making your own creation.....gingerbread recipe and frosting AND a gingerbread

house template!!!!!

Here are a couple other templates I found if you are
interested.....here

 These are the little teacup houses we did up....Clay & Leen

decorated these....they have doors cut on either side so you

can sit them on the rim of your cup.

 

 

 

 

 My Gingerbread house.....can you tell what my favorite

color is?

 

Our countdown for the day....melted snowman ornament.

VERY ,VERY easy project and I think it is just

too cute!!!

Clear ornament, add some seasalt (or you could use epson salt),

2 peppercorns (or cloves) for the eyeballs....and make a little nose rolled

up from orange cardstock. 

I have a very small funnel I use in the kitchen so we used that and

the process went very quickly.  You could probably make a funnel with

paper rolled up as well to make life easier.

(I do have to admit that I found this cute idea on pintrest!!!  I LOVE pintrest!)

Gingerbread & More

 Alyssa was home this weekend....she had mercy for me and rolled the

oreo truffles plus dipped them for me.  For some reason mine never are as

round and pretty as hers!!!

 Countdown activity for the 9th was to play games and enjoy rootbeer floats.

Blokus and Masterpiece were the games....lots of lauging and fun!

 And today -- our countdown activity was to decorate our gingerbread houses.

Mine isn't finished because I was busy rolling and cutting dough.....

but you can see all the pretty pink and white above that I plan to use.

Clayton and Shalene seem to agree that this is one of their

favorite countdown activities.

Now we have abouat 20 or more little teacup gingerbread houses to decorate.

Pictures to come.