We had a wonderful Christmas. A more simple holiday since finances were really tight for us this year but definitely not lacking in joy and happiness in celebrating the true reason for this holiday, the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ! We are looking forward to this coming year to see all the God has for us! I hope you have a blessed and Happy New Year!
Mary and I did some baking this year. We tried a new recipe. We made chocolate gingerbread cookies. They turned out really good. It was regular ginger bread cookie recipe with 3 tablespoons of dark cocoa powder and a 1/4 teaspoon of fresh ground ginger (that was my idea). Here are a few shots of her having a blast making and playing with her cookies.
We also had a blast at her Christmas party for her ballet class. Here is a slide show to give you a sneak peak at what we saw. The girls were all so cute!
It is starting to look a lot like Christmas around here. My Christmas cactus is in full bloom on my kitchen table. When I was bringing it in from our greenhouse I accidentally dropped it on the step coming into the house. It shook it up really bad and broke a big branch off. I was so upset I began to cry as I had babied it all summer looking forward to one of the best blooms it had ever had and then I go and drop it!! But it recovered and bloomed for me. Mary said, "Mom look, it forgave you and now it is blooming!"
Mary has had fun making paper snowflakes and then using the snowflakes as skirts for ballerina paper dolls.
Here is our Christmas card this year. I had fun getting some free graphics on pinterest.
Mary is all excited about the snow. It doesn't snow very often before Christmas around here. I think it is the most snow we have had before Christmas since Mary was born. So it is really big deal for her.
Shot of the tree and Mary with the snow outside.
First snowman of the year with daddy's help.
Lots of snow everywhere.
Rich gave me this beautiful cross key chain for our 10th wedding anniversary. I love what it says.
Today marks my 10th wedding anniversary. For this special occasion my husband made some wonderful cinnamon rolls for breakfast. He made yeast dough last night put it in the fridge and then put it together and baked these cinnamon rolls this morning. They are so yummy and tender. I just love them. I ate three! Lois at Walking on Sunshine blog suggested that I post the recipe, so here it is.
Overnight Rolls
Ingredients need to be room temperature
Combine: 2 1/2 teaspoons of granulated yeast 2 teaspoons of sugar
in a 1/4 cup of 85 to 100 degree water.
Permit these ingredients to stand until dissolved, about 10 minutes. Scald: 1 cup milk
Add and stir until melted 7 tablespoons lard
Cool. Combine and beat well: 7 tablespoons sugar 4 beaten eggs 1 teaspoon salt
Stir in the milk mixture and cool to 85*
stir in the yeast mixture and: 4 1/2 cups sifted all-purpose flour
Beat the dough about 5 minutes. Place in a foil-covered bowl in the refrigerator over night. Take out just before baking. Roll the dough on a floured board to the thickness of 1/4 inch. Spread generously with: Melted butter
Sprinkle with: Cinnamon Brown sugar
Roll the dough like a jelly roll. Cut into 1 inch slices. Spray pan with cooking spray
Place rolls on cookie sheet. Let them rise in a warm place for 1/2 hour. Bake in a preheated 350 degree oven for about 1/2 hour or until golden brown. Makes 14 large rolls. For a deeper and higher roll put in large muffin pans. For flatter rolls use a cookie sheet. (my husband used a cookie sheet for ours this morning) Top icing of choice.
I am posting this recipe on the Foodie Friday Link party today. For more yummy recipes you can go here.
We have changed our store, Peace of Earth Ceramics, location from Ebay to Etsy. We think Etsy will be a better venue for our ceramic art work as Etsy is all about handmade things. So if you would like to go and check our store out you can do so here.
Our pup, Mackie, would like to wish you a very happy Christmas Season!
A few Sundays ago Rich and I were down with the kids for Children's church. We teach the kindergarten class. The kids meet in a big room for singing and hearing the Bible story for that week and then break up into their individual classes for snacks, games and worksheets that all coordinate with the lesson. This particular Sunday during the main meeting the Children's Pastor, Stephen, had the teachers come up front and be available if children wanted prayer. So I was standing looking at all the beautiful little children and I looked down and their was our daughter's sweet face. She said she wanted to pray to accept Jesus into her heart. So Rich and I sat down with her and said the sinners prayer and Mary accepted Jesus as her Lord and Savior. She got up and had a huge smile on her face. Though she is only 6 and has many years ahead of her and lots of things will happen before she is an adult, my heart was so blessed that a young age she has taken the step to surrender her life to Christ. I know the LORD rejoices in the honest and simple step that she took and in His kingdom it is huge! For Jesus said unless you become as a child, you cannot enter the Kingdom of God. I was deeply reminded of the simple and honest faith of a child. Not worrying about all the ramifications or what is going to happen tomorrow. No hidden agendas, just an honest and open heart with a simple request and all of heaven rejoices! A few day later I found this note on her bed.
My dear Mary girl, may you always love the Lord with all your heart and follow Him always not letting the cares of this world change your course but staying close to Him. For he is your Heavenly Father who loves you and will always take care of you and lead you into all truth. I love you with all my heart! Your Mama
We had special visit down memory lane when Rich played the role of one of America's favorite presidents, Abraham Lincoln giving his Thanksgiving Proclamation.
We had a very special Thanksgiving holiday. Rich's folks were out of town so we had Thanksgiving dinner at our house with just our family. That is a first time for us and it was very fun and relaxing. We have many things to be thankful for!
I pray you have a blessed and happy Thanksgiving as you gather with friends and family! I have many, many things to be thankful for. The top 3 are my salvation, my husband and my daughter.
I was reading a great blog, Dimples and Delights, a blog with so many wonderful recipes on it. On this particular post she had a link to a You Tube video by 5 Guys, 1 Piano. So, I was just sitting in the living room with Rich and Mary and I decided to play it. An hour and half later I came up for air. We all three were immersed in the most beautiful and inspiration piano and cello music. These guys are masters and bring classical and popular songs to life. Mary was really taken by the first one that I am posting. She really loves to "play" our piano and we caution her often to be gentle with the piano as she is composing her concertos and performances :) We would love to give her lessons so her great love of the of piano can have roots and take her to the sky if she wants to. Anyway when she saw this first video she said smiling, "These guys are being bad and they are going to turn into donkeys". (I think someone has been watching Pinocchio a lot lately.) She loved it and had me play it for her a bunch of times. I am going to post 3 of my favorites. It was hard to pick as I liked them all but you can go to You Tube and find them. One of their videos has over 22 million views. So, I guess they are pretty popular. Well here is the first one where Mary thought for sure they were going to turn into donkeys :)
This one is so insprational. I love to see the people's faces and what they do as they listen to the performance
This last one was one of Rich's favorites. It has over 22 million views.
Along with our music we had some chocolate cookies I made up yesterday. I went into the kitchen planning on making chocolate chip cookies but didn't have all the ingredients so I substituted and came up with this recipe. I think it is a keeper at our house.
Mama's Special Chocolate Cookies
2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
3 tbls dark cocoa powder
1 cup butter softened
1 1/2 cup granulated sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 large eggs
7 Reeses Peanut Butter cups chopped up finely or rumped up in the food processor
Preheat oven to 375 F
Combine flour, baking soda, salt and cocoa powder in a small bowl. Beat butter, sugar and vanilla in a large mixing bowl until creamy. Add eggs one at a time beating well after each addition. Beat in gradually the flour mixture. Stir in the chopped Reeses Peanut Butter cups. Drop by rounded teaspoon onto ungreased baking sheet. Bake for 9 to 11 minutes. Cool on baking sheets for 2 minutes; remove to wire racks to cool completely.
We went over this afternoon and helped Rich's dad rake leaves. They have the most beautiful trees in their front yard. Mary had so much fun, that she was looking at the neighbors leaves after we were done and thinking about doing a little raking over there. It was chilly so we went inside to have something warm to drink and then we went to Subway for sandwiches. It is so fun to get together with family and do some work. Also I think it is so important for children to learn to work and help too. Though Mary was having so much fun, I don't think she thought of it as work. lol
I am linking up with Share Your Cup Thursday. To join the party go here.
I have started a new blog for our custom ceramic business that gives all the information on what we have available and how to order and how to have things customized. It is called Peace of Earth Custom Ceramics. You can visit it here . I will still be keeping our family blog going. If you are interested in a lovely gift for a loved one for Christmas or any occasion think about having one of our lamps customized. We can put a short verse from a poem or Bible verse on it. You can pick a favorite flower, color. You can put the person's name on it, special date and sentiment. It would be a beautiful gift that would be practical and used every day. Here is a picture of a lamp we did just recently for a customer.
You can pick out anyone of our lamps on our eBay store and have it customized. You just need to e-mail us at poeceramics@charter.net
The home school group that we belong to had a science display night. Mary did a presentation on how to grow pumpkins. We had one of her pumpkins that she grow on display along with a plate of roasted pumpkin seeds to share. She got a lot of really sweet comments. The parents and family of the kids displaying all were so kind and interested in each child's display. At the end each child was given a certificate and and few of the comments were read out load. They got to walk up front and receive their certificate and everyone applauded them. Mary had a blast. She is such a little people person anyway so this was right up her ally. Here are a couple of pictures and a short video I took of her presentation before we left home.
Here are few shots of our Halloween. We had such a lovely day. I read Mary The Pumpkin Patch Parable before we carved her pumpkin that she grew.
Our neighbor gave Mary some cookies to decorate. So she had a lot of fun with that.
I made her a clown suit this year and she had so much fun with it. Her pumpkin turned out cute too!
Even our little dog Mac, had a clown costume :)
We went to see Rich's folks so Mary could Trick or Treat at their house and then we went to a Havest Festival put on by a local church. Her little friend, Mady, was there too.
She got a bunch of candy! She was so excited to get all the chocolate. lol
You are 6 years old today! You are growing into such an amazing young lady. You are 47 pounds and 47 1/2 inches tall and packed full of energy and have such zest and enthusiasm for life. You are a people person and love to talk to people you don’t know. You love little babies and are always telling me how they are so cute and so precious. When we baby sit little babies you love to give them toys and touch them gently on their cheeks or pat their little heads. You are a very determined which keeps me on my toes to guide you in the way you need to go to be a disciplined and responsible adult. You love God and have asked people if they are Christians too. You have started kindergarten and I so enjoy being your teacher. You look forward to our time together as you learn to read, write and do your math. I am amazed how quickly your mind soaks up knowledge and then is able to apply it. You are still in the “how come” and “why” stage. So very curious about your expanding world outside the walls of our home. You love to dance and have your ballet class. Often you will break into a spontaneous dance, making up your own choreography. Along with making up dances you love to make up stories and tell them to me or your dad. You love art and your favorite is still painting. Our dog, Mackie, is your little companion and you have learned how to be kind and treat a dog and how to be responsible for him. You have grown so much this year and it has been so exciting to see you grow and change. You have lost your two top front teeth and one on the bottom. I am so thankful that you have been such a healthy and strong little girl. My heart is very thankful for that. You help me in so many ways by helping clear the table after dinner, putting your toys away, and getting things for me or throwing things away when I am busy or too tired sometimes to get up. You are a big help to me and your dad. You love to help daddy in the ceramic shop and see him work and create such beautiful things. You are always encouraging and tell your dad how you think his lamps are so beautiful and how he has done such a great job. I know you are going to grow up to be a young lady that I am so proud of. I am so thankful that God gave you to us. What a great gift you are to your dad and I in our later years. Thank you for all the sweet hugs and kisses and I love you’s. Happy Birthday Mary, we love you so very much! Mama and Daddy
