Gingerbread Waffles

I think I've found the perfect recipe for Christmas morning breakfast! These waffles look so delicious! I love anything gingerbread... Here is the link to the recipe. (pic from annie's eats)

Linus Christmas Monologue

What is Christmas all about, anyway?!!

Hot Chocolate goodness...

This evening the weather got bitter cold. (at least for us in South Carolina it did at 22 degrees ) ;o) It was the perfect night to sit by the fire and sip on some hot cocoa. Williams-Sonoma has some superb hot chocolate for all you hot cocoa connoisseurs out there. A friend of mine recommended it... so we gave it a try. In her words it will ''turn you into a hot chocolate snob''. You definitely won't think Nesquik tastes quite as good from now on. ; )

Cleta Bailey's Toffee Squares

I made these for a Christmas party this week. Super easy, quick and tasty! Check out the recipe from pioneer woman here. (pic courtesy of pw)

It's A Wonderful Life - The ending scene - High quality

My all time favorite Christmas movie....

Remembering the First Thanksgiving

This is a wonderful article that I found at crosswalk.com. I posted the first part of it here and I encourage you to read the rest in the link above. It only takes a few minutes of your time and it's a good reminder of how the First Thanksgiving really happened.

A few forgotten facts:

Half the Pilgrims that began their new life in Plymouth died in the winter of 1620

The first thanksgiving lasted three whole days

William Bradford (Governor of Plymouth) proclaimed a day of thanksgiving to God and the Pilgrims invited their Indian friends

"I'd stuffed many a turkey before I really understood Thanksgiving. Oh sure, I knew we were supposed to be thankful, and once I became a Christian I knew who we were thanking. But it wasn’t ‘til I taught my children at home that I really got the whole story.

Unfortunately, these days that story keeps getting harder to find.

For years, many public schools have left God out of Thanksgiving, teaching instead that the Pilgrims gave a party to thank the Native Americans or Mother Earth. Even more current are claims that the first Thanksgiving was a copy of European harvest festivals or a stolen Native American custom, or just a repeat of thanksgivings by other explorers.

But the Pilgrims’ own writings, and the historical events leading to the first Thanksgiving show the traditional accounts (available in pre-1960 books and encyclopedias) to be authentic. Thanksgiving was not as an isolated event, or an imitation, but a uniquely inspired Christian celebration – the culmination of a long journey of faith in which the Pilgrims had relied on God and trusted him through many adversities.

If the story is not to be forgotten, it is today’s Christian parents who must pass it on.

This year, make sure your celebration of Thanksgiving includes this portrait of God’s hand in history bringing people together to accomplish specific purposes – as well as the lesson of 1Thessalonian 5:18:"

Be joyful always, pray continually, and give thanks in all circumstances.

Continue reading the rest here.

Mini pumpkin muffins with cream cheese frosting

I saw the most adorable little muffins over at Life of Bliss last month. I've been waiting for the perfect occasion to make these and finally had a chance. I took them to our monthly ladies Bible study at my church. With Thanksgiving coming up they would also make the perfect little addition to your table. Check out the instructions here.

Fall is in the air...

Here are some of my favorite links for fall crafts and recipes.

Pumpkin towel

Pioneer Woman's Cinnamon bread recipe

White Chicken Chili

Burlap Bunting

Homemade caramel sauce

Candy Corn

Yummo!

Acorn topiaries

Beads, Pin, and Ribbon Necklace

This is pure genius!

Blackberry Scones

I've experimented with several different scone recipes and found one I liked on all recipes here. But I decided to buy Williams Sonoma's Garvey's Traditional Scone mix this time around. They were very delicious and more moist than the all recipes one. You can find the mix at your local Williams Sonoma store or online here. I added blackberries to my scones. They turned out so yummy and they go perfectly with a cup of black tea.

Monkeying around

Today is a rainy Saturday and the kids were getting a little restless so we decided to just go bananas!! Ha! I thought it would be fun to have a 'Five Little Monkeys Jumping on the Bed' themed morning. We started off by reading the book and then we watched the song below. I also found a page for Emma to color here. We made some banana pudding (which Luke really enjoyed) =), played her 5 Monkeys board game, made Curious George face masks here and read some more books. I think it was a success. Now it's nap time.....ahhhhhhh. : )

Experimenting with Freezer Paper...oh the possibilities!!

I saw the cutest Captain America tshirt at the "I am Momma Hear me Roar" blog.

Cheri used freezer paper to create this awesome design. I tried my hand at it last night and made a shirt for the Lukester. =)

Don't look too closely but I think it came out ok for my first try at stenciling. Cheri has a video tutorial that takes you step by step. It's super easy! I know I'll be using my freezer paper a lot more from now on! =)

Dodge Challenger Freedom Commercial

Just had to post this...Great commercial! =)

Royalty visits BJU

Prince Edward visits the Museum and Gallery at Bob Jones University.

Memorial Day Tribute

Chase was given the opportunity to narrate this video for our Memorial Day service at our church.

Another antique made useful

Along with my little iron chairs that I found in the antique store in Newberry, I also found a coke crate in pretty good condition. I know Pottery Barn used to sell them but now it looks like they just have Pepsi crates. At any rate, I paid $8 for mine instead of the $24 PB asks for theirs! I thought about leaving in the dividers but decided against it. I was flipping through a Pottery Barn magazine and I saw that they had a coke crate on a lower shelf in their kitchen table holding some plates. I thought I could get better use out of mine by putting some dishes in it too. I know...call me copy cat. =)

Getting crafty

I love to spend hours in antique stores and think about all the stories behind everything that is crowded

in there. But I also scrounge around

to find cheap 'junk' that I can turn into

something beautiful again.

On our way home from our family

camping vacation we stopped in the town of Newberry, SC.

They have many little antique stores and

I found several treasures to restore. Here is

one of them. I went into a room in the back

of the store and found this cute little rocking

chair sitting on a dusty shelf. I decided it could be more productive as a plant holder. =) More crafty pictures coming soon...

Happy Birthday to my best friend!

Today is Cinco de Mayo but more importantly, my husband's birthday!! =)

He is turning 27 and this year we will have been married for 5 years.

It's been a fun 5 years, 2 kids and in just a few shorts days he will receive is Graduate diploma for his MDiv.

I'm so proud of him for not giving up and sticking to what he knew was God's will for his life.

It was hard with crying babies and eventually no office to study in but the Lord got him and all of us threw it.

You're the best Daddy ever and I love you, Chase!! Happy Birthday!

Peanut Butter and Banana Trifle

I just happened upon a blog this week that was featuring some crafts but one of them was a dessert. It is out of this world, good!! I had never made peanut butter icing before but that really is the secret to the yummy goodness of this trifle. I found the recipe here.

It didn't include a peanut butter icing recipe so I found one online and added it to the instructions.

Ingredients:

1 cake (yellow mix or made from scratch pound cake of you choice) cut into squares

32 oz. container of vanilla yogurt

3 cups (approx.) of peanut butter icing

4-5 ripe bananas

Instructions:

Stir peanut butter icing into the yogurt; mix well

Slice bananas

Layer trifle with sliced cake, yogurt mix and bananas

Repeat layers until full

(Peanut butter icing recipe)

1 stick butter

1/2 cup peanut butter

1/3 cup milk

4 cups powdered sugar

Mix together in a saucepan butter, peanut butter, and milk. Bring to a boil.

Turn off heat and add powdered sugar. Mix well. I had to double this recipe to get

the amount of cups the trifle recipe called for.

Jan Brett Coloring Pages

I love the Jan Brett books! Emma has the Gingerbread Baby, The Hat and The Mitten. I just realized that the Jan Brett website has tons of free coloring pages available for printing. There are coloring pages from every book she's written and all kinds of themes (Christmas, Thanksgiving, Spring, Mother's Day, Summer etc.) This morning, Emma and I spent some time reading her books and then I printed some pages for her to color. She really enjoyed the gingerbread house. =)

"A Sure Cure for Complaining" DeMoss

I'm reading through Nancy DeMoss's book "Choosing Gratitude" and this little excerpt was so touching...I had to share it.

"A grateful heart will be revealed and expressed by thankful words, while an unthankful heart will manifest itself in murmuring and complaining."

"True story. A church group from New Bern, North Carolina, had traveled to the Caribbean on a mission trip. As you probably know, the conditions at the posh, luxury resorts are a far cry from the impoverished way of life endured by many others on these tropical islands.

During this particular ministry trip, their host took them to visit a leper colony on the island of Tobago. And while there, they held a worship service in the campus chapel. As you can imagine, the sight of emaciated lepers filing into their seats on the bare pews bore deeply into the minds and memories of each visitor to this unaccustomed scene.

But no memory left its mark like this one:

When the pastor announced, "We have time for one more hymn. Does anyone have a favorite?" he noticed a lone patient seated awkwardly on the back row, facing away from the front. At this final call for hymn requests, with great effort, the woman slowly turned her body in the pastor's direction.

"Body" would perhaps be a generous description of what remained of hers. No nose. No lips. Just bare teeth, askew within a chalky skull. She raised her bony nub of an arm (no hand) to see if she might be called on to appeal for her favorite song to be sung. Her teeth moved to the croaky rhythm of her voice as she said, "Could we sing 'Count Your Many Blessings'?"

The pastor stumbled out of the pulpit, out the door, and into the adjoining yard, tears of holy conviction raining down his face. One of the traveling party rushed to fill his place, beginning to sing the familiar song in this unfamiliar place, arguably the most "unblessed" of any spot in the universe.

A friend hustled outside, put his arm around the sobbing pastor, and consolingly said, "I'll bet you'll never be able to sing that song again, will you?"

"Yeah, I'll sing it," the pastor answered, "but never the same way, ever again"

Leave it to a grotesquely deformed leper to remind us that grateful people are characterized by grateful words, while ungrateful people are given to griping, complaining, murmuring, whining.

Some grumble at why God put thorns on roses, while others wisely notice- with awe and gratitude- that God has put roses among thorns. Hear what people are saying when they talk about the everyday events of their lives, and you'll see in an instant the difference between gratitude and ingratitude.

Do you spend more time counting and recounting your blessings or your problems?

Belle & Boo

I just love these mugs! There are many other sweet little things at this etsy shop.

Happy Saturday!

The container dilemma

I bought a pot at Hobby Lobby a couple weeks ago when they were all 50% off. I had no idea what to plant in it though! I really don't have a 'green thumb' but I don't always kill the things I plant. =) After having an empty pot on our porch for several days, I got the May issue of Better Homes and Gardens in the mail. On the cover it said "so pretty, so easy" "Dazzling containers to dress up your patio"...and I thought, perfect!! For their basic design they said to remember three words "THRILLER, SPILLER, and FILLER. They have many creative ideas for containers here.

I put Begonias, Swedish ivy and Goldilock filler in my container. I needed plants that would survive in a mainly shaded area and these are perfect! Here is a picture of one of their containers and then my version. It's not as complicated as I thought! Thanks to BHG for their advice!

Giveaway over at Life of Bliss blog!

Check out the giveaway that Julie is having from her Etsy shop here.