baking

Flour, Sprinkles, and Dough! Oh My!

Tuesday, December 20, 2011

Christmas wouldn't be as sweet if there were no Christmas cookies!

Every year my husband's family gets together to make yummy Christmas cookies at his Grammy's house. Unfortunately, we were missing a few faces (Lacy, Dustin, and Coletta) this year, but there will not be a shortage of the sugary snack when the holiday gets here.

The boys were especially excited to get started with the cookie making. (Hank, our sweet nephew, was in love with that Christmas tree cookie cutter.)





It is always fun to watch Hank cut out the cookies. He never lacks effort or enthusiasm...



...and he is never disappointed with how they turn out.



 "Shake, shake, shake" (A necessary step to ensure that the cookie is perfect!)







We eventually collected a large variety of tasty cookies...even if Dane managed to sneak a few bites of raw dough.





No cookie is complete without icing...and sprinkles when Hank is involved. (Trust me, EVERY cookie got at least one sprinkle.



YUM! Don't those look delicious?



I hope everyone is enjoying these days before Christmas. Have you made cookies yet, or do you have an different holiday tradition?

{b}

christmas decorations

Oh Christmas Tree

Sunday, December 18, 2011

It is official...Christmas is just a week away! Most of you have probably already taken the time to put up a Christmas tree and all of your other Christmas decorations. (I started decorating 3 weeks ago!) This is the first year I was able to decorate the Christmas tree as a wife! I am sure you can imagine my excitement. Our small tree is the perfect size for the the corner of our living room, and luckily there is still room for all of the presents to fit around it. (Trust me...if the tree were any bigger presents wouldn't be an option!)



Decorating the Christmas tree is something I enjoy doing every year. When I was a child I would get to pick out a new ornament before Christmas, and as we decorated the tree each November we would look back at all of the ornaments that we collected.

Dane and I don't have an impressive collection of sentimental ornaments ro decorate our tree. I am sure that we will begin to collect those when we start having children, but this year I wanted my tree to have a theme: rustic!

Dane already had a great variety of rustic ornaments thanks to his wonderful mother!



We also had some shimmery, little red ornaments that added a needed pop of color!



Unfortunately, we did not have a tree topper, but that just meant that we could add our touch to the tree that was already great! We found this pretty silver star at Wal-Mart.



I also got a few simple, silver ornaments for the tree, and I used a couple of those to make these fun rustic ornaments!



Dane and I are so excited about spending this holiday season as husband and wife. We love our cute little tree and I am sure that it will evolve as we celebrate more Christmases, (I also need to find new stockings at some point...or make my own!) but for now we are very happy with our little tree and the special ornaments that decorate it!

{b}