Happy Christmas Eve Eve

Somewhere in time when my kids were younger, a Christmas greeting just seemed necesssary on the 23rd of December.  I think it just added to all of the excitement building for Christmas Day.  So around our house on this day, everyone was greeted with "Happy Christmas Eve Eve".  It made us smile and giggle to say that.  We still say it; and because I think everyone needs to take some time to smile and giggle today, I will wish each and every one of you a very "Happy Christmas Eve Eve" as well.

Christmas Chickens

I must admit that my little etsy shop has been a bit neglected over the past months.  But in trying to restock, and bring a little bit of life back into it, I have created a little Christmas family of chickens to give it a bit of a spark.  I have so many ideas of things I would like to make and sell; however, they usually just sit quietly in the design stage of my mind.  Recently though my workshop has been waking up from its dry spell, and so I would like to introduce you to Jolly, Joy, and little Jingle.

They promise to add a bit of fun to any corner of your current Christmas decor, as well as make a delightful gift.

Christmas Music

Each year on the day after Thanksgiving I start playing my Christmas music.  I like nothing better than spending the entire Christmas season listening to it.   Over the years my collection has grown quite large, as I never think one can have too much Christmas music.  My children are quite familiar with my liking, and this year two of my daughters presented me with a start of the Christmas season gift -- yes, a new Christmas CD:

 I have seen this particular CD for the past couple of years, and as I would have expected from Celtic Woman, it is very nice.  And what is even nicer, everytime I hear it I think of my thoughtful daughters.

Over the River and Through the Woods

Thanksgiving Day brings a wealth of memories to my mind.  Some of the earliest are actually hearing my sweet dad sing "Over the River and Through the Woods" to all of us in the car as we crossed the prairie on our way to a nearby town to spend the day with my grandparents.  I can remember the wonderful aroma as we walked into their house, and the table, with all of its leaves in place, set beautifully with grama's pretty crystal glasses.  While waiting for dinner, some of my siblings and I would take turns spinning in my grandparents' chairs that actually were just meant to swivle; however, one could get them spinning around at a pretty fast clip.  And I might add, we were never once told not to do it.  It was just part of the fun of being at Gramp and Grama's house.  My grandfather would have a roaring fire in his fireplace that, compared to my small size at the time, seemed like it must have encompassed an entire wall.  After we had enjoyed an amazing feast, it was time to make my grama's glasses "sing".  The memory is still so vivid in my mind of us sitting around the table talking, when someone would dip their finger in their water goblet and begin to rub it around the edge of the glass until a tone began to play.  We would all then join in the fun of making Grama's glasses "sing".

It is kind of funny what kinds of things stick in a kid's mind, and even carry on into our grown up years.  When my kids were younger, and we would travel to my parents' house for Thanksgiving, I would sing "Over the River and Through the Woods" to them.  It just seemed like the right thing to do while traveling to their grama's house.  Nowadays we have Thanksgiving at home, my kids are older, and I just sing the song in my own mind; however, at the end of dinner when we are all sitting around talking, someone, usually my son, will dip his finger into his water goblet, and begin to make my glasses sing.  I still always join in because it just seems like the proper way to end a Thanksgiving dinner.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone.

A Vanilla Experiment

Real vanilla is a must in my kitchen.  I haven't bothered with the imitation variety for years, and some of the best vanilla I have used has been gifts from Mexico.  Their vanilla seems so much purer than the types found locally.  I typically purchase mine at Costco since their price just can't be beat.  But recently, I have been reading articles on making your own vanilla.  I'm always up for a fun experiment so when I saw Costco recently selling vanilla beans, I decided to give it a go.  After reading many, many articles on this particular topic, I finally settled on this basic method.

Of course first, you need vanilla beans.  As mentioned above, I purchased mine at Costco:

With the Costco package you get two vials with 5 vanilla beans in each.  And just as a totally unrelated side note, the vials are really cool, and I'm determined to find a useful purpose for them.

I just used pint canning jars for my concoction of vanilla.  My choice was pint jars simply because I have a lot of them on hand.  In each of the three jars I poured one cup of vodka.  And then I placed three vanilla beans in each jar making sure that the beans were pushed down below the top level of the vodka.

The jars then found a home on one of my pantry shelves that remains in the dark, unless of course I need something off of that particular shelf. 

To help the process along, the jars need to be shaken a couple of times a week.  And look here, after just one week, it is starting to look like vanilla:

I read varying reports about how long this whole process takes.  The times varied from 2 to 6 months.  I will probably lean more toward the 6 months, as it only makes sense that the longer it sits, the better flavor it will have.

The only regret I have is that I didn't start this 6 months ago.  Wouldn't it be fun to give homemade vanilla in cute little bottles as gifts for Christmas?  Maybe next year if this works out.

I have one lonesome vanilla bean left over from my original package so I have great plans to make vanilla sugar with that.  I will have to let you know how that works out.

Shoebox Time

When my children were very small, their grandfather would give each of them money to go buy little gifts to fill a shoebox for the Samaritan's Purse shoebox ministry.  It seemed like it would take a couple of hours for me to take all four of them through Target with their little lists in hand of the things they wanted to put in their boxes.  They loved doing it, and the time spent in the store, adding, re-adding, and adding yet once again all of the items in the cart to make sure they had stayed within their budget, was truly a blessing to me.  Seeing their little giving spirits wanting to buy gifts for children they didn't even know was a very sweet sight to see.  My kids aren't small anymore, but we still enjoy taking part in this ministry.  In the beginning we would use actual shoe boxes; however, now we use the small plastic boxes because it just seemed like it would be fun for the recipient of the box to actually have a nice container to keep all of his/her goodies in.

Some of the favorite things we like to put in ours are:  a small baby doll for a little girl, small trucks for boys, plastic farm animals, play-dough, stickers, art supplies, bracelets, hair barettes, socks, candy, toothpaste, toothbrushes, school supplies such as pens, pencils, notebooks, and erasers, hair brushes, combs, cute bandaids, lots of candy, a small stuffed animal, hats, gloves, and little rubber duckies.  When we are all finished packing the box -- which really takes a great deal of skill to make everything fit -- we then sprinkle little hard candies all around in any open spaces.

One year my youngest daughter thought it looked like such a fun gift that she said she would like one.  So that year for Christmas I put together a box just for her, and she was thrilled.

The collection week this year is November 14-21st.  If you aren't sure where to drop off your shoebox, you can look at their website to find a location near you.  And now the shipping boxes are scanned so once they have been delivered, if you would like, they can e-mail you to let you know which country your box went to.

An Apple Harvest

A couple of years ago, I posted about our apple tree which my son grew from the seeds of an apple that he had eaten.  Each fall I keep an eye on the tree hoping for a good harvest.  To my delight, this year I have had just that.  The other afternoon I went out to the tree and started picking, and filled up an entire large basket, as well as part of a plastic bag.  Now to many of you apple harvesters out there, this might not seem like many, but to me it was a lot.  To actually be able to go out to my own tree, pull up a ladder, and pick more than a dozen or so apples was such a treat. 

After picking the apples, I immediately went inside and started making a pie with them.  And of course the pie was to be for my son, now grown up, that planted those little seeds so many years ago.  He came over for dinner and I was so happy to be able to serve him a pie out of his very own apples.  We all took a bite, and to my disappointment the pie really wasn't very good.  The apples were still quite firm, and there just wasn't  much of the good juiciness that usually comes along with an apple pie.  The problem was that I have no idea what kind of apples they are; because really, who would keep track of the type of apple when your 7 year old son wants to eat an apple and plant the seeds to grow his very own tree.  And who really expects that the tree will someday actually grow and bear fruit.  But I'm not giving up, I have enough apples to experiment with them, and plan on trying another pie by cooking the apples first (which I have a recipe that calls for just that), and there is always applesauce. 

A New Friend

I have a new little friend.  He is a squirrel that sometimes makes his little presence known around our front yard.  I don't see him very often; but occasionally when I go outside to sit in the sunshine, I will hear him scampering through the tree above me.  One afternoon after hearing him scurry around the branches, I decided I should befriend him by leaving him little treats.  So each morning (well I really try to remember each morning, but some days I do forget) I place 6 unsalted peanuts in various spots amongst the branches of his tree.   He found them in short order, and they were all gone without even one little shell left behind.  I think at first he must have thought it very unusual to find peanuts growing from a maple tree, and so he took them all home to add to his winter stash.  But now, he sees that those peanuts just keep appearing, and sometimes I see a couple of empty peanut shells on the grass where he has decided it will be okay just to taste one before he takes the rest home.  He will not allow me to take a photo of him just yet, but maybe some day.  I need to give him a name, any suggestions?

Random Gifts of Cookies

One of my daughters recently had a birthday that fell on the same day as one of her volleyball games.  I made cookies for her so that she could hand them out to her friends after the game; however, in the rush of everyone wanting to leave after the game (it was an "away" game, and the hour had gotten late), the passing out of the cookies never happened.  So we brought home the cute little packages of cookies:

Another daughter placed them all in one of my red mixing bowls so that we would have a place to keep them until they were eaten.

I found that having the cookies pre-wrapped as little gifts was actually a wonderful thing to have around the house.  So many instances came up where a random gift of a little cute bag of cookies was the perfect thing to give someone to brighten their day. 

I had found these little plastic food container bags in the Wilton baking section of I think WalMart.  I don't know exactly how many came in the package, but there was a very generous supply.  Combined with two cookies to a bag (I used the Originial Tollhouse Chocolate Chip cookie recipe), and some cute ribbon that we just happened to have, they were so easy to put together. 

I think I will be laying in a supply of these little cookie bags, and make it a now and then habit of making cookies for the sole purpose of passing them out to others just to see them smile.

Dishcloths

This time of year I find myself with bits and pieces of down time while watching volleyball games, sitting at the orthodontist's office, or even waiting for my daughter to finish one school subject so we can begin another.  During those moments, I enjoy working on a quick and easy knitting or crochet project.  It is sometimes amazing at how much can be accomplished when you only work on it 2 minutes here, or 4 minutes there.  Dishcloths are one of my favorite little projects to work on because they don't take much time, and before you know it, you have a cute little pile of functional items either to give as gifts or to replenish your own supply.  There are a wide variety of free patterns all over the internet.  I'm not sure exactly where I found this pattern, but it is one of my favorites.