and the tree comes down

I hope that ya'll had a blessed Christmas day. Hubby and the kids are taking the tree down. We still had our bookshelves and books in storage. The big bookshelh goes where the tree is. We are ready to finish unpacking and get settled.

I have some cookbook reviews and later in the week some movie reviews.

So my newest cookbooks:

Tyler Florance/ stirring the pot and dinner at my place. Yep I bought both of his new ones after watching him on the food network. LOVE both of these. I have made several things from both books and they are already favorites.

Barefoot Contessa/back to basics ok I will admit to not liking her show. She comes across as snooty to me. When I first looked through the cookbook I didn't find but a couple of recipes to try. If you like and eat alot of fish she has a bunch of recipes for fish. But we don't so I was not impressed. Until I came to the dessert and breakfast section. Homemade granola, granola bars, gingerbread. All look delish. I already made a tomato soup from this book and it was yummy. A nice thick soup. Not a cream based.

Giada/ Giada's kitchen There are a couple that sound good but the ones she says are kid friendly,not for my kids. and they are on the skimpy side of how many they feed.

My favorite new ones are by far the Tyler Florence ones. Too many recipes that I want to try to mark :)

I leave you with a picture of our 12 foot tree. This is on Christmas day and we bought it the day after Thanksgiving. It still looks good after a month. Not my best picture. Used a soft action and a light action on it to try to make it look better :)

On the 9th day of Christmas...

I can't believe it is almost Christmas. I love this time of year. I love the tree, the lights, the decorations. What are your favorite traditions? I love making a birthday cake for baby Jesus. I love reading to the children about the birth of Christ first thing Christmas morning.


I have such good intentions of keeping my blog updated but I really have very little free time. My new baby keeps me hopping. :)

Yesterday was 76 degrees out so I took Eleanor outside in her poofy skirt and took some pictures. They are not the greatest but pretty cute.





Here a some projects I did for www.3scrappyboys.com





If you head on over to www.3scrappyboys.com we are showing a project a day for the 12 days of Christmas. So fun to see what everyone comes up with.

My parents arrive tomorrow to celebrate with us. So excited. I haven't seen my dad in a long time.

If I don't have a chance to pop back on between now and Thurday, I want to wish very a Merry Christmas"

Can you say high speed?

So happy to finally have high peed internet and cable tv again. I will try to do better about updating. But our little miss is a fussy girl. So I don't have much (any!) free time. She is napping right now. If she is not eating or sleeping she is usually crying. I am hoping she will outgrow this fussiness soon. But for all that we are enjoying her so much. There is nothing like a newborn to cuddle and hold. It's funny. Our oldest daughter was a VERY fussy baby. It was so hard to deal with. While Eleanor is not as fussy as Katie it is so much easier to deal with as an older more experienced mom. I guess some things do come with age.

We just in the last month had 4 birthdays and a birth. It has sure been a busy time. The last of the 2 birthday's were this past weekend. We now have another teenager with jacob turning 13 and a 2 year old Luke :) I will share pictures of their days later in the week after I upload then. But here are a couple to tide you over

Luke at the park just 2 days before baby Eleanor made her apperance (we thought that my chasing kids at the park might bring on labor. It didn't but we all had fun anyway!)




And a new one of Eleanor. I took the kids to the park last Thursday. Not the best picture because of the lighting but a new one at least :)



I have some cards and layouts to post this week too. Have a great day.