Twas the day after Christmas

Twas the day after Christmas and all through the house was peace and quite brought to you by Legos!

Thank you Mamaw and Grandpa! The boys played with these for hours. We love it! We were able to Skype with John's Mom and Dad on Christmas Eve. It was so nice, and of course the boys made out like bandits. We had a very nice and laid back Christmas day. Mom and Dad came over and we all had dinner. Dad smoked and BBQed the turkey, all I can say is yummy! I thought I would share a few new ideas and recipes that I used. First was a way to display the Christmas cards (I loved it)!

 Just take a pretty ribbon, tape it to the inside of the cabinet door and stick clothes pins on the ribbon and they will hold the cards up! It's that simple! Now when I saw this idea, the clothespins were just plain. For my house they needed a little sparkle (So I glued glitter on them ;) I bet they would look cute painted too! I got everything at the dollar tree, and spent about $4.00. I would say that is a SCORE!
 On Christmas day I wanted to make Hot Cocoa (but without all the sugar and junk in it) for the boys as a treat.

 I came across this great recipe on Pintrest of course.
    Serves 2
   2 cups of any kind of milk
 2 tsp unsweetened cocoa powder
   2 tbsp chocolate chips
1/2 tsp vanilla extract  2 tsp maple syrup

  Whisk everything in a small sauce pan. Place over medium heat. Stir and cook until chips melt. Top as desires and enjoy. The boys loved it! I tried some and it was really good.

I also wanted the house to smell good all day. I just made my own aromatherapy.

 So I put orange peels, cranberries, whole cloves, and water. Put it on simmer all day and smelled so good.
My new favorite holiday cookies! Soft gingerbread with mini chocolate chips. I altered mine a bit from the original recipe. Next time I will try the white chips.

White Chocolate topped Gingerbread Cookies

3 cups flour
2 tsp. Ginger, Ground
1 tsp. Cinnamon, Ground
1 tsp. baking soda
1/4 tsp. Nutmeg, Ground (I used fresh)
1/4 tap salt
3/4 cup (1 1/2 sticks) unsalted butter, at room temperature
3/4 cup firmly packed brown sugar
1/2 cup molasses
1 egg
1/4 cup granulated sugar
1 tsp. Vanilla Extract
1 cup white chocolate chips
Mix flour, ginger, cinnamon, baking soda, nutmeg and salt in large bowl.
Beat butter and brown sugar in large bowl with electric mixer on medium speed until light and fluffy.
Add molasses, egg and vanilla; beat well. Gradually beat in flour mixture on low speed until well mixed. Press dough into a thick flat disk. Wrap in plastic wrap. Refrigerate 4 hours or overnight.
Preheat oven to 350°F. Shape dough into 1-inch balls. Roll in granulated sugar. Place 2 inches apart on ungreased baking sheets.
Bake 8 to 10 minutes or until edges of cookies just begin to brown. Immediately press about 5-6 white chocolate chips into center of each cookie. Remove to wire racks; cool completely. Store cookies in airtight container up to 5 days.


John and I have been living on squash this fall and winter. I discovered that they are not that hard to cook. We love acorn and butternut squash. This baked acorn squash recipe is from Pintrest and was really good.

• 2 whole Acorn Squash
• Kosher Salt To Taste
• 2 Tablespoons Butter
• 2 Tablespoons (to 3 Tablespoons) Brown Sugar
• Pure Maple Syrup

Preparation Instructions

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.
Halve each squash, then scrape out the seeds and stringy membranes. Place the halves, flesh side up, on a baking sheet and sprinkle each half with salt.
Next add a generous tablespoon of butter to the center of each squash followed by 2 to 3 heaping tablespoons of brown sugar. Next drizzle squash with maple syrup.
Pour 2 cups water in the bottom of the baking pan.
Cover with aluminum foil and bake for 30 minutes. Remove foil and bake an additional 30-45 minutes, or until squash is golden brown.
In the last 5 minutes of baking, turn on the broiler and allow tops to get a little more brown and the butter/sugar mixture to bubble.


Simple table decorations, a church ornament on a cake stand, with fake snow. We were wishing for a white Christmas, but it didn't happen this year, maybe next year.

 Had a couple mason jars, filled them with fake snow, put a few cranberries, and tea light.

 The last thing I want to share with you is how some cleaning products have made my cleaning easier, and with out all the harsh chemicals. Shameless Plug for my friend Terry.  It is called H2O home cleaning http://www.myh2oathome.com/TERRYLEWALLEN/ This company is based in France and they have microfiber cleaning cloths. Now I kept hearing microfiber this microfiber that, but I didn't understand why they were better than a regular cotton wash cloth. So for those like me who want the scoop, here it is... Microfiber is suppose to pick up more junk cause the fibers are smaller than cotton (hence the name microfiber). Now the cool thing about this H2O is their fibers are 100 times smaller than a human hair! I have personally felt the difference between a Target microfiber cloth, and these H2O cloths. The difference is unreal. These are so small that they pick up all the dirt and most importantly germs!  All do you use is water to get the cloth damp, and clean away. For deep cleaning they have a food grade clay powder that you can clean just about anything with. I used it to clean this.

All the brown stuff is baked on and sticky I have tried soaking it and that did nothing. So I got the clay powder out and went to work. I cleaned only half so you can see the difference.

 I know the picture is not very good but it looks almost like new on the right side. So if you are interested go to Terry's sight and check out all the great things she has. I hope you all had a very Merry Christmas and a great New Year! Till next time.