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Keira & Cooper

Can you guess the baby?

 

I did pictures like this for our Christmas cards after we had Keira.  If you are ready to know which baby is which, the top one is Keira, the bottom is Cooper.  Did you guess right?

Sweet Shoppe Saturday (actually Friday)

So, yesterday was Black Friday, did everyone do some shopping? 

I did a little, went to JoAnn's after work and picked up some cookie tins, new trees/people for my Christmas village, christmas boxes, gingerbread house and a no sew fleece blanket for Cooper for a grand total of $32.  I love going to JoAnn's for black friday, next year I'm really looking forward to being in Michigan and hitting up hobby lobby.  LOL!

Then I went over to Office Max, its right next door and I got Sean a GPS for $100, not bad, marked down $70.  And last night after we got the tree up we went to the BX, but didn't see anything we wanted and headed to Target.  I wish I'd have had more money, they had a dual screen portable DVD player for $100 and a wagon for $55, but we're already done with the kids Christmas shopping.  We ended up getting Fred Claus (very funny btw) and 27 dresses was only $6.  Sean got 2 CD's for $14 and Keira got a Elmo Christmas movie and new pjs.  It wasn't really bad either time I went out.

And of course I got some new goodies at the Sweet Shoppe.  And did a few layouts to do for the new goodies from Christy, Traci, Julie and Lauren.

 

 

 

Happy Thanksgiving

I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving, I slept away most of it.  LOL!

I'm working tonight, but I wanted to post before I went in.

Tuesday I went to see Twilight, I really enjoyed it.  I won't give away any spoilers, but I will say if you've read the books, you may be a little disappointed, but just go into it with no expectations and you'll like it.

And, look up the guy that plays James, so hot, not in the movie so much, they make him look ugly.  Just look him up.  Very nice.  LOL!

Ok, gotta get to work.

Here's a page I did of Cooper a couple days ago.

Baked Ziti

 

Baked Ziti

This recipe easily doubles to feed a crowd; bake in a 13 x 9-inch baking dish for 35 minutes.

Ingredients
6 ounces uncooked ziti (short tube-shaped pasta)
2 cups Basic Marinara
1 cup (4 ounces) shredded part-skim mozzarella cheese, divided
1/4 cup (1 ounce) shredded Asiago cheese, divided
1/8 teaspoon salt
1/8 teaspoon hot pepper sauce (such as Tabasco)
6 ounces ground beef (cooked)
Cooking spray

Preheat oven to 350°.
Cook pasta 2 minutes less than package directions. Drain.

Cook Ground Beef, drain.

Combine pasta, Basic Marinara, 1/2 cup mozzarella, salt, pepper sauce, and beef in a large bowl.
Spoon into an 8-inch square baking dish coated with cooking spray; sprinkle with remaining mozzarella. Bake at 350° for 30 minutes or until cheese is lightly browned. Let stand 5 minutes before serving.

Christmas Pictures

I picked up the kids Christmas pictures this afternoon.

They turned out really cute.

 

 

 

Recipes and a little recap

First, I'll start with a couple yummy recipes.  Since we had our Thanksgiving Dinner on Saturday, I wanted to share the Chocolate Pecan Pie Recipe I got from Paula Deen's Cookbook.

 

Chocolate Pecan Pie

Ingredients
1 (9-inch) unbaked pie shell
2 cups pecan halves
3 large eggs, beaten
3 tablespoons butter, melted
1/2 cup dark corn syrup
1 cup sugar
2 tablespoons good-quality bourbon
3 ounces semisweet chocolate, chopped
Directions
Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F.

Cover bottom of pie crust with pecans.

In a medium bowl, whisk together the eggs and melted butter. Add the corn syrup, sugar, bourbon and the chopped chocolate. Stir until all ingredients are combined. Pour mixture into the pie shell over the
pecans and place on a heavy-duty cookie sheet.

Bake for 10 minutes. Lower the oven temperature to 350 degrees F and continue to bake for an additional 25 minutes or until pie is set. Remove from oven and cool on a wire rack.

This one is I guess my mom & my Deviled Eggs Recipe.  I think she does them pretty much the same way. 

 

Deviled Eggs

18 eggs
3 heaping tablespoons mayo
2 tablespoons dill pickle relish
1 teaspoon yellow mustard
1 teaspoon brown mustard
Salt
Pepper
Paprika, for dusting

Place eggs in a large wide saucepan and cover with cold water. Bring to a boil for 12 minutes. Remove eggs and and cool in refrigerator. Remove shells from eggs and slice in half lengthwise. Separate egg yolks and place into a bowl. Place whites on a separate plate. Add mayo, mustard, relish
and salt and pepper, to taste, to yolks and mash together with a fork until creamy
and smooth. Using a large star tip and resealable plastic bag, pipe the yolk mixture
back into each egg, enough to fill yolk holes completely. Dust tops with paprika. Refrigerate.
Serve cold.

We had a fun filled 10 days when Sean's mom & dad were in town for a visit.  We stayed pretty busy.  We exchanged Christmas gifts with them and Keira and Cooper got a bunch of goodies. Sean and I got gift cards.  He got a visa, and Sean's parents really know me, they got me a $150 gift card to Target!!  I budget my money very well, coming in .22 cent under.  I got a pair of boots, canisters and a platter for the ktichen, Pictonary Man,  (which is so fun) and a docking station for my ipod.   Keira got her first pair of roller skates and we tried them out in the basment, I'm sure she'll get the hang of them next summer.  We also took her ice skating for the first time, she did better than I expected her to do to be honest.  We skated with her, but a couple times she wanted to go off on her own. 

Cooper took his first step, but nothing since then.  He just tries to go and kind of falls foward.  I'm convinced that by Christmas he'll be walking. 

We went and had the kids pictures taken for Christmas and I should get them tomorrow sometime and we took the kids to see Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa, very very cute movie.  I highly recommend it.

We went to Color me mine again to do Christmas gifts for Sean's sister and her fiance', so Keira painted to huge mugs and I helped her a little.  I painted her this ice cream cone box, I've been wanting a jewlery box for her, but this was the best they had.  BTW, I don't know what I was thinking with the purple stripe. 

 

 

And on Saturday we had our Thanksgiving Feast since I'll be working on Thanksgiving this year, which if you didn't know will be the last time I ever work on Thanksgiving.  LOL! We had a few of Sean's friends come over, I think he just wanted to show off how much food I cook. 

 

 

Today we watch Wall-e, it was really cute, I laughed outloud a lot and if you watch movies with me, you know that I really don't laugh outloud that often.  Sean actually said something to me about it.  Keira seemed to like it.

Speaking of Keira, big news, but I'll have to wait to tell you, she has to call her Grandma and Grandpa first. 

And, scrapping, I've been scrapping this weekend.

 

 

 

 

Oh, one last thing, Karah Fredricks is releasing a new kit tomorrow at Oscraps.  Check out her blog for a little teaser freebie- RIGHT HERE

Here's my layout with the new kit by Karah.

 

A couple pictures

Just wanted to share a couple pictures.

 

Strawberry Shortcut Cake

 

Ingredients
1 (18.25-ounce) box strawberry cake mix
3 cups fresh strawberries, sliced or 3 packages of frozen strawberries in syrup
1/4 cup sugar (only if using fresh strawberries)
Whip Cream
1 (3-ounce) package strawberry flavored gelatin (recommended: Jell-O)
Fresh strawberries, for garnish

Directions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

Follow cake directions as written on cake mix box.

Remove from oven and cool cake completely. Meanwhile, in a medium bowl, combine strawberries and sugar. Let macerate 20 minutes. Invert and release cake onto a decorative platter.

Mix gelatin as directed on box. Refrigerate gelatin mix but do not let it harden, it should cool to a liquid consistency.

Using a straw, poke holes all over the cake. Pour gelatin into holes and spread over the top of the cake.

Spread layer of macerated strawberries on top of cake. Spread layer of whipped cream on top of the strawberries, making pretty swirls and ripples. Garnish with fresh strawberries. Refrigerate for at least 4 hours.

Freebies

In need of some freebies?

Today I have a post over at Lauren Grier's Team blog, with a free sketch template.

 

You can find it here.

Also be sure you check out the Shutterfly blog, they have some great freebies there.

Sweet Shoppe Saturday

Wow, it was a very busy week at the Sweet Shoppe with their grand re-opening, so that means lots of kits for me to scrap with.