Christmas baking, etc.

Yesterday, we decided to start our Christmas baking for the season. So, I grabbed my lovely assistant and we got to work.

Tiny Mini Kisses Peanut Blossoms

Cream together:
1/2 cup margarine
3/4 cut peanut butter
1/3 cup white sugar
1/3 brown sugar

Beat in:
1 egg
3 tapsp milk
1 tsp vanilla extract

Add:
1 1/2 cups flour
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt

Shape dough into 3/4" balls.



Roll in granulated sugar & place on an ungreased cookie sheet.



Bake at 350 degrees F for 5 to 6 minutes. Remove from oven and immediately press one mini kiss into the centre of each cookie.



To make the chocolate ones, we split the dough in two and to half of it I added half of a 1/3 cup of cocoa.



Then, we decided to make some coconut jam tarts. Sage helped make the tarts with our tart shaper and then she wanted to add the raspberry jam to the tarts. I didn't think she'd be able to do this (she's only four) but she did a great job!

Honestly, she is such a good helper in the kitchen. :)

The end result:

Mmmm, I had to stick a bunch of the baking in the freezer so it'd still be around for our Christmas gatherings.

Oh, and a reminder that tonight is our online crop at MSS.



Here's a sneak of my early bird challenge which I have posted here.

Feel free to come and join us!

Project 366, week 48

Okay, now we're getting into the homestretch... LOL!

Here are my photos of the day for the past week:


Tuesday, Nov. 25th: Taken in my diningroom during the Stampin' Up! party I hosted.


Wednesday, Nov. 26th: Sage got into my supplies and made a mini-book. ;)


Thursday, Nov. 27th: Playing hide and seek in our livingroom.

Friday, Nov. 28th: No school for the kids so we hung out at home. Cameron had put one of the boy's mattresses on the ground, so I taught them how to make a human pyramid.

Saturday, Nov. 29th: A picture of a Christmas project in progress. You can see the rest of the project here.

Sunday, Nov. 30th: Posing before church. Note the skirt-- it was mine 31 or 32 years ago! Isn't it beautiful? My mom said they bought it in England and I wore it with an off-white turtleneck, just like Sage. I just think this is really cool.

Monday, Dec. 1st: I took out the first of our Christmas decorations. It seemed fitting to start with the nativity, as I'd really like our focus this Christmas to be on Jesus. :)

Thanks for looking!

And more scrappy stuff...

to share.

Here's what I made with the December kit from MSS this month:

I'm hoping to get a few more layouts done with it soon.

Oh, and I posted again on the MSS blog today. You can check out my post here.

Thanks for looking!

Scrappy stuff to share

This past month, I was the guest designer at CMK and, as such, I received some Jenni Bowlin goodies in the mail to play with.

So, here's what I created:

And apparently Sage liked the goodies I got in the mail, as she decided to help herself to some of the paper to make a mini-book. And, being the good scrapbooking mom that I am, I didn't get mad, I just grabbed my camera. LOL!

This week is my week to post on the MSS blog. Today's post is about my new stamp storage system.

Happy Sunday!

Look

what I got this week!!

New glasses! Woohoo!!

I haven't had a new pair since right after Sage was born... four years ago!

They updated my perscription, too, which is great-- I can see clearly now. LOL!

What do you think? ;)

Project 366, week 47

Here are my photos of the day for the past week:



Tuesday, Nov. 18th: Sage, playing in our basement.



*Because of a comment, I've removed this picture from my blog. I apologize for posting it without asking permission from all the parents. I have permission from Austin's class's parents to take pictures and post them, but not from the whole school. Again, I'm sorry for if I've offended anyone.

Wednesday, Nov. 19th: Austin's school voluntary choir participate in ChoralFest in Winnipeg and sang three songs. Sage and I drove in to watch them (& do a little shopping.)


Thursday, Nov. 20th: We volunteered in Jonah's class in the afternoon. I'm so proud of how well he's doing!



Friday, Nov. 21st: Game night in the Penner household.




Saturday, Nov. 22nd: A layout that I made using the Scrappy Formula at Create My Keepsake.

Sunday, Nov. 23rd: I love watching these two wrestle in the snow! Such a "brother thing" to do!

Monday, Nov. 24th: Austin played O Canada for his Monday morning assembly at school for the first time!

Any favourites?

Thanks for looking!

Tagged

Renee tagged me on her blog to play along with some randomness. Seven items of randomness to be exact. ;)

So, here we go.

1. I am waiting to put up our Christmas decoration until December, mostly because, as much as I like them, they feel a lot like clutter to me, which I'm not a fan of, so I'd rather have them up for not a very long time. Also, I plan on using the pictures of us setting up the decorations & tree in my December Daily album. ;)

2. I start diets on almost every Monday. And they usually last somewhere between Tuesday & Thursday. However, I started on last Monday and am still on it, so that's eight days in a row, which might be a new record for 2008.

3. I spend way too much time on the computer! I'm constantly running downstairs throughout the day to check my email. It's crazy!

4. I took tae kwon do as a teenager for about a year and a half.

5. Austin and I signed up for tae kwon do last month and I am loving it! I didn't really think about how much I liked it as a teen, but I'm really enjoying it now! And it's great to get out three evenings a week, with my son, to work out.

6. I'm hosting a Stampin' Up! party at my house tomorrow evening, which should be fun. I've got my eye on a scalloped edge punch.

7. I'm also thinking about getting some embossing powders and maybe a heat gun (not necessarily through SU!) and trying that out.

There, seven things.

That wasn't so hard.

So, now, I'm suppose to tag some people and let them know on their blogs that they've been tagged.

So, I'm tagging:

Marcy

Juliana

Heather

Eva

Staci

Anne

Liz

Happy Monday (what's left of it! ;) )

Tobogganing

on Sunday afternoon.

We've had snow for a couple of weeks now. I'm not crazy about snow or winter, I'm really more of a summer kind of gal. However, the weather was nice this afternoon, so we decided to walk to the park with the kids to go sledding.





We had such a great time! I just love to hear my kids laugh and see them smile and enjoy themselves so much. :)

And, while I'm in a snowy mood, I'll share a layout I made yesterday. This photo is from December 2005 -- I can't believe that's three years ago! Look at my toddler boy and baby girl! What happened to them??



I know you might think this is old Scenic Route patterned paper that I've had for a while, but I just bought it last week at MSS -- I'd already had the photo printed and when I spotted it, I knew it would be absolutely perfect for this layout. (The circles that I punched from the coordinating paper were old though -- I found them in my scraps!) I love SR pp-- it's so classic!

The journaling says: "How can it be that this picture was taken almost three years ago? Where did the time go? It seems like just yesterday that the two of you were my cute little toddler boy and sweet baby girl. Now, you’re my grade one boy and my “big” preschooler, respectively. When did that happen?? It’s crazy how fast the time is going, but one thing is sure, I wouldn’t trade a moment of it for anything! You guys fill my life with so many cuddles, hugs, kisses, smiles & laughs. So sign me up for this crazy ride, be-cause I want to enjoy every day of it to the full with you, even if it does go…so fast"

Okay, I had warmed up from sledding, but now I'm feeling cold again. Off to make some hot chocolate... ;)

I won, I won,

I won!

I won the Gr8 Creative Idol Contest at Just Cre8!!!

The prize: a $100 gift basket, three months on their Design Team (starting in January) and a gift certificate to their store!!!!

I am so excited!!!!!!! (Can you tell? ;) )

I love how this contest was set up. There were five rounds, with a challenge of some sort for each round. The challenges were posted on Saturday morning and everyone had until Wednesday evening to post their layout. The gallery was hidden from everyone's view until all the layouts were entered. Then, no one could comment until the judges were finished judging that round.

The judges were Catherine Tachdjian and Kerry McRorie from Scrapbook and Cards Today, Leica Forrest, from Canadian Scrapbooker and Vicki Boutin & Greta Hammond, 2007 CK Hall of Famers!


Each design was judged on the following criteria:

1. originality
2. design
3. photography
4. journaling
5. relevance to challenge topic


Every participant received one point, for participation. The judges then picked their top 5 picks, in order of preference and awarded the additional points per judge as following: 1st place - 5 pts, 2nd place - 4 pts, 3rd place -3 pts, etc...


The first round's challenge was to create a layout using an advertising slogan:




The second challenge was to create a layout using a rebus:





The third challenge was an ad inspiration challenge. Here's the ad:




And my layout it inspired:



The fourth challenge was to create a gift. I made my counting book for Sage:



And the final challenge was "kind of bridal": Create a layout using
something old
something new
something borrowed
something blue
BUT, it couldn't be a wedding layout (thank goodness!)

Here's my layout:



Thanks again to Sue for organizing the contest, the judges (how hard that job must have been-- the other entries were just gorgeous!!) and all the other participants. It was such a blast!!

Shaped paper

I think my favourite scrapbooking thing lately is shaped backgrounds. :)

I created these two layouts this week:





And will al the Christmas stuff in the air, or wherever, I got this Easter egg layout done. LOL! I went through some of my photos from this past spring and decided to get them scrapped. Next up, Austin's birthday party... ;)

We're off to the city today to watch Austin sing with his voluntary choir and hopefully squeeze a little shopping in there, too.

Happy Wednesday!

Project 366, week 46

Here are my photos of the day for the past week:
(Upon uploading, I realized that this week is very Sage-heavy, so I'll try to get more varried in my subject matter next week. ;) )


Tuesday, Nov. 11th: A nice & quiet Remembrance Day at home. Jonah & Sage declared it pyjama day and Sage enjoyed dressing up as Super Butterfly Girl. (There's a butterfly sticker on her jammy top.)


Wednesday, Nov. 12: The counting book that I made for Sage was suppose to be a Christmas gift. I worked on it for three days straight and Sage never even noticed. Then, when I was photographing it, she says: "What's that, Mom?" So I replied: "It's a book I made for you." She was thrilled, to say the least. I'm thankful I had my camera there to capture her expression while she looked at it!

Thursday, Nov. 13: I didn't take a picture this day. :( Can you believe it? 11 months in, more than 300 days of pictures in a row, and I missed. It's shameful, really. Oh, well, moving on....



Friday, Nov. 14th: We signed up for Rock & Read at the library on Friday afternoons. Here is Sage doing the Reindeer Pokey.

Saturday, Nov. 15th: Back to the library for an all day crop.

Sunday, Nov. 16th: I brought my camera along to church to take pictures of the different small groups on their Coaches' Sunday and captured my lovely daughter in her Sunday School class.

Monday, Nov. 17th: I took a break from my usual Monday cleaning/laundry routine to play a game of Dora Go Fish with Sage.

Which one is your favourite?

Sunday scrap stuff

We've fallen into somewhat of a routine on Sundays.

We go to church and then Sunday School.

We come home and have lunch.

Cameron has a nap. The boys play GameCube. Sage watches Dora.

And I do some scrappy stuff.

I. Love. This.

:)

I hosted a crop at the library yesterday from 8:30 to 4. So fun!! Such a nice break to get out of the house, scrapbook and get to know some fellow scrappers a little better.

Here's one layout I created:



I used this week's Scrappy Formula at CMK. I've become quite fond of sketches (& the weekly formula) as a jumping off point for a layout. :)

Oh, and the last part of our Sunday routine: Austin & I will watch The Amazing Race together after supper.

I hope everyone is enjoying a great Sunday!
Thanks for looking!

P.S. Thanks for the overwhelming comments about my counting book!! Sage loves it and I'm very happy with it, too! And, yesterday, I got an email from Scrapbooks & Cards Today, requesting it for either their Spring issue or for their blog. :)