A Quiet Evening

I would love to share the following pictures from a church event that I helped with the other night.  It was A Quiet Evening for the ladies of the church and their guests.  The ladies brought in appetizers and desserts for a time of fellowship, followed by a message from a FABOLOUS Pastor Wife that we are so blessed to have!  She is so real and such an example to have in my life, I'm so grateful for her and her family.  We wrapped up the night with communion.  The whole evening was about getting our hearts right for the Christmas season. 

Welcome to A Quiet Evening.

This is the room that we had fun decorating with lots of burlap, Christmas tree branches, bird cages and candles. The theme of the event was "Freedom" based upon the following verse:

Isaiah 61:1

The Spirit of the Lord GOD is upon me, because the LORD has anointed me to bring good news to the poor; he has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to those who are bound;



Dessert Table

Drink Table

 The Hot Cocoa Bar, I just loved the burlap bows!



Marshmallows, candy canes and Pirouettes for the cocoa

 The appetizer table was the focal point of the room.

A beautiful branch was hung with lights over a table

 of Christmas branches, burlap and bird cages.

Everything was so beautiful, I don't think

 these pictures even begin to do it justice.

 We had a great turn out, 125 women were in attendance.

One of my absolute favorite things about our church is the AWESOME Praise Band!

These ladies sang their hearts our for us, such a blessing!

This is Sarah and Ashley, two wonderful ladies that I had the pleasure of working with to plan this event.  It was so much fun, I loved every minute of it. 

I made these burlap birds as favors for the ladies attending the event. 

TUTORIAL COMING SOON :)

I feel so blessed to be part of this church family!!!

Snapshots from our weekend

It's hard to believe that it's December here in South Florida.  The weather is perfect, warm during the day and it gets a little cool in the evening.  I've adjusted to South Florida weather because when it drops below 75 degrees, I get chilly.  We had a great family weekend and some fun outside with all the neighbors enjoying a beautiful Saturday night playing, drinking hot cocoa and enjoying the great weather. 

Daddy had duty overnight Friday so it was a girls night in.  We made a snowman shaped pizza and rented the movie Brave.  (Little Sis was scared of the bears fighting so we fast forwarded through those scenes)

 The big girls wanted to sleep downstairs with the Christmas tree.

 I have been hearing from lots of different people talk about a devotional by Sarah Young, called "Jesus Calling".  I stopped in the Lifeway store the end of last week and found it on sale so I picked it up.  It's very short little devotions with a few scriptures to look up, I'm enjoying it so far. 

Daddy set up his trains around the tree on Saturday and Little Sis really loved seeing them!

Someone's getting to be a big girl. 

(Mommy was having fun playing around with my camera and the tree lights)

Happy Sunday!

Top 12 Christmas Cookie and Candy Recipes

Nothing says Christmas like a plate of homemade cookies or candies.  The girls and I are looking forward to baking some of our favorite recipes so I thought I would share some of our favorites with you.  Click on each description for a great Recipe and Tutorial!

1.  Snickerdoodles  2.  Chocolate Chip Cookies 

3.  Soft Sugar Cookies  4.  Oatmeal Raisin Cookies

 

5.  Peanut Butter Blossoms  6.  Sugar Cookie Cut Outs

7.  Spritz Cookies  8.  Peanut Butter Cookies 

 

9.  Pretzel Hugs  10.  Peppermint Bark

11.  Buckeyes   12.  Candy Cane Hearts



Deck the Halls

Our Thanksgiving decor has been packed away until next year and we started to decorate the inside of the house this past weekend for Christmas.  Christmas is one of my absolute favorite holidays to decorate for. 

My newest collection of Christmas decorations is this Willow Tree Nativity Set that my Mom and Step-Dad got me for Christmas last year.  I had been drooling over it for a few years!

My Dad started buying a Santa Claus for me back when I was 16 years old. He has also bought me a few different things here and there but I thought I would share some of my favorites with you.  The past few years he has bought me a Santa from the Jim Shore Collection.  I have to admit they are my favorite....hint hint Dad ;)

These three are some of my oldest, I think the

 Santa Doctor on the left is my very first Santa.

This guy is from Germany. 

A fishing Santa, because Dad loves to fish.

My Grandmother bought this for me one year, it's a Christmas Advent Tree.

Inside the box are drawers filled with ornaments that you hook onto the tree, one for each day in December leading up to Christmas.  The girls love taking turns to hang an ornament. 

One of my Mother In Law's, all of our parents are remarried so we are both blessed with two Mother In Law's, gave us these great Stockings, hangers and a matching tree skirt several years ago.  We don't have a mantel or fireplace in this home so they will hang off of the entertainment center. 

 

 Another favorite Santa of mine, he's sitting on top of my fridge with Rudolph.  I found him at Home Goods several years ago.

I swapped out my DIY Chalk Canisters for these cute Santa canisters.

Looking forward to making lots of yummy Christmas cookies with my girls soon.

The cookies we make can go in our Santa Cookie Jar.

And here's a little peek of our Christmas tree.  Little Sis has been checking out all of our pretty ornaments the past few days.  Last year we didn't decorate the bottom half because she couldn't keep her little fingers off of it but she is doing pretty decent so far this year.  We have so many ornaments, I'm starting to think the girls need their own tree to decorate and Mommy and Daddy another one for our ornaments.  We are to the point that we have to pick and choose our favorites to go up because there are so many! 

 

Hope you enjoyed seeing some of our Christmas Decor!  I love Christmas and that we get to celebrate the birth of Jesus with our family and friends. 

I'm linking up with Women Living Well's Making Your Home a Haven Challenge.

See my "Blog Love" page to see where else I party! 



I'm also linking up to Kelly's Korner Blog, love her!

Our Thanksgiving 2012

Little Sis and I started with some baking on Wednesday morning(love those little toes standing on a chair next to me helping me bake!).  Silly Mommy put two pies on one cookie sheet and while it baked, the baking sheet warped and out came the filling!  Luckily I put them on a sheet with tinfoil.  So back to the grocery store we went for more pie crusts and I baked some more during nap time.  Lesson learned......be patient and bake one at a time :)

We were so happy to have Daddy home with us for Thanksgiving, he got

 off duty that morning at 8 and had the next few days to spend with us!  What a blessing.  Here is Daddy injecting and seasoning our turkey breast.  To see what we used check out our recipes for Thanksgiving here.

We received a couple of cards in the mail from family and we

 had some beautiful sunflowers on the table.

I'm not going to lie...trying to get a good picture of these three is a challenge!!!

Little Sis before we went for a walk to the golf course, that is in the neighborhood we live in.  We invited the neighbors to come watch Daddy fly his RC Airplane....they loved it.

 

We had fun watching Daddy fly, running around with the neighbors and being silly in the beautiful grass.

Then it was time to get down to business, time to fry our Turkey breast.

To fry the most tasty bird you've ever had....you must wear this hilarious Turkey hat!!

Daddy had an audience...Little Sis and Luke our Golden Retriever.

Little Sis was so hungry she started snacking on her fingers...just kidding!  This is how she is always sucking her fingers.  I think we have lots more bills to an Orthodontist in our future. 

It turned out GREAT and DELISH. 

So juicy on the inside and crisp on the outside.

Everything was yummy, our time together was GREAT and we praise God for all of it!!  Happy Thanksgiving from Our Happy House of 5 to yours!  Time to get our tree up and all the Christmas Decor, can't wait to celebrate the birth Jesus.