A Visit From Santa

Santa and Mrs. Claus (our friends, Russell and Linda Johns, from church) came to our house last night to visit Drew. We had been telling Drew all day long that he was going to be getting a visitor at our house, and he was quite excited. However, when they arrived, Drew was a little nervous. They tried to lure him with cookies and candy canes, but he still wasn't too sure.

Santa picked Drew up and put him on his lap. For the first several minutes, Drew just chewed his lip and examined his treats.

I didn't think I was going to be able to get a smiling picture at all!

Mrs. Claus had to resort to tickling to try to coax a smile out of Drew.

Santa's jingle bells were what finally brought on a smile. Drew loved shaking them.

I finally got my smiling picture!

What a special memory!

Christmas Cookies

Drew and I did a little baking this morning. I wanted to make some Christmas cookies with Drew, and I was debating between regular sugar cookies and cut-out sugar cookies. I opted for the simpler cookies, and they worked out well. We used this recipe from allrecipes.com. I rolled the dough into balls, and Drew dipped the tops of the dough balls into colored sugar.

The cookies turned out well, and we had fun making them together.

Drew didn't want to stop with just one cookie!

Maybe next year we'll get more ambitious and make cut-out cookies and frost them, but these cookies were perfect for a two year-old to help make!

Christmas Traditions

As Drew gets older, we are starting some fun Christmas traditions in our home. This year we are really enjoying the "Elf on a Shelf" that my parents got for us a few years ago. Drew is old enough this year to search for the elf (Ralphie) each day.We have been trying to hide Ralphie in some fairly easy places this year.

I scrapbooked a page about the Elf on a Shelf using this week's sketch at Letsscrap.

We are also enjoying this 12 Days of Christmas advent calendar I made for Drew using a mini muffin tin and some decorated magnet squares.

I've filled each hole in the muffin tin with candy, coins, or a note from Santa. Yesterday, Drew got a note from Santa that told him to go look for a present under the little tree in his bedroom.
One of Jim's employees stopped by the golf course yesterday with a gift for Drew, and we decided to put it under Drew's little tree for his advent gift.
She had gotten Drew a Detroit Tigers Mr. Potato Head. Drew (and Daddy) loved this gift, and Drew is excited to see what else he will find in his advent calendar!

Double Chocolate Treasures

While we were in Greenville, SC last week, I went to a cookie exchange with my sister, Nora. We were each told to make 5 dozen of a favorite cookie, and then we brought home 5 dozen of a wide variety of cookies. I brought these Double Chocolate Treasures, and I am sharing the recipe today.

Double Chocolate Treasures

2 cups chocolate chips
1 stick margarine
3/4 cup sugar
2 eggs
1 tsp. vanilla
2 cups oats
1 2/2 cups flour
2 tsp. baking powder
1/4 tsp. salt
1/2 cup powdered sugar

Melt 1 cup chocolate chips. Cool slightly. Mix margarine and sugar until light and fluffy. Blend in eggs, vanilla, and melted chocolate. In a separate bowl, combine dry ingredients, except powdered sugar. Add to creamed mixture. Stir in remaining chocolate chips. Roll in 1 inch balls; roll in powdered sugar, coating heavily. Place on cookie sheets. Bake at 350 degrees for 10-12 minutes. Cool slightly before removing from trays. Yield: 5 dozen.

Guest Designer

I have been participating quite a bit at the scrapbook sketch and challenge site, Letsscrap. I was thrilled to be invited to be the guest designer there this week!
I was asked to make a page based on this week's sketch.
I chose to use some pictures I had taken of Drew this fall at his library story time. I thought this sketch was perfect for my pictures and Drew's story time schedule and name tag.

I am excited about this opportunity, and I'm happy to be able to share it here on my blog!

The Banana Box Sale

We were excited to find out that one of the grocery stores in Greenville was having their banana box sale during our visit. The way this sale works is that shoppers can fill a cardboard banana box with as much food as they can fit, and the whole box of food (no matter what is in the box) costs $7.00. Dad, Nora, Jim, and I got up early on Saturday morning, and, armed with our banana boxes, we joined the crowd of waiting shoppers around the perimeter of the boxes and boxes of food.

At 9:00 AM, a whistle blew, and all the shoppers raced into the middle to start grabbing their items. Many of them had arrived early to strategically place themselves near items they wanted to grab.

The four of us were able to fill 2 boxes quite full, and we got a lot of good stuff! Dad and Nora arranged everything in the boxes so that we could fit as much as possible.

We loaded our boxes into the back of my dad's truck to take them home.

This was our portion of the food. We got lots of salad dressing, mayonnaise, mustard, and fruit roll-ups. We also got a bag of bread flour, some corn muffin mixes, soft taco shells, peanut butter, jelly, beef broth, crackers, and a few other odds and ends. We definitely got our money's worth and a little entertainment as well!

Some Scrapping

These pages are the last of the group that I made for the contest at Letsscrap. During the months of October and November, I made cards or pages using all of their sketches! It was a lot of scrapping, but I am glad that I did it. I had fun, and I was able to get caught up on my scrapping and use up some of my many scrapbook supplies.
This page is to document an almost nightly occurrence in our home - Drew and Jim on their "laptops." Jim likes to do the crossword puzzle on the computer each evening, and Drew likes to watch a Thomas DVD, so they sit together with their "computers" (Drew's is really a portable DVD player). These are some older pictures of Drew and our dog Pudge, who we had for the first year and a half of Drew's life.

I wanted to do this page to record Drew's love of his Thomas trains. He is collecting more and more trains and other Thomas stuff, and it keeps him SO busy!

This page is about the three homes I lived in as I was growing up. The first picture is of our house in Michigan, where we lived from the time that I was a baby until I was 5 years old. The second is the first house we lived in South Carolina. We lived there from the time that we first moved from Michigan until I was in eighth grade. The third was my home in high school and college. My parents lived there for several years after I graduated from college and moved to Michigan, and they have since bought a new home. I have wanted to do a page about my childhood homes for a while, and this sketch was perfect!

My scrapping will probably be slowing down a bit for the next month or two with Christmas and jury duties (Yes, I might be called for county duty soon too! I got the questionnaire in the mail last weekend.) I do have another page that I will share on Tuesday. :)

Crayon Roll-Up

I made this crayon roll-up for Drew this week, so that he can take his crayons with us when we go places. I followed this tutorial on the Fiskars website. We chose the Thomas fabric because Thomas is Drew's favorite!

This was a fairly easy project, and I think it is something that will come in handy.

And, of course, anything with Thomas is always popular with Drew!

A Whole Pile of Pages

I have a ton of scrapbook pages to share today. I am almost done with the challenge I've been working on, and I'm hoping to be officially done before Thanksgiving.
This first page is about our recent trip to the orchard. I asked for a sticker in the bakery, and I ended up using it as my title.
This layout is about my 30th birthday last fall. Nora was here, and she made me the beautiful and tasty cake.

This page was for a challenge about using one random picture. I reached into a big envelope of photos and pulled out this one. I had been wanting to scrap about my years as a teacher, and I have a ton of school scrap supplies left over from scrapping about my classes through the years, so it was perfect.

This layout is about Drew's Halloween party at the library.

I loved these pictures of Drew in the leaves, and I was excited to scrap them.

This is a layout about Drew playing at the park near my parents' house. These pictures are from our trip last Easter. Drew had had a very rough couple of days with a skinned up face and a burst eardrum, so it was so good to see him have a little fun at the park!

This layout is about Drew's trick-or-treating this Halloween at Zoo Boo and at Jim's Mom and sister's houses.

These pictures are some that Kristen took last Spring when she watched Drew for me one morning while I taught. I love the top one of Drew and Nathan!

This last page is one that I've been wanting to make for a while. Drew plays Peek-a-Boo in such a funny way (with his hands over his nose and mouth, instead of over his eyes), so I was glad to be able to get a few pictures to document this little quirk of his!

I hope this hasn't been scrapbook overload! I also have some pages from a mini album I'm making about our trip to Washington, DC, but I will wait and post the whole album when I get it done.

A Few Random Bits of Hawkins News

I wanted to share a few of the everyday happenings around our house recently. Drew has been very interested in trains for the past couple of months. He loves Thomas and enjoys playing with his growing collection of Thomas trains and watching his Thomas DVDs. The other day, I stepped out into the living room and found that Drew had taken all of his other little vehicles and stuck them together like he does with his trains. They made quite a long line across our living room! I've been scrapping a lot, and I will try to share some more layouts soon. I also subbed at our school yesterday and will be there again for three days this week, so that is keeping me busy. Jim is still working a lot since our November weather has been so nice. We are enjoying a Saturday with him today since he has the day off!
We also recently found a very good recipe for Cheeseburger Soup. Jim and I both really like it, and I've made it twice in the last few weeks!
We are looking at a busy next several weeks leading up to Christmas with my subbing, Thanksgiving, a trip to Greenville, Federal jury duty for me, and then the normal busy schedule of December and Christmas.
Hope you are all having a nice weekend!