A lovely visit

Yesterday Hazel and I went to visit a good friend who I don't see or speak to enough any more. I use to live in her in-law apartment when I was single. I have to say I miss the country and living on a lake. Plus a few of the great discount stores that are there.

From: Something lubely everyday

Before we left, I had shown Hazel the pictures from Sharing Saturday from Something lubely everyday: Stick Reindeer. I asked her if she would like to look for sticks to make one while we were in the woods by the lake. And of course, she answered positively. She told me to pack her buckets so we could collect our treasures, which of course I forgot.

Luckily after Hazel met Diane and Jack, the dog, we went to my absolute favorite discount store, 135 Discount, and they had metal buckets to collect treasures for a couple of dollars. (Plus all their jewelry is $4.99 or $1 for pins and earrings and we are talking costume jewelry that you could get at Macy's.) They have a mixture of everything from party supplies, clothes, Tiffany style lamps, toys, house goods, etc. and it is always cheap. We checked out another store which is new and temporary and then went to my favorite Chinese restaurant for lunch. After lunch we went home to go walk by the lake. We put on plenty of layers since it is always colder by the water and took Jack out for the walk. We walked quite a bit collecting sticks, pine cones, a feather, birch bark, etc. Some ended up on Hazel's nature table.

Hazel's Nature Table

Another shot of the other side

We walked to where a neighbor had made a small beach. The lake and land around it is part of a closed state park, so it is a small beach, but he added some rock seats. Hazel had a blast throwing rocks into the water. Then we headed back and Diane offered to cut some greens for me so I could get the smell of Christmas in my house since we have an artificial tree--I really miss my real tree of my childhood, but Steve doesn't like them.

While we clipped various greens, Hazel chased Jack. She had such a great time running around and being free. Plus Jack is the most friendly dog and it was instant love for them.

Then it was time for us to head home. When we got home, we looked at our treasures and picked the sticks to make into reindeer. And with the glue gun we made them.

Finally something I made for Hazel's stocking. I saw this idea at Helping Little Hands. I wanted to get her a Curious George ornament but all of the stores that carry Hallmark ornaments are sold out around here, so I made her a book ornament. And while I was at it, I made an Elmo and Caillou ones too. Since they are her favorites I figured it would be a nice way to remember what she was into this year. On the first page of each one I wrote her name and the year. In the Curious George book, I also found some pictures from the story and included a couple pages.

Shared on:

Happy Hanukkah!

I grew up in a town with a rather large Jewish population. Although I am not Jewish I have many friends who are. So in honor of them and to all of you who are I thought I would feature a few of our Sharing Saturday posts that are about Hanukkah. It begins tonight, Tuesday, December 20th at sundown.  Sharing Saturday is still open and there are new posts arriving every day, so please go check them out and let me know which ones you like best!

Monday = Preparations

Today is one of those days I'm suppose to be able to relax, but with Christmas this week, I'm running around trying to get things done. Hazel is over at my mother-in-law's for the day. We went to the post office this morning and mailed the last of our gifts including this felt dragon that I finished last night. I got the pattern from the most recent Living Crafts Magazine. An excellent magazine for anyone who likes to do handwork and all natural crafts.

Busy Weekend...Baking, Cooking, and Candle Making oh and the Pageant

Yesterday, we did some holiday baking. We made snickerdoodles, peppermint bark and some reindeer cookies that I have been seeing all over Pinterest. We used red sugar in our cinnamon sugar for the snickerdoodles to give them a festive look. I used the recipe in my Better Home & Gardens Cookbook, but they have it on line as well.

For the peppermint bark we used a recipe from Martha Stewart Magazine. Of all the recipes I have tried from there this is the only one I liked. Hazel had fun opening the candy canes and helping break them into tiny pieces. I didn't take a picture of the finished product, but it looks similar to the one on the recipe.

Before Baking

For the reindeer cookies, I admit we used slice and bake sugar cookies. For some reason I have the worst luck with sugar cookies when I make them homemade. Plus I was trying to make sure we had something fun to decorate that Hazel could help with and not have to refrigerate for an hour or more before going on. I used chocolate covered pretzels (from Trader Joe's) and M&M's. They were so easy and turned out pretty cute.

After Baking

We some of each type to church today for the annual cookie swap. The cookie swap is a fundraiser for the high school youth group to go on their mission trip over the summer. You bring in cookies and then people pay $10 for a decorated box (decorated by youth group) and can fill box with the variety of cookies everyone brought in up to 3 dozen. We didn't get around to making gingerbread cookies yet, but will this week.

On Friday night, we made some candles. I had bought two kits of Pure Beeswax Honeycomb Candle Kits at the Cape Ann Waldorf School's Holiday Fair. The kits come from Hinode Farm. My idea was to try the Cookie Cutter Candles from Family Fun. Well we did one. I don't know if my wax wasn't warmed up enough or if it was suppose to be so hard to cut it with the cookie cutters, but I hurt my hand and felt like it was a huge waste of wax.  However we did make one.

Then we started rolling them. Much easier and more efficient. We used the scraps from the cookie cutter ones to decorate. To make the striped ones I looked at the tutorial on Hinode Farm's website. We are giving some as gifts to family, but most Hazel did not want to part with. We also rolled the few big scraps of the red and got very small ones.

Hazel wanted to keep all the blue ones.

The ones Hazel would give away

Today at church we had our Christmas Pageant. Hazel and I were angels. They changed it this year so the kids didn't have to rehearse and the also involved all the congregation who wanted to participate and be part of the story. It was fun. Oh, and our good friends who we have a play date with every week was the holy family. Hazel was Baby Jesus her first Christmas and was an angel last Christmas. She wouldn't walk down the aisle without me either year so I have been an angel both years as well.

Oh, and we started our day yesterday reading Curious George Makes Pancakes, and we made banana blueberry pancakes. So much fun to read and do the same activity as one of her favorite characters. George after all comes for a playdate every day according to Hazel.

One last craft, that we did ages ago, but I don't think we shared.

Hope you had a wonderful weekend and have a great week! Try to find peace this week and not all the craziness of the holidays!

Sharing Saturday #10

Wow, we have shared so many amazing ideas the past few weeks. Thank you so much for sharing them with me. I know I always am inspired by them. This week I was late visiting them and leaving comments, but I have to say it was wonderful to go and see comments from all of you saying you were visiting from Sharing Saturday. Thank you for sharing the blog love with one another!