The Hymn of the Pearl

I know sometimes I brag about my exceptionally talented neighbors, but my dear friend, Lori Driggs, is absolutely amazing. Her new children's book has great messages for everyone.

Although she didn't do the illustrating, her ideas and suggestions seem to touch every page.

You can buy this book on Amazon.

Keep writing, Lori. You are amazing!@

Dipping Chocolates

We have never been chocolate makers. Yes, we make fudge and toffee and the occasional peppermint bark, but we have never actually dipped chocolates. This is weird because my sweetie's mom dipped chocolates every year, but she didn’t start until after we were married. So this year, my sweetie decided that in her memory, we would give it a try.

He spent days preparing almond joy centers and tropical fruit drops. He bought marshmallows and dipping chocolate, white chocolate bark, and melting wafers. It was a little crazy really.

So this afternoon, we all learned how to dip chocolates... sort of...

They might not look perfect, but they taste good and we had a lot of fun!

Huge Pot of Christmas Soup

My sweetie and I spent a good portion of the day making a ginormous pot of soup. He started with the leftover prime rib from Christmas Day and added all kinds of great stuff; butter, onions, peppers, garlic, zucchini, sweet potatoes, russet potatoes, carrots, celery, tomato juice, vegetable broth, leftover beef stock, prime rib, corn, green beans, peas, black beans, great northern beans, tri-blend beans, kidney beans...

And when he wasn’t pleased with the thickness of the broth, he threw in a couple of cups of leftover mashed potatoes! Sometimes I forget to tell you what a fantastic cook my sweetie is. Tomorrow, I will even post a pic so you can see his masterpiece for yourself. I'm sorry you won't  be able to taste it.

Sorry, I fogot to take a pic of the big pot. This large crockpot is about half of what we made.

Yum!!

Reindeer Games

Now that Christmas is over, I want to tell you about the fun we had last Sunday at my sweetie's very own and first Reindeer Games. He planned and prepped for weeks and finally came up with about 10 games, some for kids, some for grownups, and some for both. I was in charge of Jump Your Own Man checkers, a game for both young and old. We assigned a bunch of the grownups to each be in charge of collecting scores and running games so we could all play as well. We had Christmas Boggle. Muppets Christmas Yahtzee, stock car racing (adults only of course), candy bomber, coloring contest and a bunch more. Beauty had never played Yahtzee before and she cleaned up with a score of 520!!

We ended our games with an amazing dance-off and a medals ceremony.

Look at Curly go!

Such a fun day!! Little Warrior took home the biggest prize for the kids and Scout was our winner for the adults, and a great time was had by all.

Wordless Wednesday - Merry Christmas!!

 

Merry Christmas!!

Happy Christmas Eve

This Christmas Eve is so different from Christmas Eves past. I haven't been running like crazy, sleep deprived, and 2 days behind. So far, I haven't wrapped a single gift today. I spent a couple of hours watching Christmas movies while I worked on a Santa puzzle. My Santa sweetie and I delivered gifts to Bossy and her family and then we showed up at Reams in full Santa attire. So much fun!!

My sweetie played games with Crafty and he also made chicken and dumplings for lunch.

Scout and I put together a charcuterie board for dinner.

Scout made that flower out of pepperoni. Isn't is cool?

I love the calm and peacefulness of this day.

Sleep well.

Christmas Adam

Sorry about the double post on the party. You can see why sometimes I ask the Dog Walker to post. He writes a lot more than me!

But let's talk about Christmas Adam.

Some years we have done some crazy expensive things, but this year we had Scout and Sport working which made it difficult to plan. So this morning my sweetie planned a paint party. Crafty and her boyfriend, B, did some really cute stuff.

My sweetie did a little truck with the airbrush. It was amazing! I will have to post a pic tomorrow.

We played games, delivered the last of our gifts, and ate lasagna and garlic bread for dinner.

Then nine of us went to see Red One at the Megaplex.

The kids loved it!! So did my sweetie. I hate to admit that I fell asleep at the end.

We took some fantastic pics when we were done. 

What do you think? My sweetie looks an awful lot like Santa, but Baby Doll is going to have to beef up a lot more if she really wants to look like the Rock.

Extended Family Christmas Party

We had our big family Christmas party last night at a church in Lehi. I'm so glad that L'il Bro and his wife have taken over that party permanently. The Dog Walker did a great job playing Santa for the kids and Scout and Baby Doll made the egg nog shakes. Everybody loved my soup! 

I have some pics for you.

Merry Christmas!!