Christmas knitting wrap-up

I made this hat & scarf/mitten set for my neice Rachel. The mittens are the ends of the scarf. I made up the pattern as I went along.

I made this six foot scarf for my neice Sarah. It's a knitted seed stitch with crochet border.

This is a drawstring backpack for my neice Isabella. Also made up design as I went along. Simple bag with I-cord through buttonholes across top. Embroidered after.

Christmas in Branson

Went to Silver Dollar City for lights & funnel cake.

Six small children opening gifts on Christmas morn was a mess!

Wes took this with timer. Every child is looking at the camera with no person behind it. The baby is even waving to it! A Christmas miracle.

What I Did for Christmas Vacation: part one, the Eve

Mom & I & Jill's family & Wes' family went to Table Rock Lake at Branson, MO. Tribesman Resort was great. We rented a house for the 12 of us and had plenty of room. Next summer or fall we all want to go back.










When Mom & I arrived it was raining.










Christmas Eve was spent settling in and waiting for Santa. Here is my brother Wes helping his kids call Norad to see how far away Santa was.

Jill & her girls in their special PJs.

Cookie Exchange Success

My 5th annual cookie exchange party went great! I made these cocoa snowflakes and a candied ginger cookie. The assortment was wonderful. Ten guests came which is the limit to how many people can fit around the cookie table. We march around the table, "musical chairs" style, taking 3-4 cookies from each tray until the table is empty.
I was surprised and really grateful at the turnout since I haven't seen some of these folks in months. It felt like a family reunion.

Aren't you a cute bunch of bakers!

Cookie Party Coming!

Remember the Yum?

More to Come...

Christmas Cookie Exchange Party
Sunday, Dec 13 @ 3:00pm

Each person brings 6 dozen of one type of holiday cookie. We swap and each take home 6 dozen assorted cookies. Loads of fun and makes holiday baking much simpler. Bring copies of your recipe to share.

( No, I didn't make those cookies. I just swiped a pretty picture.)

Shiitake Makes Me Jealous

Norm's shitake logs are fruiting and mine aren't! We spent an entire afternoon last may innoculating the logs with a farmer friend. I didn't expect them to start until next spring, but I think since it was my idea... my logs should have produced first!

National Pumpkin Shortage? No Problem!

I didn't let the pumpkin shortage foil Thanksgiving. We had punkin-pie spiced cookies instead.
I just added the pie spice to regular rolled sugar cookie dough. This tart pan was used to cut out the pie shape and then flipped over and the inner ring was cut with a knife. I used a pizza cutter to "slice the pie" into 6 pieces and spaced them out to bake.

Now we can have our pie and eat it, too.