I won! I won! I won!

 

Thanks to Jen from Tatertots & Jello – Look what I won!!!  I am SOOO excited.  Merry Christmas to me!

 

The NEW Silhouette SD is powerful, versatile, and portable!

POWERFUL
-Weld words, create shadows and outlines.
-Cut True Type fonts already installed on your computer
-Cut images from 1/4" small up to 8" wide and 39" long
PORTABLE
-Simply copy your images to an SD card and go. SD card not included.
-Organize your designs for easy access and reference
-Built-in blade cap holder for easy storage.-Replace blade holder with a Silhouette Sketch pen to sketch digital designs.
-Light-weight

VERSATILE
-No cartridges necessary!
-Over 1300 digital designs available with new releases every month! Images can be purchased for $.99 per design.
-Easily adjust your designs and text to any size
-Organize your designs for easy access and reference-LCD screen lets you select, cut and resize designs without a computer
-SD card compatible for use without a computer
Here's a sample of the digital designs you can download online anytime, 24 hours a day!

With the Quickutz Silhouette SD the possibilities are endless...

Honey Nut Quinoa

1 cup milk

1 cup water

1 cup quinoa, (note: rinse quinoa)

2 cups fresh fruit (recipe suggested blackberries - but I used peaches & it was wonderful!)

1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1/3 cup chopped pecans, toasted* (I used walnuts and toasted them with a little brown sugar)

4 teaspoons honey

Combine milk, water and quinoa in a medium saucepan. Bring to a boil over high heat. Reduce heat to medium-low; cover and simmer 15 minutes or until most of the liquid is absorbed. Turn off heat; let stand covered 5 minutes. Stir in fruit and cinnamon; transfer to four bowls and top with pecans. Drizzle 1 teaspoon agave nectar over each serving.

Serves 4.

*While the quinoa cooks, roast the pecans in a 350F degree toaster oven for 5 to 6 minutes or in a dry skillet over medium heat for about 3 minutes.

YUMMY Dutch Oven Quiche

1 can crescent rolls

1 cup shredded sharp cheddar

1 lb. sausage; browned & drained (can add bacon, hamburger or any meat you want to use!)

3 eggs; beaten

1 diced red bell pepper

1 diced yellow bell pepper

3 Tbs. milk

1/2 tsp. salt

1 tsp. ground black pepper

1 cup thawed frozen hash browns (or leftover baked potatoes, diced)

1 onion sliced

3 Tbs. parmesan cheese (optional)

Unroll the crescent rolls. Line the bottom of a 12" Dutch oven with a layer of flattened crescent rolls. In a separate pan, cook sausage (or other meat) with onions, just before cooked - add the diced peppers. Sprinkle evenly with sausage, bell peppers, hash browns, green onion, and cheddar cheese. In a medium bowl whisk together eggs, milk, salt and pepper. Pour egg mixture evenly over top of pizza. Sprinkle with parmesan cheese.

Cover and bake using 8-10 briquettes bottom and 12-14 briquettes top for 20-30 minutes until eggs are set.

Dance is over for the season!

I have been really horrible on keeping up with Allison’s dancing, so I am going to make up now by doing one really big post about it! :)

Allison is a WONDERFUL dancer! She has been taking dance from Misty (at Ultimate Dance Etc in Saratoga Springs) for 4 years. We started her dancing to improve her coordination – she used to walk into walls – and she has blossomed beautifully! Allison definitely has a natural talent and a love of dancing and I hope she never stops dancing.

This year she was on the Extreme Team for the competition season. They competed in both a jazz and lyrical routine and won lots of trophies including two 3rd place, one 2nd place, SEVEN 1st places and an Overall Jr. Amateur 1st Place Grand Champion! What an awesome season!

Allison also had the opportunity this year to do a solo for competition. She competed in 3 of the 5 different competitions. For solos, the trophies are given out kind of like a beauty pageant – with attendants instead of places and the highest place being literally crowned Queen. In Allison’s first competition, she won 2nd attendant (or 3rd place), in her second competition, she won 1st attendant, and in her final competition she was crowned a Queen, with tiara and all! We are so proud of her!!

Catie turned 5 this fall and the rule in our house is that once you turn 5 you can start dance. Of course, Catie couldn’t wait to start dancing like her big sister. She has gone to her ballet/jazz class all year long and was able to be a part of the big recital at the end of the year. She looked so cute!! Everyone in the house (even Allison) agreed that Catie’s costume was the cutest one we have EVER seen!

Here are some pictures from the competition season and some videos from the year end recital.

I hope you like it as much as we did!!

My Beautiful Catie!

The Cutest Costume EVER!!

Allison’s 2^nd Attendant Trophy

The Splits! (during her solo)

“Only Hope”

“Say Hey!”

Queen!

Allison & Misty

At Nationals this year Ultimate Dance swept the competition!

All the solos won Queens and ALL of the teams won 1^st places!

Aimie’s Aprons

So I am starting a new venture! I am making kids aprons!
My kids LOVE to help in the kitchen. They LOVE to be my my "sous-chef" and help me make dinner, dessert, or any sort of thing that requires using kitchen utensils. This usually entails getting messy. I have over the years spent various amounts of money purchasing aprons for the girls, and we have received various aprons as gifts. None have lived up to the task of protecting the girls clothing from spills and looked cute at the same time.

Last year, my mom bought the girls some VERY cute aprons and I was very hopeful that we had finally found a winner. I was very perplexed when she brought them home and I found that the neck strap was not the standard round 'over the head' strap you usually see, but two straps that I had to tie. When I asked why, I was told that it was because kids heads are so out of proportion to their body, that when you buy a regular apron, the neck strap has to be large enough to go over their head. This results in making the chest part reach down to the kids belly button. Aha! Now I understand what was wrong with the many other aprons I had purchased in the past! Unfortunately for this set of cute aprons, tying the neck straps IS NOT the answer - this just makes it more difficult for the parent to put the apron on the child AND to make matters worse, the neck straps were too short! :(

This put me on a quest to find a perfect apron! Well several months later and several aprons later (no I didn't buy any more - just kept a mental tally) I have come up with what in my mind is the PERFECT kids apron!!

I will be selling them for $15 each or 2 for $25.  Let me know if you would like one!  I have the following ones available now, or I can custom make one for any color you like!

 

Some of my cute aprons so far!

Each apron waist band has a button closure - you can adjust the placement of the button to make the waist fit smaller if you need to.

These neck straps have elastic in them - this means that the neck strap will fit over the child's head and the apron part will still cover the child's chest!

The kids can put the aprons on ALL BY THEMSELVES!

All of the aprons are reversible!

       Allison & Chloe’s aprons are size L (fit ages 7 – 10)

  Catie & Mary’s aprons are size M (fit ages 4 – 6)

Proclamation to the Family Scrapbook

Injuries, Surgery & Holly Homemaker!!

Ok, since I have been ‘out of commission’ for a few weeks due to cutting the top of my finger off and then having hip surgery – it is time to update the blog and get busy!!

I have been off my crutches around the house for 3 days now!  I am so excited to walk around ALL BY MYSELF!!  It is really liberating to leave them in the other room while I do something.  I have learned that when I walk too far, or a lot at once, it causes pain and I probably should have used the crutches.  Soon (hopefully next week) I will really be able to go everywhere without them!

Since the weather has turned, we decided to go pick our ripe tomatoes.  I haven’t been out to my garden for a while (due to not being able to walk!) so I was very surprised when I went out there and the girls and I picked 30lbs of tomatoes in one shot!!  I am THRILLED!!  We still have a TON of green tomatoes, so we will be picking those tonight and let them ripen inside.  The girls and I bottled 13 quarts of tomatoes today.  They look so yummy!!  I am excited to start stocking up our food storage again, since we have eaten all the ones in there so far.  We also picked our zucchini last week and mom grated all of it and put in in the freezer to use later on. 

All of the girls peeling tomatoes

The tomatoes…

 

BEAUTIFUL!!

Canning Double Time

All done and waiting to seal

So in my freezer I have several bags of grated zucchini and some black bananas.  Yesterday, I decided it was time to make some bread!!  The girls helped and we made 12 mini loaves of Banana Bread and 8 loaves of Zucchini Bread!  I couldn’t stop there… I made 10 mini loaves of White Bread w/ cracked 9 grain in it.  YUMMY!!  Of course the girls wanted to help make bread, so today I decided that for school, the girls would learn how to make bread by hand!  They got into partners and each team made the bread dough together.  I also made a double batch.  It was so much fun watching the girls get into kneading the bread and mixing in all the ingredients.  In the end, we made 12 regulars size loaves of bread.  I am SO happy to have it all done.  I need a nap now! :)

Girls mixing the dough in the first stages

Catie & Chloe were a team

Allison & Mary were a team

Look how fun that looks! 

Don’t you want to just stick your hands in it??

 

Mary is not too impressed with having to get her hands dirty

 

Catie and Chloe are thoroughly enjoying it!

Mary feels much better now that she has clean hands, but she is eyeing Allison to make sure that none of that mess gets on her.

Our finished dough!

Our beautifully baked bread.

YUMMY!!!

Some of our Zucchini and Banana Breads