A Bit of Christmas and Winter

Those are the icicles outside my bedroom window. Love the colors and textures of winter. The bottom right is some of the packages holding the giveaway fabric. Some got doodles and scrapbook paper as that's what I had on hand. I did realize that I have not mailed one out yet (So sorry!) so if yours has not arrived yet, don't worry it will. My nephews and I made gingerbread houses and rice krispy treats/trees.

That sentence seems way too simple to discribe the noise, chaos, talking, colors, mess and running after the littlest who's 1 and a half. She preferred climbing on everything she could, opening everything she could and throwing around anything she could get her hands on. Little Lulu has learned the art of distraction. She'll do something loud and not allowed around the corner so you'll come running so that she can run and do what she wants that is also not allowed and worse. I turned my back for less than a minute and she had moved a stool over to the counter, climbed up on it, climbed up onto the counter, grabbed a plate, scooted it over to her and picked up an entire gingerbread house and was moving it quickly up to her very wide open mouth. Her brother was practically in slow motion running over with arms outstretched, "NNnnnooooooooo!" I saved it, barely.

She's just so stinkin' cute it's hard to be mad. She also knows exactly what she's doing and that it's not allowed. The most mischievous looks that one. New rules: I'll gladly have the boys over to craft again - if their sister is not coming. I was ragged at the end. That picture of her is at Halloween in the adorable Hedwig outfit my sister made, having just turned around from doing something she oughtn't.

Nephew 2, Proximo said about his gingerbread man, "He's in love, can you tell?" I said, "Oh, yes! His eyes are hearts!" Funny funny boys. His gingerbread man also has two faces. I'm not sure why but I do know that Proximo had a very good reason. 

It is also birthday season around here. The top photo is some of my favorite things: dad's homemade egg nog (non-alcoholic), hot water for my cold and Betty Crockers Bavarian Chocolate Torte. My very favorite birthday cake ever. This one had about 10 layers (including icing). It is so light and fluffy. The icing is made with non sweetened whipped cream, cream cheese, brown sugar and vanilla. The whole business is a light textured dream of chocolate in my happy happy mouth. 

The white cake is a key lime cake with a whipped cream frosting. The secret ingredient is sour cream. So it is also light and fluffy with a tang that's delicious. 

There has been sewing and crafting going on but as my computer is dying a slow and painful death working with any photographs has been like moving through a river of frozen molasses. Wearing chains. It took me, off and on, hours to get just these few photos edited and up. The ones of sewing things haven't been working. So Happy New Year to you!