Tag Archive for 'gingerbread house'

Holiday Season 2011

Published
by
robayre
on November 27, 2011
in General Update and life
. 3 Comments

I hope everyone who celebrates it, had a warm, safe and happy Thanksgiving. I didn’t get to post before hand, but I wanted to share some of the things I am most thankful: An awesome house of our very own, a wonderful and understanding man that I never get tired of being around, a supportive family that lives nearby and get to see often, a sprinkling of friends that add variety, adventure and fun to a life that might be dull otherwise, a fun job with a steady paycheck and coworkers who mean so much to me, wonderful memories and experiences that will be with me forever, a pesky cat that hates everyone but Matt and I, my health (that I should be MUCH more thankful for) and a great body that I should take better care of.

Gingerbread House Making Contest
Friday night I held my Sixth Annual Gingerbread House Making Contest. I hope everyone had a fun time. I think there were 19 entries and over 25 people (little kiddies included) in attendance.

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The winner was made by Dacia. She had told me beforehand that she had a great idea and needed to get her secret ingredient right before the event.

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Yep, that girl loves her some bacon! There are more pictures from the night over at flickr.

So, now that it is officially the 2011 holiday season I’m trying to create a list of things I want to do.

-winterize the windows to keep the house efficient and warm
-put together the advent box with little presents

-Put up the tree and decorate it
-hang stockings from the mantle
-decorate the outside of the house

-make this year’s ornament
-go sledding (once we have snow)
-listen to plenty of Christmas music
-buy meaningful Christmas presents for family
-think of a good exchange project idea for extended family Christmas
-productive and fun vacation week between Christmas and New years

-make another snowflake wallhanging.

I’ve been busy

Published
by
robayre
on December 26, 2009
in Projects
. 1 Comment

Wow, it has been so long since I’ve posted. I’ve returned over and over to update, but just couldn’t get myself to do it. It’s not for a lack of things to write about, but more an overwhelming amount of things to do and things to cover in one post. Let me try and do this without getting too wordy.

I joined the PenPalParty organized by Susie at BoyGirlParty and have two new penpals that are the best.

Next, my friend Nikki is like me in that we always want to have adventures. She organized a trip into the city (chicago) and we went ice skating at Millennium Park. I’ve wanted to go skating in Chicago since I was in high school, so this was a huge thing. It wasn’t on my 2009 list of things to do, but it should have been so I’m going to add it as an honorary item. We were all nervous going in, but once we got out onto the ice, the day turned magical, going from nasty rain to perfect snow. I had so much fun. It was one of those days where my cheeks hurt from smiling sooo much for sooo long.

Santa catching a ride on the “zamboni” with the city in the background

Matt and I with the city lights behind us

On the 18th I held my fourth annual gingerbread house making party.  There were 12 people in attendance, 10 houses created while we munched on snacks, sipped hot chocolate, listened to Christmas music and conversed. As usual there were such creative entries, including a saucer UFO, an operation massacre, and a sleigh ride! Click the picture above to see each gingerbread house on it’s own.

I used this recipe to cook pfeffernusse cookies for the first time. They came out delicious, but I’m not sure if they were really like the pfeffernusse cookies that I’m used to. Fortunately, Archway pfeffernusse cookies are back on the shelf this year (after the company closed last year), and if you want to sample some deliciousness, snatch them up from the grocery store shelves quickly before they are gone until next year.

I’ve been working on so many other little projects, things here and there, that I also wanted to share, but for time’s sake I will postpone.