I hope that if you do celebrate Christmas you had a wonderful day yesterday! We sure did. It was just the four of us, and I’m afraid that I didn’t get very good pictures this year. But we all had a grand time!

Logan, at 10 years old, was able to hold off the pre-Christmas stress pretty well, although the last day was pretty tough. It took me 240 pictures to get a nice one of all three of them in front of the Christmas tree! (I have high hopes of writing up a “New Years News” newsletter and sending that to people on my Christmas Card list – which I haven’t used in 3 years now!!!)

We all got what we wanted on our lists. My big excitement was a large, full powered laptop to replace my small, under powered one.  I’ve been trying really hard this year to spend the last hour or two of my day hanging out with the hubby downstairs, reading blogs was fine on the old laptop, so I would do that. But I found that I was doing more and more blogging, picture processing, and web design during those last 2 hours, thus the need for a full powered laptop. I also suspect that if I use it downstairs during the afternoons when the boys are supposed to be doing homework and practicing that those things may happen at a faster rate (don’t hold your breath though!)

Ah, good old “Rock ‘em Sock ‘em Robots”! Logan saw these in Target about a week before Christmas and just HAD to have them!

The big excitement of the day was Liam’s big present. He’s wanted a jazz trombone (it’s got a smaller bore and no trigger, it will have a less “beefy” sound but blends better in a big band section) for 3 years now. He has his Dad’s old trombone that is an excellent instrument, but it’s definitely an orchestral instrument. A decent jazz trombone would be $1500, which is why we weren’t keen on getting one. However, you can get some nice old ones if you scout them out. Andrew started watching ebay like a hawk, and was able to score a very good horn made in 1946 for $315! Woot! It needed some work, lots of cleaning and a new case, and boy was Liam surprised!

I just love a good surprise! Hooray!

I’ve got a mound of wrapping to do, but I wanted to take a moment to say thanks so much for being here with me. The support I get from all you lovely folks is awesome, you are all inspirational for me!

And if you don’t celebrate Christmas, I’d like to wish you Peace and Joy!

(I got the template for the photo above from the folks at One on One software.)

I’ve been baking up a whole mess of Christmas cookies, and these molasses crinkles are Santa’s favorite! (Really! A few years ago Logan made him a questionairre with checkboxes and left it with the plate of cookies, and Santa chose the crinkles as his favorite. So although I may swap out other cookies from time to time, Logan will NOT let me NOT make molasses crinkles!)

Molasses Crinkle Cookies

Ingredients

• 4 1/2 cups all purpose flour
• 4 teaspoons baking soda
• 2 teaspoons cinnamon
• 4 teaspoons ginger
• 1 teaspoon cloves
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 2 cups brown sugar
• 1 1/2 cups butter
• 2 eggs
• 1/2 cup molasses
• turbinado sugar or pure cane washed sugar for rolling

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees
2. Sift together flour, salt, spices and baking soda and set aside.
3. In a large bowl, cream butter and brown sugar. Add eggs one at a time and beat until well blended. Add molasses.
4. Gradually add the sifted dry ingredients and mix until combined.
5. Scoop up a rounded teaspoons of dough and roll it into a ball, and then roll it in the turbinado sugar to coat (you could use regular table sugar, but the large crystals of the turbinado sugar give these cookies an awesome crunch!)
6. Place on parchment-lined baking sheet about 2″ apart.
7. Bake approximately 11 minutes or until slightly puffed and cracked on the surface.
8. Cool on wire rack. Store what doesn’t get eaten in a tightly closing container and these will keep for days.

Mmmm, look at that texture!

I hope your holidays are sweet and full of flavor!

Ho Ho Ho!

Don’t forget, entry into my Hand Dyed Scarf Giveaway ends today (Friday) at 5 pm.

Wahoo! I gave my last final today. I’ve got one exam to grade, some final grades to calculate and then it’s Christmas Vacation! I need to check in with my Candied Fabrics to-do list, and then make a Candy Claus to-do list!

December Goals

I got some things made for my holiday studio tour, some of the things that didn’t get made I don’t really need for  awhile, so I shall not worry about the wallets etc…but I’ve got some Christmas presents to make!

• Dye: Tees for Bryce & Adam, dresses for Teigan & Maren
• Pillow: for Mom to match her birthday ones
• Over the shoulder tote: for Madison
• Circle Zip Earbud Pouches: for Madi, Kendyll, Karyssa, Erin, Liam

Woot! I gotta get those exams graded so I can start making these presents – fun, fun FUN!

One of the classes I teach is a Forensic Science class. Their final project is to form teams and set up a crime scene for another team to analyze and solve (and then the tables turn). Their “exam” is to present to the rest of the class their analysis of the crime scene. I just had to share the intro to one done by these awesome students:

Isn’t this the bomb?

OK, I hope you have a good weekend – are you making anything for Christmas?

Today I’m still sewing, but tomorrow I’ll turn into a baking, decorating fool, and hope that lots of folks turn up on Sunday. I am participating in a Holiday Studio Tour with four other artists from the Redlands area. We will all have our studios open to share our process with interested folk. We will also have work available for purchase, just in time for holiday gift giving! Here is a website with more information about all the artists.

 I’ll make sure to take lots of pictures to share with you all next week!