The best season of all-we are ready!

We are looking forward to a long month of holiday fun. Our advent calendar (made by me, my first, with all its imperfections) is ready and waiting, fun activities hidden, one for each day. Recipes of cookies, old and new are copied and begging to be tested. Music is ready, movies are ready. Tomorrow, come faster :)

window display- Valentine's edition

We loved the idea of having window display so much that we updated it yet again.
Same simple work- paint cofee filters with pretty valentine colors ( D. tends to lean towards purple :D), cut out hearts, attach with scotch tape and voila :)

the best season of all :day 4

Today we did the simple craft. We used plastic holiday beads from the craft store, little bells and pipe cleaners and made these fun bracelets. D. made one for everybody.

We read "Christmas trolls" by Jan Brett.
My mom is baking cream puffs now. All is well.
The movie tonight will be "Sleepless in Seattle".

the best season of all: day 3

It was a rough day for all of us so we had a quiet evening.
D. did crayon and watercolor snowflake painting.

We read "The High Hills" by Jill Barlem (Brambly Hedge series), the story is great and illustrations are absolutely gorgeous.

Right before the bedtime we baked Cranberry Muffins and for the first time since last holiday season we used our special snowflake muffin pan (which I got in target for $2, I do love their dollar section :))).

Cranberry Muffins recipe

Dry ingridients:

1 1/2 c of flour

1/2 c of sugar

1 tbs of baking powder

pinch of salt

Wet ingridients

1/4 c of melted butter

1 egg

1 cup of milk

1/2 c frozen cranberries

Preheat oven for 350 F

1. Mix dry and wet ingredients in separate bowls then mix together. Fold in cranberries.

2. Pour mixture in muffin pan (filling approximately 2/3 because muffins will rise) and bake for 35 minutes. Dust with powdered sugar if desired. Yum!

The best season of all: day 1

At our house December is a month-long celebration of the approaching winter, of magic that surrounds the season of Christmas and New Year. We don't do proper Advent because it was not part of the culture in which we grew up and I can't really get into it for some reason. So instead we try to  do a little craft, read a  book, bake something delicious every day or two.

Today D. brought a lovely holiday tree from his clay class

We read " Trouble with trolls" (it takes place in early spring actually, which I didn't know :D) , "The Hat" (which inspired us to find all kinds of silly things to use as a hat) and "Gingerbread Baby" by Jan Brett.

We baked our first cookies of the season.

Chocolate holiday cookies:

3/4 c of butter

1 c of sugar

2 tsp vanilla extract

2 big eggs

2 c of flour

2 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp soda

1/2 c of cocoa

chocolate chips

powdered sugar

1. Preheat oven to 350 F. Mix butter, cocoa, sugar, eggs and vanilla extract.

2. Mix dry ingredients and add to wet ingredients. Fold in chocolate chips.

3. Chill for an hour (if butter was not fully melted chilling is not required)

4. Put little balls of dough on the baking sheet lined with parchment paper.

5. Bake for 12 minutes, set cookies aside to cool. Dust with powdered sugar.

So it begins, we hanged our first decoration in the house, cross-stitching I made last year.

Friday lights

D. and dad made jack-o-lantern, plus D. made one during his clay class. The clay one is the scariest I think (and so does grandpa claiming it's the creepiest thing he's ever seen :D)


D. is still not sure about his costume -he wants to be either an eagle (eeek, how am I suppose to make it I have no idea, although it does remind me about this weird yet really funny movie) or a knight. We'll see. It will be the first year trick-or-treating, past years we just went to the party at the book store, so D. is pretty excited.



I loved the idea of Pumpkin fairy from The Magic Onions, we'll probably do that since D. is not into candy all that much anyway.

Background noise for today is  Kisses and Cake by John Powell ("P.S. I love you" soundtrack), such beautiful compositions and so peaceful.

To friends and visitors- have a marvelous week-end!