July Already?

Gosh, it seems impossible, doesn’t it? The year is half gone already. I always feel like I’m about three months behind but the weather here definitely isn’t April weather — it’s hot and MUGGY. The kind where you walk out the door and break into a sweat. Ick.

I hope everyone in the states had a wonderful 4th yesterday. I was hoping to post at least by yesterday, but we were just too busy having fun. Both the boys and SweetiePie were here for the long weekend. There was lots of cooking, baking, visiting and playing around. We went to friends’ yesterday for our annual cookout and I brought my usual (upon request) — cupcakes and spaghetti salad.

Sadly now, my babies have gone back to their homes. I tried to busy myself today by dragging out an old UFO. I have so many projects that I want to start, but I’ve promised myself that I must work on a UFO or two before (or at least while) I work on any new projects. Those UFOs just drive me crazy!

So, hopefully, I’ll make a little UFO headway this week. Are you working on anything fun?

XOXO,
Anna

Happy Easter!

I hope your weekend is filled with bunnies, eggs and lots of chocolate!

XOXO,
Anna

Gingerbread Houses 2009

Finally, I’ve managed to get the gingerbread houses together.  I’ve been a lazy bum this week — just hanging out and not doing much at all.  It seems like I’ve cleaned a lot, but you’d never know it by looking around here.

This year’s competition was pretty tough.  The top players came prepared with a theme in mind, which made it really fun.  The good news is that everyone kept it clean this year (no strip bars or frat houses!)  The bad news is that everyone kept it clean this year — which translates to:  not as funny.  Everyone topped the creativity scales and had a really good time though, so it was all worth it!

TheManoftheHouse and I were the defending champions from last year and we came in Dead. Last. Not one vote.  It was fixed!  We didn’t really have a plan, but when I saw the pretzels, I thought we should do a log cabin in honor of our pioneer ancestors.  And every log cabin has a clothesline outside, right?

My nephew brought a guest to the competition (a girl! - she had fun, she’d never made a gingerbread house before) and they made the Tinsel Town Theater.  You’ll notice that Up is currently running on the marquis and there is plenty of popcorn and candy for all the people standing in the ticket line.

Between the next two houses, I can’t remember who came in second and who came in third.  (I’m sure SweetiePie knows though!)   CrazyBIL and my youngest niece teamed together and created Santa’s Sleighwash.   Check out the cupcake liner door flaps and the dirty sleigh going into the sleighwash and the clean sleigh coming out of the sleighwash.  So Clever!

TheFirstChild and SweetiePie always have a theme and this year was no different (we’ve decided next year that the honeymoon is over and we’re going to split them up.)  They made a Jump School to commemorate the fact that they went skydiving in August of this year (and lived to tell about it).  Oh So Cute!  Look at the little skydivers and the airplane.  And doesn’t SweetiePie have pretty icing-writing?

And Tah-Dah!  The First Place winners this year were MyDadLovesMeBestSister, BigDaddy, my oldest niece and TheSecondChild. (Ha!  I’m thinking they won due to being the biggest team - I’m not bitter or anything LOL!)  MyDadLovesMeBestSister achieved her Master Gardener status this year, so to celebrate, they created a Garden Shed.   The flower pots and little candy trees on the front are enough to melt any voter.  Not to even mention the compost pile, butterflies on the left side of the house and the Koi Pond behind the house.   Congratulations Team Garden Shed!

I’m so proud of my little family.  When we first started decorating gingerbread houses years ago, they used to slap the frosting on the houses and make a big mess.  I love seeing how much thought and creativity they put into the houses now!

So.  On to the New Year!  I’ve bemoaned the fact that November and December flew by.  And 2009 too.  But to heck with that.  What happened to the last decade?

Wasn’t it just yesterday that we were partying at the turn of the millennium???  As I look forward to 2010, I just have one big wish — I want time to Slow. Down.  That one big wish would facilitate all the little ones (more family time, quilting, knitting, reading, yadda, yadda).

And one other big wish for all of you — a Happy and Healthy 2010.  Happy New Year!!!

XOXO,
Anna

Teddy Rose

Whew!  Can you believe it’s all over for another year?  Did all you Christmas peeps have a good holiday?  It went too fast — it’s all a blur.  If you’re really sad that it’s over, have no fear!  Angel Jem has you covered with a countdown to next Christmas in her sidebar.  (That cracked me up when I read it!)

As promised, Santa was very, very good to our family this year.  And my young nephew cashed in big with this little beauty (being prepped for his big debut):

Isn’t he adorable?  We all had so much fun playing with the new puppy on Christmas Day.  After much debate, he’s been named Teddy Rose.  It happened after someone suggested Theodore Roosevelt.  He’s eight weeks of soft and cuddly and even has puppy breath.  Too cute!

There’s just one little kink in the whole happy affair though — his big sisters, The Yappers.

The Yappers are none too happy about this new development.  MyDadLovesMeBestSister thinks they’re afraid of him.  There was lots of growling, yapping and shaking.  Teddy is oblivious to the whole fear thing — he just wants some playmates!

It cracks me up that they’re afraid of him — he’s really not much bigger than they are.  Good thing they’re meeting him now though — he’s a Goldendoodle, so he’s going to be big enough to sit on them if they get too yappy!

It briefly looked like there might be some sharing of toys, but it didn’t really last.  Yapper 1 was just  sniffing them for a minute, then she retreated.  Hopefully, they’ll soon be fast friends.

This is my favorite picture of the day.  Teddy was so funny — he’d play pretty hard and every hour or two, he’d just drop wherever he was and have a little snooze.  This picture was taken by my cute niece - Santa was very, very good to her this year too.

We’re going to have lots of fun playing with cameras.  We started by taking pictures of each other, taking pictures of each other (in very poor light!)

I hope you all had a good, happy Christmas like we did.  And hopefully I’ll be back soon with gingerbread competition pictures (it was a tough voting year) — there’s new computing power in the house, and once TheManoftheHouse starts changing things over…well, hopefully we won’t be off-line for long!  ;-)

XOXO,
Anna

Christmas Cookies

Wow! Thanks for all the fun Christmas Top Ten lists. I had a great time reading through them all. I hope you are all enjoying your top ten and are well on your way to being ready for the big day!

It was a good weekend here in ThimbleannaLand. I had a good time in the kitchen and made my Christmas cookies. Here’s what the family will be snacking on this year:

Lemon Gems. Buttery and lemony — and cute!

Raisin Filled Pockets. I thought I was using the old family recipe this year, but it was different.  They’re good, but they flattened out an awful lot.

Chocolate Caramel Delights.  Chocolate and Caramel.  I have nothing else to say.

Chocolate Dipped Shorbread.  I used my fun little “cookie writer” that I previously blogged about here.

Grandma Hill’s Browned Butter Cookies.  We’ve had them every year since I was a little girl.  And we don’t always wait until Christmas to make them, ’cause we LOVE them.

Angel Slices. Our number one Christmas cookie.  They go so fast, we have to make twice as many as the other cookies.

January is going to be extra painful this year.  But, it will be SO worth it!

XOXO,
Anna