Busy Busy December

First up, we took a trip to Disneyland.  This is my daughter Ashley and my granddaughter, Emily.  Living just a few miles from Disneyland, it seems we have several friends who work there and lucky us, we sometimes get into the park for free.  Woohoo.  This was Emily's first trip to the Happiest Place on Earth so Aunty Stephanie bought her a Minnie hoody to wear that day.  It was chilly for us sissy Californians.  :)

 

 

Everything is SO beautiful at Disneyland at Christmas time.  I have been lucky and have gotten to go the last few years.  I love Christmas anyway but add twinkly lights to the already amazing rides and castles...it just doesn't get any better than that.

 

 
I didn't think I'd get any holiday baking done this year with my little "distraction" but my daughter (and Emily) went to her in-laws for a week before Christmas.  That freed me up to do some baking.  There is something about a toddler grabbing your pant legs and "oohing" to be picked up while you're trying to work in the kitchen.  I can't say no and I know this time will be short lived so I cave.  Heck, this time next year, she'll be wanting to play with the dough so I guess I'll have a helper from here on out.

I bought a book from Current when my kids were little about some "gingerbears" who are like the shoemakers elves and help a couple prepare for Christmas by baking for the wife, putting a toy together for the husband, doing the baking and the dishes, etc.  I love that story (probably because I WISH I had gingerbears help me at Christmas!!) and I like to cut my gingerbread into little bears.  :o)
 

 

There's a lot of Emily in this post but tis the season to enjoy a 13 month old at Christmas.  We took her to see Santa even though she is being raised Jewish and celebrates Hanukkah, I wanted a photo for me so off we went to the mall.  She didn't cry which surprised us.  (We did bribe her with a candy cane.)

 
This is our tree this year.  I was a little worried about how dry our tree was last year so this year we bought a live tree from a tree lot where they cut it down after you chose it.  Five days after Christmas and it still feels good and it's still drinking water, thank goodness.  It was hard to switch from a Noble Fir to this Douglas but once all the decorations were on it, it looked good and to not be all dried up...totally worth it!

 

I made Emily's stocking when I went to visit my sister last month.  I made this one for her and my sister made two for her twin grandbabies using the same pattern. 

 

I hope you had a wonderful Christmas.  Have a safe New Year and let's finish some quilts this year!!  :o)



Butttttttercreeeeeeam. Yum!

Yesterday I got the supplies out for baking Brenda & Peter's wedding cake. I took cake decorating lessons when I was pregnant with my oldest daughter so the classes were some 32+ years ago. Things have changed quite a bit since then but some things have stayed the same too. Like my cake pans. They have held up really well for lots of years of baking cakes (though I don't do them much any more).

I "always" use Betty Crocker SuperMoist cake mix. It has never failed me and the cakes are so moist and delicious. I spray the sides of my pans with Pam Baking Spray and use parchment circles (I cut myself from rectangle pieces) in the bottom. These are 12" pans so I used three cake mixes but I really could've used one more and just made cupcakes with the leftovers. I like to fill the pans a little more and cut off the tops. That's what my family had as their treat for years. I wish I had a picture of my hubby's face yesterday when he came home and there was no "top". It was the saddest face ever. I made up for it tonight by baking another round cake and had lots leftover.

I needed to make another batch of icing for a total of 3 so I did a crumb coat on the cake to keep it from drying out.

Now, when you see these pictures you'll be able to tell I took my classes 30 years ago. I don't know how to do the ever-popular fondant and my style is "old school" but hey, the cake is free and I must say, it's tasty. It's white cake with raspberry filling and buttercream icing. How can you go wrong......old school or not. :o)
I needed something for the top of the cake for the wooden "couple" my daughter Kelley painted the happy couple. That will be their cake topper. I thought I had some wooden hearts but we couldn't find them. Kelley found a pack of sports coasters so I had her glue them together and wrap them in cellophane to keep the grease from the Crisco in the buttercream from soaking through it. And I was going to make roses for the top of the cake but it's warm and the icing was too soft. The roses looked like a blob so I just did a vine and some rosebuds. It was all I could think of to do at the last minute and it was getting late. There are only supposed to be about 20 people at the dinner after the ceremony so I think there will plenty of cake. Since this kind of cake is Peter's favorite, I hope they get some to take home too.

The good, the bad and the seam ripper!

Let's start with the "good". I don't know what's wrong with me but I've been in a baking mood lately. First was this delish pineapple upside down cake. Mmmmm. I used a boxed cake mix and this recipe from good ol' Betty Crocker. I haven't used any other cake mix in probably 30 years. Gotta love that pudding in the mix.

That was Thursday night and it is now history. And then yesterday my hubby was rummaging around the kitchen and I asked him what he was looking for? He said something sweet. Well, he obviously wasn't looking MY direction! LOL So I made him a batch of chocolate chip cookies. While I was working on my projects yesterday, I kept hearing the cookie container lid being pried open. ahhh, the cookie monster was working overtime yesterday. :o)

I will now explain my "bad and oh so ugly" seam ripping story now. OH-MY-GOSH, I soooo must have A.D.D. or something because me and directions just don't seem to see eye to eye. Below is a picture I posted a while back of my Cherry Hill BOM. This was four months completed. Looks good, right? Wrong. My first mistake was on month #1. I cut the sashing wrong

You might not have noticed *but I did* and that's all that matters. :o( I noticed the large carnation print in the bottom center was next to the border of the next section I completed (not in the photo yet). I said to myself, "Self, wouldn't you know you would pick that print to go right there and the border of the next block was that same carnation fabric. Darn it anyway." Well, I got out my pattern and saw that the quilt shop had given us placement for each of the squares of fabric. And here is my favorite little graphic of all time.......

That pretty much says it all. I tore it all apart. Actually I tore out the left side of the parts shown. I detached all the little squares, ironed them and put them in the right order. Some people would've said who cares, they're all pastels and only you would know. And that right there is the problem. I would know. And I figured if the shop took all the time to put those blasted little squares in an 'eye pleasing' order, why should I be the one to mess it up. So, here is the way it should've looked originally...

I know. It looks just like the other photo. LOL But the color placement is better. At least that's what I'm going to keep telling myself. :o) And here is block #5 and the baskets, which were month #6.

I guess my machine does a fat quarter inch seam because I had to steam iron those baskets and tug and pull to make them fit. They were about 1/4" short on both sides but I had done enough ripping out and I figured I'd put those blocks in a vice if I had to, I wasn't ripping them out! So here's how it looks now.....

I've got block #7 traced so onto stitching my teapot. I WILL be reading those sewing directions before I start cutting my fabric. Whether or not I follow them will be another story.....or blog post!!! hehe

Lake Casitas, CA

My hubby's company shuts down every year for two weeks during the holidays. And every year he has big ambitions to do things around the house or on his hot rod but usually ends up kicking back watching tv and relaxing and *poof*, the time is gone. This year he said he wanted to do something with his time off and he wanted to rent an RV and go camping with the kids. I'll be honest, I pretty much freaked out when he said that. I like to do holiday baking and I try to make a Christmas gift or two, I don't buy bows for my gifts, I make my own. I love Christmas for so many reasons, but lets face it, leaving the house right before Christmas to go camping threw me over the deep end. I tried to remain calm though. After the shock of the idea, it started to sink in and I thought it might be fun to sit by a campfire with the kids or go for a ride on the lake in a little fishing boat.
Well, these are a few pictures of our trip. This was the view walking from the little overflow lake area to our campsite. Pretty gorgeous, huh? :o)

This is the dock that we tried fishing off of. "Tried" fishing because we didn't get one little nibble. Not one tug on any of the four lines we had in the water. Me, my hubby, my daughter Ashley and her boyfriend Dave went on Saturday after we checked in. We stayed out there a couple of hours. Richard had to put the worms on the hook because none of us could bear to cut one in half with our fingernail and then 'hook' him. Bleck! But you can see that the scenery was beautiful so there are worse things than not catching a fish. And besides, we had plenty of groceries. lol

This was the view towards the lake from the RV. Not too shabby a spot.

This is us fishing off the dock. See those short sleeves? It was around 73 degrees, sunshine, blue skies. A typical Southern California December day. My hubby's a pretty smart cookie to have us go camping before Christmas! We might have to make this an annual tradition.

And the baking? Well, here is my solution to that.
This is my sissy, Isabel in her gorgeous red kitchen. She lives about 15 minutes from the lake. When we talked on the phone about my dilemma, she said "Why don't you come over and we can bake together." She loves to bake but usually only makes pumpkin bread because she doesn't ever want to do it alone. It worked out perfectly. I tell you, it was all the best the both worlds. While sitting at the campsite playing dominoes one night, Isabel said, "Can you believe we're sitting here relaxing and having fun and there are people fighting crowds and parking at the shopping malls." Ahhhh, it's a wonder I'm not smarter since I'm surrounded by all these geniuses. :o)