Cruising the lights

We like to spend at least one evening driving around looking at Christmas lights within our home town. We like to go to the neighborhoods with the most lights. There is some judging that occurs, while we sip our hot chocolate & listen to Christmas tunes. The backseat critics give letter grades A-F.
This house got an A+... it had the perfect balance of lights and such a very warm glow.

This was the most beautiful Nativity set, so warm & inviting.
Our neighbors transform their house into a giant gingerbread house, which puts our house to shame.
This house just cracked us up. It is a Griswold-wanna-be.

My favorite part was the sign out front "Thanks be unto God for His unspeakabl Gift." Guess spelling wasn't a strong point.

Have to give them a shout-out for the most unique Nativity Creche... a doggie kennel.
I have to say I am not fan of the red candles in the windows. It really makes a house look spooky or something to me. {Perhaps I shouldn't have watched Amityville Horror as a kid.}
Here is our house at night. The back-seat critics gave it a C+. I give it an A+ because Steve didn't have to make a trip to the emergency room to complete it!

My favorite Christmas cookie.

If I could only pick one cookie to bake at Christmas-time, it would be Gingerbread cookies. I love them! I love rolling them out; I love the smell as they are baking; I love the red-hot buttons; I love dunking them in my coffee in the morning; I cannot go a Christmas season without making up a batch.

I use an old recipe I got 18 years ago from my mom. It is stained and scuffed, but I promise, it makes the best darn gingerbread EVER. So soft and delicious, I crave them every year. Apparently, it was a converted Weight Watchers recipe because my mom has written some equivalents on the back that I can't even begin to understand.
Just trust me on this one thing... these gingerbread cookies are fab-u-lous!
The best part is the creativity the girls exhibit in accessorizing the gingerbread men/women. The elves don't even bicker because they get to each do their own thing. There is much laughing and giggling and it is SO much better than the gingerbread-house experience.
Here are a few of the clever little gingerbread people the girls made.
Apparently, with a few decorative sprinkles, the possibilities are endless.
A little warning is in order... there are some very scary gingerbread men on the loose!

This vampire gingerbread is going to SUCK.YOUR.BLOOD!!! EEEEKKKKK!

The Gingerbread house.

The making of the gingerbread house is one Christmas tradition that quite frankly... is a pain. I first tried to talk the elves out of making the gingerbread house this year, but they were not on board. Next, I thought I had solved the problem of the bickering elves by purchasing a kit with three gingerbread houses, so each elf could have their own to decorate. Turned out, it was just a great marketing ploy and I fell for it. The kit only had ONE house, but showed THREE different ways to decorate the houses. Apparently, in my glee over solving the inevitable arguments between the elves, who have rather strong decorating opinions, I didn't read the label carefully enough.

So it was with a rather rocky start and several discussions about "attitude" that we began the making of the annual gingerbread house. We mixed the frosting a tad-bit too thick, which made it very uncooperative and darn near impossible to work with. It set up so fast that the elves had to quickly press the candies in or they just fell off the house.The first born elf created this side of the gingerbread house.

Complete with shutters and a flower bed.

The second born elf designed this side of the gingerbread house. She incorporated a wreath and two windows.
The second born elf also made this little marshmallow snowman with candy-skis.

In the end, the elves were actually pretty cooperative and proud of their creation. I might even be talked into helping them again next year. {maybe}

The elves bake.

Saturday morning, I recruited my two elves to get some Holiday baking done. Kippy wanted peanut butter kiss cookies, which are a family favorite. { So much a favorite, that I only make them once a year because I can't keep my little mitties out of them.}
As the saying goes, many hands make light work and the elves are more than willing to help so they can snitch tastes of dough & steal Kisses. The elves work on the cookies in an assembly-line type process. One elf unwraps the Kisses, another elf rolls the doughballs in sugar, then the mom-elf pops them in the oven, when the hot pan emerges, the elves work double-time pressing the Kisses into the warm cookies...then the mom-elf calls the head-elf to stop and pick up more Kisses because we have run out. Just in case you have the impression that our baking always goes smoothly.
Eight dozen peanut-butter Kiss cookies later, the house smelled amazing and the elves were in a sugar induced coma. More baking to come...

Merry Christmas to Grandma Ruth

Last year, my mom gifted me with a Christmas bouquet using a vase that Grandma Ruth had received and saved from Makenzie, Kaleb and Logan in 2002. I decided to honor Grandma Ruth by having the vase filled again here at The Flower Mill in town. It is beautiful and it makes me smile.
Merry Christmas to you, Grandma Ruth!

Our heirloom tree skirt

Steve's grandma Gertrude Officer crocheted this tree skirt for Steve and I giving it to us as a wedding gift 19 years ago. It has been the only tree skirt to adorn our Lindgren-style tree through the years.
We love it and treasure it.
And think of Grandma Officer, who made it with love for us and know she smiles from Heaven as she watches us use it each year.

Our 3 day kitchen face-lift

Back in November, I wrote about our work-in-progress kitchen and the gradual transformation over the past 8 years. I am very happy to report substantially more progress recently occurred. Here is a quick reminder what our kitchen looked like weeks ago.
On Wednesday night (Dec 1st), we began prepping for the install of the much dreamed about new quartz counter-tops. We had to empty out all of the lower cabinets and drawers. This is where I have to shamefully admit to finding a lot of things I had totally forgotten were there. {I am a closet hoarder and should probably be seeking treatment when I have more time.} On Thursday night, Steve had help from one of his good buddies to actually remove the old laminate counter-tops and disconnect the sink/faucet. Nothing looked stranger than seeing our topless cabinets.
Near 10:00 AM Friday morning, the magic began. Two guys from Granite Unlimited out of Fargo pulled up in a big truck and began moving in three large pieces of quartz. Those guys definitely ate their Wheaties because the largest piece was nearly 400 lbs! I was so very impressed with their speed and professionalism. Within two hours, they had installed, caulked, put in the sink & used a really slick hydraulic marble press to create a virtually invisible seam.

Buh-bye, pink speckled, chipped laminate with sharp corners...

Hello, beautiful, smooth, warm colored quartz... love the rounded edges!! No more stabbing myself in the hip every time I walk around the peninsula. Friday night, Steve (a.k.a The Plumber) installed the fabulous new faucet and connected all of the sink, disposal, dishwasher stuff. The stainless steel, under-mount sink totally rocks.

Saturday morning, Steve & I were ready to go with putting in the tile back-splash. Although, we have never worked with mosaic glass tile before, we have done two smaller tile jobs on our entry way and in our downstairs bathroom, so we had all kinds of confidence. We tried out a new product called SimpleMat, which is a tile setting mat and takes the place of using thin-set. It applied like contact paper and was really handy to use. Figuring out how to get started with placing the tile was kinda trixie because they are offset. The challenge was we had to start with cutting. First Steve tried a wet-saw, but the mosaics were too floppy and didn't cut straight. Then he tried a 4 inch circular saw with a carbide blade, but that chipped the glass tile. The winner ended up being the hand tile cutter, which scores and then snaps the tile... slow, but steady. Once a cutting solution was determined, we started with tiling. With the SimpleMat, you just place the tiles and press firmly. After an hour or so, we got into a rhythm and made great progress. We just skipped making all the tiny cuts around the outlets and the window.

By the end of day 1, we were feeling great about the project and proud of the progress we had made. All of the full-sized tile were placed and only 1 run to Home Depot to get one more 12x12 tile. We ended the day by treating ourselves to a fun family night out with the Hubert family.

Unfortunately, day 2 came with a few more challenges and took us much longer than expected. We got started after church: Two more trips to Home Depot to get the right grout {thanks, Lance for that save}; cutting lots of tiny little tiles to fit around the windows and all the outlets; mixing up grout, applying grout, running out of grout, mixing up more grout, etc. FYI... grouting tiny mosaic tiles is tedious. It took 6 hours to complete all the cuts and grouting and another 2 hrs to buff, buff & buff some more. When that was done, Steve worked on bumping out the outlets with spacers, which ended up being more frustrating and caused another trip to Home Depot. He added stainless steel plate covers that look really sharp.

By 10:30 PM, on Sunday night... our kitchen face-lift was complete...

We are in love with our kitchen. Here is the after...The counter-top, the sink, the faucet, the tile back-splash... all came together. I don't know which of the 4 items I love the most. Now I am busy running around like a lunatic, meticulously wiping out the sink, all stray crumbs and clearing away every random bit of counter-top clutter just so it stays looking this good. I'm sure that will wear off in a few more days, right? Otherwise, Steve will probably be seeking medication for me.