Highlights of December!

Like normal, December is a very busy month for us, so here are a few pictures of the highlights. We did have a lovely large Christmas party before Christmas but unfortunately I didn't get any good pictures from the evening. We have dreamed about having Christmas parties here in our new home so it was dream come true to have our home filled with family and friends as we ate, talked, played games and the best part of all, snging Christmas songs! Imagine 75 people singing in our home! It was amazing!

It was great fun pulling out our decorations and putting them up in our new home for the first time! YAY!

Aw! The joys of babies.

Taylor turned 17!

Lydia helping with the Christmas tree! Okay, not really helping, I'm taking her picture!

Getting dressed up for Christmas parties!!!

A photo shoot with Lydia! She is so silly and this picture captures her well!

I love you girl!!!!

Gracie, Sarah, Ben, and Lydia put on a very, very nice Christmas play. At first I thought they had permanent marker on their face! Yikes! It wasn't, thankfully, but they did look so cute!

It's Christmas time in the country!

What could be in that big box for such a little girl?

Daddy made her a doll bed!!! Emma had to try it out! LOL!

Emma's first Christmas!

Ben needed some help with his gift! "Pull here Emma!"

David and Keslie's second Christmas together but the first as parents!

Uncle Paul and his girls, Katelyn and Kelsie came for Christmas dinner!

Whew! All that excitement is tiring!

December was such a wonderful month of celebration and remembering our Savior Who loved so much that He took all our sin on Himself to die to cleanse us from our sin. Perfect love like that can never be found.

Dad's latest project!

Last month Dad got a trailer load of old wood for very cheap off Craig's List and which has made him go crazy throwing together (very well made) lovely furniture for our home. Here is his latest project! I think it's our favorite thing he has made thus far! Enjoy!

Christmas Decorations in the making

Almost every Christmas our family likes to make these lovely festive jars with floating candles to give the house a cheery look. They are an easy decoration and can look great in a table center-piece or just about anywhere! This year I took step-by-step pictures so you all can give them a try!

First you need fresh cranberries, evergreen branches, water, jars, and Grapefruit Seed extract for preservation (optional), a pair of scissors and some floating candles for as many jars as you like.

Place cranberries on a tray and remove bad berries.

Then rinse.

I add Grapefruit Seed extract to help the cranberries not go bad so quickly.

Fill the jars about 1/3 of the way with Cranberries.

Cut parts of the evergreen branches and put on top of berries. Be sure there is still empty head room at the top so the candle will float.

Cover berries and evergreen with the water/Grapefruit Seed extract mixture.

Lydia is making her own!

Place candle on top

Ta-DA!

Then light it...

...and enjoy!

Note: I keep them in the fridge when not using them since keeping them cold will make them last longer. Sometimes we've left them out all the time and they get murky water and we have to make them over again. The fridge and the Grapefruit Seed extract really helps them last longer. Beautiful!

Recipe post! Chicken Garlic Pizza

My family was gone last night and I got to make dinner for only 3 people, the two younger ones and myself. Because dinner was going to be so small I decided to make something that I haven't made before. I remembered a pizza Keslie told me about and came to the conclusion that this was the time to make it! I've long wanted to do a blog post on dinner preparations and since I wasn't in any rush to make dinner last night I seized the opportunity and snapped some pictures at each step, well almost each step! So here is the result of my extra time! Enjoy!

Garlic Chicken Pizza!

Above are the ingredients for the pizza:

Pizza Cheese

Chopped Chicken, grilled with salt and lemon pepper

Creamy pizza sauce, 1/4 cup softened cream cheese, 1/3 cup sour cream, 1 teaspoon garlic salt

The chicken before and after being cut up...

Time to roll out the dough.

Here is the wonderful and quick recipe I used:

Pizza Dough (Makes 2 large pizzas)

1 1/2 cups warm water

1 envelope (2 1/4 teaspoon rapid rise yeast

1 tablespoon sugar

Mix the above and let sit a few minutes, then add the next ingredients:

2 tablespoons olive oil

4 cups flour

1 1/2 teaspoon salt

Form dough into a ball and place in an oiled bowl. Oil top of dough to keep from drying out.

Heat oven to 200 degrees for 10 minutes and then turn off. Then place dough in oven to rise until doubled. Roll out into the sizes of pizzas you will be making!

Dough is ready for the toppings! First spread the Creamy Garlic Sauce

Then sprinkle the chicken...

(the recipe called for mushrooms, green onions and tomatoes, but we didn't have any. They would have been very good on it though!)

...and the cheese.

Since I had too much dough on the outside I put a little cheese in it and rolled the edges over! I've never done that before so it was a special treat!

Then I baked the pizza for 13 minutes in a 400 degree oven.

I wasn't done yet. Most cooking shows or recipes don't show the pile of dishes that have to be done after the cooking is finished! So I took a picture to show the mess!

Look! It's done!

Ben and Lydia made a salad to go with it! The whole meal was very good and I plan to make the Creamy Garlic Chicken Pizza again! Yummy! I'm hungry now!