Oh yum

Christmas candies done and passed out. I have to say they turned out nice. The centers were so yummy. The lemon and orange were delicious, but I would say the raspberry was my favorite.

So with Christmas a few days away, I can say I am done and am going to sit back and enjoy.
With the exception of a couple of pies, a frog eye salad, I don't have any more baking to do.

What will the new year bring? Lots of new projects! I am going to start a small cooking group and a monthly sewing group. So next week I will be getting lots of ideas put together and a schedule down.
I also have a special project up my sleeve. Hopefully I can get it going, and hope it will be a hit.

2010 has been an amazing year. I am so blessed to have had so many wonderful experiences.
Thanks to all of you, have a Merry Christmas and a very happy New Year!

Christmas candies

Every year we have the tradition of making holiday candy. Dave's Grandma was a great candy maker so I have lots of fun recipes from her. I also have a few from my childhood that I remember making with my Mom and Aunt.

But this year, I went outside of my normal box and decided to try something new. My sister-in-law CiCi starting making hand dipped chocolates a few years ago, and they are to die for. My favorites are her orange cream. So I did some research, and try it out.

I am so excited to get them dipped. I had no idea what to expect when making up the fondant, but it all turned out okay. I made some peppermint, orange, lemon, cherry and chocolate.

Of course I am still doing my normal root beer caramel's, and cashew brittle, but it is always fun to add some more goodies to the neighbor packs.


This is what I poured onto my marble from the pan, I wasn't sure how I was going to get that to a nice creamy chocolate center.



But after a lot of kneading they came out perfect. Now just waiting to be balled and dipped.
(I will post the finished product later)

Learning our ABC's

I saw this really cute idea on a blog that I follow. It took me a little bit to collect the orange juice lids, but finally got them all, and Morgan and I did the project in less than an hour! All it took was 2 pieces of 12 x 12 scrapbook paper, a set of capitol letters (I used the cute puffy polka dot ones), 26 orange juice can tops (no sharp edges) and a empty peanut can or jar with wide mouth.

Chase is doing really good at recognizing all his letters, he did however learn that they slide really well on the floor and uses them as hockey pucks. Needless to say, I have to put them up when we are not using them to learn!