Christmas

I want Cherry Pie {recipe}

Back before Christmas all I kept hearing from hubby was, “I want to make a cherry pie.”  That might be a bit of an exaggeration, but not by much.  I love him so much!

So we got to it and made not 1 but 2 cherry pies!!

Tbug LOVES to help us cook.  She’ll even take over when we allow her too 🙂

Sugar, water & cherries.. yum!  I’m sold already!

While it is cooking down, start working on your corn starch.  What works best is adding just enough water to make a liquid corn starch mixture.

Then pour your corn starch mixture in and it’ll start to thicken the Cherry Mixture.

Then pour in the pie shell!  YUM!

Hubby is getting really, really good at the lattice work on top of the pie.

One little problem… cherry overboard… er… cherry sauce on pie crust :).

Bake it off and YUM!

Wow, I want another Cherry pie!  like STAT!

Cherry pie adapted from here

Ingredients: 
3 cups pitted cherries
1 1/2 cups sugar
approximately 1/2 cup water
approximately 1-4 tablespoons cornstarch, (depending on personal preference for thickness) 
Instructions: 

1. Combine fruit and sugar in a pan and stir together. If cherries are soft and mushy, you won’t need additional water, but if cherries are firm, add 1/4 to 1/2 cup water. Bring to a boil.

2. Mix cornstarch with some cold water (about 2 tablespoons of cold water with 2 tablespoons corn starch), whisking to remove lumps.

3. When cherries are boiling, add cornstarch mixture while stirring constantly to prevent lumps. Add enough thickening agent to make the consistency you desire. We like our pies fairly thick.  Stir until the juices are clear.  When the filling looks clear, it’s fully cooked. Over-cooking will start to break down the filling.

4. Pour into pie crusts and bake pies at 425 degrees for about 30 minutes or until browned.

Additional Notes: 

*You can use sour or sweet cherries for this recipe, but you will need to adjust the sugar if using sweet cherries. I would use about 1/2 to 3/4 cup of sugar for sweet cherries.

**Cornstarch thickens, and will continue to become thicker as your mixture cools. Do not make it as thick when hot as you would like it to be when it has cooled, or it will be too thick.

Linked up here:
Busy Monday, Freedom Friday’s,  Inspiration Spotlight, Scrumptious Sunday, Clever Chicks blog hop,  Mix it up Monday, Sundae Scoop,  Made by You Monday, Melt in your Mouth Monday,

And to all a Good Night

So I’m a little sad today because Christmas is over.  I LOVE the sight of the pretty Christmas tree and the pretty presents that lie underneath the tree just brighten the room!  Granted I could leave my tree up for a while, nothing says I need to take it down, however it just isn’t the same.  I love the thought of giving gifts and seeing the expressions on people’s faces when they receive what I’ve gotten for them.

Christmas Eve we spent with my mom helping her prepare appetizers/meals for mom’s side of the family Christmas while my dad drove Tbug around to deliver Christmas cookies.  We had Hot Artichoke Dip (which in her handwriting we all swore said Not Artichoke dip), Cheese Dip, Chili Verde Soup, Mexican Lasagna, my grandma’s Corn Casserole and a bunch of other goodies! (more…)

Christmas Cookies

 

I just wanted to drop in and say I hope you and your family have a….

M
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RRR
RRRR
YYYYY
CCCCCC
HHHHHHH
RRRRRRRRR
IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII
SSSSSSSSSSSSS
TTTTTTTTTTTTTTT
MMM
AAAA
SSSSS

And share with you the:

Christmas Cookie Rules…

1. If you eat a Christmas cookie fresh out of the oven, it has no calories because everyone knows that the first cookie is the test and thus calorie free.

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Christmas Cookies Traditions

When I was younger, I got in to making Christmas cookies.  I’m really not sure how it happened, but it did and that’s what matters!  I would make up my list every year on who would get cookies, I would bake them up, divvy them out and my dad would drive me around (until I got of age to drive, then I’d drive him) delivering cookies.  I chose different recipes every year.

Then about 6 years ago or so I got out of doing that, which again I don’t know why and it truly is sad.  People would go to my parents saying, “I missed Nicole’s cookies this year.”

Since I’ve been with my husband I talk about this ritual quite a bit to him and finally this year we decided we’d do this tradition again, however Tbug was going to be involved.  So that’s just what we did.  Saturday morning, she and I set out to make Christmas cookies.

We chose to make Neiman Marcus cookies & Sugar Cookies (recipe follows)

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Ft. Worth Bound – Part I + a Giveaway

So last Wednesday night, I may or may not have posted this photo on Instagram.  And EmmyMom may or may not have said I looked like I was up to something…  My reply – a couple days vacation!!!  It was 5pm and I was headed to my parents house so we could move out!

Part of the goal was to make it to Pryor to JL’s (shhhh don’t tell Tbug!!) for dinner.  Hello Yummy!

Then we were back on the road headed to Ft. Worth!  We made it as far as Durant and everyone was tired and sick of being in the car so we stopped in at a hotel for the evening.  Btw, it was warmer at home than it was in Durant that night!


Next morning we were up and at em headed to Pilot Point, TX, for a stop at Paul Taylor’s tack store before heading on to Ft. Worth.

Hello Red River & the Texas State Line!  You know, we’ve seen a bunch of the Texas state line this year, but not as much as I did when I was a little kid!  I was the master traveler as a kid because we used to show horses all over Oklahoma and Texas.

When we got to Paul Taylor’s this lovely kitty followed me all around the store.  I think she/he really wanted this saddle, but it really wasn’t my cup of tea! 🙂

I did manage to sweet talk my daddy into stopping at Starbucks for a sweet Holiday Treat after we left Paul Taylor’s!  This was a Peppermint Mocha Frappe!  mmmmm!

So we didn’t really need to be to the Will Roger’s Coliseum until 4pm on Thursday afternoon so we decided to go kill a few hours down at the Stockyards.

I so should have bought this just because it was cute!  I didn’t though… I resisted the urge!

The Stockyards used to be where they shipped cattle in and out of Ft. Worth.  All the stores are in old stores &/or cattle holding grounds.  Now the Coliseum there at the Stockyards they still hold rodeo’s in, however they no longer use this as shipping grounds for cattle.  It’s just a main attraction.  The train though still runs on these tracks but for pleasure only.  Someday I’ll have to ride the train just to say I’ve done it!

I think I need the red lipstick to pull this look off, what do you think?

Just a different shot of a portion of the stockyards.  By this point we were walking up toward Riscky’s Steakhouse to grab a bite to eat before heading to our hotel to check in.

 

 

After we were done with lunch we headed to the hotel to check in and drop off our luggage and then headed to Will Rogers to watch the NCHA Amateur & Non Pro Finals of the 2012 NCHA Futurity.

Cutting horses are a blast if I do say so myself!

 

Amateur Winner – Destini Benson, on Jimmy Cracked Corn, by Widows Freckles
Amateur Reserve – Luke Barnhart, on Hal Of A Mate

Non Pro Winner – Paula Wood, on Donas Suen Boon with a 220
Non Pro Reserve – Greg Coalson,  aboard Mia Browbeater, with a 219

We got back to the hotel around Midnight, ate at Jack in the Box because they have a 24 hr drive through and we all crashed for the evening.

p.s. There’s still time to sign up for the April-June Review Extravaganza!!!

p.p.s. Check out this blog give-a-way… I may or may not have sponsored something there that I may or may not have bought in Ft. Worth!!  Check it out!

p.p.s. linked up with Sincerely, Paula’s Wordless Wednesday (or not wordless!)

I love the Goat Ornament…

Every year since I’ve been married to my husband we’ve tried to include Tbug in decorating our Christmas tree.  We miss the one Christmas when hubby and I were dating.  I know what all ornaments we own.  I know what all ornaments go onto our tree.

Granted, we have a few that we add every year – trips, family, etc, but I still know what they are because while we’re collecting them and it isn’t Christmas, I line them on the hooks in my kitchen just so they don’t get lost, broken or forgotten.  Therefore, I know all the ornaments on our tree.

This year’s additions:

One for Tbug’s Cheerleading that we found in Branson.

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Christmas Spirit

First off, I’d like to start this post by saying:

Happy Birthday Momma!

She hate’s having photos of herself so don’t tell I put this up K?

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Ever since my husband and I started dating, at Christmas time he’s mentioned to me we should go see the Living Christmas Tree at Ozark Christian College; and ever year we miss it because we don’t look for tickets soon enough.

Last week for some reason it popped into my head he’d like to go and so I jumped on line to see when the show was.  Low and behold it was Thursday of last week through Monday of this week.  Hawt Dawg just in the nick of time!

He got on line, we decided upon Monday night’s performance and away we went.

it’s grainy because it was iPhone quality without the flash.. sorry!

I’m not sure, but I’m sure the story line changes every year.  This particular one was “A Salute to Christmas”.

The show started at 7:30 so we ran by my parents house after work to help my mom put up her Christmas tree and then we jetted off to OCC.  We walked in at about 7:05 and there was 30 minutes of Pre-show entertainment.  It was hilarious.  We even learned how to make a Christmas dinner without dirtying up your kitchen, plus how to cook it on your drive to your relatives house :).  Yeah you had to be there to understand I think :).

The story took place during one of the World Wars, I believe II but they never really specified totally.  Anyway it was about trying to raise the moral of the soldiers who weren’t going to be home that year for Christmas.  It went multiple ways but ended up with teaching the story of Jesus.

And of course the whole Living Christmas Tree portion which was the real kicker to the story of Jesus and raising the “soldiers” moral.

And the whole theme of the night was Home or Going Home Again.  Wow, it was a fantastic performance.  Sadly I was really tired so by the end I was ready to go home, but it was a great show and so super glad we went!

Showboat Branson Belle

The other night I mentioned that we went to Branson, MO this weekend to take my mother-in-law on the Showboat Branson Belle.  A year ago I bought tickets to go through a United Way fundraiser at work and we absolutely LOVED it so this spring my parents went with us and then this last weekend my mother-in-law finally got to experience it.

I can’t even begin to tell you about the awesome weather.  We couldn’t have asked for a better weather experience!  Other than it was a bit overcast and extremely windy, the weather was perfect!  You had to wonder if it really was December 1st when the high topped out on Saturday at 72 degrees.

Now the Showboat Branson Belle is located on Table Rock lake.  Table Rock Lake has 800 miles of shoreline so it’s a good sized lake for a good sized paddle wheel ship that  that took 60 cases of bananas 9 seconds to slide the ship off the shoreline into the lake :).

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Santa's Little Helper

One tradition I’ve tried to keep in our house is decorating the tree on a weekend Tbug is at our house (2011, 2010, 2009).  It’s kind of a family thing.  Our tree decorations are living – as in we gather/collect new ones each year that represent us or things we have done that year.  Our tree tells a story.

Saturday night we decided to go ahead and put the tree up, you know since hubby’s wanted it up since August and Tbug wouldn’t be to our house again until the second weekend in December….

Last year we got a pre-lit tree.  I’m sad to say the top half already doesn’t work so while hubby was working on a solution, I decided to go ahead and start wrapping presents.

Tbug jumped right in the middle of what I was doing, asked me how to do it and immediately started helping wrap presents.  I’m  here to tell you, she did a decent job of it!  She’d do one side, I’d do the other and it was usually a team effort to start the whole wrapping process.

Then she was totally cracking me up in her placement of presents under the tree.  They had to be just right.
And she kept rearranging them until she got them the way she wanted them :).  Don’t mess with the girl on a Christmas present mission! 🙂