Merry Christmas

"It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas, every where you go." Can you believe it's Christmas time again? I can't either. To kick off the Christmas season this year, my husband and I surprised the kids with a trip to Disneyland on Thanksgiving Day. After all, there's nothing like walking down Main Street (with 50,000 of your closest friends - LOL) listening to Christmas carols and seeing the castle all decorated with lights and ornaments to put you in the Christmas spirit. Right? Yeah, we thought so too!

So on Thanksgiving Day we had an early dinner and then left for what the kids thought was going to be a trip into town to see a movie and then dessert. When we arrived at the airport and announced we were going to Disneyland instead, they were so excited! Then it dawned on them they hadn't packed anything, so they thought we were going to have to drive all the way back home to pack. Nope! I had done all the packing and had hidden their suitcases in the back. We were ready to go!

We arrived at Disneyland that evening and caught part of the fireworks show. We even managed to ride a few rides and have some hot cocoa and dessert. If you haven't been to Disney during the holidays you really should. The decorations and lights are amazing. Here are a few of the decorations we saw around the park.








What would the holidays be at Disneyland without a holiday dessert? These little cuties were at almost every restaurant we visited. These are the Mickey Demitasse cups and they come filled with a delicious chocolate mousse and the cup is yours to keep. From what I hear these cups are available every year with a different design. How cool is that for the collector? They were also very yummy!





Of course what Disney trip for our family would be complete without a Photopass picture in front of the castle. Here is this year's picture for us.





I used Basic Grey's Eskimo Kisses paper collection. I thought the colors in this collection worked perfectly with the colors of the castle. I'm glad I still had some sitting around! I also used Martha Stewart's punch around the page to create the border around the white cardstock. Thanks for looking and have a very blessed Christmas and a prosperous New Year!

Welcome to the 100 Acre Wood

I'd like to share with you all our family's most recent party.  Every once in a while my husband and I like to surprise the kids with a theme party.  Well, on Friday afternoon/evening we visited the 100 Acre Wood right in our own house.  

After dropping the kids off at school Friday morning, I hurried home to begin the transformation.  The first thing to do was remove the furniture from the living room.  After this was done we could begin transforming the living room into the 100 Acre Wood.  I assembled three "trees" from 8" cardboard cement tubes I got from Home Depot.  I simply stacked one on top of the other and taped it really well with packing tape.  Then I wrapped each tube with brown, plastic table cloth sheathing from the party store.  For the tree tops I cut a slit into the center of a round, plastic table cloth and slid these over the tubes.  I secured these to the ceiling with push pins.  

After the "trees" were in place I attached several bees, honeycombs, and butterflies to the ceiling as well to give it a nice festive look.  Finally, I attached a red balloon around one of Pooh's arms and some fishing line to one of his ears.  This I secured to the ceiling with a push pin, and Voila!  A floating Pooh, soaring up to the top of the honey tree.  

The last final touch to make this feel like you were truly entering the 100 Acre Wood was the scene setter back ground on the wall, and some leaves on the floor.  Dan spent a good half hour gathering up fallen leaves that weren't too dirty to spread onto the floor.  I think it gave the room a nice touch. 

Of course what party would be complete without food?  In keeping with the theme of Winnie the Pooh, I found these small honey pots that I used as soup bowls.  Inside was a yummy cheddar and broccoli soup that did resemble honey.  It was a lot of fun pretending we were eating honey out of a real honey pot.  

To go along with our soup, we also enjoyed some sandwiches and of course, some Kerrits!  LOL

To finish our festive meal off, we enjoyed some yummy Pooh cake. 

Everyone enjoyed themselves, including our little dog who made the most adorable, chubby, little bee!!

Thanks for stopping by and be sure to keep an eye out for a layout of this most recent party of ours. 

Someday...My Prince Will Come

...sing with me now!  You know you want to!  Well I finally finished a project I have been working on for about a month now.  Yes, a month.  It was one of those projects that you see in your mind's eye, but you can't quite make it happen the way you envision.  So, I did a little here and a little there as I had time, and played with it until it turned out the way I had originally planned.  I think it turned out pretty good!

This is my dear daughter all dressed up like a princess...sitting in front of the castle at WDW.  She was sitting there all by herself when the song "Someday my prince will come" popped into my head.  So, I had to get the camera out and start snapping shots.  I think the idea of this layout was conceived on this day!  LOL  It only took me close to a year to get to getting around to.   Here are some close-ups:

 

I had a lot of fun playing with different techniques with this one.  I did some stenciling, color blending, punching as well as using my Silhouette for the title.  I also used a generous helping of stickles for the title and gate.  But honestly, glitter and princesses just go hand-in-hand.  LOL 

Bengal Beef Kabobs

I have a recipe to share today!  It comes from the Bengal BBQ restaurant in Disneyland and is one of my family's favorites.  In fact, we just had it for dinner last night.  I'll include the recipe below, but I must warn you, this is a spicy dish.  It includes three different peppers, but don't be scared off.  This is a delicious dish and you can adjust the amount of pepper you use if you don't like things very spicy.  For my family we use the recipe as is and have a glass of milk close by.  I recommend a rice dish to go along with this.  Tonight I made a simple risotto with a little bit of cream cheese which also helped with the heat factor.

I think it's fun to make a meal from your favorite restaurant or theme park at home.  Many times you can find your favorite recipes online.  That's how I came across the recipe for this dish.  

Bengal Beef Kabobs

1 pkg. thinly sliced breakfast steak at room temperature (any thinly sliced steak will work)

Salt and Pepper for seasoning

Olive Oil

Kabob Skewers

 

With a meat mallet, pound your steaks to get them even thinner and to also tender them up a bit.   Rub your steaks down with a little olive oil or vegetable oil then salt and pepper.  Carefully skewer your steaks and set aside.  While your BBQ grill is getting nice and hot, prepare your sauce:

 

Beef Dip
WARNING: Very Hot Sauce
1 cup Soy Sauce 
1 ½ cup Water
1 tblsp. Ground Black Pepper
3 tblsp. Sesame Seed Oil
1 tsp. Ground Red Pepper
1/2 tsp. Cayenne Pepper
1 tblsp. Fresh Garlic
1 tblsp. Corn Starch

Mix all ingredients except cornstarch. Bring to a slow boil over medium heat. Add cornstarch to thicken.  A little trick I learned using cornstarch is to add a little bit of COLD water to it to make a slurry before pouring into your pot.  This dissolves the cornstarch so you don't have lumps. 

Grill your steaks until your preferred level of doneness then using a basting brush spread the sauce over your steaks.  Serve hot on the skewer.  Enjoy!

Home, Home on the Range...

...where the children and chickens play!  LOL  That should be the theme song around here.  The kids just love to go out and play with the chickens and gather their eggs.  Since getting these little hens back in April, they've been a daily source of entertainment.  Who knew chickens could be so funny!  So today I thought it would be fun to let the kids, I mean chickens, out of their coop to free range a little bit.  This was the first time we let them go completely free.  The kids were a little nervous at first, not knowing how far they would wander.  But they did pretty good and stayed pretty close to the coop (the chickens, not the kids).  They loved eating all the fresh green grass, clover, dandelions, and anything else they could forage for.  Here's a few of them just after leaving the coop.  They stayed close together at first.

After a while they started going off in separate directions.  With four chickens and only two kids to lasso them up, we decided that was enough for one day and gathered them up.  

Here's a shot of my daughter's favorite.  We never did name this one, we just call her "the white one."  Actually the only one we did name is the brown one and her name is Penny, as in Henny Penny....get it?  LOL

As we rounded all the little clucksters up I got this shot of my daughter holding Penny, and yes, that is a feather in her hair.  You might say she's gone a little birdy.

Th...th...tha...that's all folks!  Have a great day!

Disney Scrappers' Challenge

One of my main hobbies is scrap booking.  So I was so happy to discover Disney Scrappers, a scrap booking site dedicated to all things Disney.  Since we've had a few vacations there over the years, I have a few photos to work with.  Right now they've got several challenges posted for various themes.  I've completed a few of the challenges and thought I'd post a layout I recently completed for Challenge #3, On the Wild Side.  This challenge is all about Disney's wild life.  Things such as the Kilimanjaro Animal Safari, Animal Kingdom, or even as tame as the Jungle Cruise.  I decided to use a couple of pictures we had taken at the Tusker House restaurant at Disney's Animal Kingdom park. 

 

I used Bo Bunny's Zoology collection here for the mat, background paper and animal print accent paper.  The flowers are a combination of Prima and Petaloo.  The black hidden Mickey is actually a paint sample from The Home Depot that I just peeled off of the paint chip.  This was a fun layout to work on and I even dug up some old trim with fringe to replicate animal fur.  TFL

Flying over Seattle

This weekend my husband and son traveled to Seattle for a guy's only weekend to visit the Everett Museum.  This weekend they had some vintage aircraft doing demos in a show they called the Battle of Britain.  After this they toured Boeing Airfield and got to take a rare flight in a vintage bi-plane over Seattle!  My little guy was so ecstatic, and with his flight goggles on, he looked just like the Red Baron.  Isn't he cute!!

Just prior to boarding he got a little nervous about riding in such an old plane.  He asked his dad if it was going to crash.  LOL  Here he is getting ready to board.

Here are some of the views they got while in flight. 

         

 I guess flying in an open air cockpit is very loud, but they didn't mind.  After all, this may have been a once in a lifetime opportunity. 

Jumping into the Blogging World!

Hi everybody and welcome to my little corner of the big wide blogging world.  Here you'll find little bits of things that make me happy like my family, home, scrapbooking, homeschooling, photography, all things Disney, photography and my faith.  

For my first post I want to share a magical experience my husband and I just had at Disney World.  My husband surprised me with a stay at the Grand Floridian resort.  This was a great surprise, but it really was just the beginning of the magic.  Upon check in, we were told that we had been upgraded from a standard room to a concierge level, park view room.  Yes, that's right, a room with a perfect view of the castle with our own private balcony!  Our room was located on a "hidden" floor in the main building just a short, perfumed walkway down from the concierge lounge.  It was amazing!  You did read that right, the hallway was perfumed!  It was a very strong floral scent.  Thankfully though, our room was not perfumed.  I don't think I could have handled that heavy perfume all night, but it sure was nice in the hallway.  

After leaving the hotel, we hopped on the monorail which took us directly to the Magic Kingdom.  It was such a nice and easy way to get to the park.  Since we didn't have the kids with us this time, I had the time to take lots of pictures.  Unfortunately I forgot my tripod, so I was a limited to daylight photos.  I did happen to take this lovely picture of the castle at dusk.

 

My dear husband was so patient with my photography.  He told me not to worry about him, just to take the pictures I wanted and he'd keep an eye on me and follow me wherever I wanted to go.  Sure enough, I'd get caught up in settings and angles and then turn around thinking I'd lost him in the crowd.  But nope, he was right there waiting there for me and even carried my camera bag.  Isn't he a great guy?  I'm so thankful for such a loving, caring man.