CHEERS

Happy New Year, y'all! (I'm a little late, huh?)

Lots of exciting things are happening here at the start of the new year! We welcomed the new year by having a little party at our place. I'm obsessed with making decorations, so I'll jump at the excuse to make some. We weren't even sure we were going to have a party when I started making decorations.

I thought a fun Christmas gift for Tana would be to give her a new year's decoration kit, so I doubled everything I made and gave it to her.

There's a part of me that I think should have been an elementary school teacher. I love cutting stuff out. And hot glue.

and glitter filled balloons sound like a great idea until one POPS and you have glitter everywhere.

(....but can we secretly admit that I don't mind the fact that it's hard to clean up and glitter makes me super happy?)



Cheers to 2015!

Christmas Gift Painting

My brother and sister-in-law saw the painting I made that's hanging in our living room and hinted that they would maybe request one in the future. I decided to surprise them with one as a christmas gift. It went through a lot of phases in the afternoon I painted it, but I like the end result.

Baby Bear Hat

I got a chance to sew my little nephew a bear hat before the holidays. I used this pattern and it was very easy to sew. It's reversible - but I didn't want to put ears on the inside because I thought that would be uncomfortable.

We had a wonderful visit with our family over the holidays. The highlight was definitely getting to know this little guy.

Happy Holidays!

I made a lot of presents this year that I'll share soon. We're enjoying time with family now and cuddling our sweet little nephew. More soon. Merry Christmas!

Happy Friday!

Happy Friday, y'all! We've got our friend Michele visiting from Italy, so we've been doing our part in showing him the best Tex-mex and Mexican food in Austin this week. (I don't think I've ever eaten so many chips & salsa in a week before!)

 Cheers to being Friday, and my final grades almost all put in!! WOOT

Thanksgiving Treats

We ended up having a huge change of plans for Thanksgiving after discovering that Big Bend's campgrounds would be full before we could even leave town. Two of our good friends just moved to Austin the week before, so we decided to have a proper Thanksgiving here with them. I baked all day Wednesday - brandied pumpkin pie, blondies, and a chocolate mocha cake (with my attempt at sculpting a turkey out of caramel for on top!).

 I thought I was over pumpkin pie, but OMG it was so good. I used the New York Time's recipe for brandied pumpkin pie that recommended using pureed butternut squash. I still had a couple jars of butternut squash from grandma's gardens, so I was sold. It's amazing. I also had never made my own pie crust before (pathetic, I know, but this is the first pie I've ever made...I'm usually not a pie person.)

The pie came out of the oven looking beautiful and later I covered it with a piece of plastic wrap. The plastic wrap eventually sunk onto part of the pie and when I pulled it up, the perimeter of the sunken plastic left a weird ring on my pie. Boo!

We had a perfect few days off and now there's only a tiny bit of the semester left before I can keep baking and meet my sweet little nephew, Jacob!