What are your 100 Joys this Season? What joy is God putting in front of you to see? Blog about your 100 Joys and come back here every Sunday to link up! Sign the linky below and then go visit each other!
A huge joy in my life is a wonderful group of ladies that get together once a month to play Bunko. Friday night it was so much fun not only to get together, eat, play Bunko but we also had a Christmas Present Exchange. We had so much fun and I couldn't imagine my life without these women!
First off... I'd love to have you join in with me sharing our Joys of the Season! Click on the button above to learn more about it and then come back here on Sunday to link up!
It is a huge joy that I listen to a local Christian Radio Station, KLTY 94.9. It's an even bigger joy that during the Christmas season they have a program called the KLTY Christmas Wish. People can nominate others, or themselves, that have come across hard times. Some just need a meal, a bill paid, or need to get caught up and want to give their kids a Christmas that they deserve. Others need so much more! If you want to get involved, and I highly suggest you do, just head on over to the KLTY website to find out more information. You can go to one of their live broadcasts and pick out a family to bless or just give a donation. If you can't make it to one of their live broadcasts you can also send in your donation.
Sam and I had the privilege of going to one of these broadcasts (which are at local Chick-Fil-A's) last Friday morning. I can't begin to tell you how wonderful it was to see table after table of families looking through the binders trying to find a family to bless. All of the nominations that have been sent in are put into binders by categories and you can look through them until you find the one that touches your heart. Here is a picture I took (sorry about the bad quality) of Frank Reed during the broadcast that Sam and I went to.
Below are a few of the Christmas Wishes that have been granted this year and in years past. I'm telling you now....get some tissues as they will touch your heart. Once you've watched them think about helping out another family this year; even if it's not through this program.
During the holiday season I love to bake! And the thing that I love to bake the most is cookies. I'm sure this comes from watching and helping my mom make cookies and treats. I also look forward to trying a new one every year. This year I made flour-less Peanut Butter Cookies! I found this recipe on the Diabetic Living website and knew that I had to try them. These are making my favorites list and will do them again! I may not even wait until Christmas either. These would be great anytime of year.
Can't wait to share more of my 100 Joys with you. I'm seeing them around me all the time now. Camera is in hand! I'd love to have you join in with me sharing our Joys of the Season! Click on the button above to learn more about it and then come back here on Sunday to link up!
1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees F. Grease cookie sheets and set aside. In a medium bowl, stir together the 1 cup sugar, the peanut butter, and egg until well mixed. Using your hands, roll peanut butter mixture into 1-inch balls; place 2 inches apart on prepared cookie sheets. Flatten each ball slightly with a drinking glass that has been lightly greased and dipped in sugar. Lightly grease a small star-shaped cookie cutter; dip in sugar. Press into the center of each cookie.
2. Bake about 9 minutes or until edges are set and bottoms are lightly browned. Makes 36 cookies.
MY NOTES: I baked mine for 7 minutes because the 9 minute ones came out pretty dark and very crisp. I like mine to have some softness to them.
If you'd like to see more recipes head on over to Smockity Frocks!
For Wordless/Wordful Wednesday this week I said that I was going to start posting my 100 Joys of this Christmas season. Some of you may be wondering what it's all about. Last year I participated in Sarah Markley's 100 Joys. I've asked her if she's going to do it again this year and if not would she mind if I did it. I have yet to hear back from her. This is something that I've actually been looking forward to for quite some time so I've decided to go ahead and do it this year. I am going to find 100 Joys that God is going to put in my path for the next 31 days. They can be big or small, significant or insignificant, silly or serious. I'd love to have you all participate along with me!
I will be posting mine pretty much every day and then do a weekly re-cap. You could just do it once a week. It's all up to you. Just find those 100 Joys in your life. I'll put a Linky up and we'll do a Blog Hop to see everyone's Joys. The Linky will go up every Sunday. But I'll have one here today as well. Help spread the word and grab the button above.
I asked the blog that hosted 100 Joys last year if she was going to do it again this year, and I asked if she wouldn't mind if I went ahead and did it myself. I have yet to receive a response. So....I'm doing it anyway. Just going to start with one since this is technically my Wordless/Wordful Wednesday post. I am, however, going to post a few of my 100 Joys of this season every day. Or at least try to get a few up every day. I'd love to see what your 100 Joys are this season. If there is a big enough response I'll make a button for us and also choose a day for us to link up!
My first Joy that I'm going to share with you today is seeing a cat experience a Christmas Tree for the first time. Here is Sam's cat, Isabelle, checking out an ornament hanging off of the tree. I love the expression on her face as she sniffs the ornament.
I can't believe that it's been a couple of weeks since I've updated my blog. I had a pretty sick kid on Thanksgiving. Sam ran a VERY high fever (105.1) off and on for a couple of days. Medicine would bring it down but as soon as it would just start to wear off his fever would sore again. He was really upset about it because we were going to put up our tree on Thanksgiving (which is a first for us doing it that early) and I kept putting it off until he was feeling better. By Friday he was feeling well enough to help me put the tree up and decorate it. Wait...let me rephrase that...HE put up the tree and decorated it. When I got the tree out and was getting things ready he said that this year he wanted to do it all by himself. Who am I to argue! He did a fantastic job! Here's a picture of him with one of the many ornaments that went up this year.
Thought I'd share with you a view out of my window the other morning. The fog was beautiful and once I was outside it was all overhead but from my window I was on top of it.
Have you seen the fabulous Christmas Cards over at Tiny Prints? What? You haven't? Well what are you waiting for....head on over there now! But I'm warning you now there are so many amazing cards that you're going to have a hard time picking one out to use. Maybe you'll have to choose more than one. One set for your relatives and another for your friends. Here are a few that I'm considering using.
The first one is "Wrapped Presents". I'm showing you the front and the back. I love the colors and how they cut into the picture to make it look like a wrapped up present.
Secondly, is the card called, "By Starlight". I love the simplicity of this card. It's not a photo card (they have 31 cards with no photos) but it speaks volumes!
Thirdly, I want to show you another one of my favorites, and how you can customize your card. This one is "Sloping Snowfall" and I chose the black background. I like the this background because I personally think it make the pictures POP off of the page.
Everyone loves giving and receiving Christmas Cards. With over 400 Christmas Cards to choose from Tiny Prints has you covered! All of them are AMAZING! Hop on over to Tiny Prints today to pick out your own to send!
Now if you need more convincing, and I don't see why you would....but....here is why you should choose using Tiny Prints for your Christmas Cards.
I am receiving 50 Christmas Cards from Tiny Prints for this post. My opinions are my own.
My family and I really miss driving around in the Chevy Traverse! We had a great time test driving it for two weeks and blogging about it. Did you miss that? You can find it here and here. The Chevy Traverse has a remote start which I thought I would wear out, 10 cup holders (yes, that's 10), it seats 8 people, storage in the back, seats fold down flat, and heated seats are just a few of my favorite features!
Would you like to experience this car as well? You have nothing to lose by doing so. Just visit any of these North Texas Chevy Dealers, test drive a Traverse or a Malibu (fantastic car too!) and get this...you get a $40 giftcard to SpaFinder! That's right, a $40 giftcard to SpaFinder! See...you have nothing to lose and there are no strings attached!
Hurry, you only have until November 23rd, 2011! Here are all the details.
It's hard to believe that we finally had our first frost! Two days before we had temps in the 80s! And now today we have temps in the 70s. But we did finally have it.
It's Tuesday and time to share some recipes over at Tasty Tuesday! Just click on the button above and enjoy all the amazing recipes!
Last week I thought I'd try something fun and very different. I'm pretty sure that it came from a show that Sam watches every now and then, iCarly, and I have to say that they were REALLY GOOD! It's Spaghetti Tacos. Trust me on this one. The two flavors of the spaghetti and the hard taco shells go together like you wouldn't believe. Of course you can really change this one around to your tastes by adding meatballs on the bottom, having just spaghetti noodles and sauce, or spaghetti noodles with a meat sauce (which is what I did). And, changing the flavor of the sauce will change it as well.
Spaghetti Tacos
Ingredients
1 (16 ounce) package spaghetti
1 (28 ounce) jar spaghetti sauce (I used a can of Hunt's Four Cheese)
1 (5.8 ounce) package crisp taco shells
1/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese
Optional: Ground Meat or Meatballs
Directions
Fill a large pot with lightly salted water and bring to a rolling boil over high heat. Once the water is boiling, stir in the spaghetti, and return to a boil. Cook the pasta uncovered, stirring occasionally, until the pasta has cooked through, about 8 minutes. Drain well in a colander set in the sink.
Return the pasta to the pot, and pour the sauce over the pasta; mix thoroughly until reheated. Place the taco shells into a microwave oven in a stack, and fan the stack out to a circular shape so the edges of the taco shells overlap slightly. Cook on High until warmed and crisp, 30 to 45 seconds. Fill the warm taco shells with the pasta mixture. Sprinkle pasta filling of each shell with about 1 teaspoon of Parmesan cheese to serve.
