Another 5 years ago today post

Molly and her kids came over to help us decorate the christmas tree if I remeber correctly great time was had by all but Avery who fell asleep very early and did not get to help with much but I am sure he did get to eat at couple of cookies before he crashed.

Christmas Cookie Blog Swap Hop

This recipe is from my dear friend Elannah and it makes the best Biscotti, this cookie has quickly become a Christmas favorite at our house and I truely hope you like it. 
1 3/4 cups all purpose flour

2 tsp baking powder
1/2 cup whole unblanched almonds
2 eggs
3/4 cup granulated sugar
1/3 cup butter, melted
2 tsp vanilla
1/2 tsp almond extract
1 1/2 tsp grated orange rind
1 egg white, lightely beaten

In large bowl, combine flour and baking powder; stir in almonds. Whisk
together eggs, sugar, butter, vanilla, almond extract and orange rind;
stir into flour mixture until soft, sticky dough forms.
Transfer dough to lightly floured work surface; with hands, form into
smooth ball. Divide in half; roll each into 12 inch long log. Transfer
to ungreased baking sheet.
Brush tops with egg white; bake in 350 degree F oven for 20 minutes.
Remove from oven and let cool on sheet on rack for 5 minutes.
Transfer each log to cutting board' with sharp knife, cut diagonally
into 3/4 inch thick slices. Stand cookies upright on baking sheet'
bake for 20 to 25 minutes longer or until golden. Remove biscotti to
rack and let cool. Biscotti can be stored in airtight container for up
to 2 weeks. Makes about 24 cookies.

While I was making these my dd Abby found some Madeline tins that I got at a garage sale years ago.  I have never made cookies in them though.  But she wanted me to make some so off to the internet I went for a recipe and this is what I found.
MADELINES

Printed from COOKS.COM
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
1/2 lb. cake flour
1/2 lb. sugar
5 eggs
1/2 lb. butter
1/2 tsp. vanilla extract
1. Preheat oven to 340 degrees.
2. Melt 1/2 pound butter over hot water (or by microwave).
3. Sift flour and sugar to bowl.
4. Add 5 eggs, stirring well to blend.
5. Add melted butter from step 2 and vanilla extract. Blend well.
6. Let stand about 1 hour.
7. Pour batter into buttered madeline pans.
8. Bake 15-20 minutes.
They turned out really well and Rachel and Sierra really liked them alot and Kai loved the cookie dough, so much that the second half of the batch never got made.

The next stop on the hop is Kat who I am sure has a fab recipe for you to try out.  I plan on making all of these cookies on this train some time during the holiday season, you never know what is going to be your new family fav.
Amber

5 years Ago

Not to the exact day but in November we were dog sitting Molly while Mom was in Paris(lucky Mom) and decided to go to the beach.  I sure wish we lived just an hours drive from the beach now.  I love these pics of the kids and dogs playing on the Jetty in Florence because of the happy memories that they bring back to me.

What says Christmas to me

Cookies and nothing says Christmas cookies more than these tins. That my mom used to store cookies in when I was a little girl.  Christmas cookie baking would start in late October and the cookies would all go into these tins to wait until Christmas.  You can imagine how happy I was to find some of these tins in my garage after our last move, they still have the tape on them that my Mom wrote what type of cookie was in what tin.  I hope that these tins stay in the family filled with cookies for many more years to come.
Join me on December 1st when I join the Christmas Cookie Swap Blog Train for lots of yummy cookie recipes to share with your family.

Oh and since this one had the store name still intact I looked up the store Collin Street Bakery and it is still in business.  I remember the very best fruitcake coming once a year to my Mom in these tins from her Aunt and Uncle.

Advent Calendars

When I was a little girl we used to have this great Advent Calendar that was shaped like an angel.  We used it every year until it just fell apart when I was about 12 or so.  As a mom I feel like I have not been as good at teaching my children the meaning of advent as my mom was.  We always so looked forward to the little door to open and the story that would go with the picture.  I am trying this year with my own advent calendar that will not be filled with just goodies but with nice things to do for other family members and the neighbors.  I went with a cute stocking theme to make mine, but also spent lots of time on 2peasinabucket.com and Etsy.com looking at others advent calendar ideas.  Here are 5 of my favorites from Etsy.com.

Unfortunately since I have to work out of town the first 3 days of the month mine will not go up untill the 4th, but I can not wait to start a new/old family tradition for my children.

I miss these people!

Got to love facebook and the pics you find there.  Here is the rest of the family clelbrating Thanksgiving at home in Oregon.  I sure wish I had been there with them.

A couple more Gratitude LO's

With out my computer or scrap stuff half the week it is hard to keep this up on a daily basis but here are a couple of gratitude LO's that I have gotten done this week.

Christmas Cookie Blog HOP!

On December 1st I will be participating in a Christmas Cookie Blog hop with these other great bakers and bloggers.  So please come back then and get some great Christmas baking ideas.

Here’s the list of blog hop participants:

http://loishouston.typepad.com/thoughts ... s-highway/
http://www.scatteredpoppies.com/
http://www.littlelifeofscrap.blogspot.com/
http://web.me.com/xnomads
http://www.evalyn.typepad.com/
http://mypixelatedoasis.blogspot.com/
http://livelifeandscrapit.wordpress.com/
http://www.beglorious.blogspot.com/
http://www.deanabirks.com/
http://mylifesingredients.blogspot.com/
http://purplecrazymum.blogspot.com/
http://www.cupcakequeenworld.blogspot.com/

North again!

Well Monday morning  and I am heading north again.  I sure miss the kids but I do really like the job so it is worth it.  I am hoping for a little snow this time.
I spent the day working on my display clipboard for Jessica Spragues Holidays in Hand class and finally came up with something I like.  I also decided to do digi for the layouts and journalling and so was playing around with the lovely digital goodies that we recieved in the class.

Here is my clipboard and my digital LO that is just waiting for a pic from the first day of December.  I am not usually a digital scrapper but I wanted something I could work on without making a mess and that would be different than my December Daily Album.

Getting Ready for Advent

Last year I made the cutest advent calendar filled it with chocolate and Kai ate them all before the month even started plus he ruined the little boxes, so this year it is little stockings that will have flat gifts and or a fun PIF for the kids to do on the days that I am working in Park City and not home here in St. George.  I am having so much fun making these little stockings that I just had to share the first 5 with you.

On another note my sister and I are going to go see New Moon this evening and I am so excited.

I had such a great time with the blog around the world and am looking forward to December 1st when a bunch of us from Shimelles class are doing a Christmas Baking Blog Hop.

Blog around the world

I will probably be driving from Park City Utah to St. George Utah when this goes live but I can not wait to get home and look at the view from everybody's window.  I think that this is going to be so much fun.  I also can not wait to get home, scrap and spend time with my kids.  4 days is too many to be gone from them.  Here is 2 views from my windows in Herber City which is where I am staying till we can find a house in Park City closer to my job.

Here is where you go next http://mayadahan.blogspot.com/
Here is the list for the blog hop so if you get lost you can find your way with this list.
http://helenascreativemaven.blogspot.com/
http://www.overatourplace.blogspot.com/
http://mgstebbins.blogspot.com/
http://www.sheree412.blogspot.com/
http://purplecrazymum.blogspot.com/
http://web.me.com/xnomads
http://designrecollections.co.uk/blog/
http://karen-somewhereovertherainbow.blogspot.com/
http://tracyscraftycorner.blogspot.com/
http://www.scrappyjackylive.blogspot.com/
http://www.joolsg.com/blog
http://www.debs14.blogspot.com/
http://fromhighinthesky.blogspot.com/
http://www.calendulafitzpatrick.blogspot.com/
http://suburbansahm.blogspot.com/
http://paperturtle.blogspot.com/
http://scrappin24-7.blogspot.com/
http://elinjanne.wordpress.com/
http://1-goodthing.blogspot.com/
http://www.thelinarstudio.typepad.com/
http://cheriandrews.blogspot.com/
http://sm3wkl.blogspot.comi/
http://maverickcrafter.blogspot.com/
http://www.stop-drop-roll-rachel.blogspot.com/
my blog: http://this-is-cyndis-world.blogspot.com
http://twistsonlemon.blogspot.com/
http://moore-fun-in-the-sun.blogspot.com/
http://juliejohnson2007.typepad.com/
http://capturethememories.blogspot.com/
www.dragonsladyonline.com/wordpress
http://sassysasha.typepad.com/
http://this-is-cyndis-world.blogspot.com/
http://www.beglorious.blogspot.com/
http://mypixelatedoasis.blogspot.com/
http://amberls365.blogspot.com/
http://mayadahan.blogspot.com/
http://sharyncarlson.typepad.com/
http://lens-and-pens.blogspot.com/
http://gallorganico.blogspot.com/
http://scrapbookaddict.typepad.com/life_musings//
http://helenascreativemaven.blogspot.com/

I hope that you all have a wonderful day.

Today is the day

Today is the day that I leave my warm cozy St. George home and head up north for a new adventure and a new job in Park City.  The kids will not be joining me until after Christmas so it is very bitter sweet, but they got a good send off, fresh juice and warm cinnimon(never can spell that word) rolls this morning.  I am grateful that I have a sister in town that is willing to watch after them so that they do not have to be pulled from school in the middle of the year.

Holidays in Hand starts today!

I had almost forgotten that I had signed up for this class at Jessica Sprague.com Holidays in Hand.  It is a week long class and as such I should be able to handle it although my class work will have to be done mostly here on the blog because as of tomorrow I will be working in Park City and living the rest of my life 5 hours away in St. George.  Since it is a good career move I am happy but it does leave me without a computer 3 days a week and without paper scrapping supplies at both places as I have packed up most of it.
Todays assingment was to list our goals now I am not sure if these are holiday goals or goals for the class but I am going with holiday goals.
1. I want to remember the holidays as they happen
2.I want to spend more time making the holidays special not buy what I buy but by what we do to celelbrate them.
3. I want traditions that are ours, not ones just that I have brought forward from my parents.  Does anybody really need 10 types of scandinavian and german christmas cookies.  What about Christmas cupcakes?  or something else the kids find more fun to eat and make.
4.  I want to buy less, and not feel guilty about it.
5.  I want more famly time and less time worrying about making things look perfect for those looking in from the outside.
6.  I want a white Christmas-Park City in my rented room with all of us together sounds perfect to me.

THAW LO's

I love a challenge and this month the challenge is 2 a week at Willow Traders, now I do more than 2 a week with the blogging class and the gratitude album but I love the challenges put forth at willow traders so I do them too, plus they are LO's for my regular albums and as such are full sized which I seem to have a harder time doing lately than mini albums.The challenges for this week were a gift and something that is beautiful to you. 

This hat was one of my favorite gifts to buy of all time, a pink sparkley cowboyhat what could be better, plus Rachel loved it so much that year.

Is so beautiful to me, as the journaling says I do not get to see it as much as I would like since she is now a teenager but at least I have pics like this to look back on and that make me smile.

A few LO's that I have completed this week.

Ok so I have not finished the journaling on this one but I have been pretty distracted this week with changing jobs and the like so I have a few LO's that will need to be journaled on this winter when times are quieter.

Another LO just waiting for journaling.  I love the friendship that these 2 have and that they are rarely apart.

My gratitude LO foFriday it was such a pleasure to wake up to the rain

My Gratitude LO from Wednesday.  Thursday did not get a layout this week just not enough time.

5 on Friday

My 5 most visited websites according to google chrome-I love that it saves a screen shot of the pages that I visit the most.
1. Shimelle's  forum I am sure this is because of the class I am taking blogging for scrapbookers but I also am in love with her blog and you must try her cupcake recipes.http://www.shimelle.com/
2.http://www.willowtraders.com/ one of my favorite groups of people on the web.  They are a great bunch that is truely a family of over 5000.  What started out as a way to trade scrapbook kits has turned into a full service website with a great caring group of people and yes they still sell and trade scrapbook kits.
3.http://www.twopeasinabucket.com/ Ok what can I say, this is the biggest scrapbooking site on the wed and I spend way to much time here looking through the gallery and reading the NSBR board hoping for a laugh or two, you can ask the peas anything and you will get an answer.
4. http://www.facebook.com/home.php my way of staying connected with my friends and family.  I love that my nieces, sister, brother, best friend from grade school and current scrapping friends are all in one easy to love place.  I have stopped playing games here as I found they were eating up to much time but once in a while somebody I know will stop by and water my farm for me.
5. http://www.ikeagoddess.blogspot.com/ I am a sucker for a good freebie and she takes all the work out of finding the best digital scrapbooking freebies on the web for me.
So those are my 5 most visited websites of the week next week I hope to list 5 favorite Etsy shops so if you have any you think I should check out please send me a link.

Fun and themes

Ok so the last 2 days of Shimelles class kinda have me stumped, I mean I should be able to blog, or scrapbook about FUN right.  I mean why else scrap if it is not fun, of course it is but yesterday I could not come to the conculsion that it was ok to scrap about scrapping and so I was stuck, I could not blog I could not scrap.  Ok so I finally did a LO about FUN and Disneyland, but of course that seems so cliche of course Disneyland is fun and our last trip there was really not that fun at least for me. 4 sets of teenager hormones had me wanting to go find a place to hide under a rock.  So I really could not post that LO because I did not think it worthy of the class.  Silly me of course any creative endever is what I am aiming for so I am not going to let that stop me in the future. Then todays prompt came, patterns well anybody that knows me knows that my life is anything but ordered, I mean except for getting up and going to work in the mornings any thing can happen on any day of the week.  Such is the joy of living with 3 children and 2 dogs that are anything but predicatble, throw in a sister 3 dogs and 3 horses and life is chaotic at best.  So maybe I need some order one thing besides work that I can fall back on a regular basis and maybe my blog is a place for that to happen, so starting tomorrow at least for the next month I will have 5 on Fridays. 5 of my favorite things to do, see, use maybe even a Christmas cookie recipe or two.  I will see how much I like introducing a little structure into my chaotic life, and hey if it can work on a blog maybe it will work with chores to( well a Mom can hope right).

Why?..............................

This is the question I get asked on a daily basis.  Why do I have to unload the dishwasher why do I have to take the dogs out, why does Rachel not have to do the above mentioned tasks.  Why are we eating that, doing this.  I get so tired of answering the whys but then again if we do not question we can not learn.  So when the girls asked why it was taking so long to get to Park City on Saturday I told them it was because we were taking the scenic route, now I guess at 11 and 13 that is akin to torture so for the rest of the trip I had to hear about WHY the scenic route was stupid, dumb and had no good stores on it.  Well I promised them that day that I would not do it again, but then this morning while pondering todays class leason and looking over pictures of the trip I came across this one that one of them had taken out of the window when we were driving and I had an answer to why we took the scenic route.  Also I hate to break promises girls but we will be taking the scenic route again, maybe not this year but it will happen because I like pictures like this and the memories that they will one day hold for you too.  So the answer to WHY? is truely because I say so.

It has been harder keeping up 2 projects at the same time than I thought it would  be but I am managing.  It is also hard to get good photos of LO's when it is dark when I go to work and dark when I get home.  Oh well winter does not last forever.

Goals

What are my current goals right now,  I truely am not sure sometimes I feel like not setting goals because I do not like to fail and I am not good at follow through.  But then I thought about it some more and told myself why do they have to be big goals, why not take something small for your first public goal setting and things got more managable from that point of view. 
One of the things that I love to do is spend time outdoors with the kids but as they have gotten older it is not as frequent that we just go to the park or for a walk. But yesterday afternoon everybody was just doing nothing and I suguested a walk down by the river, to my suprise they all jumped at this, even Kai and off we went for a walk along the breams.  They also had to stop and play at the gyro park, even though they are really too big for the equipment there they had a blast.
So my goal for today is to spend more time outdoors with the kids.  They might be teenagers but they still like to play they just kinda have to be told it is ok to do so.

I did not post the pages from my daily gratitude album over the weekend so here they are.

.

A productive scrapping weekend!

I just counted up the number of layouts and projects that I did for the crop at APIT and it was 12 LO's 2 cards and a 6 pack of altered pumpkin placecard holders and a glittery butterfly.  Now I am happy that I got all of these challenges done and I actually really like most of the layouts but I am feeling guilty for not cleaning the house.  Does that mean that I am going to do it now though, NO there are still 2 challenges unfinished and if you know me you know I can not pass up a challenge, but first Abby and Sierra and I are going for a walk along the River to just get out and enjoy some fresh air.
Here are a couple of my favorite LO's from the weekend, and the butterfly.

Me

This one if for you Mom!  Happy Birthday!

Why do long drives make it so I can not sleep at night?

Ok I have been home for 3 hours now, I should be sleeping but sleep will not come, so I have been scrapping and editing photos from the drive.  I really should get to sleep but I am wide awake so here are a couple of my favorite photos from the drive, of the kids and of an area of the state that I had not had the pleasure of seeing before.  Seiver River and Bridal Veil Falls.