Gnocchi's have arrived

What is a Gnocchi you wonder, it's a cross between a dumpling and a pasta. My wonderful MIL made some for us to have this week. You can make them out of flour, potato or ricotta cheese. We decided to try the Ricotta recipe (and bless her heart she made some with gluten free flour for me too). I can't WAIT to have these this week. Naturally Mikayla had to jump in on the gnocchi making fun! You roll the dough on the paddle to make the shape, after dried or frozen you boil them and serve with your favorite red pasta sauce.

Musical family

Here Michael is playing the electric guitar instead of the 12 string, he does a really good job!!

Here is Mikayla, playing her piano after having played the guitar and singing for us...all before 6:30 am... wow, I wish she woke up that happy and energetic every day!

Craft Room Update

Here is the not so new but very improved game/tv/scrap room

My work tables, etc

New cubes :) I LOVE my cubes - even have three empty cubes just waiting for stuff....

The top row of small bottles are all my delectible stickles!! A girl can't have too many!!!

my Scrappy world started here.... I didn't have anything in addition to what fits inside this bad boy LOL (that was a LONG time ago), I never thought I'd need more than what it could hold.

I'm so happy with my area, I can't wait to spend some time up there and see what creativity finds me :)

Have a great week!!!

Scrap Area

Well I'm in the process of re-organizing not necessarily because it's a new year but rather I really need to make my space a LOT more functional, I just sort of ran out of areas to put my products...so here is the work in progress, I'll post progress as I get it. My redo started with this NIFTY storage unit...I can't say enough good about it!!! I'm so excited!!!!! (there will be a 2nd unit right next to this one in the next time you see it).

The goal is to clear up space on my work tables so that I actually have room to work, as you can see I have a ways to go.....well actually all of my table tops are full.... there are 5 - 4 ft tables..... I'm so happy I have so much room!!!!

Here is my whole scrappy area :)

And the rest of the room.

It's a good project, I'm looking forward to a new and improved functional space here :) Sooooo exciting!!!!

Butterfly and Pizza

Well what does one have to do with the other you ask.... well normally absolutely nothing, we were making pizza yesterday (from scratch) and Mikayla and I were sharing one (because my crust has to be gluten free) and Michael made one to share with his mom. So to be creative...I made Mikayla's 1/2 with an olive butterfly LOL

Here she is prior to cheese and baking .

Add a little cheese :)

Bake it for awhile..... and viola a Butterfly Pizza

Here is Michael's masterpiece.

Here is 5lbs of dough..... it is now divided into pizza sized dough balls and in the freezer we don't have to make it for a long time :)

and to finish off the meal....YUM

Dancer!!

This age is usually so much fun!!! Mikayla is in a constant state of imagination, pretend play which of course requires dressing up, here are some pictures from one of this weekend's dress up session.

Mikayla was "sprucing" up here, she was getting her lip stick on....

Working hard here....




Hi :)



I LOVE this picture!



She got her daddy involved in this one.

Here's our dancer gal (in yet another outfit)!! She is so entertaining! The last 5 seconds are hysterical - I think she thinks she's in a music video....where on earth does she learn this stuff?

Merry Christmas!

One of my favorite ornaments...if you know who these people are let me say you're awesome, and if you don't know who they are.... let me say, it's ok, I still love you LOL

Some Christmas Eve quietness.....

Santa really did come!!!! We got home from my dad's house late on Christmas Eve...probably around 11:00 so little miss was very tired, well the stinker didn't wake up on Christmas day...we were up, coffee was made, sausage and eggs cooked....and no little girl to come down.... so I went up to get her. Nana was getting cleaned up so I told Mikayla when I woke her to get Nana right away and come down....she said ok.... so I came back downstairs to get the toast ready.... well I turned around, and that little stinker was over there checking out her Santa gifts and was soooo quiet that I missed her initial reaction...UGH so I told her to "freeze" while I ran to grab my camera and then I told her to fake it for me LOL that was the only thing she had to fake for the day, she was elated with her presents!! Her two favorite gifts (besides loving everything) was her guitar and the blanket I made her, when she she opened the box, she roughly took the blanket out, threw the box down and screamed at the top of her lungs “look what my mommy made me” it was really funny only because she has probably 10 of the same kind of blanket, she just really loves them and I absolutely adore making things for her.

Here she is in the morning :)

Checking out her book case and pillow pets that she asked for from Santa.

She also got a globe....

Back to the guitar

This lovely tea set!! It is so cute, too bad that one of the cups and the globe were broken within 35 seconds of each other..UGH

Here is my mother-in-law opening a gift I couldn't wait to give her....they are pepper seeds...what's so special about that....well number 1 is that she LOVES peppers and number 2 is that these are funny shaped peppers.... call me and I'll fill you in LOL here is her reaction.

Here is Michael with his gift.... he was so confused as to what it was.... here is the preliminary confusion...... he was very suspicious at this point.

Here realization was starting to set in..... his first reaction was why did you get me an iPod.... then he was reading it and it said iPhone.... and he said iPhone....OMG then the woooot woooots started, he was SOOOOOO shocked. Then he asked about service...and I said well that's part of it too, you can turn it on hee hee.... he was like a little kid with a new toy, he even took a nap with it! LOL by far the best gift reaction EVER from him!!! I love finding the gift that is sooooo appreciated and loved.

All in all we had a GREAT Christmas, after all the fan fare, it is really an amazing way to celebrate God's gift to us. We wouldn't do any of the celebrations or events without the real reason for the season. It is such a wonderful time of year.

Family Pictures

Here is some of our family photo shoot. We had so much fun, we did it a little differently this year, we went to an open area near the entrance to my dad's subdivision, they have these fancy and HUGE guard stations by the lakes so we went there to pose :)

Love this picture of Michael.... neither Mikayla or I were ready to take the pic but he looks good!

And she's off! (I'm laughing a little bit at the green grass.... in December..... in Texas.... not very winterish huh)