Make a joyful noise!

We hope you had a wonderful Christmas this year!

We decorated Everything including the lights

 Family is the best part of the holidays for me. This is our boys and their Great Grandpa- my papa Don

And tons of presents
This is Luke's new gun from his uncle Cameron. 
I painted a few paintings for my family. This was my first time working with oil paints so please don't be to harsh! ;)

This one was for my father. I also made a De Colores cross for my mother and a Tiffany blue themed cross for my sister. 

And the best part of this December.. It snowed!!

Our first and probably only fluffy snow here in Texas

We hope you have a wonderful and very blessed new year! With love the Reeds!

An optimist stays up until midnight to see the new year in. A pessimist stays up to make sure the old year leaves.

- Bill Vaughn 

Look who's four!

Alex!

 Alex wanted a "Dr. Seuss" party for his birthday this year with all of his favorite characters!

We made a smaller version of Cat's Hat for the cake

Red velvet and cream cheese!
 

Thing one and thing two
big and little cupcakes

You could use blue cotton candy for the hair but finding it in December is nearly impossible

We had Sam's Green eggs and *Bacon* instead of ham 

These are made with your basic candy melts, a small touch of food coloring and yellow M&M's

Sallys brother's sandwiches

Red and Blue Kool-Aid and

Alex's favorite candy- M&M's

The best part for any child... Presents! 

Now it is less than a week until Christmas!! Hope you all have a blessed week and walk/drive/fly safely going to see your family!

With Love from the Reeds! 

Christmas Cookies

Ever since Alex, Luke and I made some salt dough ornaments , Alex has been begging me to make some cookies!  I asked Alex what all he would like in them.. He told me chocolate! I asked him what color he would like them to be and he told me Green!- his current favorite color. 

So I started thinking of what I could put in a cookie that was green but not to weird.. I finally came up with Mint! We used mint M&M's but I'm sure you could also use Andes Mints. Once baked they even looked rather festive! So we are now calling them Grinch Cookies.

 Here's our new recipe:

"Grinch cookies"

1/2 cup butter

3/4 cup sugar

1 egg

1/4 teaspoon cream of tartar

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon vanilla

dash of salt

1 1/4 cup flour

1 cup crushed Mint M&Ms or Andes Mints

Mix wet.. Mix dry... Mix all together! Bake at 375 for 10 minutes. Makes about 15 cookies depending on how many get eaten before they are baked! 

They really are grinchy too! They grow and grow in the oven!

We also made some..... 

Peanut butter Cookies: (just for daddy!)

½ cup butter

½ cup peanut butter

½ sugar

¼ cup honey (We use honey in place of brown sugar)

½ teaspoon baking soda

½ teaspoon baking powder

1 egg

½ teaspoon vanilla

1 ¼ cup flour

1 cup Chocolate chips - optional

Same as before.. mix them all together. 

Bake at 375 for 10 minutes
Makes around 35 cookies

My helpers!

 Some had chocolate chips

All finished and plated!
 Now lets just see how long they last!

Don't forget to make some for Santa too!!

Christine, Alex and Luke

Christmas with the boys

A friend of mind asked me if I could recall any fun Christmas crafts to do with kids and oh my mind started running through my memories! Pipe cleaner reindeer, Hand print Christmas trees, peppermint wreaths on construction paper, Popsicle stick 

ornaments, machete garland from old news papers then painted red and green. 

The one that I remember loving the most was paper snowflakes and all the "snow" left from the cuts!

Cut your paper into a square

 fold corner to corner 

then tip to tip 

 here you have around a 60 degree angle fold

cut off the extra
 either in a "C" type form or straight 

Add your cuts. You can use hole punches for a more intricate design. 

Alex was happy just using the scissors!

Alex and Luke's snow flakes! 

We hope you never forget the simple things that made Christmas so fun when we were all young. 

15 days until Christmas!!

Christine, Alex, and Luke

"Cookies?!"

No just Salt dough ornaments!

1/2 cup salt

1/2 water

1 cup flour

 spices if desired- we used cinnamon and nutmeg

 Mix well

 Roll out to around 1/4 inch

use cookie cutters to make your shapes or freehand like we did

Also keep your shapes fairly simple because your ornaments will bake up and out!

 Alex wanted to make a ball but I guess ours was to small. It cracked while baking so now we have pac man!

 Once they are cooled you can paint in your details!

 Blue snow man 

we used split peas for the buttons

 A wreath and a tree

The decorations just keep coming! Lime green, silver and black this year

 Around the entry to the kitchen

This is at my papa's home in Perryton! We strung tinsel put up ornaments everywhere in honor of grandma

Papa's tree

We are putting the finishing touches on our tree so I will post pictures soon!

Hope you have a very blessed week!

Christine