Thimbleanna

Holidays

Baby Steps

61 Comments / February 22, 2011 / Holidays

Ahhh. We’re finally starting to show some Christmas progress around here. The baking has officially begun with a small batch of caramels. I used the recipe for Fleur De Sel Caramels from Ms. Humble.

Caramels

This recipe is a keeper – it’s fabulous.  I love that little bit of salt with the buttery sweetness. Packed into cellophane bags, they’ll make a nice little gift for friends.

Caramels

The rest of the weekend was spent wrapping up the Christmas decor. I finally finished the big tree in our family room. Every year we have trouble with the lights and TheManoftheHouse has to fiddle with them and find out which little bulbs are causing a malfunction here or there. So this year, while he was out shopping, he called and said he’d found a good price for LED lights.  Oh Yay.

Christmas Decor

So, now the tree is all done and here I sit in the spaceship glow of LED Christmas lights. I. Hate. Them. Everytime I walk into the room, I have to resist the urge to throw my arms in the air and scream “Take Me To Your Leader!” Here are the top three reasons why LED lights suck (you know, aside from the whole alien thing):

  • The lights are spaced almost twice as closely together as regular lights. Which means, you’ll have roughly twice as many lights on your tree as you would have with regular lights.  No wonder the tree is glowing.
  • There are twice as many yellow and red lights as green and blue. That’s ’cause LED lights are “cool” lights, not “warm” lights. I’m betting they could put three or four times as many yellow and red lights and there would still be a blue hue to the tree.
  • They’re fugly. Fuh. glee. They might be ok on a little one-string tree, but on a big tree, it’s not pretty. And I can’t even put a paper bag over it.
     

Christmas Decor

My favorite thing to do during the holidays is sit in front of the Christmas tree, late at night when everything is quiet and peaceful.  I can’t do that this year though — I’m afraid I’ll end up on Mars.  Which actually, fits right in with the week ahead.  Brace yourselves … we’re about to hit warp speed heading to the weekend!

XOXO,
Anna

Pie Day

42 Comments / February 22, 2011 / Holidays, Recipes

I know that we usually say that pie day is 3.14, but here in ThimbleannaLand, Pie Day is today.  (Well, it waaas today, but now it’s yesterday ’cause tech support and I had a little overnight session trying to view my pictures, but we’re not talking about that.  Just pretend it was today.  ThankYouVeryMuch.)

Thanksgiving Pies

(The Keep Calm part is especially important given all the website problems here in the last week!)  Anyway, I’ve spent the day (yesterday, ahem) baking our usual pies for Thanksgiving. Apple, pecan, pumpkin and this year, I’ve added pumpkin praline.

Thanksgiving Pies

A friend at work suggested it. You take your favorite pumpkin pie recipe, but before you add the pumpkin filling, you spread a praline layer (1/3 c. chopped pecans, 1/3 c. brown sugar, and 2 Tbsp. soft butter mixed together) on the pie shell and bake it at 425 degrees for 10 minutes. Then remove it from the oven, pour the pumpkin mixture on top and bake like you normally would for your pumpkin pie. The hot praline layer under the pumpkin mixture causes little air bubbles to come to the top of the pie, but that doesn’t really matter. I’m betting it will still taste good.

Thanksgiving Pies

I also had fun with my little Williams-Sonoma pie crust shapes again this year — I love those things!  (Btw, I added the little acorns on the pumpkin-praline pie after the praline layer was baked — otherwise, they’d be burned.)

Thanksgiving Pies

I ran across this Pies That Kill article this morning. Whew! None of these pies are from any of those sources — I’m thinking we’ve dodged a bullet. Homemade pies are low calorie — right?

Wishing a Very Happy Thanksgiving to all of you in the US!

XOXO,
Anna

July Already?

46 Comments / February 22, 2011 / Chat, Holidays

Gosh, it seems impossible, doesn’t it? The year is half gone already. I always feel like I’m about three months behind but the weather here definitely isn’t April weather — it’s hot and MUGGY. The kind where you walk out the door and break into a sweat. Ick.

Bunnies

I hope everyone in the states had a wonderful 4th yesterday. I was hoping to post at least by yesterday, but we were just too busy having fun. Both the boys and SweetiePie were here for the long weekend. There was lots of cooking, baking, visiting and playing around. We went to friends’ yesterday for our annual cookout and I brought my usual (upon request) — cupcakes and spaghetti salad.

Sadly now, my babies have gone back to their homes. I tried to busy myself today by dragging out an old UFO. I have so many projects that I want to start, but I’ve promised myself that I must work on a UFO or two before (or at least while) I work on any new projects. Those UFOs just drive me crazy!

Bunnies

So, hopefully, I’ll make a little UFO headway this week. Are you working on anything fun?

XOXO,
Anna

Gingerbread Houses 2009

61 Comments / December 29, 2011 / Gingerbread Houses, Holidays

Finally, I’ve managed to get the gingerbread houses together.  I’ve been a lazy bum this week — just hanging out and not doing much at all.  It seems like I’ve cleaned a lot, but you’d never know it by looking around here.

This year’s competition was pretty tough.  The top players came prepared with a theme in mind, which made it really fun.  The good news is that everyone kept it clean this year (no strip bars or frat houses!)  The bad news is that everyone kept it clean this year — which translates to:  not as funny.  Everyone topped the creativity scales and had a really good time though, so it was all worth it!

TheManoftheHouse and I were the defending champions from last year and we came in Dead. Last. Not one vote.  It was fixed!  We didn’t really have a plan, but when I saw the pretzels, I thought we should do a log cabin in honor of our pioneer ancestors.  And every log cabin has a clothesline outside, right?

Gingerbread

My nephew brought a guest to the competition (a girl! – she had fun, she’d never made a gingerbread house before) and they made the Tinsel Town Theater.  You’ll notice that Up is currently running on the marquis and there is plenty of popcorn and candy for all the people standing in the ticket line.

Gingerbread

Between the next two houses, I can’t remember who came in second and who came in third.  (I’m sure SweetiePie knows though!)   CrazyBIL and my youngest niece teamed together and created Santa’s Sleighwash.   Check out the cupcake liner door flaps and the dirty sleigh going into the sleighwash and the clean sleigh coming out of the sleighwash.  So Clever!

Gingerbread

TheFirstChild and SweetiePie always have a theme and this year was no different (we’ve decided next year that the honeymoon is over and we’re going to split them up.)  They made a Jump School to commemorate the fact that they went skydiving in August of this year (and lived to tell about it).  Oh So Cute!  Look at the little skydivers and the airplane.  And doesn’t SweetiePie have pretty icing-writing?

Gingerbread

And Tah-Dah!  The First Place winners this year were MyDadLovesMeBestSister, BigDaddy, my oldest niece and TheSecondChild. (Ha!  I’m thinking they won due to being the biggest team – I’m not bitter or anything LOL!)  MyDadLovesMeBestSister achieved her Master Gardener status this year, so to celebrate, they created a Garden Shed.   The flower pots and little candy trees on the front are enough to melt any voter.  Not to even mention the compost pile, butterflies on the left side of the house and the Koi Pond behind the house.   Congratulations Team Garden Shed!

Gingerbread

I’m so proud of my little family.  When we first started decorating gingerbread houses years ago, they used to slap the frosting on the houses and make a big mess.  I love seeing how much thought and creativity they put into the houses now!

So.  On to the New Year!  I’ve bemoaned the fact that November and December flew by.  And 2009 too.  But to heck with that.  What happened to the last decade?

R2000

Wasn’t it just yesterday that we were partying at the turn of the millennium???  As I look forward to 2010, I just have one big wish — I want time to Slow. Down.  That one big wish would facilitate all the little ones (more family time, quilting, knitting, reading, yadda, yadda).

And one other big wish for all of you — a Happy and Healthy 2010.  Happy New Year!!!

XOXO,
Anna