I told you about a giveaway, right? Well, here it is! Due to shipping being such a horrible expensive thing, I had to keep the prizes small. But there are two giveaways this time around! They both end on the last day of the blog link-up, Christmas Day! :)
This year, I'm gonna try something different and giveaway some of my photo prints. They are 4"x6" in size.
Also, with this giveaway, we'll have three winners.
1st - 6-10 photos
2nd - 5-7 photos
3rd - 3-4 photos
Depending on how well this giveaway goes, I might be able to have a fourth place winner as well :)
The giveaway is open for all you lovely people, no matter where you live. Unless it's Antarctica. I don't think they ship there . . . ;)
Here are the photos up for the prize:
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*These pictures are private property and may not be duplicated in any way without permission.
And now for the second giveaway! There will be one winner for this one! Unfortunately, this giveaway is only for Canada and US residents. Apologies about that!
Earring Length (from fishhook to bottom of flower): 1"
Leaf Droplets
Leaf: 1 cm
Earring Length: 3.5 cm
Oh and one other thing, you can only win one prize. So if Rafflecopter chooses you as the winner in the first giveaway as well as the second one, I'll contact you and you can let me know which prize you'd prefer :)
It's the third day of the blog party! Woo hoo! How are y'all enjoying it so far? :D
Don't forget to check out Faith's blog for more links to some Christmas-y posts!
Christmas Books
'Kay, so I am really loving this font. The Christmas-y one. It's called Kingthings Christmas. Anywayyy....
Today I'll be sharing with you five of my favourite Christmas books. If you were around for the Five Fall Favourites blog party this fall, then you might recognize these. Just saying ;)
The Nutcracker is a Christmas story about a little girl named Maria and her wooden doll, the Nutcracker, who becomes alive to fight the evil seven-headed Mouse King.
I loved reading the Nutcracker. I think I saw the play for it years and years ago, maybe when I was four? so I didn’t remember it all too well ;) But the story is SO fun! :)
Aurelia Wilde is cruelly selfish and downright miserable—a victim of her mother's desperate attempts to place her delicate “prized possession” on an unreachable pedestal. But her glory is only surface deep. Aurelia's complaining spirit is a stark contrast to that of her servant-girl, Doris, who knows that in spite of life's troubles, she will one day “dwell in the house of the Lord forever.” Her many talents and cheerful disposition cause her to be loved and appreciated, even by the notable residents of Waverly Manor. How jealousy swells within Aurelia's vengeful mother! She'll get even yet…
So, this is technically not a Christmas book. But the theme of forgiveness and love always made me connect it with Christmas. This is an absolute favourite of mine, and would be one of the first books I’d recommend to you if you ever asked me what book you should read ;)
Annette and Lucien are enemies. After Annette gets Lucien into trouble at school, he decides to get back at her by threatening the most precious thing in the world to her: her little brother Dani. But tragedy strikes. Annette is so filled with rage that she sets out to alienate and humiliate Lucien at every turn. As Lucien seeks to repent and restore, light floods both of their dark hearts and Christ proves that He makes all things new.
This book is simply amazing. The characters are very relatable and even if the book looks like it’s more for a younger age, it’s not. The message inside this book is something everyone should know!
This is the delightfully warm and enjoyable story of an old Parisian named Armand, who relished his solitary life. Children, he said, were like starlings, and one was better off without them.
But the children who lived under the bridge recognized a true friend when they met one, even if the friend seemed a trifle unwilling at the start. And it did not take Armand very long to realize that he had gotten himself ready-made family; one that he loved with all his heart, and one for whom he would have to find a better home than the bridge.
Armand and the children's adventures around Paris -- complete with gypsies and a Santa Claus -- make a story which children will treasure.
Mom read this book to me and my siblings a long time ago for school, and we all fell in love with it. The relationship between Armand and the children is so precious, and their ‘journey’ together is quite memorable. Slightly random, but the one scene that I always remember when I first think of this book is the one where a man is making crepes. I seriously can imagine myself standing in front of a vendor on the sidewalk, watching a man pour batter onto a hot griddle and flip golden cakes and smelling that absolutely delicious smell and ohhhh, I’m hungry now ;P
In one of the most exciting Advent stories you will ever read, follow ten-year-ld Jotham across Israel as he searches for his family. Rejoice in his encounters with wise men, shepherds, and inkeepers until at last he finds his way to the Savior born in Bethlehem.
My family read this a few years ago on the days leading up to Christmas. It was so much fun, and yes, it is indeed on of the most exciting Advent stories!
It's cookie time! Ready for an amazing chocolate chip cookie recipe? It's a family favourite in this household! :)
Random cookie picture I took a couple days ago ;) These aren't brown butter cookies, btw :P
Oh yeah, and you should probably know, I may or may not have interspersed the recipe with comments of my own. Serious or silly, you'll get a mix. I think ;) I'll leave them in bold so you don't get confused :)
Brown Butter Cookies
Ingredients
2 1/4 cups all purpose flour
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened to room temperature
1 cup packed light brown sugar
2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
1 teaspoon molasses
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1 large egg
1 large egg yolks
1/2 cup coarsely chopped pecans (optional)
1 cup bittersweet chocolate chips (not optional. Or else it wouldn't be a chocolate chip cookie, now would it? ;))
Coarse sea salt for sprinkling (optional. Do you like crunching salt with your cookies? Just wondering...)
Directions
(this might look long and complicated, but don't worry, it's not that at all! You can do this!! :D)
In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, salt, and baking soda. Set aside. (see, not so hard! ;))
Start by browning 1/2 cup butter. In a medium skillet (or pot) melt butter over medium heat. Once the butter has melted completely, it will begin to foam and froth as it cooks. The butter will also crackle and pop. That's the water cooking out of the butter. Swirl the pan occasionally (whoops, you're supposed to swirl it? I never did that :P) and keep an eye on the melted butter. The butter will become very fragrant and brown bits will begin to form at the bottom of the pan. (Note: There are times when the butter will become so foamy, it is close to over-boiling, so make sure you watch it closely! Eagle's eye!) Once the bits are an amber brown, immediately remove pan from the heat and pour browned butter (bits and all) into a small bowl. Leaving the butter in the pan will burn it. Allow butter to cool. (this is probably the hardest part of the recipe. If you can conquer this, you can definitely do the rest of this recipe! *whispers* I burnt the butter black the first time I tried it :P)
In the bowl of a stand mixer (or just a regular bowl if you don't mind having a sore arm after a ton of stirring) fitted with a paddle attachment, cream remaining /2 cup of butter with brown sugar. Cream on medium speed until light and fluffy, about 3-5 minutes. (then taste it, if you've a mind to ;)) Add the vanilla extract and molasses and beat until incorporated.
Once the brown butter has cooled slightly, pour the butter (brown bits and all!) into the creamed butter and sugar mixture. Add the granulated sugar and cream for 2 minutes, until well incorporated. Add the egg and egg yolk and beat for 1 minute more.
Stop the mixer and scrape the bottom of the bowl to ensure that everything is evenly mixed. Add the flour mixture (forgot about this, didn't ya? you didn't lose it, right? ;) all at once to the butter mixture and beat on low speed until the flour is just incorporated. (To minimize the mess that will inevitably occur unless you have a cover on your bowl...place a dishcloth, a clean dishcloth, around the bowl. That way the flour stays inside. Like it's supposed to) Remove the bowl from the stand mixer and use a spatula to fold in pecans and chocolate chips.
Spoon batter onto a piece of parchment paper and wrap into a disk or cylinder. Allow to rest in the fridge for at least 30 minutes.
Place racks in the centre and upper third of the oven and preheat oven to 350 degrees f. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper. Scoop dough by whatever size you'd like. (I tend to use ice cream scoops, and then splitting those in half. Makes a good size ;)) Sprinkle with salt (if you're using it, that is) Be sure to leave about 2 inches of space between each cookie.
Bake for 12-14 minutes or until cookies are golden brown. Remove from the oven and allow to rest on the baking sheet for 5 minutes. Serve warm or allow to cool completely. Cookies are best enjoyed within a few days. Duh.
And voila!
I'm not kidding, these are like one of THE best chocolate chip cookies ever. You gotta try them! :D If you make them, let me know! Send some pictures, tell me if you liked them, (or if you didn't like them), was the recipe hard? ;) Now I've got to run...gotta make a batch of these for a party today!! ^_^
Hello all! It's the start of the 12 Days of Christmas! Yippee!! You can go to Faith's blog HERE for more amazing posts in this Christmas blog-linkup party! ^_^
Credits to Jesseca Dawn for such a gorgeous graphic!! :D
For today, I'm gonna share with you that video I mentioned in my previous post. The song played in the video is Light of the World, by Lauren Daigle. Tiger Lily is on fiddle and vocal harmony, Snow White on penny whistle, and I'm on piano and vocal melody.
I really love this song because it tells the Christmas story so well! It starts out with the world calling out for Emmanuel, then giving glory to the light of the world. Isn't that such a beautiful name for Christ? And it's true, He really is the Light of the World! He is our Messiah, our Prince of Peace has come!
So without further ado, I give you: Light of the World! ^_^
Here are the lyrics in case you couldn't hear some of them :)
It's December, it's December, it's December!! Yippee!!! At the moment, it is snowing hard. Before today, all we had was brown dead grass and rather warm weather. But then all of a sudden it just all started coming down. We might have a white Christmas after all! We just finished setting up our Christmas tree, with the Christmas music going on full blast :)
Anyway....here's my wrap up post for November. (I know... I'm 4 days late (possibly 5 depending on when I post this. It's currently December 4th, 10:59 pm...wonder how long it'll take to publish this? ;))
Life
Well, as you all probably know from my previous post, we had a rather big even happen in November. We met our new baby sister! :D She is soooo adorable! 💗 💗 💗 After a couple weeks or so, Mom and Dad finally came up with a name for her. I can't share it on here :( although I really wish I could; it's such a beautiful name! Gonna have to find a pseudonym for her....any of you have some ideas? ;)
Tiger Lily, Snow White, and I made a little threesome band together with piano, fiddle, and whistle. We were really surprised at how well it sounded on our first try. It was actually so good, we were later able to convince our piano teacher to let us play it at our annual Christmas recital.
Our piano teacher was impressed with the song we came up and personally, I think she really really loved Snow White's whistle playing ;) She asked us to play at two concerts instead of just the one. The day of the performance, we all had the normal stage jitters, but when it came time to play. . . this little star completely rocked it!
It was her first time playing a solo on stage, and in front of over 60 people too. And she did it twice! If I'm able, I'll see if I can share a video later on ;)
Mom also celebrated her birthday this month as well! Dad surprised her with a little cake .... Go Dad! :D
Maple also had her 7th birthday...and got a huge bone for her present. She loves it ;)
Ooohh yes....and we also had our annual PCC (Pregnancy Care Centre) banquet. A great time with friends volunteering for a great cause!
Oh hehe, and work. It has been so much fun working at Tim Hortons, and I'm really enjoying it. It was craziest when I first started, just because I had no idea what to do. But now I've caught on and it's been quite the experience. Oh yeah and I - uh - caught bread on fire. But just once :P I was on Sandwiches and Soups (basically making food orders) and put some buns into the toaster. The wrong way. I was wondering why they wouldn't come out, looked inside and found them burning merrily at the back. Strangely enough, no one freaked out. The girl who was helping me saw them, grabbed a stick, pushed them out, and said "There ya go." End of story xD
The Random Parts of Life
Just random pictures from random times ;)
Books
Sooo....my goal from last month was to read 8 books...I think I did. I'm not totally sure because I was so busy I didn't really keep count on what I read. I will say though, most of the books I read were short stories. So does that count? ;)
I found out earlier this month that the new church we're going to has a library...with a lot of books that I've been wanting to read for awhile. So yeah...that made me very happy :D
Music
Has anyone seen Moana? I haven't...but I really really want to! The trailers look awesome and the songs! Argh - amazing! How Far I'll Go is probably my favourite; it's stuck in my head at the moment.
Light of the World by Lauren Daigle has also been a very commonly listened to song lately. Partly because it's the song that we played at the Christmas recital ;)
Safe and Sound by Taylor Swift. Tiger Lily and I are currently trying to record this song. It's so much fun :)
December Song by Peter Hollens. Any of you here of the contest Peter Hollens is hosting? Soooo many covers of December Song popping up on Youtube ;) I actually did a cover of this with my friend....it was so much fun to record and film! :D
Goals
Last month's goals:
Read 8 books. I think so...
Post at least once or twice a week. Yes! I think it only ended up being once a week though.
Complete a tag or two. Sadly, no. Gotta try getting those done!
Experiment with my new camera. Check!
Comment on y'all's posts from the past month. Saw some pretty awesome posts...and a few vlogs too! :D Check and double check! But now I think I've fallen behind on posts again.
Record a couple songs. Yes....ish. Kind of in the middle of recording a couple of songs. But I think I finished at least one recording.
MEET THE BABY!!! YES!! :D
December's Goals
Participate in the 12 Days of Christmas blog link up!
Finish editing several books I'm beta-reading
Read 5 books
And that about wraps up this post! Thanks for reading!
How was your November?
Anyone excited to celebrate Christ's birth?
What is one of your favourite Christmas traditions?
Hehe, I know I was trying to sound all cool and composed in the title with the "Oh yeah, and this happened" nonsense, but NO. Sorry. I'm just going to be squealing and exclaiming and using tons of caps. Got to use caps. IT'S SO EXCITING.
I HAVE A NEW SISTER!!!!!!!!!!!! And now we're finally even, 4 boys 4 girls! :D HURRAY!!!!
*goes away and runs in circles squealing* (also, just saying, Tiger Lily and I did exactly that when we found out Mom was in labour :P Although a little quieter since it was super early in the morning and all the younger kids were still sleeping ;))
Toblerone was a little wary of her at first, but now he's perfectly enthralled with her :)
I had my first experience with birth photography and really enjoyed the whole time in general. It was SO amazing, to be sure! :)
Praise the Lord that everything went smoothly. Very smoothly. It was, as Dad called it, a "textbook delivery". Baby was somewhat quiet at first, but then later proved she had a healthy pair of lungs - which she now uses rather frequently ;)
Everyone else was very excited and fell in love with their new sister. Some took a little longer than others ;) but in the end, everyone was begging to hold her. No shortage of hands to hold this new little one, that's for sure! :D
We took our traditional photo, where we all line up on the bed, youngest to oldest. It started when there was only four of us kids, I believe. Trust me when I say it was starting to get squishy. . . last time. This time around, we were positively smushed against each other. Seriously, no personal space at all :P It wasn't just the number of children that increased, the body size did too ;)
Oh, and thank you to all who voted on the poll! There were 26 votes total, which was way more than I was expecting :)
And now I'll finish off this post with a few (haha, who am I kidding? make that more than a few :P) pictures that we took of her over the past weeks.
I LOVE this picture! Maybe I'm just biased :P She's soooo cute! And her facial expression is just killing me xD
