Merry Christmas!

From our family to yours! We wish you joy in celebrating the birth of our Savior and creating memories with loved ones.

Christmas Morning Breakfast

Yes, another food post! I'm very pregnant and am back in baking mode. I've been testing recipes for a special Christmas morning breakfast and have found two PERFECT recipes. The only problem, I can't decide which to make because they are both soooo yummy! The cranberry cake is definitely a bit more healthy, especially with whole wheat flour, but the raspberry rolls are so tempting...maybe we'll have to make both... What are your Christmas morning traditions?

Christmas Baking {cookies and such}

I am in full swing Christmas baking mode, neglecting all other responsibilities (such as unpacking and cleaning) and eating myself into a sugar coma. Here are some of my favorite Christmas cookies and other treats I've been making.

Ginger Crinkle Snowflake Cookies

German Christmas Markets!

Decorating for Christmas (without a mantle)

A {somewhat nerdy} gift list for homeschooled boys...and their parents...

We tend to be very practical when it comes to gift giving. I think a big part of it has to do with the fact that I am the one ultimately responsible for cleaning up any new purchases that come into our home... Thus, unless it offers some practical or educational value or will be entertaining for longer than 15 minutes, it just isn't going to make it on our shopping list.

Here is what did make the list:

For the little guys:

Architecto:

For the little builder and future engineer who is only four but already has several different kinds of building sets...hopefully this will offer a new challenge for him.

Happy Thanksgiving {best dinner rolls ever}

I have so many things to be thankful for, a wonderful family, the opportunity to live in another country and travel, good health, financial stability, and faith in Jesus Christ which makes all things possible.

It can be easy to get caught up in the frustrations of the present, seeing boxes piled to the ceiling of our new house wondering if they will ever get unpacked, the kitchen scattered with dirty dishes and playroom scattered with toys, changing another dirty diaper (from a child old enough to be potty trained), doing the fourth load of laundry for the day, you know the drill... It's good to take a few moments to think about those things that are really important and try to realign my life with the true purpose of life.

I wish you all a wonderful Thanksgiving surrounded by those you love! Your family and friends will love you even more if you bring a plate {or two} of these Lion House dinner rolls to your Thanksgiving celebration (yes, I think I finally figured out how to use my German oven, and no they're not organic- but they're dang good!)

Happy Easter

While we participate in egg hunts with our family and enjoy the beauty of spring, we also take time to remember the real reason we celebrate Easter.



Visit http://mormon.org/easter for more information about Jesus Christ. Because Christ was resurrected we too will live again!

Tissues please...Hilary Weeks giveaway!

If you haven't heard this song from Hilary's new album- grab a tissue and hit the play button.

We all face heartache and pain in this life. Much of who we become is determined by how we handle the trials that are given us. We were on a family hike a few weeks ago and came across a tree root. We discussed with my boys how all the twists and turns in the roots came when it encountered a rock or other tree and rather than stop growing, it bent and curved around it, and those twists and turns help it remain in the ground.This is a lot like life, when trials come we can choose to stop growing and become bitter and unhappy, or we can embrace those rocks and use them to dig our roots deeper and develop character and attributes to bring us closer to Christ.

In this season of thanksgiving, I am thankful for the life God has blessed me with, for my wonderful husband and three beautiful boys. I am thankful for extended family and friends who help life's journey be a little sweeter. I am thankful that in this world that is often full of fear, confusion, anger and pain, I can have faith in Jesus Christ, that he will guide my life and give me hope for the future. That is my thankful part, now for the giving part, I am giving one lucky reader a free copy of

Hilary Week's new CD album, Every Step!

To Enter, leave a separate comment for each entry:

1. What are you thankful for this season?

2. You are a public follower (click Join this Site in the sidebar on the right)
3. You have my button on your blog
4. You blogged or facebooked about this giveaway

The winner will be announced on Tuesday, November 8th. (Be sure to include your email address in one comment or have it linked to your profile so I can contact you if you win.)

U.S. Addresses only.
If the prize is not claimed within 3 days a new winner will be chosen.

GOOD LUCK!

Halloween Costume Ideas

Two years ago I made the boys' Halloween costumes for the first time, Thing 1 & Thing 2 and The Cat in the Hat. I have to say they turned out better than I expected and I whipped them up just before Grant was born. I thought they were cute, but I was surprised at how much attention they got wearing them!

I'm being lazy this year, they're going to be marathon runners. I'm not feeling up to the challenge of costume creating this year with everything going on, but here are a few ideas I'd love make costumes on in the future...

 

The Three Stooges

The Wizard of Oz 

Peter Pan

I'm not much of a dresser-upper, but this site has two ideas I think would be fun for me:

Rosie the Riveter via Miss Drea

Mary Poppins via Keiko Lynn

Here are a few other cute ideas on    What are your favorite Halloween costumes?

*Link up your ideas at Babblin' Brooke!

Fall!

I absolutely love this time of year! I really gained a great appreciation for the seasons when we lived in Concord, New Hampshire for almost 5 years. I never knew what green and red looked like before moving there. And the smells! You can literally smell the fresh air when you step off the airplane. Then we moved to Kentucky for the next almost 5 years. The fall colors are absolutely amazing.

I love the smells of fall- the crisp air, the pumpkin and nutmeg, I love the crunch of leaves under my boots and a scarf around my neck. I wish it could be fall all year long. Here are just a few of the yummy fall dishes I've been baking to celebrate fall:

Whole Wheat Pumpkin Muffins

These are better than cookies at my house, they are gone as fast as I can bake them! They can be baked into a bread loaf or into muffins (which are more fun for the kids). They are super delicious and pretty healthy too!

New World Chili

This fall stew is so yummy- and it's one that actually tastes better the next day when the spices have all melded together. It's a great way to use pumpkin and it also freezes really well.

Soft Sugar Cookies

One of our fall traditions is to make Halloween sugar cookies. The kids (and I) just love it. This is my favorite sugar cookie recipe. I've tried quite a few and have heard people swear by the sour cream kind, but I always come back to this one because it never fails and the texture is perfect, soft but not too crumbly. They taste similar to the store bought kind except sooo much better. 

The winner of The Entitlement Trap is Emily!

Congratulations! Please contact me to claim your prize.

Link up!

4th of July Weekend

 It was a fun weekend of camping out, splashing in the creek and watching fireworks. The fireworks in Kentucky are amazing. No matter where you live in our town you can see 15-20 different light displays and they aren't firecrackers like we're used to out west, they are full blown fireworks displays like you'd see in the park- only they are being lit off at people's homes. It's pretty incredible. Ethan wasn't scared this year but he did still plug his ears the entire time.

 And no fourth of July would be complete without some fresh sweet corn. This Amish corn is the best, the boys just gobble it up.

Gotta have a little wrestling...(grant pulled ethan's hair and made him scream- I couldn't stop laughing)

   

And of course some bike riding...

Anniversary, Father's Day, and fun with little boys...

Anthony and I celebrated our 11th anniversary on the 16th, but I feel like a bad wife because I completely forgot about it! He was at scout camp all week and surprised me by coming home early that morning with flowers in hand. I guess it's not enough to have a calendar if you never look at it! It was nice to spend the day together as a family though. We took the boys up to the science center and waterfront in Lousiville then went out to dinner. I am blessed to have such a wonderful husband and it always amazes me to think back on all the adventures we have gone on together in the past 11 years. From exploring Europe and China, climbing mountains in Russia, traveling all over the United States, relaxing on the beaches in the Bahamas & Puerto Rico, completing our graduate degrees, and of course the biggest adventure of all- raising three wild little boys.

We went up to visit him at scout camp and the boys had fun getting dirty (and eating dirt). He rigged up a rope swing in a tree and the boys had so much fun swinging on it. And I DID remember father's day! Hope that redeems myself a little bit... Ethan wrote his own card and drew a picture of our family on the gift packaging. He is the best father these boys could ask for and they all adore him.

Happy Easter!

It was a very rainy Easter weekend here. We decorated eggs and had our hunt indoors but the boys still had lots of fun. Grant wasn't interested at all in collecting eggs once he figured out there were goodies inside...

  

  

I made this delicious roasted chicken (my first one ever!)

But of course the most important thing was celebrating Jesus's resurrection.

The Osborne's

April Fools!

I played a few tricks on the boys...and an accidental trick on myself...

Joshua has been oreo cookie snatching all week so I took the remaining two cookies, scooped out the filling and replaced it with toothpaste. He snatched one before I even got up this morning and didn't seem to mind the toothpaste flavor, so it kind of backfired... I bumped my clock last night and didn't think much of it until I was awakened at 5:30 this morning to something slightly resembling a fire alarm. I guess I deserved it...

I put two bowls of cereal in the freezer last night and put them at the table this morning and put colored water in their cups. Ethan kept saying "why is this so hard?" as he tried to pull his spoon up, Joshua's came completely out of the bowl and he had this perplexed look on his face as he held it up in the air.

For dinner I made "cupcakes" which were really meatloaf with mashed potatoes. I have to get in all the tricks I can before they're old enough to play them on me...

The Osborne's

Happy St Patty's Day

 We had a visit from a leprechaun last night... he turned the water (including the toilet) green, the milk green, tipped over all our chairs, put shoes in the refrigerator and a few other pranks. We didn't catch the sneaky guy but we made some rainbow pancakes to celebrate the day.

This evening we took the boys bowling and they had a ton of fun.

  

The Osborne's

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas...

Well we're finally starting to get settled! I now have one room of the house box free! Since all our decorations were ruined last year we had to get all new ones... Still need a tree skirt and some wrapped presents would be nice...still waiting for amazon to deliver on those... It's finally starting to feel a bit like Christmas though!

Happy Thanksgiving!

The biggest baking day of the year! I live for pies and rolls- check out some of my favorite recipes at my food blog Fabulous Foods!

      

Aside from food, I am also very thankful for my wonderful family, my religion, and that we finally found a house, so we won't be homeless for the holidays! Hope you all have a wonderful Thanksgiving!