Just Waiting....

for a little of the white stuff!  Kidding, kidding.  But, it's beginning to look a little Christmas-y around here.  Here are our pilfered things - the boxwood wreath and the arborvitae garland - what do you think?  Not bad for free, huh?

 

This is our front porch - I'm going to light the tealights in these lanterns when we entertain next!

My mom was able to help me salvage these wreaths.  I had three hanging on our front window and we tried to string lights on them - except we only had enough for two.  It was not cute - not cute at all.  It looks much better, trust me.  Thanks, mom.  

 

our birthday girl with her waffles and ice cream for breakfast!

In case you've forgotten, my aim is to inspire homemade cooking!  I am cooking lots lately - I have a luncheon for 21 tomorrow plus Emma's birthday party in the evening.  

 Here are some of the ingredients for my baked potato soup (or as Mrs P likes to call it, devil soup). 

Yesterday I made molasses cookies, lemon bars, and a flourless chocolate cake.  Today I'll be making baked potato soup, leek and goat cheese quiche, and a batch of cinnamon rolls.  I'm not kidding.  We are invited to watch the student speeches in Kate's class today - so I thought I'd take in cinnamon rolls for Christmas presents for her teacher, principal, and school secretaries.  Kate is doing a presentation on Ruth Graves Wakefield - she invented the Toll House Cookie.  I'm making a batch of cookies for her to share at the end of her presentation.  She's worked so hard to learn her speech and they worked on power point presentations in school.  **

I'll take lots of pictures of the presentations, the celebrations, and most of all - the food that we enjoy over the next few days - stay tuned!

**click on the highlighted words for recipes!