Railings...

We hired Alberta Rail Masters Inc to do our handrails in this house, and here is my dad hard at work.  You have to have the best, especially when they are in the family!

We love it so far!  Thanks Dad!

A close up of our pattern...

The upstairs rail from the front entry...

Check out the beautiful handrail going down into the basement.  That is soooo not the builder standard handrail!  We wont be taking that off to get the couch down the stairs! 

The view from my bedroom doorway.  It's looking great!

The rail into the living room from the basement stairs...And my house is getting more child friendly all the time.  I can bring the kids by now without worrying that Harlee is going to do a header down the stairs!

Looks like dad is trying to ram that post.  I sent Trevor with the camera, and didn't get any face shots!  I'll see you at work tomorrow dad, so I can take a few more!

Our thanks go out to my dad for all his hard work and time.  We absolutely love your work and our new rail!    And a big shout out to Rae and Jer, thanks for the spindles!  There will always be a touch of  you  in our home!

YUCKY!!!

I nuked the butter this morning.  I thought it was hard.  Trevor then tells me he only just put it in the fridge.  I was also being lazy and didn't take the cover out first.  It's gonna be a great day, I can tell!

Drywall is up...

It's not much to look at right now, but it's all up and taped and the ceiling is stippled. 

kinda messy here...A sign of the future maybe? 

The siding is almost complete now.  These pictures are old.

Not much else to see.  We are looking at Feb. 8/10 possession.  That's very good news.  The baby isn't due till the end of the month and will probably come in March, so we will have a few weeks to get settled before we have another little one to love.  The house is for sale.  We've had 8 people through in the first week.  No offers yet but we hope we sell quickly.  I don't even care if I have to go rent for a month.  I just want to know for sure that it's sold.  So wish us luck in keeping the house clean and tidy and nice smelling!  

Cookie Exchange!!!

I've been invited to a cookie exchange at the end of the month!  I love going, and tasting and visiting and getting!  It's a great time!  So this year with the house for sale and the need to have a spotless home at all times, I was getting a little concerned about when I would get these cookies done.  So I decided Monday nights are probably slow...So I started baking this morning! 

 

The cookies...

 

The caramels...

  

The Chocolate!...

  

The pecans...

  

The many batches...

  

My kitchen full of cookies...

 

The final product!  Yummy! 

And my helpers, Messy!

  

I think I made about 15 dozen, but I lost count.  Now off to the dollar store for some Christmas packaging to make them beautiful.

Here's the recipe if you want to give it a try!  Compliments of Taste of Home and tweaked a bit to speed it up!

Caramel Pecan Treasures

Cookies

1 cup butter

¾ cup packed brown sugar

1 tsp vanilla

1 ¾ cup flour

½ tsp baking powder

Topping

25 caramels

1/8 cup evaporated milk

1 cup semi-sweet choc. chips

1/2 tbsp shortening

½ cup chopped pecans

Directions

1. In a large bowl, cream the butter and brown sugar until light and fluffy.  Beat in vanilla.  Combine flour and baking powder; gradually add to creamed mixture and mix well. 

2.  Roll into 1 1/2 inch balls.  Place 2 inches apart on a greased baking sheet.  Flatten slightly. Bake at 325* for 12 -15 min.  or until golden brown.  Remove to wire racks to cool.

3.  Place the caramels and milk in a microwave safe bowl and heat for 1-2 min. until melted.  Mix well and spoon or pipe onto the tops of cookies. 

4.  Place the chocolate chips and shortening in a microwave safe bowl and heat for 1-2 minutes.  Mix well and drizzle or pipe over caramel. 

5.  Top with chopped pecans.  Let set until firm.  Enjoy!

Yield – 2 ½ dozen cookies

Publish Post

Halloween fun!

Happy Halloween!  We had a good night!  I wasn't feeling great, so I popped a tylenol and started getting pumpkins done.

We bought pumpkins early this year, because last year we were late and I had to search the city to find some.  Well, it did me no good.  Two of our beautiful pumpkins rotted before we could carve them so there I was scouring the city for more pumpkins!  We bought the last two at Safeway!  Why do they sell out on pumkins a week before Halloween?

I forgot to get pictures of the finished project, so I'll have to do that on Monday.  It was fun, though!

I had a hard time getting costume pictures,  too.  The older boys were so excited that they took off, and I was too sick to care.  Here is what I did get.  I will dress them up again on Monday before I pack up the Halloween stuff and get some better pictures.  Here they are!

 

We picked up a fog machine last year and the kids loved it.  We only set off the fire alarm twice!  More pics to come later!

Monkey Bread experiment...

So I was going visiting teaching this week, and I wanted to take a treat for my sisters, and the kids like treats too, so I decided to make some monkey bread.

This was my first batch.  I decided to make my own bread instead of using frozen buns.  What I didn't realize, was that my recipe was twice as big as the bag of frozen stuff.  I had all this in a bunt pan and the buns kept popping out of the pan as it baked!  Scary!  Anyway, it was too big with not enough sauce.  A flop but the kids still ate it!

I had another batch of dough rising while the first one cooked.  I realized my first mistake and threw half the rising buns into another pan.  I only have one bunt pan, so into my two piece angel food pans they go.  That was my next mistake.  The butter dripped through the bottom of the pan and all over my oven!  This one turned out not too bad.

This is the other one.  Not so nice.  Apparently there is more to monkey bread than I knew.  The sauce in this one just didn't go where I wanted it to go!  Mistake number three...I used the wrong kind of pudding in my sauce.  I should have used instant, but I only had cooked pudding mixes.  These are not interchangeable!

I was not about to be bested by my monkey bread, so I wrapped it up and gave it away, even though it was questionable!!!  If you have the secret to no-fail monkey bread, please be sure to share it with me!!!

Packing...

So, my sweet husband started packing.  We rented a large container for the back yard and are filling it up with all the stuff in our crowded house.  I have been sick all weekend and unable to help.  After emptying the storage room of all the bins, he started to work on the rest of the house...

By removing my furniture...

And leaving all the stuff in it, on the floor in a huge mess.  This is AFTER I sent him for boxes and cleaned up a little.

My living room was clean at one point.  I sat on the couch and observed this chaos and wished I was feeling better.  Why did this project get started without any boxes????

There was a huge 7 foot book shelf there against the wall yesterday...

Now the floor is four feet deep in books. 

Don't let me ever get sick while packing again!!!!!

Love you dear!  Thanks for helping out!