Pom Pom Heart Ornaments

For our last handmade ornament of the year, we made pom pom heart ornaments. We painted wooden heart shapes red and glued Christmas colored pom poms on them once they dried. Quite festive, don't you think?

It's officially Christmas!

Yesterday, Clark tells me we should set up our Christmas tree. You'd think it was my idea, but he actually thought of it all by himself, honest! Well, he brought in our fake tree from the garage and set it up. He decided that was enough for the day and we'd decorate Sunday (today). The kids couldn't wait so they added some of the decorations they made on Saturday and today we put all our other decorations up. I LOVE decorating our tree. We chat about who gave us our ornaments or who made them before hanging them in a special spot. Our tree is beautiful - well, our "tree" is fake so it looks the same as last year, but the ornaments are in different spots and we've added many new ones so it's our 2008 tree!

I have to say, the best thing about having a fake tree is you don't have to put the lights on it!

The kids adding the Christmas tree ornaments they made

Daddy added a couple layers of polyurethane to the kids' ornaments today

Ho, Ho, Ho!

Finishing Touches

Today we finished up our Christmas balls by adding a little red paint with Q-tips! Bailey did some Q-tip painting at school and I thought that'd be a great way to add just a touch of red without having them cover up the nice green paint they put on yesterday. I love how they turned out! Can't wait to see them on our tree.

More decorations for our tree

Our Christmas tree is going up in a week and a half so we thought we'd better get a move on with our ornaments. Today we painted a couple of balls and while they were drying we worked on our Christmas trees. Our balls are still drying so we'll have to finish decorating them tomorrow.

Chicken and Dumplings ~ A New Family Favorite!

Tonight I made Chicken and Dumplings for dinner. I had planned to make a pot of chicken soup for Bailey since she got sick Saturday afternoon and was pretty much laid up all Sunday, but she recovered today and was her perky self. So I was thinking about this old Martha Stewart episode I saw the other day and someone on her show was making a pot of Chicken and Dumplings and it looked really yummy (and easy, too!) I kinda searched around on the internet for recipes and basically it's like chicken soup with biscuits on top. Well, it's actually a lot easier than chicken soup and quite possibly yummier! The kids especially liked the thick broth.

Here's what I did

Lightly saute a chopped onion and 3 garlic cloves. Add one chopped carrot and 2 chopped celery stalks. Add 3 cans chicken broth and 1 package of chicken thighs. I added a little Italian herb mix and a dash of poultry seasoning. Cook about an hour and a half, removed chicken and de-fat the broth. Remove chicken meat from bones and discard the skin. Shred chicken meat and add back to broth. Bring stew to simmer. Make dumplings. I followed the recipe for dumplings on the heart healthy Bisquick box, doubling the recipe. Add dumplings to stew and cover for 10 minutes (I flipped them 1/2 way and gave the pot a gentle stir) The parts of the dumplings that fall off/apart will thicken the broth nicely. I added some peas at the end because I LOVE peas, but mi familia hates peas so I may have to leave them out next time. :) (They had to dig them out of their bowls before they started eating!) They both had two bowls! YUMola!