Chocolate Peppermint Sugar Cookie Bars

During the holidays, I love chocolate and peppermint anything! Peppermint mocha...yes please! Peppermint hot chocolate...mmmm! Peppermint sprinkled on homemade brownies...double yes! So when I saw this recipe for chocolate peppermint sugar cookie bars I knew I had to give them a try! They turned out really delicious, but you have to eat them pretty quickly because the cookie base hardens quicker than other cookies. 

Design: Christmas Party

We have now been at this base for a whole year. Man, has it gone by fast! I got plugged in with the Spouses' Club right away by attending the Christmas party. It was so much fun and I'm looking forward to this year's event.

Design: Cookie Crunch

I have been in a flier-creating frenzy before the move. I am absolutely loving it! My latest creation was for an annual event at our base called Cookie Crunch. Many (if not all) bases do something similar. Cookies are donated and sorted to give to all the military members that live in the dorms. This helps spread some holiday cheer to those single guys and gals. I have to admit that I have never actually participated in this event either as a volunteer or by baking some cookies, but I really need to at our next base. It's such a fun reason to bake up a big batch of cookies. This year our base has to collect something like 500 dozen cookies to cover all the dorm residents. It's a huge undertaking, but so worthwhile.

Fonts Used:
Little Lord Fontleroy NF
Janda Elegant Handwriting
Quicksand

Design: Elephant and Rhino Foster Parent

My brother-in-law had spent some time in Africa. While he was there, he was able to visit an organization that fosters elephants and rhinos. His girlfriend (now fiance) loves elephants, so he "adopted" one for her.

This past Christmas, Charles and I were trying to decide what to get them. Their foster parent aid had ended, so we thought it would be nice to reinstate it. Since you cannot really wrap that as a gift, I created a couple signs to send them to represent the donation. We ended up sponsoring both an elephant and rhino in their names.

The signs are very simple. You could even do something similar as nursery or child's room art. 

Fonts used:
English Essay
Vingy

The After Christmas Christmas Party

This past Friday night, we celebrated with Charles' squadron at their holiday party. It was supposed to happen before Christmas, but it was postponed due to weather.

I was amazed at how many people were there. It was a lot of fun to see everyone all dressed up. We enjoyed some tasty food: tri-tip (a California specialty), potatoes, green beans, salad and cornbread. For dessert there was a cookies and milk bar. Yum!

They gave away tons of prizes including a curved TV. I think everyone was hoping to win that. Unfortunately, we did not win. Charles did win a Walmart gift card, so we did not walk away empty handed.

Me with some of my gal pals from this base

Doesn't Charles look so stylin' with the sweater, button up, tie combo? Love it!

We eat well on Christmas

This Christmas was a simple one for us. It was only Charles and me. But I loved it! We each got some pretty amazing presents (even though that doesn't matter at all) and we enjoyed watching the kitties play with their Christmas gifts.

I did not put a whole lot of thought into Christmas dinner, but I did find some amazing recipes of new dishes to try (Pinterest, of course).

Our Christmas breakfast tradition is Chocolate French Toast. I have shared this on the blog before. It is such a yummy breakfast that I should make it more often. We made homemade Oatmeal Bread in the bread machine to use. It was a great choice.

Our dinner included smoked chicken. Charles did a great job with that! As our sides we enjoyed Sweet Potato Casserole, Garlic Pecan Broccoli and homemade Hawaiian rolls. Everything turned out delicious! The sweet potato casserole has a fantastic crunchy topping. The recipes makes a lot, so we have been enjoying this everyday since Christmas. The Hawaiian rolls were good...because what homemade bread isn't good, right? But I don't know if it really tasted like Hawaiian rolls. I might try another recipe to compare.

Normally, we have birthday cake for Jesus as our dessert on Christmas. This year Jesus wanted bread pudding. I found an amazing recipe for New Orleans style bread pudding with a coconut praline sauce. SOOOOO good! We also used homemade Oatmeal bread for this recipe.

Cookie time!

Tomorrow I am hosting a Christmas themed book club meeting at my house. We read Santaland Diaries which is a great choice for a December book club meeting. The book (the version I read was actually a play) is very short and easy to read. Hosting gives me an excuse to do some major Christmas baking. I am very excited. Here is what I have planned:

Gooey Brownies
I'm going to add crushed candy canes on top. Yummy!

Soft Gingerbread Cookies
Don't these look soft and yummy?

Oreo Peppermint Chocolate Chip Cookies
Long name...and I'm making mine with Newman O's instead of Oreos.I love chocolate and peppermint together.

Peanut Butter Fudge

Peanut Butter Cookies with Hershey Kisses
These are a classic. I don't know why I don't make them more often.

Magic Cookie Bars
My mom, sisters and I always made these during the Christmas season when I was growing up. It's not Christmas without them. Plus they are super simple to make.

I'm gaining 10 pounds just by thinking about all these recipes!

Our travel tradition

One of my favorite things about Christmas is decorating the tree. Growing up we always used a variety of ornaments that were given to us or were collected over the years. I love that look because each ornament has a memory or a story. Don't get me wrong...beautifully designed trees in specific color schemes and such are great, too. If I ever am extravagant enough to have more than one Christmas tree, I would definitely do one with a particular theme.

A tradition that we have (and I think I've shared this before) is to buy an ornament as a souvenir when we travel. We try to buy one in each city that we visit, but sometimes we miss one. It is so much fun to pull out all the ornaments at Christmas and remember each trip. Sometimes we purchase ornaments that aren't labeled or specific to the city we visited and we have to try to remember where we got it. That happened with one of the newer ornaments we pulled out for the tree this year.

San Fran Cable Car and Blown glass ornament from Fredericksburg, TX

Sheep from Iceland

Alaskan girl and Our First Christmas ornament

The cross is one of my favorites and is from Ireland. The lovebirds are from our anniversary trip to Tahoe.

Another one from our Alaskan adventure

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

I used to tell people that my favorite holiday was Valentine's Day. I was lying to myself with that one. My favorite holiday is definitely Christmas. I love everything about it! I love decorating. I love the food. I love the meaning behind the holiday. I still get up before the sun comes out on Christmas morning because I am that excited to open presents.

At work, I have been taking care of the Christmas cards which has got me thinking about Christmas a little prematurely. In our house, we do not decorate until after Thanksgiving. Charles believes the decorations cannot come out until December 1st or later. Sometimes I can get away with a few days before, if I'm persuasive.

This Christmas we are in a new house, so I have to figure out where I will put the Christmas tree and how I will decorate. This is both the fun and challenging part of moving so often. It gives me the opportunity to spruce things up, but it also gives me more to think about.

I have been pinning some ideas that I might try out. I thought I would share some with you.

I think I have a ton of red polka dot ribbon. It has just been sitting in a box doing nothing. It might be a fun way to use it.

I mainly love the candy cane sign, but this image is full of color and light.

I have been meaning to make these for the past couple of years. I'm determined this year.

I am thinking on the new kitchen table to have trees like this as the centerpiece or along the middle of the table. We will see if I get around to making some.

I love the light swags. I don't think I have a good spot to do this, though.

I desperately want an old sled and skates to make this happen. Maybe I need to hit some thrift stores or antique stores. I know I have seen these items before.

Christmas Traditions

The holidays are full of traditions. I thought I would share a few of mine...

- Decorate... I don't know if this really counts as a tradition since most people do it. But you cannot have the Christmas holiday without decorations. Some of my favorite decorations are my two German houses. I grew up with these types of houses from when we lived in Germany. My mom's collection seemed to grow each time my Dad went to Germany on a business trip. Then a couple years ago when my brother-in-law lived in Germany, he gave me one of the houses. It was the best ever!

- Christmas breakfast... growing up it was either sticky buns or coffee cake. And then at some point we added quiche. When Charles and I got married, our Christmas breakfast tradition became chocolate french toast. Yum, yum, yum! And when we visit my in-laws, we enjoy waffles!

- Christmas pajamas... I don't remember when this started, but it was one year when I was a kid. We begged my parents every year to let us open a present on Christmas Eve. Thus the Christmas pajamas started. The nice thing about that is you have new pajamas to wear on Christmas morning.

My 2012 Christmas pajamas...I love the sheep!

- Christmas Eve service... I love the Christmas Eve service at my parents' church. The church is large and they have the traditional choir and orchestra. Normally that is not my cup of tea at church, but on Christmas Eve nothing is better. They always pass out candles that we light towards the end of the service. The lights in the sanctuary are turned down and everything is illuminated by the individual candles. It is kind of magical.

- Watching movies... we would usually get a movie for Christmas. After all the presents were opened and the wrapping paper mounds disposed of we sit around and watch one of the new movies we received. It's a nice way to spend time together on Christmas and enjoy your new presents.

I just love Christmas! There are so many fun traditions that families can have this time of year.

Deck the halls

December has arrived so I have put out almost all my Christmas decorations! For inspiration, I like to look back on pictures from previous years to remind myself where I placed certain items. And sometimes I do something totally different.

I haven't taken any pictures yet and I don't have a Christmas tree. I'm not sure if I will get one or not because Charles is considering a trip home for Christmas instead of staying here. My favorite thing about decorating the tree is pulling out all the ornaments in remembrance of when we purchased them. Our travel tradition is to pick up an ornament from each place we visit. We don't always find a cute ornament, but we definitely try. With all the places we have traveled together, it can be easy to forget some places. The ornaments are a nice reminder.

One of my newer Christmas decorations is a big hit on Pinterest. It is pinned at least once a day. It makes me smile every time. You can check out the original post here: Christmas Decorating Complete. The verse is a good reminder of what Christmas is all about.

Christmas Decorating Complete

We have finished our Christmas decorating! We picked out our tree and decorated it yesterday. I also finished my Christmas pillows and added something new on my "shelf-thing." Take a look...

We had to trim a few branches off the bottom so our tree would fit in the stand. The kitties enjoyed crawling under them.

Unwrapping all the ornaments. It took some time.

Two of our new ornaments. Charles bought these in Iceland. Our travel tradition is to buy an ornament from each place we visit. We have quite a collection of unique ornaments. It is always a fun way to remember all the places we have been.

Love these German houses! I grew up with these--my mom had a collection that started when we lived in Germany. My brother-in-law gave each of these to me.

My new Christmas pillows! I love the fabric on the top most. It is so cute and whimsical.

My new additions---the frame in the back just has some red and white polka dot fabric inside. The frame in front has my own creation of a Christmas printable.

Close up of my printable. The verse is a good reminder of what Christmas is really about. 

Our Mexican nativity.

The tree with a new star

Eli! We got him in Georgia at an apple festival.