Merry Christmas To my blog friends!

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MAY HIS LOVE GUIDE YOUR WAY AT CHRISTMAS AND ALWAYS!

Hope ya'll are having a lovely Christmas Eve! I love Christmas Eve! A family tradition that I am carrying on to our family is having a lot of goodies and snacks (finger foods) for supper and eating by candle light! It is so much fun!

And I hope ya'll have a beautiful and memorable Christmas morning!

I have a lot more to write up and post, but not enough time now! I hope to get to it soon though!

May God bless you and yours and I hope you are having a great time with your families and meditating on God and His Son and on His blessings to you!

Merry Christmas!

~Hannah

~Music Mondays~ Night Before Christmas and Christmas Canon!

Wow! Only a few days left till Christmas Day! I hope and pray everyone is having a lovely Christmas season! And dwelling on the true meaning and reason for this season! God bless you and I hope you enjoy the sings over on Shawntele's blog, "Saved by Grace"! There are some great songs to get you in the Christmas and praising spirit!

Today I am sharing two special Christmas songs and more of my favorites too!

"The Night Before Christmas"

By Amy Grant

And the

"Christmas Canon Rock"

By Trans-Siberian Orchestra

~My Christmas Baking List!~

Oooo! I can hardly wait to start my Christmas gift baking! I love making goodies to give to friends and family for Christmas! This year I plan to make
several Pumpkin Rolls a lot like THIS recipe at LIBBY'S,
several loaves of Cranberry Fruit Nut Bread,
and a Ginger Bread recipe, but I want to use a pan that has little teddy bear shaped! The girls should love that!
And of course some cookies so I want to try making my
WORLD'S BEST SUGAR COOKIEs,
and let the girls cut them with their Christmas cookie cutters and sprinkle with colored sugar!
I decided I would share all these recipes (and more) that I plan to use in this post! So you can scroll down and find them, if you would like to use them too!
If you would like to share some links to your Christmas recipes, I have added a linky to the bottom of this post!
Also do not forget to check out this Festive Corn recipe HERE in an older post, and you can find my favorite Carrot Cake recipe that I already posted a few days ago, HERE!

So here are the recipes:

Ginger Bread
1c. flour
1 c. whole wheat flour
1 Tbsp. ginger
1/2 tsp. salt
1/2 c. molasses
1/2c. butter
1/2c. water
1 egg
Preheat oven to 325. Mix dry ingredients (except soda). Combine molasses, butter, water and soda in a suacepan and bring to a boil. Mix with dry ingredients and add egg. Pour into well greased pan and bake 25-30 min.
You can Serve with whipped cream and butterscotch syrup, though I have not tried that yet!!


Cranberry Fruit Nut Bread
http://bread.betterrecipes.com/cranberry-fruit-nut-bread.html

A bread with cranberries and nuts to go with all of your holiday meals.
Ingredients:
1 cup fresh or frozen cranberries, coarsely chopped
1/2 c. chopped nuts
1 tbs grated orange peel
2 c all purpose flour
1 c sugar
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp baking soda
2 tbs shortening
3/4 cup orange juice
1 egg, well beaten
Directions: Preheat oven to 350*. Generously grease and lightly flour a 9 x5 x3 loaf pan. Prepare cranberries, nuts and orange peel. Set aside. In a bowl, mix together flour, sugar, baking powder, salt, and soda. Cut in shortening. Stir in orange juice, egg, and orange peel mixing just to moisten. Fold in cranberries and nuts. Spoon into prepared pan. Bake 60 min or until tests done. Cool on rack 15 minutes. Remove from and, cool completely. Wrap & store overnight.

WORLD'S BEST SUGAR COOKIE
From http://teriskitchen.com/
INGREDIENTS
1cup powdered sugar
1 cup white sugar
1 cup oleo or butter
2 eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla
1 cup cooking oil
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking soda
5 cups flour
1 teaspoon cream of tartar
Cream sugar, oleo and oil until light and fluffy. Beat in eggs. Sift dry ingredients together. Add first mixture to second and mix well. Roll into balls. Press with glass dipped in sugar. Bake at 350° F for 15 to 20 minutes on an ungreased cookie sheet.

And now two recipes that I do not plan on using it this year, but I thought you might enjoy them though!


Here is a great sweet bread recipe, that can be healthy too! I used half wheat flour and honey when I made this recipe!!

Apple Nut Bread
Apples and pecans are stirred into this cinnamon-spiced quick bread.
Ingredients:
3 eggs, slightly beaten
2 cups sugar
1 cup vegetable oil
1 tbl vanilla
3 cups all-purpose flour
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp cinnamon
4 cups chopped, pared, cored apples
1 cup chopped pecans
Topping:
2 Tbsp sugar
1/2 tsp cinnamon
Directions: Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Grease and flour 2 8 1/2 x 5 1/2 x 2 1/2 inch loaf pans. Stir together the eggs, sugar, oil and vanilla until well mixed. Combine flour, baking soda and cinnamon. Stir into liquid ingredients just until evenly mixed. Stir in apples and pecans. Divide between 2 prepared loaf pans. Prepare Topping: combine sugar and cinnamon. Sprinkle over tops of loaves. Bake in preheated oven for 1 hour and 10 minutes or until wooden pick inserted in centers comes out clean. Cool breads in pans on wire racks for 10 minutes. Remove breads from pans and allow to cool completely. Wrap tightly in plastic wrap or foil and store at room temperature. The breads are better the second day.
Number of Servings: 32
Notes from the Cook: Using pure convection: bake at 325 for 50-55 minutes

Here is another great sweet bread recipe!

Orange-Apricot Loaf
From Being a Virtuous Woman
Submitted by: Carrie Dicus
Makes: 1 loaf
1 c. apricots, diced
2 c. all-purpose flour
3/4 c. granulated sugar
1 T. baking powder
1/4 t. salt
2 eggs
2/3 c. orange juice
3 T. vegetable oil
Preheat oven to 350ºF. In a large bowl, stir together flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt. In a smaller bowl, combine eggs, orange juice, and oil. Add to the flour mixture and stir just until combined. Fold in the apricots. Spoon into a lightly greased 8x4x2-in. loaf pan. Bake for 50-55 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Cool the bread in pan on a wire rack for 5 minutes; remove from pan.

And here is the linky for if you want to share what you are baking this Christmas!

Great giveaway! An ERGO!

Ever since I first saw an ERGO in my Above Rubies magazine, I have just loved them! They are by far the BEST baby wearers Ever! There is a giveaway right now for one over at "The Fabulous Won" if you would like to check them out!

~Music Mondays~ Emanuel God with Us!

Tis the season for some wonderful and uplifting Christmas music about our Savior's birth! How miraculous that He became a man, like one of us, and walked among us! he endeared the hurts and pains of all mankind, then died a terrible death, that only the worst of mankind had to endure! What a Savior! Hallelujah!Today I wanted to share Amy Grants song, "Emanuel, God with Us" (one of my favorite Christmas songs!). It is so wonderful to know that God is with us, everyday! Praise His Most Holy Name! For more great Christmas music and to join for Music Mondays, visit Shawntele's blog, "Saved by Grace"!God bless your week!

Wood Spiltting One Afternoon

With a small wood cook stove, we have been cutting and splitting a lot of wood this fall!
Our wood pile of split wood was starting to shrink this week, so I went out Thursday afternoon and spilt a lot of the cherry wood that my husband brought home the other day.

(Above) This was the wood pile before I started! Looks pitiful, I know!

And this was the wood pile, 6 wagon loads of splitting later!

Did I mention that I had to haul the 6 loads of wood up our rock/gravel walkway? Nothing like I use to have to do, but still worthy of mentioning!

And there is still this much of the cherry wood left to split! Yippee!

I hope to work on it more over the coming week! Anyone want to help? I will make hot chocolate or herbal tea!

My favorite (sugar free) Carrot Cake!!

First Christmas Recipe of this season......(drum roll) .............
My Favorite Carrot Cake recipe!

This has been a family favorite (on my side of the family) for I am not sure how many years now! I believe Mom had it in her "Whole Foods for the Whole Family" cookbook! Anyways, I love it because it has no white or brown sugar, or white flour, yet it taste Sooo good! And the cream cheese frosting!!!!! I love cream cheese frosting!
With the Holidays here, I hope I get a chance to make this cake! I do not think I have made it since Easter! Wow. That sounds bad! I should make it just to eat for us! =)
Hope you get a chance to make it too, and you enjoy it! If you know of anyone who is diabetic, this would be a good treat for them!

Carrot or Zucchini Cake
2 c. whole wheat flour
2 tsp. baking powder
1 1/2 tsp. soda
1 tsp. salt
2 tsp. cinnamon
2 c. grated carrots or zucchini
4 large eggs
3/4 c. oil
3/4 c. honey
1 c. unsweetened, crushed pineapple, drained
1/2 c. chopped nuts
Sift together the dry ingredients. In a large bowl, beat together until blended the eggs, vegetable oil, honey. Stir in the carrots and pineapple. Gradually stir in the dry ingredients, keeping batter smooth. Stir in nuts.
Pour into a greased and floured 9 x 13-inch pan or three 9" layer pans. Bake for 35 to 40 minutes in a 350o oven, or until a cake tester inserted into the center comes out clean. Cool for a few min. in pan.


Cream Cheese Frosting
8 oz. cream cheese, softened
8 tablespoons of butter, softened
2-4 tablespoons of honey
1 tsp. vanilla
1/2 c. chopped nuts (optional)
Beat cream cheese and butter until fluffy. Beat in honey to taste. Add vanilla and nuts. Ice cooled cake.


Keep refrigerated!

A Herbal Tea Giveaway @ "One 2 Try"!

I have been following/subscribing to "One 2 Try" blog for a while now and she has some great reviews and giveaways!

One of her new giveaways going on right now (till December 18th), is from Mighty Leaf Tea. They have some really great looking products and their teas sound wonderful! I am always looking for some herbal teas and companys that sell herbal products, so I had fun checking out the Mighty Leaf Tea!

Hope you get a chance to visit "One 2 Try" and join in on the great reviews and giveaways!

Expect the Unexpected!

An unexpected home repair and chance for cleaning the kitchen cabinets (and bleaching many areas in the cabinets and on the back porch)!

A line that is often said by my husband or I is, "You can't make this up"! After you read this blog post you will only see a few reasons why we say that!

We have been using our wood cook stove for heating the house this winter. It has already helped out a lot on our electric bill! =)
It is a small stove though, so you really have to stay with it to keep wood in the small wood box.
My husband said we should start putting wood in, whenever one of us gets up at night, since the nights are getting colder. So on last Saturday morning, I woke at 3 am. and it was pretty cool in the house, so I went down and started a fire. Husband got up when he heard me and I went on back to bed.
I had not been in bed long when I heard some noise in the kitchen. It sounded way to big for a mouse and I knew the cat could not get in, so I went down and sure enough I could hear something in the empty/broke junk drawer under the coffee maker!
I went up and woke husband back up to tell him!
Well I went down first, just in time to see a skunk fall out of the cabinet door!!

I took this picture a week or 2 ago, of the skunk eating the cat food! So as soon as I heard the commotion in the drawer and cabinet, I just knew it was the skunk, but I was really hoping for a rat or raccoon!
Well I went and opened the back door and thankfully the skunk moved on out, after he went into the washroom, looking for a way out!
We started going thru the kitchen trying to find were it came in, but could not see any where! While we were still talking about it, there was the skunk again in the cabinet! We could hardly believe it! This time when it came out of the cabinet, it went all the way around the house, following the walls, looking for a way out, till it found the back door! Well it ran back under the porch, so we tore into the cabinets again. This time we took out the broke drawer and found a small hole in the wall! The wall had the duck work in it that goes upstairs, so the skunk had gotten under the house thru a small hole by the AC and then found or made a hole in the duck work to come up into the cabinet!
We put a big towel in the hole to block it up for the day, but by then it was almost 5 a.m. and Princess S. was a wake! I tried to go get a nap, but the other Princess woke up too! So it was a very long day! And all my lower kitchen cabinets were emptied out all over the floor of the kitchen! I was needed to clean the cabinets, so I got to do that!
Husband went to the solar project he has been working on lately and brought some boards home that evening to fix the hole, but found we need stuff to repair the duck work first. Husband threw a lot of bleach around in the hole that they made in it made in the duck work, though.
While we were checking what all we needed to repair, the skunk somehow was back under one of the cabinets! So we threw more bleach in under the cabinets!Then somehow went back out, without us seeing it! Unreal.
Husband put the boards up to block the hole, till we can fix it all.
It wasn't long before the skunk was on the back porch eating cat food again! So husband opened the door enough to throw bleach on it! It just ran back under the porch. We went looking around to see if we could find it and for sure of how it was getting in under the house. I got brave and opened the little door that is for getting under the house and I was meet by the sight of TWO skunks, standing not too far away! Well that answered a lot of questions! Now that was why one time the skunk went right out the door, but the other time it went all the way around the house!

We still have a skunk around, as of last night, but I do pray it never gets back in and I am SOOOOOO THANKFUL none have squirted at us or in the house!!

I have learned a lot about skunks...
1. They are Not afraid of anything!
2. They are not very smart,
3. They can fit in Tiny holes!
and 4.
If you have one, you most likely have 2!

Cold Season Herbal Tea

We got head colds right before Thanksgiving, so we took it easy for a few days and did not get out for Thanksgiving. =( Oh well, did not feel up to it anyway! Did manage to cook us a turkey and gressing and greenbean cassarole though!
I also made up some of my new tea to try! It was SOOO good! I think it is some of the best tasting herbal tea I have ever tried!

The tea is called "Cold Season Immune" and it is one of Dr. Christopher's formulas, of course! You can read about it Here, but I highly recommend buying THIS book, so you can make the tea yourself (and tons of other formulas, etc)! The book may be around $70, but it is really worth it!

The "Cold Season Immune" formula has

6 parts garlic,

1 part rosemary,

1 part parsley,

1 part watercress,

and

6 parts rosehips!

This tea is full of vitamin C! And is great for fighting infections.
I left out the garlic though, since I thought fresh garlic would be better to add as we drink it. I ended up not putting it in the tea I made the other day though, since I wanted the girls to drink it and knew they would not with garlic in it! =)

I hope you get a chance to make this tea and try it!

God bless!

~Music Mondays~ "Do You Hear?" and "Drummer Boy"

Christmas Music Monday! Yippee!
I wanted to share two more songs! Hope that is okay! They are two great songs by two great groups! I am sure everyone will enjoy them! =)
For more great music, go to Shawntele's blog, "Saved by Grace" and check out her song and the other ladies links!

"Do You Hear What I Hear"

By Third Day

"Drummer Boy"

By Jars of Clay

Samuel Adams Saturday Speech (cont. part 18)

"If there is any man so base or so weak as to prefer a dependence on Great Britain to the dignity and happiness of living a member of a free and independent nation, let me tell him that necessity now demands what the generous principle of patriotism should have dictated."
-Samuel Adams

To be continued....or go HERE to read the entire speech!

Giveaway @ Kellie's for Craft Kit!!

While skimming over my facebook today, I noticed another giveaway! It was a craft kit giveaway, so I had to check it out! I found it on a facebook friends blog (glad to find her blog too!!).

Kellie @ "Training Up A Child" has the great giveaway of a craft kit from "Creativity for Kids"!!

This is another great site that I had never seen before that has GREAT ideas for homeschoolers for Christmas or birthday gifts! A ton of good crafts to keep you children busy and learning! I will have to shop around here over the years to come (Lord willing)!

I think I would have to pick the "Make Your Own Cupcake Soaps" kit! I think my girls would love it, and it looks like it would be easy enough for them and they could give some to "Nonnie" and their Aunt!!

Doesn't it look fun? Hope you will go over and check out Kellie's giveaway and maybe you will shop around at "Creativity for Kids" and get some Christmas shopping done there!!