Letters to Santa

Just in case you didn't know what Russ or I wanted.... Merry Christmas!

Scrapbooking Again

I was not gifted in life with artistic skills. Drawing, sketching, painting, scultping... I am awful at all of them. Scrapbooking is my only artistic outlet. I don't know why I enjoy doing it so much. I find it very satisfying to keep a book of the finished products though. I recently got into scrapbooking again after a somewhat long hiatus.

Here are the pages I've done recently:

This one is a page of pictures from my mama and grandmama's visit to Grande Prairie! We had a great time :)

This is a page of some pics of my manfriend and I. The colours are a bit brighter than in the picture. I pictures make me smile and the owls that we made look amazing.

This is a page of Joopers! I can't believe I haven't made a scrapbooking page about the pup yet. Watching him run around with his boots on outside had me laughing so hard I was snorting. So I decided to make a page of his cute pictures!

If anyone ever wants to scrapbook with me let me know. I think the dog one is my favourite of the three pages I just did. Fun, easy, quick, relatively inexpensive hobby. Maybe I'll post some more pages as I make them :)

From Someone Special

I'm dating the best boy ever! I was home from work sick today and someone amazing brought these to my place after he finished work today. They are beautiful and they smell amazing and they absolutely did make me feel better. I am a lucky girl :)

Cheesecake Is Not Easy To Make

So I tried to make a cheesecake this week. I attempted it with someone who we will call... Mr. Awesome (only cause he will love that if he ever reads this). Basically we saw a recipe in a kraft baking flyer and really wanted to make it cause it sounded amazing! "Chocolate Chip Black Bottom Cheesecake". Half cake, half cheesecake, filled with chocolate chips. What's not to love about that?? Neither of us had ever made cheesecake, or baked with a tube pan... but it can't be that hard right?!?

The recipe all ready to go. LOTS of ingredients.

The MOST important ingredient!

Mr. A baking for the first time, making the chocolate cake portion.

Using my lovely hand-held mixer and mixing the cheesecake batter!

CAKE!!! Ok, so it doesn't look all that appetizing, and we couldn't get it off of that tube thing from the pan for the life of us. BUT it tasted amazing!! If we could just perfect the look of it, we would be dessert geniuses! Seriously, we greased the pan, and baked it for the right amount of time, and the edge piece slid off nicely, but how in the world do I get it off the middle part without breaking it?! We may have tried once, and a hidden portion of the cake may or may not have fallen off... hard to say what really happened... All the cracks may have been caused by that incident as well... or maybe not. Who knows? Anyway, the point is that it tasted amazing and we will continue out quest to be master dessert bakers. Practice makes perfect!

Welcoming The Snow

Winter has arrived! Well... I don't know about the rest of Canada, but winter has arrived in Grande Prairie. The snow poured down, the roads are slippery, the temperature has dropped. True winter! Actually, the last couple of days have been absolutely beautiful. It wasn't windy so it wasn't that cold, and the sun was shining all day long. Lovely winter days :)

These couple pics were taken on my street yesterday at about 4:45pm. The sun is almost down, and the snow covers the ground. Joopers was enjoying the walk.

Just wanted to give everyone a picture of what they're missing up here in northern Alberta!

The crappy thing that comes along with winter is the colds and flus. I unfortunately have already caught a small cold... I'm now pumping vitamin C and NeoCitran into my body and hoping for the best. I'm guessing my early bedtime will be the most helpful of all :)

ps - tomorrow is suppose to be -24 degrees, with a high of -15. Lovely... Alyssa, if you're reading this, don't forget to bring a warm, warm coat when you visit!

Sidewalk Prophets - You Love Me Anyway

I cannot get this song out of my head lately. I love the message and the lyrics. So powerful. I'm a huge fan of having a local Christian radio station (ShineFM).

"I am the thorn in Your crown

But You love me anyway
I am the sweat from Your brow
But You love me anyway
I am the nail in Your wrist
But You love me anyway
I am Judas’ kiss
But You love me anyway
See now, I am the man who yelled out from the crowd
For Your blood to be spilled on this earth shaking
ground
Yes then, I turned away with a smile on my face
With this sin in my heart tried to bury Your grace
And then alone in the night, I still called out for You
So ashamed of my life, my life, my life
But You love me anyway"

Beautiful lyrics. Enjoy :)