A Merry Little Christmas

Oreo Truffles

Okay, so recipes for Oreo Truffles are all over the Internet, but they are so yummy, and so easy to make, that I had to post the recipe here. If you like Oreo cookies at all (who doesn't??), then you will find it hard not to eat these until your stomach aches.

Oreo Truffles

1 package Oreo cookies

1 package cream cheese, at room temperature

white or milk chocolate candy coating

(if you want to use a color, then you can also use Wilton candy melts - - they come in all kinds of colors and can be found at WalMart and at Michael's craft stores)

Crush Oreo cookies in food processor until finely ground (there should not be any chunks of cookie at all). Put into a bowl. Add softened package of cream cheese and blend together with a hand mixer. Roll into walnut-sized round balls and place on a cookie sheet lined with wax paper or parchment. Refrigerate for one hour.

Melt chocolate over double boiler until smooth. Using a toothpick, dip each ball into the melted chocolate. Place back onto cookie sheet and allow to harden. If not serving right away, store in the refrigerator.

If you want to get all fancy, you can put some of the melted chocolate into a Ziploc bag. Cut a very small hole in the corner of the bag and then squeeze a zigzag design on the top of each truffle.

Weekend Projects

What a lovely weekend we had!

It snowed on Saturday, enough to cover the ground - - and it is still out there, as I type. I don't think it will be around for long though, as there is rain in the forecast this week.

On Saturday, we all found ourselves working on projects. Steve's project came in the form of trying to repair a 55-year old pocket door. While pocket doors are really nifty (we have one as a closet door in the living room, and one that separates the kitchen and dining room), they are not easy to repair, as it turns out.

Can't you see how absolutely thrilled Steve was, to be spending his day, wrestling with that thing? The good news is, the door is back on its track. The bad news is, it is very difficult to open or close now. Guess that's another project for another weekend.

Most of Camden's and Griffin's weekend projects involved snow. They must have gone in and out approximately four times on Saturday afternoon. You can see here that they are hard at work on their snow angels.

Camden also spent quite a bit of time working on a new Lego masterpiece (a ship, of course). If you look closely, you can see that Griffin spent quite a bit of time working on annoying his older brother. He's a rascal, that Griffin.

As for me, I worked on some craft projects. I love the idea of being crafty, but as is the case with cooking, I have a hard time doing something that doesn't come with specific instructions. Somehow, I have managed to break out of my cooking rut, and am finding that I can, in fact, create a lovely meal without always following a recipe. It is very liberating, I tell you! Now, I am also learning that I can find all kinds of neat ideas in books, magazines, and on the Internet, and then come up with my own versions of what I've seen.

For quite a while now, I've been infatuated with fabric brooches. I've seen them all over the Internet, on blogs and on Etsy. So the other day, I got some scraps together, and just wanted to see what I could come up with. It was so much fun! In the end, I took a fleece hat that I bought at the Dollar Tree, and then made a flower out of red fleece that I had on hand, finished it off with a polka-dot button, and sewed it to the hat. After that, I took some more of the fleece and tried my hand at making some fingerless gloves for myself. I'd bought a pattern to do this last year, but alas, the pattern was too complicated! Instead, I traced my hand and made my own pattern. They came out exactly how I wanted them to. Let me tell you, if you are a novice seamstress such as myself, polar fleece is extremely forgiving. I have a feeling that I may have to make everything from here on out, from polar fleece.

Cookies for Santa

It started with this post. Then, I read this. The end result: some cute little gifts for my

niece and nephews...

Super easy, and fun to make. The boys and I made a batch to "test" the recipe. The verdict:

Yummy.

Hey Stranger

Well now. That was officially my longest blogging dry spell ever. Hello? Anyone out there??

All I can say is that for some reason I have had zero desire to write about anything lately. I think it has something to do with short, cold days, being cooped up inside, and all that goes with that. Yeah, that's the reason!

Here is a brief pictorial of what we have been up to....

Enjoying the first snow of the season. Yes, all you New Englanders...that mere dusting you see behind Griffin was a Major Deal for the boys. Sad, but true.

Wasting toilet paper. Just because.

Loving on the World's Greatest (sweetest, smartest, most wonderful) Six-Year Old

Eating lots of Candy Cane Tootsie Pops

Inheriting Older Brother's hand-knit sweater set (and then insisting upon wearing it wherever he goes)

Receiving beautiful, hand-made jewelry in the mail from someone who seriously needs to open an Etsy shop (thank you, Kate ~ you so made my day today)

Not napping.

Napping!!

Drinking hot chocolate, eating chocolate covered donuts, while sporting a good old-fashioned case of Winter Hat Head

So, as you can see, we've been kind of busy here, enjoying life as it happens!