Christmas crafts with her BFF

We decided to get Ellie and her best friend, Harper together to make some Christmas crafts this year. We narrowed it down to one Christmas tree painting and some gingerbread cookies. We were dealing with toddlers, so we knew we couldn't do too much at one time.

 So...here's how the morning went.

Start with blank canvases.

Use them as skates. 

 Paint toddlers' hands and help them make a Christmas tree. I couldn't get pictures of that part because I ended up with paint all over my hands, too. 

 We had planned on having the girls help us make cookies, but they weren't very interested. We let them play with toys instead. 

 The mommies made the cookies.

We'll leave out the temper tantrum details. Trust me, you'll thank me for it.

The finished product! I love it! I can't wait to hang it on the wall!

Christmas Decorations...a home tour.

Once again, I'm doing a link-up with Kelly's Korner. This week it is all about Christmas decorations! I love decorating for Christmas! I'm always sad when January comes and I have to take it all down. I think the house looks so boring once the decorations are gone! Anyway, allow me to give you a little tour of our home. I usually do a little more, but with a 21-month-old, I have to be careful. She tends to be a little curious. 

This is probably my favorite area of our house. This house doesn't have a mantle, so I had to figure out what to do with this garland when we moved here. This was my favorite decoration in our condo, too, so I knew I had to use it somewhere. I made the flower arrangement, and I just stuck the poinsettias in the garland. 

This is our tree. It's hard to tell in the picture, but the theme is snowmen. 

These are our stockings. I love Eliana's cable-knit stocking! I just realized how messy her books are in this picture. That drives my OCD-self a little crazy.

This is our dining room. Are you sensing a snowman theme? I love these plates! They came from Kohls a few years ago.

This is my favorite kitchen decoration. It's a cute snowman plate holder that I got a few years ago! That's also one of my favorite appetizers on the plate. It's a hot pepper peach cheeseball. Maybe one day I'll post the recipe.

This is our newest addition to our Christmas decorations! This is our Little People Nativity Set. Eliana loves this! I am hoping we can use it each year to help tell her the real story of Christmas.

Finally, this is the tree in Eliana's room! It matches the pink in her room perfectly! I'm hoping to add some ornaments to it each year. 

My Favorite Christmas Candy...at least one of them.

One of my favorite blogs, Kelly's Korner, is doing a link-up today about favorite holiday recipes. I have so many, so it was very hard to decide (maybe I'll post more later). Anyway, I decided to post a candy recipe that I remember my grandmother making for as long as I can remember. I haven't made these yet this year, so I don't have any pictures, but I'll edit this post once I do. O'Henry bars make Rice Krispies treats seem like nothing! These have rice cereal, chocolate, butterscotch, and peanut butter!!! There is nothing wrong with that combination!

O'Henry Bars

Ingredients:

1 C Sugar

1 C Light Corn Syrup

1 1/2 C Peanut Butter

1 tsp Vanilla

6 C Rice Cereal (small box)

12 oz Butterscotch Morsels

12 oz Milk Chocolate Morsels

Directions:

Pour rice cereal into a large bowl.

In a large pot, bring sugar and syrup to a boil.

Remove from heat and add peanut butter and vanilla.

Stir and pour over rice cereal.

Stir until cereal is well coated.

Press mixture into a greased 9x13 cake pan. You can use cooking spray or butter to grease the pan.

Melt the butterscotch and chocolate morsels in a double boiler.

Pour the butterscotch and chocolate mixture over the the rice cereal mixture.

Let cool.

Cut into squares.