Maple Taffy on Snow (or La Tire!)

On Saturday evening, it was warm outside! We got a little break from the bitter winter chill and my family grabbed the opportunity to make some maple taffy on snow. In Quebec, we call maple taffy on snow la tire. I had to look up what it's called in English! So today, I'm talking la tire!

Start by adding some maple syrup to a medium saucepan. Make sure you have quite a bit of room in the saucepan - the maple syrup expands quite a bit as it's cooking. We used 1/4 cup of maple syrup. But you can adjust this amount depending on how many you are making for.

Figure Skate Sugar Cookies with Royal Icing

I'm talking about Royal Icing again today! I made figure skates and I was so happy with the end result! Before I get into how I made these, I should mention my current thoughts towards royal icing... It's a lot of work! I spent about 3 hours on the skates and a similar amount of time on the pineapples that I shared last week! I'm guessing this time will go down when I become more familiar with the whole royal icing process (at least, I hope it does!).

So, it was so much fun to experiment with and the end result is really beautiful. I just cannot imagine myself doing this on a regular basis. I will definitely use royal icing when I am decorating cookies for themed parties or theme specific events. But otherwise I will likely just be sticking cookies that are easier to put together and just as delicious!

I used the same royal icing recipe that I used last time (for the Pineapples) and it worked just as well!! The recipe is from Follow the Ruels and I love how simple it is!

Friday Favorites: Happy St-Patrick's Day!!

Happy Friday & Happy St-Patrick's day!! I have all kinds of fun things with you to share with you from this week! Let's get started!

Slow Cooker Beef Stew

On Tuesday, we got a huge dumping of snow and I mean ginormous!! The roads were horrible and it continued overnight so almost nothing was open yesterday - my whole family was home from work and school! Well, lots of snow and chilly weather had me craving stew! Last month when my family went to Vermont, our friends made this stew for us and it was so hearty and perfect for winter! So when I woke up to school being cancelled, I called Vermont for the recipe and got started on the stew!

The original recipe is from Damn Delicious, you can find it HERE.

Friday Favorites: Lots of Love & Snow

Happy Friday, everyone! This week was full of love and snow - let me catch you up...

1. We got hit by an INSANE amount of snow on Monday! My family woke up Monday morning to winter wonderland! We haven't gotten snow like this in years and I am loving it!

My mom and I went for a walk last night to look for the tallest snowbanks and we found so many! Most of the snowbanks go to just above my hip but...

Music for Monday: Love, Love Love!

Today, I'm sharing one of my all time favorite songs about love. I thought this was fitting since Valentine's Day is tomorrow. I'll be sharing some fun Valentine's treats all week long - I have some cards to share, some cookies & more!! Happy love week!!

What the World Needs Now - Jackie DeShannon

Christmas Eve: Free Food

I have mentioned how my family spends Christmas Eve, but I don't think I did it justice! So here is a little wrap up of my family's Christmas Eve...

Friday Favorites: Merry Christmas

This week has been so full of Christmas goodness & I can hardly believe that the big day is THIS weekend! Here are some of my favorite things from this week...

1. When I did a little Christmas house tour, I forgot to include one of my favorite decorations... This sign! My mom picked this up a couple of years ago at a local gift shop & I love putting it up every year!

Gingerbread Men

I shared a recipe for mini gingerbread about a month ago. This is the exact same recipe but instead of quartering it, I made it in its full form! The recipe is from Sally Fields' cookie book & it made about 100 four inch gingerbread men.

Start by creaming together 1 cup of softened butter and 3/4 cup of brown sugar in a medium sized mixing bowl.

Jammy Cocoa Christmas Party 2016

My family had our Jammy Cocoa Christmas Party this past Saturday and we had so much fun! Here is how we host this party...

First, we ask everyone to come for 6:30 in their favorite Christmas jammies. The picture above is the Bean and I in our matching pajamas. We ordered these pajama bottoms from The Company Store last August and we paired the bottoms with a Pajama top that we got a couple of years ago. I highly recommend The Company Store for Family Pajamas! They are very reasonably priced, especially if you order them off season. You can find their selection of PJs HERE!

Hershey Kiss Snowball Cookies

These cookies remind me of Christmases when I was little. I used to help my mom unwrap all of the Hershey kisses and roll them into the middle of each cookie! These might just be my all time favorite Christmas cookie and I highly recommend trying them!

Christmas Decor

This past weekend, my family got our house all decked out for Christmas and I have been loving it! The twinkle lights have been such a joy to cuddle up and read by! Here is how we do Christmas decor at my house...

Picking our Tree

This past Saturday, my family drove up to Hadley Christmas Tree Farm to cut down our Christmas tree! This is a tradition that my family started last year and it has become my favorite! I love the drive up there, running up and down the rows of beautiful trees, the hot chocolate afterwards... I love it all! Here are some pictures and a little bit about how we get our tree!

Top 5: Christmas Movies

Today, I'm talking about my five favorite Christmas movies. I posted about my favorite non-holiday movies back in July - you can find that post HERE. When I did that post, I had a hard time not including all of my favorite Christmas movies, but I wrote them all down & saved them for today

Music for Monday: On this Winter's Night

There are only 19 days until Christmas - that's 2 more Christmas Music Mondays (not including today's)! I have so many holiday songs that I want to share, I should have started sharing in September! The song that I am sharing today, is one that my mom discovered last year and it was my absolute favorite song last Christmas. I have to admit I kept listening to it all through the winter, because it is kind of less Christmas-y and more winter-y - I will likely do that again this year! :)

Winter Things :)

It's December and I could not be happier! Today, I am going to share some of the things I am looking forward to doing this month!

Friday Favorites: It Snowed!!

Happy Friday! I am in the thick of end of semester exams, essays, projects... so I have been a little exhausted lately. Despite my exhaustion, there were still so many good things about this week & I am excited to share them all with you!

Almond Snowball Cookies

On Friday night, I finished all of my homework (yeah, I did homework on a Friday night - I'm a party!) and then my mama told me she was craving a dessert with almond in it. Well I took this craving and my own personal craving for snow and went to Pinterest! And as always, Pinterest delivered! These almond snowball cookies are pure bliss - you can find the original recipe HERE, but here is how I made them...