Home Improvement: Breakfast Nook

We're in the process of redecorating and painting the house. Above is our breakfast nook next to the kitchen. We painted and redid the light fixture. We still need to get window treatments but that's another day...


Before.

In Progress.

The finished project.

A Snowy New Year

We were able to venture to the family cabin in Big Bear for New Year's weekend and brought along some friends, Jessica and Brendan. We had a great time sledding and just enjoying the quiet mountains. Plus no one got hurt! See a video of Patrick's kamikaze sledding below.

We hope everyone has a great 2010! We look forward to what this year will bring.

Merry Christmas

Just wanted to share the WIDE tree that Patrick picked out for Christmas. I had to talk him out of the 10-footer. We wish you all a merry Chrismas this year!

"C" is for cookie, that's good enough for me

For four years now our friends have an annual cookie/football party where we watch a Charger game and bring our homemade cookies for exchanging. Last year I placed first for "Most Tastiest" and "Most Holiday" so there was a challenge this year being returning champ. LOL! We had about 20 entries this year and 25-30 attendees so the judging was tough. I made Devil's Food Cake Mix Cookies this year with vanilla candy frosting and placed third for "Most Holiday". (Although I guess they were no comparison to the White Chocolate Raspberry Cheesecake Bars I made last year.) At least you get to come home with a lot of loot, i.e. 50 cookies of all flavors!


Devil's Food Cake Mix Cookies

Ingredients (Cookie):
1 box of Devil's Food Chocolate Cake Mix
1/3 cup oil
2 eggs

Ingredients (Frosting):
1 pkg Candiquick Vanilla candy coating
1 tube Writing Icing, optional, any color (use writing icing because it dries hard and you can stack them easier)

Directions:
Preheat oven to 350°. Mix cookie ingredients together to make a dough. Roll into balls and place on cookie sheet. Bake 9-10 minutes. Allow to cool. Heat Candiquick as directions on package. Dip tops of cookies in candy and allow to dry. Add writing icing in whatever design you choose.

These are super easy and very tasty.


(Left) Tasting and judging all the cookies. (Right) The prize winners.