Snowed In... Productive Day!

Wow! This weekend, good ole' Mother Nature dumped about 2 feet of snow on Charlottesville! We were definitely snowed in and not going anywhere! It was a very productive day in the Rigdon house! I did worked on lots of fun things:
1. Painted a picture (I love process painting because it does not have to look like anything and it adds a splash of color to the room!)
2. Baked Chocolate Chip Cookies
3. Baked Peanut Butter Puppy Treats
4. Made an apron for a x-mas gift
5. Decoupaged a terra cotta pot Christmas style!! I will be making chocolate covered sprinkled Oreo lollipops and sticking them in the pot! It will be quite an attractive treat for family on Christmas eve!


Peanut Butter Puppy Treats

2 cups whole-wheat flour
1 tbsp. baking powder
1 cup peanut butter (chunky or smooth)
1 cup milk

Preheat oven to 375'F. In a bowl, combine flour and baking powder. In another bowl, mix peanut butter and milk, then add to dry ingredients and mix well. Place dough on a lightly floured surface and knead. Roll dough to 1/4 inch thickness and use a cookie cutter to cut out shapes. Bake for 20 minutes on a greased baking sheet until lightly brown. Cool on a rack, then store in an airtight container.

Gingerbread Houses with the Hubby!

For a little pre-birthday treat, Chad said he would decorate a gingerbread house with me! When he came home from the grocery store with 2 FULL bags of candy, I knew this was going to be a competition. Everything is competition for Chad. Everything. After dinner, we were looking at the photo calendar on the fridge. There was a picture of our Fallston house back in Maryland. We really, REALLY miss it. I know it is old and looks like it may be falling down, but it is our house. There is so much we would like to do with it if we end up moving back one day. (I HOPE. I PRAY!)

Anway... Chad must have had the idea to replicate our house in Fallston. Me, I had no idea what I was going to do. I just started plopping on the icing. Then, I decided it looked like a castle and went with that idea. After an hour and a half, I was geting very tired. I sprinkled on my finishing touches and then cleaned up my area. For Chad, he spent another hour working on his.


My Castle and Chad's Fallston Gingerbread House!!


Our Fallston House

Gingerbread House Fun!

The other day, I decided it would be fun to make gingerbread houses with my class! I kept thinking of way to make it a little easier so it would not turn out a disaster! I did not have time to save used milk cartons, so that was out of the question. Chad told me that his mom would hot glue the graham crackers together and then they would put everything else on with icing. So I decided this would be the easiest. The night before school, I put together 11 gingerbread houses. (I did not think about transporting all these houses. That was a dilemma later the next morning!) Then, I woke up at 5 in the morning to make 11 bags of icing for them! (What a dedicated teacher I am! ha ha!) They turned out SO cute and the kids had a great time. I remember when I was little, my gingerbread house would always fall apart.. this did not happen! Yay! Thank you hot glue gun!

Handmade Gift Time!

I told myself that for the holidays, I would try to make everyone at least one handmade gift. I thought it would save us some money, as well as keep me busy while Chad is at school. Well, that idea did not work out! There are only 10 more days until Christmas and I had many other crafts in mind that I never got to. Maybe next time. Here are a few things I made for friends recently for showers, birthdays, etc. I will post Christmas gift crafts after Christmas of course!

Felt and Ribbon Hair Bows for Aubrey's 1st Birthday

Farm Finger puppets for Lauren's baby shower

Dogs in the Snow

The dogs had a great time playing in the snow this past weekend! Norma loved to lick the snow and Pepper could not wait to catch snowballs! I attached a video of Chad and the dogs. Chad rolled a big ball of snow and Pepper had the time of her life destroying it! This is normally not like Pepper. She usually is the quiet one sniffing the sides of the fence. Norma was busy eating the snow. (I sound hilarious on this tape. I hate hearing myself!! Embarrassing!)

Christmas in the Kitchen

I love, love, love this time of year! This morning, I was on the road by 4 am. I made it back to VA by 7:15!! I was fighting falling asleep, but was so happy once I got home and had the whole day ahead of me! I unpacked super quickly, began working on laundry, cleaned and vacuumed the house, and then started decorating for Christmas! I have always wanted a Christmas tree in the kitchen!! Since I have a ridiculous amount of gingerbread ornaments (I LOVE Gingerbread people) I thought they would look good on the tree. Last year, I bought popcorn and candy garland. I stuck some berry sprigs in the holey parts of the tree. I also found some star cookie cutters that I used to use with my kindergarten class in the past. I tied cute polka dot ribbon to them and hung them on the tree too! The tree turned out SO cute.

I Quit!

Ok. So the the picture a day project is not working. It takes a little too much time to think of a picture to take each day!! It was fun, but very time consuming. But, I still enjoy posting on this blog to keep in touch with family.