Spreading a little Christmas cheer...and a new painting!

This weekend Blake was sweet enough to let me drag him here to get in the Christmas spirit...



He only had one request...I wasn't allowed to pick out our stockings because he said I would try to pick out something fancy. He wanted something fun...



We went home, got ready and headed to watch the beat down of a game here...



On Sunday I decided to make this recipe I found on allrecipes.com to give out to our precious neighbors (I just added 1 tsp of ground cloves to make them a bit spicier). Everyone around us is between the ages of 40 and 92...yes, 92!! They are always so sweet, and they are constantly giving to us so I wanted to be able to give a little something this year.

I decided to make ginger snap cookies, and here was what I used...



All measured out...(Britt, I LOVE these prep bowls you gave me! :))



After a lot of mixing...



And beating...



I finally made the dough...



And got ready to roll...



After a million of these I was happy to put them in the oven :)



And hot out of the oven...



If you wanted to get super creative you could make a christmasy (that cannot be a word) stencil...I decided to grab the closest thing to it and give it a try...



Using my powdered sugar shaker, I went to town...



And voila! A not so pretty Christmasy shape :) Because I was putting mine in bags I decided against the powdered sugar, but if you were just going to serve them at a party, it would be a fun touch!



For the kiddos in our neighborhood I decided to make candy cane suckers inspired by Darby. You put two together to make a "heart" shape, and bake on 245 degrees for 2-5 minutes (mine were perfect at 2 mins 30 seconds...be careful because if you do them too long they'll just become a gooey glob of a mess)...



As soon as you pull them out of the oven stick a lollipop stick in the middle and pinch the two ends together so they'll stick. Let stand for about 3 minutes before you take them off of the pan (If you're not using a non-stick pan make sure to use parchment paper so the candy doesn't stick)



The finished product...



They were SUPER easy and so much fun to make!



Finally I made the tags to attach to the bag. If I would have thought ahead I would have made much cuter, typed out ones :)



Lots of goodies...



And the finished product!



Because I went to town on the suckers I decided to stick one in each bag. For the families who had kids I just put as many suckers as there were kids in their bags.



It was honestly so much fun!



Later, I decided to continue in the spirit and decorate our mantle while watching Elf. It was quite sad...I needed my mom and sister to help-they are much better decorators!! Maybe next year...



And our little Christmas tree we put on a table in the window so that it would look like a big one! :)



I even got some wrapping done!



And where was Blake this whole time?? Well, he wouldn't let me come in his office for 8 hours, and it was totally worth it because this was the surprise!



I was SO excited!! I absolutely LOVE it!



He is such a great artist, and I absolutely love when he gives me a new painting. Here are a few he has given me the past three years...

The very first one was this...a tree with our initials "carved" into it



They are all my favorite, but I especially love this one...I told him one day I was missing New York and I left the house for about an hour and a half and came back to this...



A picture of Jesus...



This one is so much better in person. The detail is so beautiful...



And this one I LOVE...he surprised me and painted my wedding dress :)



I hope you all had a wonderful weekend! 19 days until Christmas!!