Christmas in St. George

Well, WE MADE IT!! After a long day of traveling yesterday, we made it to St. George. Yesterday as I was busy packing and trying to get things all ready Mason said "Mom, I SOOO Excited!!" And that we are, we are here with family during this special time of the year. The flight went well. Mason loves airplanes and was in heaven at the airport and during the first little bit of the flight, then he got anxious and was ready to see his Grandmas and Grandpas and everybody else. We finally made it here last night and he was all tuckered out. Today he has just loved being here and seeing everyone. He of course has already had a wheeler ride and I know that it will be the first of many. Hope everyone is enjoying the season as much as we are!!

Gingerbread Houses!!!

So the other night we made gingerbread houses with the Ences. Mason and Kallie had a great time. They had candy and frosting all around them and ate to their hearts content, and every now and again they would stick some candy on the houses instead of their mouths. We decided we would post the houses on our blogs and let you all decide who the winner is. So feel free to comment and let us know which house you like the best. The winner is going to get something fun (don't know what yet:)
Also, a little side note to all of Drews family... this was our warm up for the big Steel Gingerbread House competition. We hope you are all ready because we are definitely bringing our A game!!!

The most wonderful time of the year!

Holy cow, its about time that I post hu!! Life has been pretty crazy here at the Steel house hold. We are totally excited for Christmas and to go back home to St. George and see all of our family and friends. I have been busy trying to get things ready for us to go. We had a wonderful THanksgiving in Nashville. My Uncle invited us down to spend Thanksgiving with his family. We had a great time. The Wednesday night before Thanksgiving they took us to see the Radio City Rockettes Christmas show at the Opryland Theatre. It was really fun and totally got me in the Christmas mood. We also had dinner at the Opryland Hotel. The hotel in absolutley amazing, a definite must see!! Of course I didn't have my camera (I never seem to have it at the right time), I wish I could have gotten some pictures, but oh well, what do you do!! Thanksgiving night we traveled back to Louisville so that I could get up at the crack of dawn and go shopping with my friends. I was up at 4:30am and out shopping by 5am. I was a lot of fun. My friends and I got some great deals and who doesn't move a great deal!! The rest of the weekend we spent hanging out and putting up Christmas Decorations. Good times at the Steel household!! Hope everyone is enjoy this fun time of year!!

also, here is my recipe monday...

Frozen Hot chocolate

6 half oz pieces of a variety of your favorite chocolates

2 t. hot chocolate mix

1 ½ T. sugar

1 ½ C. milk

3 C. ice

Whipped cream

Chocolate Shavings

*Chop the chocolate into small pieces and place it in the top of a double boiler over simmering water, stirring occasionally until melted. Add the hot chocolate mix and sugar, stirring constantly until thoroughly blended. Remove from heat and slowly add ½ C. of the milk and stir until smooth. Cool to room themperature.

* In a blender place the remaining cup of milk, the room temperature chocolate mixture, and the ice. Blend on high speed until smooth and the consistency of a frozen daiquiri. Pour into a giant goblet and top with whipped cream and chocolate shavings.

Paint, Stripes, and more Paint!

Well I finally did it (I guess I should say we did it). Since we found out we would be having another boy I have wanted to paint their bed room. I have been trying to decide on paint chips for some time now, and on Saturday I finally made a decision and we headed to get the paint. We painted away on Saturday Afternoon and got the light blue all done on all the walls, then on Monday night we painted the stripes on the one wall. I am really happy with the way it turned out. I was nervous the colors weren't going to match the bedding (I really needed my moms help for that, she is like the painting queen), but it ended up matching perfectly. Now I need to decorate and hang things back up on the walls. Here are a few pics of the finished walls. I will post some more when I get it all decorated (Which will probably be after Christmas). Hope everyone has a wonderful Thanksgiving and remember to eat lots of Turkey!!

Recipe Time

Cheese Potato Soup

Put the following ingredients in one pot and boil for 15 min:

3 Cups Cubed potatoes

1 Cup diced celery

3 Cups water

1 Cup diced carrots

½ Cup chopped onions

4 Bouillon chicken cubes

Melt in microwave:

¾ Cup margarine (I like to use butter)

add ¾ Cup flour and mix well

Add flour mixture to soup

Add 2 Cups half and half

1 tsp basil

2 Cups milk

12 oz. Velveeta Cheese

Cook until thickened and cheese has melted

This has got to be one of my very favorite soup recipes. All I can say is yummm!!!

Recipe Monday!!

So my sister-in-law Megan wants to start a thing where we post recipes every monday. Feel free to join in if you want to. It will be a fun and easy way to get some new yummy recipes!! I thought I would do something fallish for this weeks recipe.

Pumpkin Roll

3 eggs
2 tsp. cinnamon
1 C. sugar
2/3 C Pumpkin
1 tsp. Ginger
½ tsp. salt
½ tsp. nutmeg
1 tsp. lemon juice
¾ C flour
1 tsp baking powder

Beat eggs at high speed for 5 minutes. Add sugar gradually. Add pumpkin and lemon juice. Add remaining ingredients. Stir well and pour into well greased and floured cookie sheet. Bake at 375 degrees for 15 minutes. Turn onto towel sprinkled with powdered sugar. Sprinkle again on top. Roll cake and towel together. Let cool. Unwrap. Spread with filling and reroll. Refrigerate until set.

Filling:

2/3 C Powdered sugar
8oz. cream cheese
4 tsp butter
1 tsp vanilla

Tag it up

So I was tagged about a week ago, and I am just now getting around to replying, I am a little slow these days. So here is 6 little facts about me.

1. I am a little obsessive compulsive about being organized. I love having things neat and clean and in their own little spots. I do own a labeler and use it quite often, and one of my favorite stores is the Container Store. (I know their are some of you out there that know what store I am talking about!)

2. I am really passionate about scrapbooking. It is so calming and relaxing for me to sit down and create. Whether it is a scrapbook page, cards, invites, handouts for YW, whatever, I love it all.

3. I love to have "Projects." It keeps me busy and makes me feel like I always have something to work on.

4. I tried potty training Mason last week and found that he may be ready, but I definitely am not! It really was emotionally drainig on me. (I know I am weird)

5. I love looking a really cool photography (weddings, babies, kids) and wish I could take awesome pictures like that. I hope to someday own a really nice camera and take a photography class.

6. I really like, no LOVE ice cream. Bubble Gum is my favorite and I also love mistic floats from Dairy Queen (or Glaciers for those of you from St. George who have eaten at frost top). I really think I could eat one a day if that was possible. If you haven't ever tried one I suggest trying one soon and let me know what you think!

Happy Halloween

So we hope that everyone had a great Halloween. We sure did. We started the day off with Music Makers where all the kids got to come dressed up in their Halloween Costumes. This was really fun, then we had a little trunk or treat in the gym with all the kids. For lunch we went to Chick-fil-A with some friends and the kids got to play in the play place to their hearts content. Later that evening we went TRICK OR TREATING. It was great because the weather was so nice. A nice fall evening, not to hot, not to cold. We went with the Ences, Smiths, and Hamiltons, and all the kids had a great time. In the beginning Mason was literally running from house to house and he kept saying "next house, next houses!" Towards the end his little legs were so tiered and his candy bucket was so full that he opted to sit in the stroller (This is very rare). After trick or treating we went to another friends house and had a yummy chili dinner. It was a really fun day, and now we can't believe that it is November!!

Halloween Festivities

So the last couple of days have been fun filled with all our HaLLoWEen Traditions! Saturday we went to Boo at the Zoo. This is a really fun thing they do at the zoo here in Louisville. They turn the place into a big Halloween party. They have different areas all decked out in themes such as Petter Pan, Sherk, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Jurassic Park, etc. Each place has the characters and a booth to collect candy. Mason loved dressing up in his Incredibles costume and getting all the candy. On Saturday morning I told him that we would go to the zoo and he could dress in his costume after naptime. He said, "Mom I sooo Happy!!" And he had the biggest grin on his face. He was so excited that he couldn't even take a nap and ended up falling asleep on the car ride over. We had to wake him up once we got into the zoo. So he is a little out of it in the pictures, but what can you do?

Monday we carved pumpkins which was really fun, the pictures say it all...

Tonight we made our traditional caramel apples. We are getting quite efficient at making these. We have done it every year since we have been married and this year went pretty smooth. No major catastrophes, even with a 2 year old. The caramel didn't burn, neither did the chocolate. The crushed candy bar stayed in place, and the caramel didn't run to much. and we did it all in record time!!

the Finished Product!! Yum Yum!!!

Chocolate Soup!!

So the weather here has taken a turn for the worst!! This week has been really cold and rainy:( But the upside to the weather means warm hot chocolate!! I love having a mug of warm hot chocolate with lots of marshmallows on a cold rainy day. So this morning I fixed me up some and was drinking it while Mason was having his breakfast. He looked at it and said, soup mommy? I told him no, it's hot chocolate. A few minutes later he said "good chocolate soup mommy?" I had to laugh a bit. I guess from now on at our house hot chocolate will be called chocolate soup!!

I had to post these pictures. I took them about a year ago for a page I had to do for pebbles, but I love them. My sweet little boy with his cup of chocolate soup!! (In case you were wondering, I totally didn't give my then one year old a cup of hot chocolate and then let him sit on the couch. That would have been a disaster waiting to happen. The cup is actually empty, but don't tell anyone:)