Family Time...

My Sundays are pretty much always spent at mom and dad's house. It's the only time we can all get our schedules cleared and they make all my favorite homemade meals :) I can cook for myself, but nothing ever tastes as good as mom and dad's cooking! We usually just relax and watch a movie (last week we watched Food, Inc., which was shocking and disturbing. I'm planning on buying a lot more organic food now, thanks to that movie!) or watch tv. We always call my sister and put her on speakerphone so we can all enjoy her hilarity. But last week mom and I decided that we didn't just want to watch a movie and lay around all day. Instead, we decided to make some cookies!

We made a yummy, shortbread-type cookie with raspberry jam centers and chocolate centers. They were more trouble than your average cookie, but they were extremely delicious! I would definitely make them again. For some of the cookies, we put jam between the top and bottom layer and filled in the middle with chocolate, and for other cookies we did the opposite. Chocolate + raspberry jam + cookies = DELICIOUS! I don't remember what these cookies were called or where mom found the recipe, but maybe she will post a link in the comments if she remembers where she found it.

I'm off to get my taxes done so I can use my refund to help buy myself a house! The hunt officially begins this week once my realtor gets back into town! I'll be sure to update you all on the exciting and somewhat terrifying process!!

Gettin' crafty with my momma...

A couple of weeks ago, my mom and I spent the afternoon creating a small wreath. We had gotten the idea from another blog and decided to adapt it a little bit. The final result looked something like this...

We made the wreath using a small wooden dollar store picture frame, some pages from an old book, and some ribbons and pine cones. It took us a couple of hours, but it was a lot of fun to just hang out and create together. We cut circles out of the book pages and used the end of a pencil to crinkle and curl the pages up to get the effect you see above. We then used hot glue to attach the pieces of paper to the frame, and when we were all done, I took a walk down to the corner of our road with dad and picked up some pine cones to add the finishing touches. Mom just happened to have a small key hanging around and we thought it would be a nice addition to the pine cones. The wreath is currently hanging on our apartment door, safe from the elements. It'll be a nice wreath for the fall, until it's time to put up a Christmas wreath! I don't think it will be too long before that happens though, since I'm already starting to think about purchasing a Christmas tree. It's never too early to start decorating for Christmas as long as it's cold outside! :)