December (since everyone else did one lol). Plus the salt dough tutorial and more.

Our December is going to be a VERY busy month!
Saturday is my dad's birthday, so we are going out to eat with him, and then going to this house called The Gordon-Lee House. It's this huge house that has been there since the Civil War. It was used as a hospital/head quarters sort of thing during the Civil War. More recently, it used to be a bed and breakfast, then the city bought it, and now they open it every year around Christmas time. It's set up like it would have been during Civil War times, and they have cider and cookies at the end. We go pretty much every year.

Then, Monday we have our family Christmas pictures. Pray that the kids cooporate for us lol.

Like I mentioned before, I still have tons of presents to wrap, plus getting the stockings together, and the gift baskets together. I still have to finish the ornaments, cocoa mixes, and the chocolate pretzels for the gift baskets. I'm not doing the mixes or pretzels until right before Christmas though, so that they are still fresh.

We pretty much finished Grace's ornaments today. We just have to do Brentley's handprints. I'm also debating on making some fingerprint charms for bracelets or necklaces. It just depends on how much time I have, but anyway...

Salt dough ornament tutorial :)

Need:

• 4 cups Flour
• 1 cup Salt
• 2 cups of water
• A straw
• Ribbon
• Cookie cutters or a butter knife
• Rolling pin
• Paint (optional)

Directions:

• Mix flour and salt together

(Outfit courtesy or Erica. Thank-you! She loves it!)
• Add water

• Stir together. If it is too sticky - add more flour, too dry - add more water. Find a consistency you like.

• Pre-heat oven to 300 degrees
• Kneed for about 15 minutes
• Roll out flat with a rolling pin. If you are going to use cookie cutters, roll the dough about 1/2in. thick. If you are going to do handprints roll the dough to about 1/4in. thick.
• Either use cookie cutters to cut out shapes, or have you kiddos make a handprint, then cut out around it.

• Take a straw and punch a hole where ever you want so you can put the ribbon through to hang it with.
• Bake at 300 degrees for 20 minutes, then allow them to cool overnight.

• If you would like, paint them.
  
  

• Once your paint is dry, put a ribbon through the hole and tie it so that it can be hung on a tree :)

Now, for a bit of interesting news... Chris is terrible at keeping secrets. He came home and gave me my Christmas present today... an Ipod Touch 4G!!! Plus he told me to go online and pick out my accessories I wanted for it. I got a zebra print case, a wall and car charger, and five screen protectors. Woo hoo! I am so excited!

And since Grace got to star in this post, I'll put some updated pics and videos of Brentley too :)