Free Original Christmas Music!

Download 7 free ORIGINAL Christmas songs today!! The Hipwaders, Brady Rymer, Didi Pop, Gustafer Yellowgold, Princess Katie and Racer Steve, Rock Daddy Rock, and David Tobocman all share NEW Christmas songs!!

A Tudor Feast at Christmas

A Tudor Feast at Christmas Knowledge Network - oh my. Oh my, oh my, oh my. As crazy as it sounds, this sounds like absolute heaven to me! I would give almost anything to be able to be part of a project like this. I love my kitchenaid mixer. I love my Cuisinart food processor. I love my fresh market! Still, the idea of making everything from scratch from the ORIGINAL recipes makes my skin tingle. It was made a few years ago and seems to be a bit hard to find. If you can find it on t.v. in your area, don't miss it! If you happen to be in the area of Haddon Hall in Derbyshire, you can attend a recreation!! Yes, this is where they filmed Pride and Prejudice (deep breath).

Love These Cards!

My kids got these as an early Christmas present from my parents. My parents found the cards at the Elliott Bay Book Company in Seattle, but I couldn't find them on their website. If you can visit the store, buy them there, otherwise they are here at the MoMA store. Or if you can VISIT the MoMA store, oh my gosh go, there! Each matching pair of cards has one complete image of the original painting and one close up shot of it. My kids love them and are learning all of these great works of art! We have our own names for a lot of them at this point - for instance The Seed of Areoi is "Naked Lady On A Rock", and The Jungle is "Moon Head Guy". But don't think for a minute that I'm not planning to teach them about each and every painting, the artist and the year they were painted as they grow up!! Think about the images from books you read as a child - these images will be part of their childhood. (Yes, my arm hurts from patting myself on the back...) We've been playing Old Master (Old Maid) and go fish all week and loving it. Usually, Girl with Ball is our Old Maid because, really, it's only fair.

If you check out the paintings above, seriously get lost on MoMA's website. YUM.

Perfect Stocking Stuffer

LOVE these mixes, too. They are just real ingredients: no trans fats, no high fructose corn syrup, no refined sugar, no artificial flavors, colors, or preservatives. They even have low fat, low cholesterol, and vegan mixes. Mixes are SO much easier, but I hate what they bring with them - these let go of all of the guilt and make just really, really yummy cookies and brownies and more. I chose the mudslinger brownies with a sweet mixing spoon for our Mr. H's stocking, and the snow angel sugar cookies with her own mixing spoon, too, for Miss Mae. I know they will love them!

Attic Journals for Christmas!

I just gave my kids' teachers their Christmas presents. I know some of them celebrate Christmas, I'm pretty sure some of them don't. But we do, so we get to give them presents. I adore Attic Journals. I adore Michelle and Miguel who make them. They are the most lovely vintage books, that would have otherwise been lost, turned into journals - the PERFECT gift for teachers - and everyone else. I found children's encyclopedias turned into journals and wrote personal notes in each one. Miss Mae dictated notes in a couple of them and drew pictures in all of them. I hope they inspire these awesome teacher people to take time for themselves and write their thoughts, or even give them a place to keep their to do lists. I wish I had taken a photo of my teetering stack, but the photo above is one I stole from Attic Journal's website.
I got each of my nieces and nephew one as well. A vintage vampire and werewolf for my Twihards (with photos of Jacob and Edward inside (sigh)) baseball for the little Mr., and palm trees for my California dreaming girl. They are the perfect gifts to encourage little ones, tweens and teens to write, too! Get some for everyone you know!