drawer pulls...

We accomplished another (very) small project last night...we attached drawer pulls to the 2 drawers we have in the kitchen. Up to now, we've just been pulling on the bottom of the drawer (there's a notch cut out) to open them, but I really wanted to get drawer pulls for them at some point.

Well, we were in Lowe's the other night and Jeff was looking at hinges for some of his cabinets, etc. in his shop. The drawer pulls and knobs were on the same aisle so I just browsed to "see what I could see". I was originally going to go with brushed pewter/nickel because I really like that look, but I found these brushed copper-colored pulls that I thought would look really nice with the mocha color of our cabinets. We got them home and they were perfect!

So last night we put them on and don't they look nice? I'd really like to have knobs (in the same brushed copper) for the cabinets but some of the doors, if you don't keep a hold on them, they bang into some of the other cabinets and the last thing I want is dents in our cabinets from the knobs! Guess we'll hold off on that for now.

I do love those pulls, though!

Merry Christmas!

"In those days a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be registered. This was the first registration when Quirinius was governor of Syria. And all went to be registered, each to his own town. And Joseph also went up from Galilee, from the town of Nazareth, to Judea, to the city of David, which is called Bethlehem, because he was of the house and lineage of David, to be registered with Mary, his betrothed, who was with child. And while they were there, the time came for her to give birth. And she gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in swaddling cloths and laid him in a manger, because there was no place for them in the inn."

--Luke 2:1-7 (esv)

...she gave birth to our Savior, our Redeemer...Jesus, the Christ...the Son of God.

I pray your Christmas was full of blessings, surrounded by loved ones and friends...and may we carry this Spirit all through the new year. God bless each of you!

in the Spirit...

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas! I've had my decorations up for awhile (since the beginning of December, actually), but I haven't been able to get many decent photos of them for the blog. Lord knows, I've been trying! Sometimes my camera really frustrates me...

But here are a few photos to give you an idea of what the new house looks like with our "old" decorations:

Christmas goodies...

Well, this is a far-cry from anything to do with the house, but I want to post it nonetheless. I've decided to do some baking this Christmas season for various activities and for gifts. We have a few parties we attend every Christmas season and we have lots of friends.

Well, now we have new neighbors! So I thought that some homemade goodies would be a nice way to wish them a blessed Christmas. Here's what I've been up to:

Chocolate Crinkles

(these are Jeff's fave!)

1 cup cocoa

1/2 cup vegetable oil

2 cups sugar

4 eggs

2 cups flour

2 tsp baking powder

2 tsp vanilla

1/2 tsp salt

Combine ingredients, mixing well, and refrigerate overnight. Form balls and roll in powdered sugar. Bake at 350 for 10-12 minutes. Yield = 3 1/2 dozen

Reese's Peanut Butter Cup Cookies

1 1/2 cups self rising flour

1/2 cup butter or margarine

1/4 cup plus 2 tsp sugar

1 cup creamy peanut butter

1/4 tsp salt

1/2 cup packed brown sugar

1 large egg

1/2 tsp vanilla extract

Mix flour and salt together in small bowl. Mix butter, brown sugar and sugar in a separate larger mixing bowl. Add egg, peanut butter and vanilla. Mix well. Add flour to mixture and beat until it resembles batter. Fill greased mini muffin tin wells with batter almost to the top. Bake at 375 for 8-9 minutes until almost done. Take out and press one mini reese's peanut butter cup into center of batter in each well. Put back in the oven for another minute. Yield = 3 1/2 dozen

I actually made one other recipe, M&M Cookies (with the red & green M&Ms), but I didn't think to take a photo of those before I put them into these bags...

Aren't they cute? I hope they like them.

I found it!

Finally! I found a long lost box in the storage facility today! For awhile now, I knew there were some dishes that I hadn't unpacked and I couldn't imagine where they were since (I thought) I'd gotten all the kitchen boxes out of storage & unpacked them. I even checked with my mom (more than once) to see if I'd brought this one corningware dish/lid I was missing to her house and left it. She said no (more than once).

I was also missing a small pottery piece that I use to hold my splenda packets for my coffee...couldn't find it in any boxes I'd already unpacked. I just had no idea where these things could be...

I went to the storage facility today to get my Christmas "tub" and the tree so I can decorate the house and while I was there, I thought I'd check through the boxes to see what was still left. It was mostly boxes of books (3 to be exact - geez!), but there was a box underneath one of those boxes that wasn't labeled on the side like the rest; only on the top. So I had to lift the box on top up to see what that box said and the label said "Glass Bakeware & Cookware - Breakable!" (pretty much every box was labeled "breakable" cuz you just never know...). A-ha! And when I opened it - ta da! There was my "lost" stuff! Hooray! All is well once more...