Night Tree

It has become a Christmas tradition in our house to read Night Tree by Eve Bunting

and decorate a tree for the squirrels, birds, owls and any other critters that wander into our yard. 

This year we put the following on our tree:

• Strings of popcorn, cranberries, and Cheerios
• Orange and apple slices
• Half an orange that we filled with sunflower seed
• Bread we cut with cookie cutters, spread peanut butter an pressed into bird seed
• Pine cones with peanut butter and bird seed
• Nuts ~ which we put around the tree

After we decorate the tree we always come in and have a cup of hot chocolate ~ with whip cream of course!  What Christmas traditions do you have?

~Cindy

Gourmet Dog Treats

This week we have been busy baking and making things for our furry and feathered friends. 

We started out by making dog treats for our dog, Maggie, and some of her doggie friends.  I found the recipe here.

What You’ll Need:

• 1/2 cup water
• 1/2 cup oil
• 2 eggs
• 3 tablespoons peanut butter
• 2 tsp. vanilla
• 2 cups of flour
• 1/2 cup cornmeal
• 1/2 cup oats

What You’ll Do:

1. Blend the wet ingredients together.  In a separate bowl mix the dry ingredients together.
2. Mix them together to form a ball of dough.
3. Roll out and use your favorite cookie cutters.  (We used a small Scottie dog, heart and star.)                         
4. Put them on a non-stick cookie tray or lightly greased tray.
5. Cook 20 minutes at 400 degrees.
6. DO NOT REMOVE FROM THE OVEN!  Turn off the oven and allow the biscuits to cool in the oven until they are hard and crisp.
7. Store in an airtight container.

We wrapped our treats   

and added a dog bone gift tag.

click on the image to download

To go along with our baking we read two of our favorite Christmas books which feature dogs:  Clifford’s Christmas and Carl’s Christmas.

       

~Cindy 

Gingerbread Pirates

Arrrggghhh…we have a new book in our collection of Christmas favorites ~ The Gingerbread Pirates.

It’s Christmas Eve, and Jim and his mother are making pirate gingerbread men to leave for Santa. Jim’s favorite is Captain Cookie, who carries a gingerbread cutlass and has a toothpick peg leg. The captain is much too good to be eaten, so Jim keeps him close by his bed. But late that night, when Jim is fast asleep, Captain Cookie step taps away on a daring adventure to find his pirate crew — and rescue them from that mysterious character he’s heard about: a cannibal named Santa Claus.

After we read the book we set to work making our own crew of gingerbread pirates.

Our Captain

and his fearless crew!

Sorry Santa, I don’t think this crew will make it until Christmas!

~Cindy