chocolate, books, and other such goodness

I meant to post this Sunday, but I fell asleep and when I woke up it was time for youthgroup. oh the things sleep will do to you.. haha! anyway... I made these super awesome, tasty, delicious things for my dgroup.

mmm :) sooo good. pretty easy. all you do is put a kiss on one of those cool checker board pretzels, stick it in the oven till they're slightly melted, squish another pretzel on top, freeze and voila! the most delicious snack out there. sadly I don't have any pictures of them finished, but as I said, a nap took up almost my entire afternoon.


On another random note.... I went to the library today to "grab a book". and yeah... well. I came home with five, plus a movie. you gotta love libraries :)

see the bottom one? "what the dickens" how could you not resist checking it out? so far it's really dumb though. and not really that interesting.... but it's still a cool name.

day 14- Thanksgiving day!

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!!!!

So I stinking LOVE thanksgiving. best holiday out there, for sure. You get to eat tons of wonderful food, be with some of the best people ever (your family duh) and of course, every family has their own little traditions they do. like ours is to take a walk after dinner. best thing ever because it makes you feel less full which means you can eat more dessert! and we also watch one of the latest movies that just came out (that's appropriate for everyone that is). This year we watched Toy Story 3, and it was awesome :)
I also like it because it's a reminder of all the things we have. everyday we take things for granted, like food, a house, clothes, even really important things like a family that loves us. so many people out there don't have all those things. People are alone, abused, starving, dying because they have no home. and here we are with those things and we so often just think of them as 'every day things'. so, if you haven't already, stop for a sec and think of all the things God has given you. and be thankful for it.

Hope your thanksgiving was an amazing one!

14 Days of Thankfulness-Day 12 and 13

Sorry once more for late posts. It's been crazy here with college sibs coming home, trying to get all my knitting done, cooking, working extra hours, and staying awake through all of that.
two things I'm very thankful for are...

Danish butter cookies. some of the best things in the world!

Converse shoes! i love these things. You can tell this is an old picture because now my converse have been drawn on. and they're like 100 times cooler. but yeah...

Tomorrow is Thanksgiving and I'm so excited! I'm ready to eat non stop (then again, I'm always ready to eat non stop ;] )  and my sweater is almost done. Just got a few rows left on the sleeve and then I gotta sew the buttons on. but I should be able to do that tonight and make the last turkey. Hope you all have a great night!

14 Days of Thankfulness-Day 10 and 11

I'm thankful for long walks with friends and leaf piles. they're the bomb.


the end.

14 Days of Thankfulness-Day 9

Today I'm thankful fooooorrrr... Banana pancakes! the most delicious things ever! I don't really like pancakes or banana's, but together they are so amazing.

mmmm :) sooo good.
be thankful for the food you have. children are starving in Africa.

14 Days of Thankfulness-Day 8

Day 8 is going to be knitting buddies. I can not tell you how much fun I have talking to a fellow knitter about knitting. It's so stinking fun, and your learn. which is good. learning is good. But yeah, thanks to all my knitting buddies out there, but especially to Grace Sapp and Angel Robblee (my amazing sister) because they're the two that I talk knitting with the most and we have lots of fun (or, at least I do ;] )

14 Days of Thankfulness-Day 7

I know this was done by Grace but I really wanted to do it. So no, I didn't steal her idea, I had it before she did her post, so I guess we're just both doing it ;-)

Anyway, today I am thankful for my hands. I mean, they do all my favorite things for me, play piano, viola, guitar, bake delicious things, knit, write, paint, and hundreds of other awesome things. I actually have a story that I got awhile ago in an email. it's about hands and I thought I would share it.

"Grandma, some ninety plus years, sat feebly on the patio bench. She didn't move, just sat with her head down staring at her hands. 

When I sat down beside her she didn't acknowledge my presence and the longer I sat I wondered if she was OK. 

Finally, not really wanting to disturb her but wanting to check on her at the same time, I asked her if she was OK. She raised her head and looked at me and smiled. 'Yes, I'm fine, thank you for asking,' she said in a clear voice strong. 

'I didn't mean to disturb you, grandma, but you were just sitting here staring at your hands and I wanted to make sure you were OK,' I explained to her. 

'Have you ever looked at your hands,' she asked. 'I mean really looked at your hands?' 

I slowly opened my hands and stared down at them. I turned them over, palms up and then palms down. No, I guess I had never really looked at my hands as I tried to figure out the point she was making. 

Grandma smiled and related this story: 

'Stop and think for a moment about the hands you have, how they have served you well throughout your years. These hands, though wrinkled shriveled and weak have been the tools I have used all my life to reach out and grab and embrace life. 

'They braced and caught my fall when as a toddler I crashed upon the floor.

They put food in my mouth and clothes on my back. As a child, my mother taught me to fold them in prayer. They tied my shoes and pulled on my boots. They held my husband and wiped my tears when he went off to war..

'They have been dirty, scraped and raw, swollen and bent. They were uneasy and clumsy when I tried to hold my newborn son.. Decorated with my wedding band they showed the world that I was married and loved someone special 

They wrote my letters to him and trembled and shook when I buried my parents and spouse. 

'They have held my children and grandchildren, consoled neighbors, and shook in fists of anger when I didn't understand. 

They have covered my face, combed my hair, and washed and cleansed the rest of my body. They have been sticky and wet, bent and broken, dried and raw. And to this day when not much of anything else of me works real well these hands hold me up, lay me down, and again continue to fold in prayer. 

'These hands are the mark of where I've been and the ruggedness of life. 

But more importantly it will be these hands that God will reach out and take when he leads me home. And with my hands He will lift me to His side and there I will use these hands to touch the face of God..' 

I will never look at my hands the same again. But I remember God reached out and took my grandma's hands and led her home. When my hands are hurt or sore or when I stroke the face of my children and husband I think of grandma. I know she has been stroked and caressed and held by the hands of God."

14 Days of Thankfulness-Day 6

I meant to post this yesterday, but then somehow I deleted it,  but I found it again today. so yay!


Today I am thankful for pictures. pictures to color in, pictures you hang on the wall, but most of all pictures of a really awesome moment in time. these are just a few or my favorites :)

 

 

14 Days of Thankfulness-Day 5

So I had 2 idea's today. both were stolen by someone else. But that's ok. we can all be thankful for the same thing :)

Today I am very very thankful for chocolate. it's the most wonderful thing in the world. especially M&M's.

mmm :) soooo goooooodddd *drools*

the dark chocolate with coconut are my favorites, for sure.

14 Days of Thankfulness-Day 4

Today I am very so ever thankful for....

*drum rolls*

measuring tapes! a knitters life would be in darkness and chaos if it were not for this handy little notion. so I am very thankful for them. but not just ANY measuring tape. no. but two in particular.

adorable, right? I love this little guy. a stinkin' lot. we've been through thick and thin together *tears* haha! but yeah, he's so cute and so useful. <3

Maybe this one looks really boring, but it brings back good memories :) when I was like 6 my mom would use it all the time when making things, and whenever she wasn't using it I would play with it. yeah, fun times =)

Now that that's been said... guess what?

my first turkey is DONE!!! and I am IN LOVE with him!!! he's sooooo adorable!!! I can't wait to make the other 4!!!

14 Days of Thankfulness-Day 3

Ok, so this will probably sound really weird to everyone, but today I'm really thankful for sunshine. it's the prettiest thing evvveerrr! for realz. like, when you're in the woods, and you can see the rays coming through the leafs. or better yet, when it's really cloudy but there's just one ray of sun shining though. so awesome! although my favorite is when it rains while it's sunny out. yup, the sun is the best.

14 Days of Thankfulness-Day 2

Today I am very thankful for coffee. I am a HUGE fan of coffee, in fact I find it very hard to make it through the day without it. Such as today. I sadly did not get my morning mug of coffee and by 11 I had a horrible headache. Thankfully I got some later :-)

yes, this is how I feel when I have coffee :-)

  Hope your Saturday was awesome and filled with coffee! ;-)

14 Days of Thankfulness-Day 1

So I'm going to be doing this awesome thing were, for 14 days, you list something you're thankful for. And I got  this idea from no other then the amazing Miss Grace. I'm very excited :)
So today is the first day. I was planning on doing something totally really random but that I am very thankful for, but then I saw this.

my awesome cat Leo sleeping in my bed. And I would like to say that I am VERY thankful for him, because he is such a cutie, even if he does bite me when he wants to 'play'.

Now that that has been said... I'm going to post some pictures from yesterday. I meant to do it last night, but then other things came up. such as knitting, and catching up on my two favorite TV shows, Bones and Psych. annnywaaayyyy.... yesterday we made cookies, and it was lots of fun :)

CHOCOLATE!!!!

you know you want some! oh wait, sorry. I ate them all already. to bad :p

the amazing chefs who put so much time and effort into the deliciousness of those cookies.


Hope your Friday is an amazing one!

  So my mom found this free pattern on WEBS (one of the best yarn stores ever!) today, and we all fell in love with it.

Adorable, right? Well, we decided that we just absolutely need one  for our Thanksgiving table. But then me and Grace and Mercy came up with this awesome plan that we should make four. One for us, one for our aunt and uncle, one for Gramma, and one for Bump-bump and Debbie (our other grandparents). So I went out today (drove myslef!) and got the yarn.

I am very excited to make them :-)

On a side note, if you have never heard Josh Grobans "Higher window" you should go listen to it right now. It's prolly my top favorite song at the moment. And another note about music, Taylor Swifts new CD, Sparks Fly is quite awesome. go buy it if you don't already own it.

so a few post ago I put a picture up of something I was knitting, but I didn't tell you what it was. so here it is, finished.

I hate it. it's too big, the collar came out all wrong, I ran out of yarn while sewing the collar on, and it fits weird. thus, I am going to frog it and make something totally different. why am I sharing this very very depressing news? because it has a moral. knitting is NOT always satisfying. it is 98% of the time, but that other 2% it's not. but it's all good because I already have big plans for what I am now going to make out of this yarn. I hope it works. :)

I meant to post this Friday but never got around to it.

This is what I did all Friday afternoon (after an awesome viola lesson that is) If you have not read this book ("The lost hero" Rick Riordon) I highly suggest you do. It's amazing, along with all the rest of the other Percy Jackson books. (If you haven't read the other Percy books, you should!)

and if you've never had hot chocolate with whipped cream on top, well.... I'm crying for you. go have some now.