Snow angels

I love making snow angels – especially with my sister. It must be an inherited thing because our Mom had made one after her workout to cool off the day before! :)

Happy New Year!

DIY doll blanket and pillow

For my cousin, Katie’s Christmas present, I made her a dolly blanket and pillow. She is really into dolls right now, and according to her dad, is always wanting to put them to sleep. Perfect gift idea!

I didn’t use any particular pattern, although I got the idea for the doll quilt from my friend, Shelley’s Garden Bricks Quilt.

I simply used 4 inch strips and tried to alternate the lengths in each row. The finished quilt size was approximately 24”x18”. I used some pink embroidery floss to tie the quilt top to the solid pink backing.

To make the pillow, I used two pieces of fabric that were 6”x9”, sewed the right sides together and flipped inside out, then filled with stuffing.

I’m pretty sure she liked it! :)

Christmas Day | 2012

It was so nice to relax at home on Christmas Day after our fun Christmas Eve outing with my sister and parents! We missed my brother and sis-in-law though, but they are expecting a baby any day!

Ronny was excited about his K-State gear and Mom and Dad were excited about dinner and a musical.


Emily got a Prince William collectors doll. “I’m staring at you, Emily!” (in a British accent of course). :)

In the evening, we did our intermediate family tradition – fondue! Ronny stole the camera while we were preparing all of the food.


Hello Mama!


The table was all ready to go and we ate ourselves full of delicious meat and veggies. Then chocolate with cake and strawberries. Another great tradition besides our Swedish ones! We missed you, Ryan and Lindsay!



We celebrated an early Christmas with Ronny’s family in early December – but I unfortunately didn’t take my camera to get any pictures! The whole fam was there and we enjoyed all of the little kids celebrating Christmas.

Christmas Eve | 2012

Ronny and I traveled to Colorado this year for Christmas. Hello mountains!

My uncle hosted Christmas Eve at his house and we had some great food and good conversations with my aunts, uncles, cousin and Grams. Unfortunately, Mama got the flu bug and had to stay home. :( But we were able to video chat her in a few times.



We used Grams’ Lennox Christmas china – a great tradition! We also had some other Swedish Christmas traditions mixed in for our Christmas dinner. One of them is courses – Grams usually had a five-course Swedish meal – we only had three this year, but it still counts as a tradition.


We usually eat Lutefisk – white Swedish fish – but this year was prime rib….delish!


For desert we had the traditional Ostkaka (grrr I didn’t take a picture! It is a Swedish cheesecake), peppakakor and sugar cookies.


New this year was a gift exchange for all of the adults. Cousin Katie of course got her own gifts. :)


It was a great time with family!

Christmas card

Merry Christmas from us! This year I had my friend, Claire design our Christmas cards. She is working on building her design portfolio and I believe she did an awesome job with our cards!
Can you see our “Where’s Waldo?” Hank? :)



If you’re interested in any design work – birth announcements, invitations, Christmas cards, etc. – Claire’s you’re gal! Contact her at clairemasker at gmail dot com. Thanks again, Claire!

December via InstaFriday

Most of my Instagram photos I’ve shared in recent posts, but here is the month December via Instagram. Merry Christmas!

Doggy playdate in the snow with neighbor, Avery.

Grandma Bailey’s Sausage Soup, perfect for a cold day. Recipe here.

Cookie weekend with friends.

Our brand.

Gotta love Baxter Black!

We met Rudolph at the Red Nose Run in Seward.

Sporting purple in the NE Corn office for K-State game day!

Hank loves is doggy vest!

Merry Christmas!

Sausage Soup recipe for a snowy day

As with most of the Midwest – we finally got snow! My neighbor, Kim and I who carpool to Lincoln left early in the afternoon and we’re glad that we did.

When I got home soup just sounded like the most logical thing to make to warm me and the kitchen up. So I made Grandma Bailey’s amazing Sausage Soup. Sounds simple – and it is – but it is SO good! The secret ingredient is….shhh…liquid smoke. :)


Since it’s not a secret family recipe, I’ll share. Try it. You’ll thank me later.

Sausage Soup 
Ingredients 
1 lb bulk sausage
1 cup water
1 medium potato, diced
1 onion, chopped
1 bay leaf
1 tsp. liquid smoke
1/2 tsp. pepper
1/2 tsp. summer savory
1 – 10 oz pkg frozen mixed veggies
1/3 cup water
1 tsp. sugar
2 cans cream of chicken soup
1 can cream of mushroom soup
1 can cream of celery soup
1 soup can milk
1/2 cup butter
2/3 cup Velveeta cheese, grated or diced

Directions Crumble sausage in frying pan and cook until done. Drain fat. In a large saucepan mix sausage, water, potato, onion, bay leaf, liquid smoke, popper and summer savory. In a small saucepan, cook the frozen vegetables, water and sugar until they are tender. Pour mixed vegetables into large saucepan, then add remaining ingredients. Stir until well blended and simmer until the potatoes are tender and flavors blended, about 30 minutes.

Christmas cookie weekend

I had such a great weekend with some of the best friends I could ask for. On Friday night, I met up with two of my Theta college friends, Patricia and Melissa in Lincoln. Pat lives here now in a beautiful new home and Melissa came up from her home in Dearborn, Missouri.

We enjoyed the evening with dinner at Tico’s, then talked the night away – it was a like we lived in Theta again chatting in the dining room! One of the best parts was falling asleep listening to the rain.

We started good time the next morning making over ten types of Christmas cookies and candies. Here is Melissa with her cookies.

Mel made:

Paula Deen's Monster Cookies
Peanut Butter Reindeer Cookies
Chocolate Covered Pretzel Rods
White Chocolate Rice Krispie Balls

Here is Pat with her cookies:

Pat made:

Stained glass cookies (fam recipe)
Peanut butter blossoms
Andes cookies she found on Pinterest

I made:

English Toffee
Christmas Hug Thumbprints
Pepparkakor (Swedish cookies that my Grams always made)

It was fun to use new technology – who needs cookbooks when you can use your tablets?!

The kitchen sure was bustlin’, but we had a great time and shared lots of laughs! Thanks gals for the get-together! This should definitely be an annual thing!

Read Melissa’s recap of the weekend on her blog.