Busy Busy

Everyone is busy busy around here. The elves were at it again last night with a marshmallow fight in the kitchen. I wonder if they knew that the marshmallows would grow stale overnight and stick to the kitchen floor. Hmm... I think the girls were excited to see a little naughty behavior out of them as well. That would be my girls! And I am excited to show you a little peek of the new kitchen. One day, when it is clean, I will show more, but right now it is not. By far. Still some details to be taken care of there, as well as a backsplash, but it beats the pants off last Christmas when there was just a gaping hole at that end of the house.

I'm still whipping up gifts as fast as I can, which some days does not seem very fast. The wrapped gifts went to Rachel's Daisy Scout leaders today - blackberry/mulberry jam. Hand picked, home made and tasty. The bottom "thing" is a secret and that's all I'm saying for now.

And since some of the recipients of the these may be getting an early glimpse of them, I won't tell you what they are for now either. I'll give my secrets away on Flickr, but remember, Santa knows if you've been naughty or not! Plus he might have elves watching!

And lastly, cookies for the Daisy Scout cookie swap they had today. We brought Thumbprint cookies. I love these - I think it might be the jam. I am really loving jam these days. Jam on toast, jam in cookies, heck - jam on a spoon! I took the poor woman's way out in packaging them though, when I found that the containers I liked were not on sale. Rachel thought the fact that our container was the only one with a candy cane on it was a good selling feature.

And speaking of cookies. The reindeer cookies. Bleck. I'm not sure if it was the peanut butter that I used, if I over cooked them (burnt) or what, but they taste - well, nasty. The idea is cute, but the taste is not. I would suggest using your own peanut butter cookie recipe, or any other cookie recipe for that matter instead. Don't say you haven't been warned.