Raising a loving girl

I was packing up my oldest daughter's room yesterday, and found this letter folded up in her room. In case you can't read her handwriting, this is what it says:
"Dear new owner of this house or resident of this room,
By the time you are reading this, me and my family have probably moved out. But I have something to say. This room is no longer mine, but whoever is living in here has to do one thing for me. I know this room isn't living, but it was my best friend when I needed it to be. So please, take good care o it. That is all I ask. Thank you. I don't know if you'll take me seriously, but thank you for listening."
I was so touched that she feels so secure and safe in her room. This has been a very difficult time for us, and as this letter shows, our kids feel the same way. But I'm glad to know that we have created a loving home for our children and as long as we're together, wherever we are will be our home.

Merry Christmas

Getting ready to go spend some time with our family and my very best friend, but I wanted to wish you all a very Merry Christmas.

Packing up

We are now two and a half weeks away from the move, so of course I'm packing up anything and everything I possibly can that we can do without for a couple weeks. Unfortunately, that means that my craft room, while essential to me in every way, is something I technically can live without, so I had to start packing it up. It's amazing too, with how small the room is, that I have so much stuff. It took me about three days to pack up all the stuff in the room, and I still have a few bits and pieces out (I figured I could leave out my copics to practice with since I'll go stir crazy without something creative to do and they're not huge, so it will be easy to pack up later on), but the majority is ready to move. And I'm discovering that I'm going through a little bit of withdrawal. I'll start thinking about something I want to make and then remember that I can't. So I guess it will be a few weeks before I can share anything new, but I did want to post my finished Snoopy card. They were a ton of work, and I don't know that I'd ever make anything so elaborate again for that many people (well, until next year when I find an idea I just have to do), but I'm so in love with the cards. There were a few more things I wanted to do with them (like adding lights or stockings to Snoopy's house), but for fifty cards, it was just too much work. The good thing about these is that since we finalized our move before I sent them out, I was able to change the inside to include our new address, so they doubled as moving cards.

Chocolate Caramel Popcorn

This year, I decided to make caramel popcorn for our local friends instead of cookies or brownies, things that I normally make. I thought it would make a nice change of pace for me as it was easier to whip up a couple batches of this instead of baking for days, so it won't take too much of my time away from packing. I was trying to incorporate the recipe into the tag so that if someone liked it, they could make it themselves, but it was just too large to fit into what I had in mind, so I thought I would post it here. I took a couple recipes I found on allrecipes.com and incorporated them together so that I had what I wanted, so I don't really know who to credit for the recipe, but here it is anyway.

Chocolate Caramel Popcorn
Makes: 20 cups
Ready in 1-2 hours

Ingredients:
20 cups popped popcorn
2 cups brown sugar
1 cup margarine
½ cup corn syrup
½ teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon baking soda
1 bag of chocolate chips
Directions:
Heat oven to 200F
Place popcorn in a large roasting pan and set aside. In 2-quart saucepan, combine brown sugar, margarine, corn syrup, and salt. Cook over medium heat, stirring constantly until mixture comes to a full boil. Continue boiling without stirring until candy thermometer reaches 238F or soft ball state. Remove from heat; stir in baking soda. Pour over popcorn; stir until all popcorn is coated. Bake for 20 minutes; stir. Continue baking for 25 minutes. Remove from oven; immediately place caramel corn on waxed paper to cool. Meanwhile, melt the chocolate in a double boiler. Once melted, dip wooden spoon into chocolate, then shake the spoon over the popcorn to get a drizzled effect. Let harden; break apart and store in an airtight container.

Knowing where you're going....priceless!

Many of you know that we were planning on moving towards the end of the year, but we didn't know where. There was a lot of speculation on our part about where to move. We really wanted to cut Jason's commute shorter and there was a lot of draw to the Peoria/Glendale area for schools and just how much there is to do out there. The entire process of finding a place to live has been very stressful for me, I've lost so much sleep stressing about where our family would call home, so I was really anxious to figure it out so I could de-stress and enjoy the holidays. While we've spent the last two weeks looking at properties, we've seen all kinds: houses that are very nice but too small and houses that are huge but in really poor condition. Well, this week we found what we were looking for, and yesterday we were approved, so we finally know where we're going. We are staying in Surprise, so for those of you who are local, we're not going anywhere. In fact we're moving to Sarah Ann Ranch which is just a few miles south of where we are now. So we're not improving Jason's commute or moving to Peoria school district, but we are getting a beautiful house to live in, and as the cherry on top, it has a swimming pool, so at least we can stay in our own yard when we want to cool off during our hot summer months. It's a bittersweet time for us as we're so sad to be leaving our home, but we're excited for what's in store for us at the new place. And once we're settled in, we'd love to have visitors!