Here are pictures of my Cupcakes and cousins decorating away a few years ago:

serious shot 



Merry CHRISTmas and Happy New Year from our family to yours!

Today my cupcakes and I will be visiting the nursing home that our homeschool group visits each month.  It has been a hectic week, but I'm so glad we have the opportunity to brighten someone's Christmas season with our presence, smiles, singing voices, and cards! 

As our family celebrates Jesus' birth this weekend, we want to wish you a blessed and merry CHRISTmas and a happy and blessed new year! 

Molasses!  

When I started blogging in June 2010, I taught myself through many hours of trial and error how to design my blog and write posts.  There was always something new to learn about the blogging world and I loved starting from scratch to get my blog up and running...but it did take alot of time! 

If you are a regular visitor to my blog, you might notice things look a bit different with my blog design now vs. my original look that I created.  This was my old blog header created by Lynda at My Heart's Desire Creations. I loved this new look when Lynda surprised me with it several months ago!

After seeing all the beautiful blog makeovers that Lynda has worked on so far, I thought I would treat myself and my blog to a new look! I knew I didn't have the time to spend several more hours redesigning my blog and I knew my friend Lynda is so talented with blog designs so I asked her to update my blog's look and what a great job she did, don't you think?

Lynda changed my blog header that includes the cool scroll of all the cakes I have made for my "cupcakes".  She also changed the background color and "cleaned" up my blog a bit by including scrolls to store favorite sites!

My original blog button that I designed looked like this:

Here is my new blog button designed by Lynda:
Lynda made many other changes too to get the look I wanted and I am very happy with how it all turned out! What do you think?

If you would like to see more great examples of Lynda's work on other blogs, be sure to check out her My Heart's Desire Creations page HERE.

For pricing for products/services and to fill out a Design Request Form you can visit Lynda's page HERE. 

If you are interested in starting a new blog with Blogger or would like to change the look of an existing  blog, I highly recommend Lynda to do the job!  She listened to what I wanted and was easy to work with when I wanted to change things around to get the perfect look. 

Thank You Lynda at My Heart's Desire Creations for my great new blog look just in time for the new year!

I then had them draw and label each phase on paper. 

So by the end of their lesson their paper looked like this:

She ate a few treats too!

Each year it's a family tradition to put together a gingerbread house.  A pre-packaged gingerbread house that is! :) 

So while my hubby was gluing the walls with the sugary icing....

...I had my children sort the hard candy into colors to keep them busy and to try to keep them from eating all the decorations!

Then it was time to have fun to decorate the house...

For a Gingerbread Scratch and Sniff Paint Activity, check out Catholic Icing's post HERE!