Christmas fudge

'Tis the season to make fudge and bake cookies!
I did some holiday candy making this week, in preparation for my Christmas goodies giveaway trays that I make every year. This year I made some Chocolate Fudge, Peanut Butter Fudge (OMG Love it!) Dreamsicle Fudge, Peppermint "Ice" (its a kopykat from Fannie Maes, I made it up myself.) Gooey Butter Coffecake Squares, Chewy Noels nut bars, White chocolate dipped pretzel rings, & White Chocolate Macadamia nut cookies. Keeping the boys and the hubby out of it is beginning to be a problem! haha! Guess that means I haven't lost my touch. I absolutely LOVE to bake especially at Christmas.
I still have all my cooky press cookies, and rolled sugar cookies to bake and decorate. My neighbors church has a cookie bake sale every year to raise money, and I usually donate a bunch of my cookies for it. So my next day off of work thats what I will be doing.
I have some requests from my friends to post my recipe for Dreamsicle Fudge. It's not actually my recipe, I got if off the internet somewhere a couple of years ago, and it's been a hit ever since.
Dreamsicle Fudge

3 cups sugar
1 1/2 sticks butter or margarine
2/3 cup cream
7 oz. marshmallow crème
1 pkg. (12 oz.) vanilla chips
3 tsp. orange flavoring
12 drops yellow food color
9 drops red food color
(or if you have orange food coloring thats ok-color as desired)
Mix sugar, cream and butter into heavy pan and boil until it reaches the soft ball stage on candy thermometer, about 5 minutes or 235-240 degrees F. Remove from heat. Add marshmallow crème and chips. Mix well. Remove 1 cup of mixture and set aside. Add orange flavoring and food colors to mixture in pot. Stir well and pour into greased 11 x 13 or 9 inch dish. Stir in white mixture and pour on top, then swirl with knife. Chill to cool. Cut into squares to serve.
Enjoy!

Seems I have been tagged my M-C ! This should be fun. I am still kind of new to this so I have to find five people that M-C didnt already tag! haha! So lets see...... here are my five to tag: Dee, cpeep, Cathy, Heather, Momma_Lizzie

THE FIVE TAG

5 years ago ...
1. I was introduced to scrapbooking
2. I celebrated my five year anniversary at my job.
3. I turned the BIG 4-0!! My sisters from out of state came up and threw me a surprise party.
4. Went to my first scrapbooking crop party
5. Got drunk at a weiner roast. It was the 1st anniversary of my moms passing

5 Things on today's "to do" list ...
1. Make Phyllis's retirement cake at work for her party
2. Get off work early to go home and change clothes to go an appointment
3. Try my new makeup I bought from Avon at card club last night
4. Send an email to an old friend of my parents
5. fix supper

5 Snacks I enjoy ....
1. Cookies
2 .Lays potato chips
3. Popcorn. Kettle or movie theatre butter..yum
4. Ice Cream
5. chocolate candy, like Reeses, Twix, 3 musketeers

5 things I would do if I were a millionaire ...
1. Buy some land and build my dream home
2. Go shopping to furnish my new scrap room in my new dream home
3. Pay off my car, and get new cars for my DH and sons.
4. Take my family shopping for new clothes and shoes
5. Help out my family & sisters by sharing :-)

5 places I have lived ...
1. Danville, Illinois
2. North Augusta, South Carolina
3. Thomson, Georgia
4. Oakwood, Illinois
5. Indianapolis, Indiana (Birthplace)

5 jobs I have had ...
1. Head Cake Decorator at County Market
2. dishwasher-Waitress-Cook-Caterer-bartender-pastry chef (at the same business)
3. temporary desk job answering phones and sending letters.
4. production line worker at a factory.
5. Cake Decorator and Bakery Deli Manager for Bilo, INC.

Tough guys heartbreak

Today was the Superbowl game for my sons Varsity Youth Football team. We were 6-1 for the season, and we had to face the only team to beat us this year for the title. Unfortunately we were defeated! :-) These boys put so much of their heart and soul into this game, and it wsa so heartbreaking to see them lose. They are 11 and 12 yr olds, and for 1o of our 8th graders, it was their last game EVER with the team. Emotions were so high, and these tough "not-so-little-anymore-boys" have been through a lot the last two weeks. My son usually plays the whole game, and last week was injured and not able to play football until the game today, to give his knee some rest. Our Quarterback broke his arm last week in that same playoff game, and didn't tell his coach (his dad) that it hurt until they won the game, because my son was out for the game with an injury, and he didn't want to disappoint the other team members by losing, so he stayed IN the game to win it. What a tough guy!
Here are our playoff game winners, our Varsity Oakwood Comets! My son is sitting in the front, with an injured leg. QB with broken arm is #12

Here they are winning 2nd place today.Andrew is #27.

Pictured above, their coaches tell them: "There is no smiling in Football!" They never said anything about crying. And believe me..they were crying today. I felt so bad for them, I just wanted to hug them all!! For their efforts today and all their hard work all year!
Football is over for the year..now basketball starts on Monday!

I am starting to get more excited!

I'm going on a cruise, I'm going on a cruise...LOL
Some of the members in the scrapbooking newsgroup I belong to are going on a Carnival Cruise in March '09, and I am planning on going with the group ! This will be a big trip for me. It will be my first cruise, my first time ever on any kind of a boat on the ocean, and my first time visiting another country. How cool is that?! And, I get to go with my friend Barb from work. It should be lots of fun. She is a lot of fun and a nut, and loves to scrapbook, but she is afraid of the water!! I really had to talk her into going and convince her that we weren't sailing on the Titanic!
I am also glad she will finally get to meet some of my RCS friends that I talk about at work. I have met some of the gals in person a couple of years ago at a scrapbook retreat- Lynne, Amy, Sandy, April, Tammy, Amanda, Katrina, M-C ,Deb and Amy, to name a few. I will get to see some of them again, and get to finally meet a few more on the cruise! I gotta give a shout out to M-C, our group administrator and trip organizer. She's such a great person and probably one of the most busy but organized people I have ever known..LOL
Our first deposits are paid, and this trip is really starting to be "real", not just a dream!
The Carnival Inspiration is the name of our ship. Check it out!

I have been on vacation this week. I am not going anywhere, its just my last vacation of the year, and I have to say I have been enjoying some ME time!

I got some new SU Stamps and Inkspots from a SU party I attended a couple of weeks ago! Pocket Silhouettes. I am hoping to really put them to good use, so I have to play with them some more.My craft desk has been used often this week ! LOL I received some stamped Bella images from a couple of friends on Cafe Mom, and decided to finally put them to use. (Thanks Dee and Teresa)


My sister Sandy in Florida sent me a RAK of some ribbons she got at Target. I asked her "..what did I do to deserve presents?"...haha! She said she was just thinking of me and she didn't need a reason to send me something..Aww...isn't she sweet!? So I used some on these fall colored cards.

I have really been in a fall mood, as you can probably tell from my color theme of all these cards! It IS my favorite time of the year!

I have some pictures to share of some cards I made a couple of days ago. This first one I did for a challenge on Cafe Mom. I was playing around with my Cuttlebug embossing folders. I wanted to try a new technique where you ink up the inside of the folder , and then run it through the machine. I don't own a Cuttlebug yet, so I used my Sizzix. Looks pretty cool!! The others were just using up some of my scraps and I experimented with some stamping and coloring with watercolor pencils.
thanks for stopping by!

August CCC

These are some Christmas Cards I made for the RCS CCC for August. It's too early for Christmas you say? Nope..just getting ahead so I won't be in a mad rush to get them all done in December! Thanks DEE for the Bella Image! these are kind of simple, but fun to make nonetheless.

Three day Weekender! WOW!

Yay! I get three days off of work together on a holiday weekend!..YES,thats three in a row, folks!!...LOL this is something that hardly ever happens unless I am on vacation, as I almost always work weekends. So, I am taking advantage of the time off to visit my dad and my baby sister Susie in Peoria. Susie is to the left and behind me in the picture above. I love this picture of my sisters and my Dad. We had it taken at Sears last Thanksgiving, and we had not been together in five years (since our moms' passing) so we decided to snap a picture of the occasion!
I haven't seen Susie's new apartment yet, and I really need some down time to spend with my family. Plus, my dad will enjoy a home cooked meal that my sister and I will cook for him, as he gets very few of those that he doesn't cook himself. I am leaving tomorrow morning and spending the night over there, and we are gonna go see my sis's significant other do his thing at Karaoke, and I will be back Sunday afternoon in time to go to Andrews' youth football game at 3:00. Then, we have a birthday party/cookout to go to after the game, so guess what? I don't have to cook that night! hahaha... No plans for Monday..well maybe I will spend some quality time with my hubby and boys...since its a holiday and all! :-)

I am new to blogging, so bear with me while I get used to it! There is so much to learn about creating my page and making it all I want it to be! I tend to ramble a little, so maybe doing this will improve my writing abilities..:-)
I have recently become more involved in papercrafting , especially cardmaking. I started out with scrapbooking. I had a friend at work introduce me to it, and she got me addicted! haha! I still love to scrapbook, and I really need to get back to it. I am accumulating more photos that are begging to be scrapbooked. My cardmaking endeavors are becoming my favorite, because there are so many creativite techniques to learn and experiment with. I am sometimes almost overwhelmed with ideas when I am looking at others' card creations, and I just want to create more!! I am getting more interested in the craft of rubberstamping and using Stampin'Up Products. I could put a serious dent in my checkbook balance just buying SU! haha! Its so addicting!