that time of the year ....

 Today marks the first day of Advent. It is during the Advent season we focus on anticipating Christ’s birth. We do our best to prepare ourselves spiritually during this special time leading up to Christmas. So we work with a grateful spirit as we prepare our home for this special time. We start by bringing out all the boxes with all the Christmas decorations. We put together a Christmas village with churches, barns, a theater, some village shops and houses with lighting so festive it makes you dream of a cozy white Christmas. We hung up wreaths and stockings with colored lighting to bring that holiday look of this special season. The house is warm and festive with Christmas music playing in the background and freshly baked goodies mixing wonderfully with the scented candles we both enjoy. It really is beginning to look, taste, smell and feel like Christmas !

 The pictures below are from a small batch of winter cookies to I made for our church's coffee fellowship this morning. I will take some more Christmas cookies pictures soon as I will be making more Christmas all during this Advent season. The next batch will look more 'Christmasy' than these !

The picture below is of a couple of wreaths I repurposed into one very festive Advent wreath wreath that I display at our front entrance way to our living room. What do you think ? Pretty nice, right ?

one more reason to be Thankful ... Cookies

I am so thankful for the many blessings God has given me 'every day in every way' ... "Blessed Beyond Belief" is my mantra. It is a great way to start each day.  And here is another reason to be thankful;  I get to bake more wonderful batches of cookies to help bring in this festive and joyful Thanksgiving holiday. It was a joy to ice these cookies .. it definitely make me smile :)   and I hope my tasters will enjoy them as much as I did making them. Let's us give Thanks to the Lord !!!

cupcake cookies

Trying on Cupcake cookies and posting pictures including 3 floral cookies.

Ice Cream Cookies

Here I am trying out my new ice cream cookie cutter. I am quite happy that these turned out really well for my first attempt. I love it when a plan comes together because many times it does not :) What do you think ?

this girl runs on Cupcakes and Jesus

 "This girl runs on Cupcakes and Jesus" was an artistic and creative gift from Ella and her mom, Nicole. It inspired me to make a batch of cupcakes for the Fall Fest at our church .I had so much fun making these cupcakes, and my camera loved them too ! Lots of great pictures to look at . I actually went ahead and bagged them individually and then tied them with pretty fall ribbons to give them an extra festive look.

Baby Blue Throw Quilt

I have been experimenting with some new designs lately. Contemporary and original is what I am going for. Symmetrical is nice but I am looking for something different.
  Blue is not my first choice in color, but since I decide to make a baby boy quilt, I have kept blue as the main color. It's a small quilt measuring 30 X 30, but hey it's for a baby, right ? So it could be used as either a blanket or a wall hang quilt.

                                       Check out my free hand quilting!

Spicy Malaysian Chicken with homegrown veggies

Summer is great time to indulge with fresh produces. The last few days, we are so blessed to get so much fresh homegrown vegetables from our church's friend and my husband's colleague.

I decided to cook a dish of Malaysian chicken curry with some of these homegrown goodies.

This dish is very easy to made, in a small pot, stir together chicken, tomatoes and curry paste, cook over medium to high heat for 3 minutes.
Add milk, squash, stir and mix well, cover pot with lid, let it cook for 5 minutes.
Dish should be bubbly now, turn down heat to medium low, add okras and cover pot with lid and continue to let it simmer for another 10 minutes, toss in basil.
Serve over rice and black beans.

Ingredients:
2 Tbs Chicken/fish curry paste
1 lb chicken thighs (boneless and skinless), cut in bite size
2 whole tomatoes, cut in wedges
1 yellow squash,  cut in slices
7-10 okras, trim tips off
bunch of fresh basils
1/2 cup milk.