Christmas Oreo Stuffed Chocolate Chip Cookies

YAY for the new oven!!! I am working on some before and after collages of the kitchen and living room to share with you. I could not be happier with our kitchen renovation, and I feel so silly for not being more patient and trusting in my wonderful husband. I feel completely provided for.

Now that I have a kitchen I get to put all of the fun recipies I have found on pintrest to the test! So here is the first thing I tried (really only becuase we had all of the ingrediants in our house). I am terrible at sticking to any recipies, becuase I always want to add and subtract certain things. I will do my best to share with you the recipies I am using. Mabye this will help me actually mesure things, and not just add a little bit of this, and that, here, and there :-)

Here it goes:

1 cup butter(softend)

1 cup white sugar

1 cup packed brown sugar

2 egss

1 tbs vanilla extract

3 cups all-pupose baking soda

1 1/2 tsp baking soda

1 tsp salt

1 tsp milk

Oreo cookies

Mix all wet ingrediant together. In seperate bowl mix all dry ingrediants together. Slowly stir dry ingrediant into wet ingrediants (I used our kitchen aid).

With cookie scoop, form balls with dough. Place one ball on the top of an oreo, and another ball on the bottom. Seal edges by pressing, pinching, and cupping in your hands until the oreo cookie is completly enclosed.

Cook: 350 degrees 10-13 Mins.

New Sewing Machine Experiment! (Ear warmer attempt)

So here is my attempt at making an EAR WARMER, I found this idea on a really great blog I found through Pinterest of course! I have had my sewing machine for about 2 months now and I figure the best way to learn how to use it, is to just go for it and start making things! I had some scrap fabric laying around (green would not be my color of choice) and then found an old white fleece blanket in the lost and found here at Woodleaf. So here it goes!

Ok, still haven't mastered my button hole skills on the new machine so here is a really easy way to make a fastener that doesn't require a button hole!! All you need is a pony tail elastic, which I actually took right off my wrist. Does the button look familiar? I made it out of polymer clay in a previous post!

I had to add some decoration! Here is a fabric flower, I wanted it to be big but I may have over done it.

Super easy:

Step 1: Cut fabric circles.
Step 2: Fold circles in half, and then in half again.
Step 3: Glue or sew folded circle to a piece of felt.
Step: Fluff your petals and tadaa!!

And here it is, a cozy fleece lined ear warmer with an oversized flower!!

Family Vs. California 'Operation Decoration'

Those of you who know my mom know that she not only has a knack for decorating, but she really enjoys it too!!! While she was here she not only made christmas wreaths for all of our windows but she rearranged our entire house!!! Although, semi frustrating at the time I'm really enjoying the changes. Our bed is in a new place, bookshelf's are moved, and even our kitchen table is in a different place. I didn't know it was even possible to move things this much in this little house of ours.

Our grill was Moms work place, and my Dad was in charge of cutting all the greenery. I will say that northern California is a really great place to live for fresh greenery, it a free Christmas decoration that I have used multiple times and that smells sooooo good, I love it!

Josh and Mikie weren't as interested in the wreath making as the rest of the family, so they just sat in our newly arranged house and watched the football game. (I think they may have been the smart ones...)




Beer SAMPLER at SIERRA NEVADA BREWING CO.

Unfortunately, we never made to Napa Valley, but we did go to Sierra Nevada Brewing Company! This place is awesome, they offer tours, and have a great gift shop. We tried every single beer that they are currently making, my favorite is Kellerweis!

This marks the end of my postings about my families visit. However, our kitchen renovation has been started and it is pretty crazy around here. I will be posting pictures of the thing that we have been calling a kitchen for the last 3 months :-). Also, I have been getting pretty crafty lately and I can't wait to show you some projects! In the meantime I will try to convince my husband to sit down and write something!!!

Family vs. California 'The Swing'

       Our spectators!!!




During my familys tour of Woodleaf (our backyard and Mikie's work place) my Dad and I, feeling couragous, put our life in Mikie's hands and went for a swing.

Thank you MOM for being an awesome photographer!



                                                         QUICK HIKE PHOTO

Two incredible people standing in front of you right now!!! I am so lucky that these men are in my life!!!

One morning we took my dad for a quick hike to the 'look out tower'. This awesome view is about 2 miles from our house, and on a clear day it is absolutely gorgeous. This day the fog was heavy, and the way it seemed to engulf the mountains and lake was truly magnificent. I would have never dreamed to live in a place like this, God is so good!!!

Family vs. California

My family came to visit us in California!!! Last week was busy, fun, crazy, fast pace, and exhausting all at the same time!! It was so wonderful to have them here and see my life here in Challenge, CA. My Mom, Josh, and Nan were here for 7 days, and my Dad joined them for the last 4days. The pictures above are from our visit to Empire Mines in Grass Valley, CA. Empire Mines was one of the most succesful Gold mines in America! The tour was super fun and it actually took us down into the abonandoned mines, Josh lasted about halfway through the tour so Nan, and I took him to sit in the car while Mikie and Mom finished the tour. I have so many more pictures and fun stories from their visit to share with you. Including, waking up at 4:30 am for coffee (because they couldn't ger used to the 3 hour time difference) all of my furniture is now completely re-arranged, and California wine :-) (I still have 4 bottles in my fridge). I am so blessed to have such a caring family that loves me so much. Stay tuned for more stories and pictures from my family taking on Norhtern California!!!

( I adore the picture of Josh and Mikie at the top of the page)

Where am I

OK, it's November 5th! Since when does it snow before thanksgiving!!! To all the people who are thinking, "wait, didn't she move to California" the answer is yes I did, and yes it snows here too. We live in northern California, I don't really feel like I'm in California at all. No, there are no valley girls, or movie stars or palm trees; here there are gigantic pine cones, bears, mountain lions, and right now, snow!  I think the snow is a little different here in the Sierra's, it looks fluffy but it supper heavy! The craziest part is we drove down the mountain this morning to go to church and not even 5 miles away from our house there was no snow! Living at sea level on the Chesapeake Bay all of my life has left me completely uneducated about elevation. Apparently the rain/snow line has everything to do with elevation, and I guess our elevation number 3,400 ft. just happens to be 5 miles above the snow line (lucky us). On a more positive note, today I bought avocados for 49cents, one of the few things California does right :-)

countdown: 7 days until the fam arrives, pray for no snow!!!!!

A visitor!

LIZZZ!

It was such a blessing to see a familiar face so far from home. Liz stopped by for a long weekend, and it was not long enough! We spent the first day just hanging out catching up and of course cooking and baking! The second day she was here we took a day trip to Lake Tahoe. The weather was amazing and thank goodness Tahoe has not seen any snow yet so we could enjoy the fall colors! Whenever I go to Tahoe City I can not pass up the town of Truckee. Truckee is a cute little town on the outskirts of Lake Tahoe, I love to walk through all the little shops there, I can't wait to bring my mom here I think she will love it! In Truckee there is an awesome burger place called, Burger Me, I had been there one time before and it was supper yummy! Burgers with avocados, sweet potato fries, and some Seirra Nevada beer mmmmmmmmmm! Liz's time here was so sweet, I have the best friends!!

The countdown: Mom, Dad, Nan and Josh are coming in 10 days!! (Nov. 14th)

lovee,bekahkane

Lessons Through Clay

Who knew polymer clay or sculpty and a couple of stamps could create such great earrings, beads, and buttons. Everyday when mikie goes to work the first thing I do, is continue my job search, but sometimes I need a break so lately I have been getting pretty crafty. Today, I found my old stash of polymer clay and decided to make some buttons. This clay is supper easy to use, you make your creation and then pop it into the oven. The only problem is, this house that we live in, the house full of "character" does not have an oven! Yes, you heard me no oven, can you believe it. It's really ok though because we have an oven right across the street, and we have this awesome toaster oven that we got as a wedding present. The whole oven thing has been pretty stressful, and I think when we do get one (which is going to be very soon, our kitchen renovation started on Monday) I will appreciate it so much!!!! I would have never thought an oven would have been a privilege; but, hey maybe this is a little lesson that our circumstances here in our little house in California is teaching me.

Is this real life?

This is the beginning of our story. I am hoping that I will not be the only narrator of this happy, fun, crazy, adventurous story; but we will see how often I can convince Mikie to sit down and write something. We have been married for almost 3 months now and boy has it been an adventure! In the last 7 months I have graduated college, driven across the country, planned a wedding, got married, went to Hawaii, and moved from Maryland to California! Not to mention the house we moved into here in California has A LOT of "character". What kind of character you ask? the kind of character only pictures can show. ( I will post some soon!) The best part of this story is I would not change one piece of it. My hopes for this blog are very high, and my blog attempts in the past have not been very successful. I hope that this is a place were we can share with you our journey, our creativity, and the humor that so often finds its way into our marriage (mostly due to my husband). With all that has happend in the last couple of month I often find myself wondering, "is this really my life"!

lovee.bekahkane