Wishing you and your family a Happy Thanksgiving :)

Merry Christmas!

From my family to yours, I wish you a very Merry Christmas and a wonderful New Year.

I hope yours wishes come true and that you are filled with happiness on this day and throughout the year.

Christmas is in the Air

Well, we're having our first light snow fall of the season - even if it's just a very light dusting. I'm not a big snow person in general to be honest, but I always appreciate the first snow fall. It's just so pretty. Snow on Christmas day is okay in my books too :)

This weather has been something else though. We hit 18 degrees Celsius on the weekend! It was the perfect weather for Doug to hang out Christmas lights and they look so nice. A simple classic line of white lights. Not the first Christmas decorations to go up though. In fact, I wanted to provide a sneak peek of my Holiday decorations.

 

All candles and the deer are from Costco.

Once I have the house fully decorated, within the next couple of weeks, I plan on giving a 'Holiday House Tour' on what I've done. 

Christmas is my absolute favourite time of year and I am so excited to share it with you!

It's Friday!

Well, it's Friday. Time to link up with Lauren!

Sorry for the lack of posts this week. With all the Halloween activities we've been doing, time just hasn't been on my side. But here's my top five for this week.


1. Halloween Storey Time. Now, we're not all that huge on Halloween, but we do have a lot of fun with it. Eric absolutely loves it and that's what does make it great for us. Aside from our pumpkin carving, my sister and I took Eric and my nephew Logan to a Halloween themed storey time at our favourite library. The boys absolutely loved it and they were able to wear their costumes. Eric was Thomas the Train and Logan was a Witch Doctor. At the storey time they sang, danced, read stories and did some small crafts. It was so fun to watch them participate.

2. I have a serious thing for cupcakes - and baking in general. Baking is a very good stress reliever for me and I really enjoy doing it; and to be honest a holiday isn't a holiday unless I bring in cupcakes to work - it's a tradition really. So I ended up baking chocolate cupcakes. They were very 'bewitching'; and oh so delicious.

3. Trick-or-Treating. Eric was beyond excited for trick-or-treating this year. I absolutely love watching his face light up every time we walked up to someone's front door. It's very cute to watch him inspect every piece of candy that gets put into his pumpkin basket. Aside from the wind and rain, it was a great night. 

4. This past weekend we had a babysitter on both Friday and Saturday Night. We typically don't do that, but it was lovely! I love Eric to pieces, but sometimes you just need a break, right? We tried a local restaurant on Friday night, which I mentioned in last weeks HF4F post, and it was pretty good. On Saturday night, we went bowling. I can't remember the last time I went bowling, but we had such a blast. It's so nice to go out every once in a while with no kids. I loved having the adult time.

5. I got my car detailed and it is fantastic! I took it to AutoHub, a local shop here in Hamilton. My car is absolutely spotless and I am trying really hard to keep it that way. They cleaned my entire interior; shampooed the seat, cleaned and vacuumed my trunk, wiped down the doors, dashboard, knobs, everything - it is wonderful. They were even able to get the milk stains out of my back seat! I honestly don't remember my car ever being this clean. Let's just hope I can keep it that way!

Enjoy your weekend!

Homemade Vanilla Extract

With Christmas just over 5 weeks away, I am seriously starting to think of gift idea's for the many people in my life (you really wanted that reminder, didn't you?). Along with the gift-giving that comes along with Christmas, there is also the many dinners and parties you'll attend. In either case, wouldn't homemade vanilla extract be a wonderful gift idea for your family, friends and colleagues? Homemade gifts are really awesome and many people really love things that comes from the heart. It's within the meaning of Christmas after all.

Thanks to Bethany Actually (whom I found on Pinterest) and a couple of other online sources, I found out that making your own vanilla extract is actually super easy! 

Here's what you'll need: 

• Vanilla Beans
• Vodka, any brand and can be inexpensive. I used Absolut Vodka.
• Glass bottles with lids
• Measuring cup
• Funnel
• Knife
• Cutting board
• Paper Towels
• Ribbon or twine (optional)

For the vanilla beans themselves, I bought mine through eBay from Vanilla Products USA and used Grade B Bourbon Planifolia Vanilla Beans grown in Madagascar. The service and delivery time were pretty good and I would purchase from them again. It costs about $24 (including shipping) for 30 beans.

For the glass bottles I used, I used 4 oz. Boston Round bottles purchased from Uline, which is located in Brampton, ON. You will need to purchase a case of 24 as a minimum. They were about $30 for the case.

First and foremost, be sure to wash your bottles and lids with hot soapy water and then let them air dry.

Using your sharp knife, cut your bean in half. Then, about a half inch down from the end slice the bean in half lengthwise.

Once you have all your beans cut and ready to go (I used all 30 of mine for 12 bottles), put 5 pieces (two and half full beans) of bean into your glass yours. If you have any extra pieces (I had one), just add it to a jar.

Once your jars are full of beans, you ready to pour the vodka. Add half cup of vodka to each bottle ensuring that the beans are fully covered.

Your funnel likely wont stay still on it's own so be sure to hold the funnel while your pouring in the vodka.

After adding the vodka, simply screw on the caps tightly and you're done! You can see the vodka starting to change colour almost instantly.

Important care instructions: Be sure to store these in a cool dry place. From what I read online, the vanilla will be good to use in about two months time. Just be sure the give the bottles a gentle shake a few times a week.

After the vanilla is ready you can remove the beans or leave them in, just note that the vodka will evaporate over a long period of time. In this case, simply top up the vodka to ensure the beans stay covered.

Since these are Christmas gifts, I went a step further and created these labels using MS Publisher. I followed the same label idea as Bethany Actually. Ingredients listed is love, vodka and vanilla beans. A sweet touch for your friends and family.

In my case I only labelled 6 as I will likely keep a couple bottles for myself with all the baking I do, but also because I'll be including a bottle in my Secret Santa gift at work and will create a more generic label for that (will post about this gift idea sometime in November).

Since the vanilla takes about two month's to be ready, you can also add a 'Best After Date' to your label or simply add that piece of info in your card (assuming you give them one).

I'm pretty happy with the way they turned out. The picture below shows how the colour changed in only a 24 hour period. They'll eventually be very deep amber in colour.

You can also dress up the bottles with ribbon or twine for a nice added touch.

I hope you enjoy making your vanilla as much as I did! Feel free to comment below with any questions, etc.

Good Luck!