I had been in a painting slump for a while.  I suddenly felt like getting some of my half finished projects done.  One of those is this Bat Wing Mantel Clock.  I had it almost finished for a while and it was just sitting so it seemed like the best thing to complete first.  I really love this clock design and when you see it in person it is a pretty impressive design.  It has a wingspan of 20 ½ inches and is 7 ½ inches tall....

  The weather here is unusually beautiful for March.  It is making cooking about the last thing I feel like doing.  This is a quick, super easy recipe that even picky eaters enjoy and can be made ahead with just a few ingredients.  Brandon got this recipe for me years ago from someone at work and it has become a family favorite.         Save Print Slow Cooker Cheesy Potatoes with Turkey Smoked Sausage Recipe type: Main Prep...

Friday night we attended the The Mythic Creatures:  Dragons, Unicorns & Mythic Creatures Exhibit at the Cleveland Natural History Museum.  This is a traveling exhibit and it has been at museums from New York, Atlanta to Sydney, Australia.  We have been waiting for the exhibit to come to Cleveland and it is now here until July. Joe Leonard has a few pieces in the exhibit.   Joe Leonard is a good friend and is an extraordinary wood...

We finally got our first real snow of the season.  So much for not having to use the snow blower this year!  It was also the first day back to school for Dane.  He was pretty bummed they didn’t call off school.  I spent my morning trying to get our house back in some order after the holidays.  Cleaning and putting decorations away then I decided I wanted something yummy, warm, comforting and filling for lunch. I decided I would make...

Brandon’s favorite cookies are his grandma’s Molasses Cookies.  His grandma would make them each year and he loves them.  When we got married I tried to get the recipes of things he liked to add to my collection of recipes.  A few years ago, Brandon’s mom made me a cookbook for Christmas and gave me a few family recipes – his aunt’s peanut butter cookies, his aunt’s pie crust, his grandma’s banana...

If you missed my last post, this year I decided that our gingerbread house would be modeled after the Disneyland 2011 Haunted Mansion Gingerbread House.  You can check it out at the Disney Parks Blog. After a lot of hard work and finagling our gingerbread house is completed!  It was a bit nerve wracking after completing the house to see if the electronics and animatronics were going to work with the weight of the gingerbread, icing and...

This year’s gingerbread house design was a no brainer for me.  I fell in love when I saw the Disneyland Haunted Mansion gingerbread house for this year as soon as I saw it on the Disney Parks Blog.  I thought it was awesome and this was what I wanted to build this year! I was so excited when I saw it that I asked Brandon to watch the video to see if he could help me make mine open and close like theirs and he said he could. The...