Christmas Wishes

Wishing You All a Merry Christmas!



Love from the Deti Family... 2010.



Cookies, Gifts and Spastic Teenagers!

Hayley had her 4th Annual Cookie and Gift Exchange yesterday.  It was a great way to kick off the Christmas Break!  The girls were extremely energetic and they did a fantastic job with their cookies! 



Maddy P., Casey, Sarah, Hannah, Savannah, and Hailey.



Kaleigh and Hayley drawing numbers for the gift exchange.





Mari, McKenna, and Rachel



Here's a selection of some of the beautiful cookies that the girls made...



Maddy Ashley's delicious snowflakes.





Rachel's adorable Santa Cookies.  These won the prize for 'Most Creative'!



Savannah's Peanut Butter Cups.

 


Hayley's supercute Melting Snowman Sugar Cookies.  We got the idea for this one on Smashed Peas and Carrots.

 


I think these were Kaleigh's cookies... so darn cute!





These were the winning cookie for the 2010 party!  They were absolutely yummy!  Miss McKenna made them.  They were S'mores cookie that she and her mom made up.  The base was homemade graham cracker.  Then there was a drizzle of peanut butter.  Then they made homemade marshmallow that they piped on top of the graham cracker!!  It was topped off with a drizzle of chocolate syrup and a sprinkling of powdered sugar!  So, so good!



The winners:  Miss Rachel and Miss McKenna!




This years group of SPAZZES!!!

 

Gourmet Food High!

I am so excited right now!  Lisa and I just made an awesome discovery!  It was so awesome that I decided to purchase in BULK!!  Here's the story... Lisa and I were running an errand together this morning, but I made her make one stop prior to getting to our final destination. 

See, I had this groupon that I had to redeem and since we were going to be in the area I thought it'd be easy for me just to run in and pick up my purchase.  If you don't know what Groupon is click here! 

Anywaaaaay, I had purchased a coupon (for $10!) for the following items:  3 snowman cookies, 3 gingerbread cookies, 6 candy canes, & 2 boxes of custom flavored tea cookies, so when we went into this warehouse to pick up my goodies we were met with the sight of pallets and pallets of these beautiful sweets that they were just about giving away!  My heart started palpitating and my mind was going a mile a minute to figure out who I could give these gorgeous treats to.  I sooooo love a good bargain!

The prices were so AMAZING that we bought five cases of treats!  I think the total cost for the five cases was only twenty dollars!!  If my math is correct the cost per gorgeous treat was only about ten cents!

Since I'm on the Teacher Appreciation Committee at Luke's elementary school, I bought two cases of the big swirly suckers for all of the teachers and staff!  I printed off little tags and tied them to the dowel of the suckers and tomorrow morning I'll place this nice little Christmas surprise in their mail boxes!  I know that they are going to bring lots of smiles to our wonderful teachers!

They do not have a store front and I am not sure what the hours and/or days that this warehouse will be open, but if you're interested in checking it out here's the phone number that I found on the tag:  206.903.0500.  They are located in Tukwila on 68th or W. Valley Hwy. just around the corner from the Southcenter Home Depot.  Let me know if you make it down for the deals!

One Sweet Day...

The kids and I have always decorated gingerbread houses every Christmas Season, but this year we invited all of the local cousins over for an afternoon of decorating.  With three different families contributing, we had quite the selection of candy!  There definitely wasn't a shortage of sugar!  I was actually kind of surprised how long everyone stayed focused at this project.  I would say that half of them (the girls!) actually completed their entire house... we lost the boys about 2/3 of the way through which I still thought was pretty impressive!  Here's a shot of the kids as they're just getting started.

Luke and Ashlie totally focused....

Cody shortly before he lost his focus!  :)

This is the first year that Hayley finished her entire house!

Tatum (and her cute freckles!) shingling her house with lifesavers.

Dylan decided to use an assortment of candy for his roofing material!

We had a ton of candy leftover... did you know that it saves perfectly fine in zip lock baggies for the following year?  Just make sure you store it in a dry area inside your home rather than in your garage or an outdoor storage shed.  Another tip:  purchase your gingerbread at an after-Christmas sale.  They save beautifully for the following year!

 Hayley is currently trying to teach her old mom how to use 'Picnik'.  I went a little crazy with the special effects, but hey, it's really addicting!  I couldn't stop...

A close-up shot of their completed houses.  Too cute!  This will hopefully be an annual 'Cousins Tradition'!

Hayley's house is on display on my desk.