Dog treats

So I am an avid animal lover and have two wonderful labs that I am lucky enough to have in our family. Our labtard is older and goes by the name of Duke. He isn't as full of energy as he used to be but still finds ways to crack me up. He also become a bit more picky about what treats he will take so I started hunting for some treats I could make at home. And thanks to my love affair with pintrest I found a recipe that both my labtard and my cracklab( my 3 year old golden lab) LOVE! I found the recipe off of the blog : A kitchen muse. Below are some shots of the baking process and me being stalked by the labtard after I had him try one :)

The dough is very sticky and I highly suggest getting rice flour to try if your pup's stomach is easily upset. But once again, I have labs so they eat everything!

Since it is Christmas I went with the star shapes just for fun!

He is patiently waiting and watching for his next treat!

Art

So sassy and I decided to play artsy fartsy this evening and dug out her old crayons, some canvases, hot glue and my hair dryer. We checked out YouTube videos on how to do it and dug in. (Just a side note, if u do this I highly recommend keeping the wrappers on the crayons as it keeps the crayon stuck to the canvas better) first we took the earth tones and made a boring design, next we took the little dots we had and made a polka dot design, next the warm colors we made a heart and the cool colors we mimicked the aurora . Then we covered the floor with plastic and started blow drying the art. ( another side note, pinks blues and blacks melt faster than the others) once we finished drying them we added some embellishments and wala!

My photography

Photography has been something I have liked to do but haven't had the greatest equipment to work with. Well I finally bought myself a decent camera and Alaska has no shortage of opportunities to practice with. Today was a good example. Right now our sun sets around 1500 and the moon is almost constantly out. Well this creates some interesting images. This was taken off my front porch right around sunset. I just loved the coloring that was present and the contrast of the dark tree next to it.

 

 The other thing I am absolutely addicted to photographing is the Aurora. I tried with my old camera and couldn't figure out how to get it to show up. But with my new camera I just put it on a special setting and manage to photograph some of the aurora but I wasn't happy with the clarity so I took a local class on how to do and the difference was amazing!!

 

You can actually see my stars are in focus and I left the shutter open long enough to get plenty of the lights. This night was a green aurora but I hope to chase down some other colors. Maybe a trip north is in order but it is always a game of chance so we will wait and see.

Candy houses are a family tradition for us and with the hubs being gone last year it meant all that much more to him and the kids this year. So we prepped the houses this morning and then I let all the kids (including the old man) lose on the candy this evening. We generally use old halloween candy but we didn't  get as much as usual this year so we went and got some cheap stuff and the family had so much fun and if you look closely at the finished products you will see Alaska's influence on my family!

Giggles showing off his finished product! Below is the Alaska influence I was talking about. Each house had its own salmon addition. His was a pond of bear riding salmon. ;)

Daddy's house also had a little Alaskan influence. His was a drying rack of salmon!

Gabriel had a mix of items on his which included a helo landing pad.

Harmon also had a pond full of salmon. I think our trip to Valdez may have made a lasting impact to this family.

 Sassy was also influenced and created a river of salmon with bears sitting on the side waiting for them.

The finished candy village will stay on display in our home until New Year's Eve when I will give each of the kids a hammer and allow them to eat anything edible!! I think that is their favorite part!

Christmas decorating

It's that time again! Time to decorate for Christmas! Our first step is always the tree. Each of the kids gets a new ornament every year and so we each get our stash of ornaments and take turns placing them on the tree talking about where we got the ornaments. The plan is for them to have at least 18 by the time they leave the house and decorate their own trees. And of course we have the kids pose with the tree every year. This year we even have an new addition, Ms. Alaska! Who needed a little coaxing to hold still. She was in the middle of one of her crack moments and didn't want to sit still at all!

And of course we couldn't do everything so seriously and had to have alittle fun with a picture!!

Then of course we head outside and get to work. This year we were able to go and get a couple fun things for outside. Nothing to exciting but it was still fun to put them up. We found some cute icemen and some pretty trees that could go on our walkway. Of course with the ground frozen solid we had to rearrange some snow for them to have something to stick to but we know how to improvise and made it work! 

We weren't able to do much but managed to light up the front porch with white and blue snowflakes and stars. It was so nice to have the manchild home to help me with this. We always work so well together.

The king of the Christmas Decor!!

 

For most people the experience of decorating the outside of their home requires a ladder and some extension cords. For us, it took 3 layers, plus snow gear and hand warmers. It was a sweltering -15 while we worked and I can't say as there is a sexier couple out there!!

Aurora hunting

So I took the hubs and the kiddos out on another night of aurora hunting. It was -23 degrees where we were by the Chena lakes and flat out it was COLD!! But kids being kids found a pile of snow and we had to drag them into the truck every 15 minutes to try and rewarm their little bodies. The shot to the right is of the moon and thud and giggles. The one below is of thud, giggles and sassy playing. I love my camera and the fact that it looks like it is daylight outside when in fact we could barely see anything except by moonlight.

We never did find the aurora that night but the clear sky was to much for me to resist. I kept seeing an exceptionally bright star which I am pretty sure is a planet just unsure of which one it is.

We were actually out on top of a dam next to the chena river and the whole area was so beautiful and quiet.

Thanksgiving

The holidays are my favorite time of year. Because it has two of my favorite things; family, and food. We are finally a whole family again this year and we had fun getting ready this year; sassy helped me make the stuffing, giggles helped with the relish tray and taste tester, and daddy was the turkey carver specialist and master taste tester. Everything turned out great and now it's time for a nap before we feast on our French silk pies and mincemeat pies!!