Guess What!?

I'm so happy to let you know that I've been chosen to be on Cookin' Up Creations Master Chef Challenge Team!  I love displaying my little blinkie on the top right hand side of this blog!  I will be cooking up challenges over there till July with several other great ladies!

After I was notified by Tammy that I had been chosen, I set off creating a layout to be revealed at the same time the team was revealed.  I thought and I thought on this one, because I'm not one for making resolutions and then I hit on it!  After I created several stacks of my cookbooks (which most are really Taste of Home magazines), and I carefully handed over my camera to my youngest son Brandon, I had a picture that I knew would fit the layout perfectly!  (BTW, thank you very much Brandon, you're always such a good sport and you do come in quite handy at times!)

My journaling reads:  I used to think that I loved to cook, then I began to think about it and realized that what I really loved was making people happy with my cooking.  I have so many wonderful recipes both in the cookbooks and magazines that I have stored in my mom's old hutch along with the recipes that are at my finger tips on line that I always say I want to try and continue to make the same things over and over again.  So for 2012 my goal is to try a new recipe at least every two weeks and see if I can find some new family and friend favorites and make people happy with what I cook and bake!

One of my duties as a Cookin' Up Creations team member is to bring challenges to the board on certain days of the month.  My very first challenge was for Focus On Friday.  I chose to focus on journaling.  (Many of my layouts have "stories" on them but some of them I do think the picture tells it all.)  This year when I was opening up "this" gift I made sure I handed the camera off (again carefully but this time to Angel, who did great job!) to make sure I had pictures to go with this story that I knew I wanted handed down to my kids and grandkids.

So grab a hankie if you are at all sentimental because here is the journaling to this layout:

When my mom was alive she got me a box of chocolate covered cherries every year. I never told her that I didn't really like them, I just always ate them tho! I was 42 when she passed away and I had been getting them from her every year since I was in high school.
That first Christmas without her was really hard and I had a hard time making it Christmas for my kids, but I did. They were little enough that I don't think they realized how sad I was.
When we open our gifts we all open one up at the same time and that first year I hadn't really noticed the one to me unmarked as to who it was from. When I opened it, I just started crying. It was a box of chocolate covered cherries. My husband knew the story behind them and got them for me. As I sat there with tears streaming down my face, I knew that he knew how important they were to me!
I'm sitting here crying as I'm typing this....My mom has been gone now for 15 Christmas' including this one coming up. Every year, my husband remembers those darn cherries and every year I cry when I open them.....

Whew!  I think I'll show you one just for fun!  This is of Angel on her 19th birthday!  How's that for fun!  (we need some fun after that last bit of journaling!)

The theme this month at Cookin Up Creations is to use up our stash (so we of course can buy new!) and on all three of these layouts, I reached waaaay back and grabbed stuff to use!