A Bit of Bees Knees

Wednesday, December 25, 2013

Merry Christmas!

Wishing you all a beautiful Christmas filled with love, hugs and happiness...

tucked into each stocking,

resting softly beneath the tree,

nestled into every corner of your world.

Love Brittany and Daniel

Tuesday, December 24, 2013

Frosted Rosemary Sprigs with Cranberries {Drink Garnish}

I made these for our Christmas party this year. They are so easy to make and they look really pretty. I paired mine with a Brut Champagne (but I'm sure they would work with a variety of drinks}. The rosemary is very aromatic -- a lovely little surprise that lingers in your glass.

Here's what you'll need:

5 inch or longer rosemary sprigs {= to # of glasses you'll be serving}

1 bag of fresh cranberries

1 bowl of water

1 cup of sugar {for dusting}

^^^ strip the rosemary so that just the top needles are left. Spear each cranberry in the middle and push it up towards the top.

^^^Dip the Rosemary needles into the water bowl and then into the sugar. Tap to get any excess sugar off.

^^^Then put them in the freezer and take them out just before your guests arrive.

Yay For Christmas Time!

I just LOVE Christmas Time! If it were up to me, I would have our tree up the day after Halloween. I think Thanksgiving and Christmas go hand in hand, right? I guess Dan would be embarrassed or something, so we waited until after Thanksgiving this year to decorate our beloved Christmas tree. On December 1st, Dan and I turned on the Pandora Christmas station, sipped eggnog and hung up our Christmas decorations. And then we wrapped ourselves in blankets and watched the Grinch {Dan's all-time favorite}. Now why can't we celebrate Christmas year round? I love this fun stuff.

^^^ Dan cut a wafer from our Christmas tree trunk last year and I made into an ornament so we could always have a little piece of our first Christmas from 2012. {Just let the wafer dry for a few months and use a soldering iron to burn words or a design into the wood -- super easy}.

^^^We found some snow on a hot chocolate walk with friends! The church around the corner made snow for us to play in...I mean the kids, for the kids to play in.

^^^I tried my hand at making snowflakes out of coffee filters. Pretty cool huh?

^^^ A Christmas Wreath Party with neighbors. We all brought our own wreaths and decorated them together while listening to Christmas music and drinking pomegranate mojitos! My kind of party :)

^^^ The finished product!

Friday, December 13, 2013

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Wednesday, December 11, 2013

Our Thanksgiving!

^^^I know it's a tad on the late side, but I hope you all had a wonderful thanksgiving! We had Thanksgiving with my Parents and our HUGE extended family. So, I might have gone a bit overboard with all these pictures of the table, but I think my Mom did and amazing job -- she should be a party planner...right?

^^^We reused the candle holders from our wedding. What a great investment...I think we've used them for every party since then!

^^^Mom...you are killing me with the bitty butterflies and acorns! Too cute!

^^^ My cousin Charlie and hubby Dan. Dan teases Charlie for being a frat boy and Charlie teases Dan for being a surfer...basically they love each other.

^^^My Dad is the turkey master. Our family loves to have potluck style dinners -- everyone brings their favorite dish. We have a huge family, so having one person cook the entire meal would be insane. I was in charge of bringing pureed candied yams and rosemary potatoes and carrots. I really got into it and sprung for the fancy multi colored carrots at Traders. Is it weird that I was excited about carrots?

Because no Grams party is complete without a coffee station and butter cookies...^^^ Nice Mom ;)

^^^Meet my Family. Mom is up front and Dad is at the other end. Everyone in between is an Uncle, Aunt or cousin + about 20 more not pictured! My mom was the youngest of 8 kids and Dad was the oldest of 3 kids...who all grew up and had 2-6 kids of their own. So family holiday parties are of epic proportions.

^^^One of my Aunts always brings a box of See's Candy. It's sort of a tradition for family gatherings...one that I take full advantage of {I secretly snuck the rest of the box home when everyone had left}. And on the right is my Danny. This is what his face permanently looks like. ^^^

^^^And then we had a Friendsgiving with all of our friends who were still in town. We originally were going to have it in our tiny house {in the backyard}, but it rained all day, so my parents offered their house. How nice :) Well that made things super easy....everything was still set up from Thanksgiving, so we just cooked a new turkey and everyone pitched in with leftovers.