Drumroll please....

...and the winner is...

Camilla Roberts! Congratulations! I'll be in contact with you to get you your prize!

In case you're wondering, I did a random number generator, and Camilla's post was the lucky winner! Thank you to everyone who submitted a holiday recipe for me to try. I'm really excited to try all of them! My favorite holiday recipe is listed at the bottom. I just made a batch yesterday, and I just can't eat enough!

My birthday yesterday was one of the best birthdays so far in my life :-) When I woke up, I found this beautifully made card from my husband:



along with two tickets to see "Chicago" the musical in Topeka in a couple weeks. Although I am really excited to see Chicago (it's my favorite musical), the hand-made card from my husband was probably the best part of my day :-)

He gave me permission to post it here for you all to enjoy. I'm not sure how late he was up making the card, but I know it was pretty late based on the story he told me of making the card :-) He knew he wanted to use the "All About U" stamp set to stamp the "love U" part, but that set is retired and it's one of the sets that I have for sale. All my stamp sets that are for sale I keep in a box in the closet. Unfortunately, Ben didn't know that the All About U set was one that I was selling. He said that after he spent quite a while looking through all of my stamp sets, he remembered about that box in the closet and had to go searching for the box. He's so great! Anyway, he ended up using 3 different stamp sets, AND he even found the matching ink for the paper he had chosen. I told him that for next time I'd show him my ribbon drawer so he could add even more :-)

After the beautiful card in the morning, when I got home from work, I found this beautiful vase full of 2 dozen roses. Aww...



Anyway, I had a great birthday and I thank everyone for their kind birthday wishes!

My favorite holiday recipe:

Pumpkin Bread
INGREDIENTS
* 3 cups canned pumpkin puree
* 1 1/2 cups vegetable oil
* 4 cups white sugar
* 6 eggs
* 4 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
* 1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
* 1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
* 1 1/2 teaspoons salt
* 1 1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
* 1 1/2 teaspoons ground nutmeg
* 1 1/2 teaspoons ground cloves

DIRECTIONS

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Grease and flour three 9x5 inch loaf pans.
2. In a large bowl, mix together the pumpkin, oil, sugar, and eggs. Combine the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, nutmeg, and cloves; stir into the pumpkin mixture until well blended. Divide the batter evenly between the prepared pans.
3. Bake in preheated oven for 45 minutes to 1 hour. The top of the loaf should spring back when lightly pressed.

Happy Stamping (and baking)!