Giveaway 2 of 2

Comments are now closed - check back Monday morning for the winner's name!

I have two fun giveaways for you this week! Both of these will run from today through Saturday at 10pm and the winners will be announced on Monday morning. Winners will have 48 hours to contact me and claim their prize before an alternate winner is selected.

These giveaways are in honor of the 1 Year Blogiversary Celebration going on over at Multiples and More! They're one of my favorite blogs to visit and if you've got multiples you definitely need to check them out. Anyone is allowed to enter these giveaways, even my Canadian friends!

Giveaway #2

Item of Choice from my Etsy Shop

Time to drool folks! The Etsy shop that I started back in mid-December is going great! I've been featured a couple of times on Etsy.com which most recently (yesterday!) resulted in a few sales. To celebrate how well the shop is going, I want to offer my readers a shot at winning some treats for themselves. 

Maybe you'd like these...

Or, my personal favorite, the peanut butter version!

Or how about these?

Or these?

There are lots of choices in my Giggling Sweets shop, so go check 'em out! Giggling Sweets Ready to win something? Here's how...

Do one or all of the following. Please leave separate comments for each entry.

1. Tell us what your favorite food to indulge in is.

2. Become (or tell me if you already are) a follower of this blog.

3. Facebook about this giveaway.

4. Tweet about this giveaway.

Favorite Cookies at Christmas

Today the Question of the Week over at Multiples and More (my favorite blog network by the way!) is about our favorite Christmas Cookie recipes! We all know how much I love to bake, so this is a pretty easy thing for me to post about.

One of my new favorites are cream cheese cookie cutouts. Sounds weird huh? When we were living in Michigan I remember a family giving us these cookies and they were so good! Nick hates cream cheese and even he agreed these were tasty. This year I scoured AllRecipes.com until I found just the right recipe. I tested them out over Thanksgiving when I made these adorable little guys...

You can find the recipe for the cookies here

Another of my favorites is a cookie I "created" last Christmas and now sell in my Etsy shop! Chocolate Mint Chip Cookies!

These yummy cookies can only be made around the holidays as the "chips" can only be found in stores then. Here's the recipe!

Ingredients:

1/2 cup shortening

1/2 cup butter softened

3/4 cup granulated sugar

1/2 cup baking cocoa

1 cup packed brown sugar

1/2 tsp baking soda

2 eggs

1 tsp vanilla

2 1/2 cups flour

1 bag of Andes Creme de Menthe chips

Combine all but the baking chips in a bowl and beat well. Add baking chips.

Bake at 375 degrees for 8-10 minutes each (I find 9 minutes to be perfect, but your oven may be different). Cool on a wire rack.

I'll warn you, the smell of mint will overwhelm you when you first open the oven - I think it even made my eyes water a little the first time! The mint taste isn't nearly as overpowering though as you would think after you smell them.

Merry Christmas from my kitchen to yours!

Winner & Decorating the Tree

The last few times I've done a giveaway on here I have video taped the boys drawing the winner's name out of a bowl. It's been cute and well loved that's for sure. Unfortunately I still can't get my videos from the camera and onto the computer. Hopefully I can fix that soon because I have a hilarious video of Jackson to share!

At any rate, I had to resort today to the random number generator at Random.org in order to pick my big winner for my Giggling Sweets giveaway!


Drum roll please!

The winner is commenter #14 - Kris!

Congrats Kris! Get in touch with me about what item from my shop you would like!

If you didn't win here, you still have one more chance over at this blog - http://thebrisenos.blogspot.com/2009/12/holiday-spirit-week-christmas-cookie.html You have until tonight to enter there!

Remember all items in my shop are on sale through this Friday. I even added a few new items last night! Peanut butter Whoopie Pies anyone? http://www.gigglingsweets.etsy.com

_______________________

This weekend we finally picked up our Christmas tree. Usually we get one right after Thanksgiving, so waiting this long was weird for me. Last year we set up our tree while the boys slept and then video taped them coming out to see it for the first time... Remember this?

I love that video! This year the boys are loving Christmas! The lights, the trees (at church and at Union Station) and seeing Santa (even though they were too scared to sit on his lap). Nick and I rushed to try to decorate the tree while the boys napped on Friday, but only got as far as getting it up and turning the lights on. We decided to try to let the boys help us decorate!

 

 

 

Chase and Ty were great at putting ornaments on the tree. Jackson was great at pulling them off. Excuse Chase's weird attire (he's in white). That's what happens when you let a 2 year old dress himself - you get a towel like swim cover-up with a hood, layered under a white button down shirt. Stylish!

Grand Opening Giveaway

It's no big secret among my family and friends that I love to bake. I love tweaking recipes and coming up with new ones. Problem though is my waist doesn't enjoy my baking so much (or maybe it enjoys it too much?). This summer I started trying to figure out a way I could continue to bake but not gain weight. Seeing as I haven't come up with a magic cookie that is calorie and fat free, I came up with a different plan. Etsy.

Yep, I've opened an Etsy store front and am now selling my delectable baked goods! Woohoo! There isn't a ton to pick from yet in my store, but I'll be adding more in the coming weeks. Various candies will likely be the newest additions. You can visit my store by clicking on the button in the left sidebar, clicking on the button below or by going here: http://www.gigglingsweets.etsy.com

In honor of my grand opening, everything is on sale now through next Friday the 18th!

A proper Grand Opening should of course include a giveaway in addition to a sale! Who wants to win some Whoopie Pies? Cookies? The prize can be for you or sent to someone on your Christmas list! Anyone can enter (family, that includes you!) and the more you promote this contest the better your odds at winning, so here's the giveaway break down...

Prize is winner's choice of any item from Giggling Sweets (order of Whoopie Pies, order of cookies, etc - no mixing of products)

Contest will run through 10pm CST this Sunday, the 13th. Winner will be announced Monday AM and winner will have 3 days to claim their prize.

• For one entry just comment here
• For an additional entry post about it (with link!) on Facebook
• For another entry blog about it (and link to this post!)
• For another entry Tweet about it (with link of course) 

(For each of the above, leave a comment saying what you did!)

Good luck! And thanks for spreading the word about my little hobby!

Want to double your chances of winning? Head on over to my friend Brenda's blog and enter there too! http://thebrisenos.blogspot.com/