Easy Pretzel Turtles

Do you need a yummy treat that only takes a few minutes to make? Who doesn’t! These Pretzel Turtles are perfect for a party or a last minute gift. I’ll show you how quick and easy you can make these sweet treats!

Gather the stuff…

I gathered more than I needed! I had an idea to make them with mint candies and maybe some with candy cane sprinkles…but time has a way of slipping away!

All you really need is a bag of Rolo candy, pretzels, white chocolate, and pecans.

Top off a pretzel with a Rolo…over and over again! I use parchment paper, but you can place them directly on your cookie sheet.

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Bake them for 3-5 minutes…that’s all!

Smush a pecan half onto each one. See, baking can be fun! It’s starting to look pretty good, isn’t it? You could stop right here, or you could add a little something extra to them…like more chocolate!

I

I slowly melt white chocolate chips in the microwave and spoon the melted chocolate into a plastic bag. Then I cut a tiny, tiny hole in the corner. Just squeeze to decorate.

I could have been a little neater, but it was fun to see how fast I could make them. Hey…Tim stole one before I took my photo!

You can use cashews, candy, or whatever else you can think of to top them off. They look like you spent awhile making them, and they taste like it too!

If you don’t get a chance to make them for Christmas, there’s always Valentine’s Day!

I found this wonderful recipe on Our Best Bites.  You should see how cute Sara wrapped her turtles up!

I’ll be making these again. I’ve already shared the recipe with everyone I’ve talked to this week.

Y’all have a great Christmas!

Decking the halls at our house…

We have always made a big deal out of decorating our tree. It’s a major thing in our house, and the way we do it is a tradition that I’m sure my boys will always remember. Over the years our tree has turned into a Blessing Tree {explained more by Tim in our post last year} and way more than just part of decorating for Christmas.

When were were first married we started a little tradition that we didn’t even plan. I think those work out best, don’t you?

We have always been travelers, not like in a circus, but we go EVERY chance we get. When we had children some people said we wouldn’t be able to travel as much with little ones, but we went even more! The joy of showing children new places and discovering God’s amazing creations together is one that no one should miss!

On each trip we collect ornaments from new cities or countries we visit along the way. They’re small, they pack well, and they’re jam packed with memories of where we bought it, what we were doing, and how we got there. Ornaments are some of the best souvenirs ever created!

This year Grandma Shuman came over to join us for our tree decorating event! What a blessing to have her share in our memories as we unwrapped each ornament. Some were even from trips that we had all been on together, like New Orleans and a family cruise.

We have to buy a big, fat tree each year. That usually involves at least three stops to find just the right one, but this year we found one in record time! {The boys were thrilled about that!}

When we’ve finished hanging ornaments, we have a few baby ornaments, some the kids made, a handful that were gifts, and TONS of trip ornaments!

Here’s one from London…one of my many favorites!

One year we stopped to check out Austin. A.J. was named after the city and he just happens to be a guitar playing freak, so this is the perfect ornament from such a cool town.

A.J. topped off the tree this year without anything to step on…he’s THAT tall now!

This ornament always reminds us all just how amazing a hail storm can really be…we were parked there during one. Oh, and the monument was neat, too.

Here’s the newest addition…Panama! The boys went on a fabulous cruise to the Panama Canal with their grandparents last month. {We didn’t get to go with them, but I won’t go on about how sad that was in this holiday post.} Since they’re homeschooled, we just called it a BIG field trip!

Thanks for stopping by to share in our Christmas tree decorating. One of the things I’ve really enjoyed about reading blogs is learning how other families celebrate. Do you have some Christmas family traditions that you just couldn’t go without?

Merry Christmas~

I‘m so excited to be in a wonderful Christmas Tour of Homes! (or two, or three…)  It’s so much fun and I can’t wait to see everyone’s beautiful decorations!  Remember, we do live in Florida so there’s not much of a White Christmas going on here…unless you count the sand on the beaches!  I hope my pictures give you a little taste of a Florida Christmas and thanks for stopping by!

Our Front Door

The wreath on our front door reflects our love for the water! We are steps from Charlotte Harbor and enjoy the warm sea breeze at this time of year… I think it was about 80 degrees outside today!! Some days I love that, and some days I long for a little cozy cottage with snow on the ground.

Our Piano

This here is our SPECIAL piano….painted by me!

We purchased it years ago when our boys started piano lessons and we didn’t want to invest in a new piano. It was brown with scratches(not a nice look)! Now…it’s an original alright!

Since we don’t have a fireplace, we use this as our mantel!

I did find these beautiful blue and green poinsettias at Michael’s for $1.49!!! That’s just in case someone out there besides me wants blue and green flowers! Hmm…maybe that’s why they were so cheap! 

The Blessing Tree

Our Christmas Tree is a VERY special thing for us!  For almost 20 years, we’ve been collecting ornaments from all over the world for our tree!  Whenever we travel to a new place, we find a cool ornament to help us remember the trip.  So we talk about our trips while we decorate.  It’s a blast!  My husband wrote a post about our Blessing Tree and here’s a picture of the “work-in-progress”. Isn’t my helper cute?

How to decorate a Palm Tree...

Our Palm Trees in the front yard are decorated with extra large metal starfish!  These are some of my favorite things!  The colored lights reflect off of them for a beautiful shimmering look!

Well, the last photo is of a little collection that I have on our dining room table. The little snowman bucket was purchased by Tim last year! I love it! He doesn’t really shop (ever), so that makes it extra special!

I have a great recipe for Reindeer Cookies…they’re so easy and cute!   

Thank you BooMama and Hooked on Houses and Kimba’s Holiday Open House!

I hope you enjoyed a little glimpse at how we decorate our home! Merry Christmas!

-Kim

We’re joining in a little holiday fun at The Inspired Room!  What a beautiful blog! Go check it out when you have time to look around!

The wreath on our front door reflects our love for the water!  We are steps from Charlotte Harbor and enjoy the warm sea breeze at this time of year… I think it’s about 80 degrees outside today!!  Some days I love that, and some days I long for a little cozy cottage with snow on the ground.  I think that’s why we usually go on a trip during December and find a LITTLE cold weather.  We only need a little to make us very thankful for Florida!  

Our Piano

This here is our SPECIAL piano….painted by me!  

We purchased it years ago when our boys started piano lessons and we didn’t want to invest in a new piano.  It was brown with scratches(not a nice look)!  Now…it’s an original alright!

Since we don’t have a fireplace, we use this as our mantel!  

I did find these beautiful blue and green poinsettias at Michael’s for $1.49!!!  That’s just in case someone out there besides me wants blue and green flowers!  Hmm…maybe that’s why they were so cheap! 

We keep it pretty simple around here!  I bought tons of ribbon (It was 60% off –need I say more?) that I really don’t need.  But, I do love ribbons of all colors!  I guess I’ll use it on our gifts.  Fancy!

Maybe I have a shopping thing???

Well, the last photo is of a little collection that I have on our dining room table. You might be wondering why the photo is in a strange spot way down at the bottom…well, I don’t know what I’m doing!  Anyway, our dining room table is one of my favorite things.  Tim built it with his own two hands years ago, and we’ve have so many memories around it.  From homeschooling to Thanksgiving dinners and everything in between!  The little snowman bucket was purchased by Tim last year!  I love it!  He doesn’t really shop (ever), so that makes it extra special! 

I hope you enjoyed a little glimpse at how we decorate our home!  Merry Christmas!

-Kim

I‘d be hard pressed to come up with a family tradition I love more than what we did tonight.  I’m not saying there isn’t one, but right now I can’t think of it.   Tonight, we did the Christmas Tree. 

A Christmas Tree is a pretty special thing no matter how you cut it (hah!), but thanks to the foresight of my amazing bride, our tree has really become an amazing thing!  This is because of the wonderful habit she developed when we were first married: whenever we travel to a new place or even a favorite place for the third or fourth time, we get a Christmas Tree ornament to hang on our tree.  At first I thought it was cool, but now I’m just without words.  Kim, the boys, and I all working around the tree as the boxes are unpacked and every few seconds someone exclaims “Yellowstone!”, “New Zealand!”, “Cabbage Key!”, “Stonehenge!”.  It ends up taking hours because we laugh and tell stories about the trips to all the places we’ve been together.  When the rare “pre-kid” ornament pops up we get the privilege of actually telling the story ourselves rather than having one of the boys tell it (in truth, we’d really rather listen to them tell it…but it is a novel experience).

It is a Blessing Tree and it’s so full!  Kim and I are just like everyone else, we’ve done some things wrong and gotten a few right.  We’ve taken trips before that it later on turned out we might not have actually been able to afford!  But you know what?  At Christmas time when we get around the Blessing Tree and tell stories about trips around the world where we’ve been able to take the “homeschool field trip” to another level it just makes it so clear that the time spent together is priceless and we’re so thankful for it.

I’ve got a bunch to say about how to travel with kids, how to travel on a budget, camping, RV’ing, etc.  Look for more posts about that type of thing and if anyone has any questions or might be heading to one of the destinations we mentioned, let me know.  I’d love to hear from you.

Here are some pictures of a few favorite ornaments and our Blessing Tree!

Have a great Christmas!  – Tim