Great Finds & A Night With Friends.......

I will go over to my other blog and post about this so I can get on my soap box and rant and rave about how horrible anything with dye in it is for your kids. Here since this is family friendly I will just talk about how much I LOVE these two finds. :)
The first is the peppermint salt water taffy from Trader Joe's. All of December Ryanne has been asking me for candy canes and sadly I have had to tell her no. They are full of red dye and though most of you might be rolling your eyes mumbling that one little candy cane won't hurt her you would be wrong. They were trying so hard to be nice at church the other night and give her a gluten free snack. They gave out candy canes and she crashed and burned for two days with melt downs, tantrums, self control issues etc. So this morning I surprised them in their advent door with these naturally colored and flavored treats. Yum!

Then when I thought sugar cookie decorating was going to be a no go this year. I found this at Clark's. Yup, you are seeing that right. All natural dye for cookies, frosting etc. So fun! I will warn you that it isn't cheap but seriously like I can put a price on my kids being healthy and doing our annual cookie decorating day with friends.

We went with our friends this week on our annual Mission Inn dinner and carriage ride. As usual it DID NOT disappoint. Great food, fellowship, lights, horse drawn carriage
AND

warm gingerbread of course! :)

Graph made friends with the carriage driver. Our horses names were Ben & Jerry. :)

All the kids. I t was exceptionally warm this year.

The family at the Mission Inn.