Dollop & Scoop – No. 1

Here it is! The first edition of Dollop & Scoop. I've been working on this idea for a little while now, so I'm excited that it's finally happening. Dollop & Scoop will be my place to share little dollops of the past week's happenings and provide more of an inside scoop on some of the photos I post daily on Instagram and Facebook. It's part of my goal for blogging more regularly in 2015. I'll be posting it on Mondays. I hope you like it.

Christmas Jell-O

We enjoyed several wonderful Christmas celebrations with our families and lots of holiday treats. I made Christmas Jell-O for my family's Christmas gathering, but forgot to take it out of the cooler when we got there, so we were left with an entire pan of Christmas Jell-O to eat all by ourselves.

Having the Jell-O on hand turned out to be a good thing, because it gave us something light to eat when the holiday crud (every version of it) hit our family after Christmas. Thank goodness all we're left with now are Christmas sniffles.

I'll be posting my recipe for Christmas Jell-O in the near future.

New Year's Eve

I took this picture of our heifers enjoying their supper on New Year's Eve. In the winter, we feed our heifers a TMR (total mixed ration – grain and forages are mixed together before feeding). This is our second winter feeding the heifers this way and it has worked out really well for us. We don't have problems anymore with timid heifers being bullied by bossy heifers and not getting enough grain.

We finished chores early that night and, for the first time in many years, actually celebrated New Year's Eve. Our New Year's Eve included fondue with family and listening to little girls and grown men perform the songs from Frozen. It was perfect. And we even stayed up late enough to ring in the New Year.

French braids

I have been trying to learn how to french braid Monika's hair since it was long enough to practice on. To be honest, my hair styling skills are sorely lacking. I was the girl in high school who wore her hair straight down or in a pony tail – unless one of my friends fixed it for me.

My nieces spent a day with us over Christmas vacation and they let me practice braiding their hair. They have tons of thick, wavy hair, so it was perfect to practice on. And they didn't complain when I pulled a little too hard. And they kept their heads still. All very helpful for a novice stylist.

I finally figured out how to hold all three strands of the braid in one hand so that the braid stays tight while adding new sections. I was proud as a peacock when I finished the double braid pictured above. And it held together well overnight, which meant I didn't have to fix Monika's hair before school this morning. I'm pretty sure every Monday from here on out will be braid day for Monika.

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I hope your Christmas was merry and your New Year is off to a happy start. Thanks for checking out the first edition of Dollop & Scoop.