Burnett Family

Hey ya’ll – well, we did it again!! Made and sold out of 40 gallons of homemade ice cream by early afternoon! It definitely takes the whole family and a lot of team work to accomplish that. :)

Carinna, Maggie, and Abbie each entered the peach cook-off. The twins took first and second place in the teen category! Unfortunately, Ab’s entry didn’t place anything in the adult category, but we sure thought it should have. :)

Abbie’s Cinnamon Peach Dessert Sandwiches: Crunchy cinnamon sugar grilled toast with creamy peach filling. She made this recipe up on her own, and we didn’t have any complaints for being her taste testers!

Sorry, we didn’t get a close up of Maggie’s Peach French Toast – it was a delightful combination of French toast, peaches, and a crumbly caramel mixture, and took 2nd place!

Carinna’s Peachy Cookies: No, these are not candied peaches! This unique recipe consists of two cookies “glued” together with a peach jelly filling (resembling a peach pit), and then rolled in various jello powders to create the rosy peach colors! Pretty cool, huh? Carinna took 1st place with this artistic creation.

 
Flag trio – “it’s a southern thang!” ;)

Our booth! Everybody had their own “job” and did excellent.

We had 6 ice cream freezers constantly rotating. This year, we actually did a pretty good job of keeping up with the crowd!

We’ll say it again – people LOVE THIS STUFF!! We greatly admire the many customers who stood faithfully in line under a scorching, hot sun to get a cup of cold, peach ice cream.

We finished the day completely exhausted, but very happy! Meeting all the different people who came through was so much fun. We even met people from Texas who found our blog, read about the peach festival, and stopped by on their way through Oklahoma! :) Praise the Lord for His blessing on our successful day, and we pray that He was glorified.

Going to the rodeo that night was a great climax, but we’ll have to share that report with you in a couple days, so stay tuned!

WARNING: This post contains lots of pictures. Just click on one if you want to see more detail.

Competition always adds a little spice to life, right? (No pun intended – *grin*) Our good friends, the Fortune family, and us have a running game of whose family can beat who. First, we had the “who can build the biggest snowman” contest, which WE legally won. Next, our family automatically took the prize for the largest pile of raked leaves, because…they didn’t have any leaves to rake around their house. :) Then, we came up with the brilliant idea of having a “who can make the best gingerbread house” competition! We picked the same day to make our creations with midnight as the deadline. Everything had to be edible, and no looking at any pictures of other gingerbread houses to get ideas!

With much anticipation, excitement, and wondering what each others families were building, we meticulously drew house plans, gathered creative supplies, and went to work. Throughout the day, we sent taunting emails and pictures of everything BUT our prized projects back and forth!

The Fortunes shocked us with this picture of all their candy!!! Looks like they’re planning to get really creative.

By the end of the day, they had made 11 batches of gingerbread and over 20 batches of royal icing, compared to our 3 batches of gingerbread and around 9 batches of icing. Wow.

One story of the “structure” almost done…_____ to go.

Let’s check out how the Burnetts are doing…

The porch construction crew – it was a big plus to have a real construction worker helping us out. Thanks, Caleb! :)

Guess what we had for supper?

Just kidding. ;)

Of course, we took great pains to make sure the pictures we sent to our rivals didn’t give anything away!

“Aerial view” of our family table. :) We pretty much took over the kitchen.

Waffle cones make exceptional additions to your scene. Carinna developed a great method for creating very realistic trees.

After HOURS and HOURS of work, we finally finished our masterpieces soon after midnight and sent pictures of our works of art to each other.

Okay, are you ready for the final results?? Here we go.

Announcing the Fortunes’…

WALT DISNEY CASTLE!!

TOTALLY impressive! This castle reaches 40 inches high!!

They built a walkway all the way through the castle with a mural on each inner wall.

Here you can see the making of the 9-inch Mickey Mouse mural.

Tinker bell, made out of candy clay – very creative.

Well done, Fortune family!! You get the prize for the most elaborately decorated and impressive structure. =)

And now for the Burnetts’…

CABIN IN THE NORTH WOODS!

Welcome to our cabin! Abbie wound all the “Christmas lights” on the entry way and porch posts.

This is what Christmas is all about, folks! Maggie made the nativity figures out of candy and gingerbread dough.

Would you believe the mailbox is made out of a marshmallow?? Carinna did a great job on this.

The porch is one of our favorite aspects of the scene. Notice the details! Abbie made the pretzel rocking chair and Charity created the holly hedges. *So cute*

Meet Mr. Frosty…is he winking at you? ;)

Now, we’ll take you ‘round back.

Every nostalgic cabin needs an outhouse and a woodpile. :)

Here’s Ole Nose nappin’ in front – another product of Maggie’s gingerbread dough artwork.

Credit for this part of the scene goes to Carinna! She put a lot of effort into the jello pond that is set in a basin of icing, surrounded by evergreens, with a sled in front. That’s exactly how we sled around here…down Grandpa’s pond dam. :)

I have a “thing” for old trucks, so I built this one out of graham crackers. This is our other favorite element of the scene! Can’t have a country cabin without a truck…

…and a FORD, at that! No other comment needed. ;)

We gave ourselves a ribbon :) for the most realistically detailed gingerbread house that tells a meaningful story.

Well, we hope you enjoyed that summary of our contest from “Fortunett Competitions”! (Did you get that?) We already came up with a r-e-a-l-l-y good idea for next time, so watch out, guys!!

Now, go have fun on a yummy project with YOUR family. :)