Today is the last day of sanity… or what resembles sanity in our house anyways 🙂
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| HBear trying on her Jazz costume |
Holiday “cheer” begins in full swing after today. To be perfectly honest it already started this weekend but Ninja and I are making today OUR day, a day to hold close to us as things go from normal day crazy to outright Cooper’s Camera Crazy. (For all those who have not seen this Christmas movie, do so immediately!)
This weekend was actually pretty relaxing. On Saturday we went out for dinner with Dad and the girls were awesome! The dinner was yummy and there were zero meltdowns and we lasted almost 2 full hours!!! Success at its finest :)… minus the few seconds that SBean snuck a piece of bread off my plate and choked on it. Scared the shit out of me actually!
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| When all else fails… ICECUBES! |
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| HBear and Papa having fun 🙂 |
Yesterday we did not have swimming because both girls passed last week and the next session doesn’t start up until January. Ninja took HBear swimming yesterday morning just for fun lol. More to wear her out! When they got home we took our appys to Ninja’s parents and got our holiday bake on… while the 3 men got their football on!
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| Mommy, Grandma and HBear getting ready to BAKE! |
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| “What the Bombers aren’t playing????” |
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| Relaxing with Grandpa |
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| SBean’s 1st chip and dip taster lol |
I made my Mom’s Grey Cup taco dip; it actually tasted like hers even without a recipe.
Taco Dip
I put 1 tub of sour cream; I softened package of cream cheese and a packet of taco seasoning in a bowl and beat it until it was smooth. Then I chopped up lettuce, tomatoes, red onion, green onions, a pepper, cilantro and cheese and put it all on top. It was good. Real good.
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| Football snacks |
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| GO Riders!! |
My In-laws made amazing chili, fresh French bread, shrimp lollipops and German chocolate cake. Yes, when we eat… WE EAT! LOL
I was so busy eating at this point I didn’t take pictures 🙁
HBear, my MIL and I had a few things to bake. We did Xmas rice crispy squares, Nanaimo bars, Snickerdoodles, and Candycane Blossoms.
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| Counting marshmallows by “2s” with Grandma 🙂 |
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| Taste testing the rice crispy squares with Grandpa |
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| Snickerdoodles Baking |
I’m not a very good baker so I follow the recipes pretty closely. My MIL taught me a cool way to measure my butter though… very simple actually but so easy. For 1 cup of butter, fill a 2 cup measuring cup with 1 cup of water. Put your butter in the water. Keep adding until the water rises to 2 cups. TA DA an exact measurement!
For my Snickedoodle recipe go HERE!
Candy Cane Blossoms
Recipe from Baked Perfection
1 bag Hershey’s Kisses brand Candy Cane Kisses
1/2 cup unsalted butter, softened
1 cup granulated sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 egg
2 cups flour
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
2 tablespoons milk
red, green and white colored sugar
Preheat over to 350.
Remove wrappers from kisses.
Beat butter, sugar, vanilla, and egg in large bowl until well blended.
Stir together flour, baking soda and salt; add alternatively with milk to butter mixture, beating until well blended.
Shape dough into 1 inch balls. Roll in colored sugar. Place on ungreased cookie sheet.
Bake 8 – 1o minutes or until edges are lightly browned and cookies are set.
Remove from oven; cool 2 to 3 minutes. Press candy piece into center of each cookie.
Remove from cookie sheet to wire rack. Cool completely.
I doubled it and got 50 cookies 🙂 I used Hershey Hugs for the rest!
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| MMMMMM Nanaimo Bars |
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| Snickerdoodles |
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| CandyCane Blossoms and Hug Blossoms |
It was a great day! Good food, good company and quite productive too 🙂
Which leads me to today…
This morning I took SBean for her 1 year checkup. She is great! She is a healthy 29 inches (give or take, she wouldn’t stay still lol) and a whopping 19.2lbs! HBear was 30 inches and 23 lbs at this point lol
After the Dr’s I swept, washed the kitchen and diningroom floor, did 2 loads of laundry and our sheets, finished HBear’s party water bottles, and had lunch. After nap we will go pick up HBear and hurry home for a shower and we are off…
Knowing what is coming, Ninja and I are taking time this evening to spend some one on one time together 🙂 We got GC’s for massages and dinner for Mother’s/Father’s Day, and we are putting them to good use.
OMG, a couple’s massage and dinner at the Hood (a nice restaurant right on the lake). YEAH!!!!!!!!
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| Relaxing at the spa 🙂 |
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| Ninja ready for our yummy steak dinner |
So what are we prepping for? Well, Wednesday is SBean’s birthday, Thursday is appointments and a PAC meeting, on Friday is the Light it Up Festival, Saturday is HBear’s birthday party, Sunday is HBear’s birthday, Tuesday is the Toy Drive and poinsettia fundraiser pick up, Wednesday is SBean’s immunizations, HBear’s Christmas concert and her bake sale (I have to make 4 dozen baked treats), every Friday I am parent helper in HBear’s class (more on that another day lol), on Friday night my MIL and I are taking HBear out for dinner and then to The Nutcracker Ballet (a BDay present from Dad that she doesn’t know about yet!), Saturday is HBear’s Besty’s BDay party and then the Santa Parade, and on Monday I have to ship all our gifts… which means I have to finish them all as they are handmade creations! That takes us to December 9… the season will actually just be beginning at that point, which is good because we still have to decorate and do some more baking and countless other “fun” holiday activities! LOL
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| This week’s calendars |
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| Next weeks calendars |
I can actually feel the grey spouting on my head as I type all this LOL.
All in all it was a wonderful night and over the next hectic month I will remember this brief 4 hours of… quiet!
