December Catch-Up

I have not been great about updating my blog lately.... I've just been extra busy and overwhelmed for some reason. Holidays I guess? I don't know... Just a lot going on.
I think I'm a few weeks behind this time. So... We had Andrews parents in town a few weeks ago. They got to spend a few days with Emma & Drew. One of the nights we went to my parents for dinner and to help decorate the big tree.

                                            

Shauna & Drew        

YiaYia & Drew

Our finished product! (This tree is like 13 or 14 ft tall, and real!)

Last weekend Andrew and I went to the annual Holiday Metra train bar crawl  with the crowd from work. (Brooke, if you're reading - I've been meaning to tell you thank you as always for your hospitality and all of the effort you put into it and the time to organize it for everyone.) We start at Brooke's for brunch, jump on the train and go to the bars along the way that are within walking distance of the train stops. It's always a good time. This year we did the first 2 stops with everyone but then we headed home... so it was a much shorter (and less crazy) experience. Last year I think we hung for close to 8 hours.

We went home after that and took the kids out to dinner.

Em & Daddy

There was a little boy across the aisle at a another table right around their age that Emma was flirting with the whole time. It was so funny to watch. She would giggle at him, and then make crazy faces.

(With her chocolate ice cream all over her face...)

My little man & I

On our way home we went by a house near our neighborhood that goes ALL out for Christmas. I mean, it puts Clark Griswold to shame. It's tacky as all hell but it's just amazing the production they go through every year to set up their property. They have a 'U' shaped driveway and they have it set up so that you can drive through. They have Christmas music playing, and tons of little scenes set up. So we drove the kids through to check it out on our way home from dinner. They loved it.

The next morning (so, last Sunday) we really didn't like the way Emma was acting - similar to the day before she was admitted to the hospital with her kidneys. So I contacted her kidney specialist and he wanted us to get her into the ER asap to have tests done. Sure enough, her white blood cell count was elevated and once they started getting more labs and test results back they did confirm it was what we thought. Thankfully we were able to catch it really quickly and it didn't impact her kidney function nearly as much as last time.

 They were able to get her hooked up to an IV and get a strong antibiotic into her IV drip to target exactly what it was. Although this time was a lot harder because she knew what was coming. She fought every single thing. I don't blame her. She's terrified of that place. She had a rough couple of days, with high fevers, throwing up, etc... but is now feeling much, much better. She's still on an antibiotic. After the holidays we have some tests scheduled to determine if (and what) procedure will need to be done to avoid this from occurring.

I grabbed this little foam tree thing at Target that came with little foam sticker ornaments and stuff for the kids. I figured it was something for them to do. So they decorated their own little tree.

One of my besties from college was in town, so I ran into the city on Monday to have lunch with her and catch up for a little bit. That was a nice break and I loved being able to see her.

I'm off for a few days (Friday, the regular weekend... and then Monday & Tuesday) So maybe that will give me a chance to actually feel somewhat prepared for Christmas! In my mind I feel like I should still have weeks left.

I have a few things I want to make sure to get done over the next few days while I'm off - baking, our Christmas cards and anything else that I have left to do before Christmas. Today we did 'fake' baking... I didn't have the time, patience, or motivation to deal with the mess of doing the 'real' baking - making the dough, doing cookie cutters, icing, sprinkles, etc... which we will do at some point this week but I remembered I had gotten some of the slice 'n bake cookies to make with the kids, so we did those tonight.

Reindeer cookies. They were a pretty big hit.

We also did candycane cookies. Sugar cookies with like a peppermint bark mixed into the dough.

Well... until next time!!

I wish everyone a very Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays and hope that everyone is lucky enough to have family, friends or loved ones to spend time with.

I'm really looking forward to this Christmas having (almost) 3 year olds, because they are SO excited this year for Santa and all of the traditions that come with the holiday season. They get excited every day to open one of the doors on their advent calendars, they love singing and dancing around to the Christmas songs, and helping with all of the baking. Reliving all of the holiday traditions through the eyes and hearts of little kids is so much fun.

So, regardless of where you are or what you celebrate, I hope all of you get to spend some quality time with loved ones during the next few weeks.

Thanksgiving, Christmas decorating & the "oatmeal Pro"

We've had another busy week (Surprise, right?!) or few weeks now I guess since I've been meaning to get this posted for what seems like forever. We had our anniversary, my dads birthday, Thanksgiving, decorated for Christmas... and we have Andrews parents in town until early next week. It seems like work has been crazy busy lately too for some reason... I really was anticipating a slow end to the year to be able to play a little catch up, but I was definitely incorrect on that.

We spent Thanksgiving with my family at my parents... and then we go to family friends of ours after dinner for desserts and drinks every year, so we did that.
Since my dads birthday was the day before Thanksgiving... we wound up celebrating (or atleast doing the cake and presents part) on Thanksgiving because he worked and golfed on his actual bday.
My kids L.O.V.E birthday cake. Any kind of cake that has candles to blow out. Sometimes we do multiple takes on blowing out the candles... and occasionally they end up getting re-lit a few times. But they love it.

Helping Pop blow out his candles. By the way, per the birthday boys request, my mom made the BEST banana cake with homemade chocolate frosting - YUM. I'm not a big banana person, but it was such a dense, moist, really good cake.

lickin' the icing off of the candles

anxiously waiting for cake

I was checking on Emma and I peeked into the dining room, where she was talking to these little ceramic pilgrim Thanksgiving decorations that my mom has on the table and I guess they are praying, so Emma decided to join them. It was adorable. So I snuck up on her and took a picture. I had to try to zoom a little.

a prayer circle. :-)

Mimi and Emma snuggled up on the couch reading a book later that night.



We also decorated for Christmas this weekend

Bottom left is what I decided to do for the kitchen table centerpiece. I usually fill that glass (Vase? Square glass container? whatever it is) with something each season - leaves for fall, cherries or wicker balls in the summer, etc...) But Christmas is by far my favorite. The sparkles come out! (Or should I say, it's when sparkles are acceptable.)

And the candle... I'm usually a vanilla/cinnamon/caramel/sweet candle person - but this one is really good! And, since we have a fake tree (I know.... talk my husband about that. I'd be up for it.) this candle makes the whole downstairs smell like a real tree. Best of both worlds! No pine needle mess, but you get the smell. Although speaking of candles, if you are a Yankee Candle person and you do not have 'North Pole' I highly suggest that you get one. Now. It smells like candycane and vanilla. I'm a little obsessed with Yankee Candles... and Andrew doesn't like the fact that an entire cabinet has to be dedicated to store them, but I do think they are the best, and they're worth it. I've also recently gotten into the tumblers with the double wick, they burn a little faster but if you are a person that isn't home all day long and don't have an hour to wait for the candle to begin to smell up the room, the double wick gets it goin' fast.

Moving on....

It was fun to decorate this year and have the kids really into it. (Slightly on the stressful side at times when they didn't understand the difference between decoration and TOY, but still, better than not having them involved.) and I was able to get a few cute pictures out of it too.

Mr. Snowman, hangin out on the couch.... watching all of the decorating craziness.

Daddy helped them pick out the ornaments that they couldn't break. This year (and last actually) I wound up temporarily replacing my fragile ornaments with non-breakables. Because no matter what we do to get them to stay away from the tree, they just can't help themselves. So I've actually been finding ornaments in their toy bins - upstairs. Again, not understanding they are not their toys.

holding up the ornament with their Santa picture from their 1st Christmas!  (I love that we are beginning to collect a lot of sentimental, or meaningful ornaments for the tree.)

concentrating very hard to put the ornament (or as she would say, 'lantern' on the tree.)

Playing with a little photo editing. I think that picture of Emma is so beautiful.... Just totally captures the moment.

As we were decorating Emma would go up to everything and say 'Awww it looks so perfect! beautiful!'

Our Tree!

I honestly would keep a Christmas tree up and lit year round if I could. This morning I woke up before everyone and sat in the family room with just the Christmas tree lights on.... and it was beautiful.

Emma is quite our little artist, But unfortunately it's not always on paper.

This was her artwork on the guest bathroom cabinet....

(She found the bathtub crayons and decided to do this masterpiece mural real quick. Good thing is that they wipe off easily.) But, I woke up in the middle of the night and went in there and was half awake when I saw it and I was hysterical. It looks like the face on the right has it's mouth zippered shut (Andrew thinks it looks disturbing) and then the other red one is a smiley face sun.

My project last week was to make these 'hot chocolate dippers' - candy canes with a chocolate dipped marshmallow on the end and decorated with sprinkles.

Last Christmas I made cake balls - but I think I just may attempt cake pops this year! Or not... maybe I'll stick with cake balls. We'll see.

But I think I'll do Christmas baking with the munchkins this weekend.

The other morning Drew asked me for oatmeal, and as I was finishing making it (ya know.... because instant oatmeal is so labor intensive to make) Drew said "mom... you make oatmeal like a pro!!" I thought that was pretty funny. No idea where that came from.

A Jammies day, waffled cinnamon buns and baking cookies

I love baking, or experimenting with cooking really yummy things (as in, highly caloric, not-so-healthy things) but I don't do it much anymore just because Andrew doesn't like it around the house, and I don't have much time to do it either. I don't even care if I eat the stuff... and typically I don't. I just like to make it. Plus, have you ever noticed if you spend a lot of time cooking something you have no interest in eating it once all is said and done - it's almost like you feel like you already have after standing around it for so long. But, we generally eat pretty healthy around our house, so I'm always trying to come up with new healthy recipes, or figure out how to 'healthify' existing recipes.
This weekend, all of that went to hell in a hand basket. I made one of my old go-to favorites (a pasta bake) and did some baking.
I was actually making dinner for friends of ours one night to help them out with something and decided to do the pasta bake, so I made two and kept one for us.
(I cook the pasta like usual, but just a few minutes less than you normally would since it cooks a little more while it bakes. I sometimes put meat in it, sometimes I don't. Either ground sirloin or sausage... Brown the meat and add it to the pasta sauce. Combine the pasta with the sauce/meat mixture, spread it into a casserole baking dish and cover it with shredded Italian cheeses and bake for give or take 30 minutes until all of the cheese is melted)

THEN, on Saturday morning I made these yummies ... waffled cinnamon buns!
You just put the uncooked cinnamon rolls into the waffle maker

Close it and let it cook for about 3 minutes

And there you go!

Waffled cinnamon buns. I made them three ways - some with the traditional white icing, some with a caramel icing, and I topped some with the Smuckers blueberry syrup.

(definitely use cooking spray on the waffle maker. They are sticky little suckers.)

Andrews sister was in town this weekend for a short trip. So they went into the city for a concert on Saturday night.

The kids and I did some baking!

Emma really gets into making cookies. She takes it very seriously. Drew likes to play with the dough and mess up all of Emma's little cookies that she so seriously and carefully places on the cookie sheets. He is such a boy.

She loves to stir the dough. I put all of the ingredients in, use an electric mixer - and then give it to her with a stirring spoon. (yup, they stayed in jammies all day that day... why not?!)

Drew & Aunt Amy

Ok, this was cracking me up. I did not laugh at her, I was actually very proud of her.... but before sticking the cookie sheets in the oven I had to quickly duck away and resize and space out the cookies on the sheet. But, she made these from the dough all by herself:

So cute. (And then you can see towards the bottom right where Drew was swiping them off the pan (his little finger prints smeared in cookie dough) and she was getting so mad at him.

Then he decided he wasn't so into making cookies and went back to street sweeping our kitchen floor.

Before I knew it, as always when we decide to do a project like this, I turn around and both of them have decided they would rather watch a movie, and I'm left with finishing all of the cookies. That's ok though.

I also made a big batch of my (from scratch) chocolate chip cookies, but I wasn't too happy with how they turned out. It was either my new cookie sheets and I need to adjust times or temps for them OR I let the butter get too soft before using it (I think the latter) It's good to soften the butter before using it to bake, but I pulled it out of the fridge and I guess did not take into consideration how much longer it takes to do these things with 4 extra little hands in the mix and it got too soft by the time we had made the first batch. So my chocolate chip cookies spread too much.

Emma had not napped and also has a little cold going on, so she crashed shortly thereafter.

Playing the other day:

Sunday Andrew went to a football game... The kids and I took Amy to the airport... we played with play doh, went over to my parents to visit for a little bit, and went home and got in jammies for what I thought would be an early night. Turned out not to be such an early night after all, because they decided they were not going to go to bed... so we cuddled and watched tv and waited for daddy to come home.