Wow. I haven't been on in a week. Whoo, someone has been busy. Yes, that someone is me, in case you care, or were wondering.
We have been doing a lot of things lately. Cookies, cleaning, wrapping, shopping, shopping, shopping, hot cocoaing, shopping, and spending LOTS of money. Does it ever end? Yes, on the 26th it does.
I'm so excited that Christmas is right around the corner, but I still have some little things to do, like get a few last minute gift cards, and wrap some gifts, and put bows on all of my presents. But, I love to wrap, so no big deal.
Stacy is coming soon, she will be here on the 24th, with James and Bella, can't wait to see them!
Nana and Grand Dad made it safely here Saturday night, right in time for dinner!
Everything is coming together nicely, and I've had the help of a certain bottle of wine to help me stay sane through it all. Kids are crazy around the holidays. I quickly found that out!
I wanted to do a few posts with all that we have been up too, but I'm way to tired for that, so here it is in one, big, fat post. I'll try to keep it in order though, so that you can follow along.
The girls have really been enjoying Christmas, and it's been fun to see it through their eyes. The magic is back in our Christmas, it was missing for a while. Thank God for those little sticky fingers, and dirty faces that make life so much better and rewarding!! Christmas is awesome again!!
We will start with....
Dinner With the Folks
My Mom informed me last Saturday, the 12th, that her and my Dad had a little something for
So I quickly set the table and made the food just in time for them to arrive.
Before we ate, I got to open the gift my parents brought for
So for dinner, we had a butternut squash soup, low fat by the way, if you don't add in whipping cream like I did, and you use olive oil instead of butter. I, used butter. It's Christmas.
Followed by my Cilantro lime chicken salad, it's a Nordstrom's recipe that my hubby loves. So does everyone else. It's always a hit, I can post recipes if anyone would like.
I even whipped together a "dessert". This is considered an appetizer, but I made it for dessert. It's a chocolate and Brie sour dough panini. Sooooo yummy!! And, sooooo easy!
We put the kids to bed before dinner, but, they had some fun with Pop Pop before settling in.
And to finish, here is my lit tree, doesn't it look pretty?? I love it!
a few days after we did some...
Cookie Decorating!!!
Next up....
Kristi Gets Her Hair Did, and "Finishes" Her Shopping.
Awe, got my hair done. Finally. It sooo needed it. I have much more gray than I tell myself, I'm so glad that I don't have eyes in the back of my head, it would be very scary. Thank God for my hair dresser, she rocks baby!!
So, I had my Mom watching the girls with Tim on his way home to relieve her, and I had plans to finish my shopping. After I spent 40 minutes at Toys R Us to pick up Riley's birthday present, they told me that it hadn't been assembled yet. Excuse me? Not yet? It was supposed to be ready for pick up on December 5th, hmmm, all I get is an, I'm sorry Ma'am. First of all, don't call me Ma'am. I'm not a Ma'am, I'm a young, hip, and with it 27 year old (enter laughter here). I don't even know how to spell Ma'am. Second of all, what do you mean, it's not ready, and why did you take up 40 minutes of my shopping time to tell me that??? I had so much shopping left to do, and they wasted it. So after I ran to Sports Authority, and Kohls, with no luck of gifts, I said, screw it, I'm buying myself some clothes. So I went to Dos Lagos to do that, found some cute tops, and earrings, got myself in a better mood, and then, ran to Walmart, because by that time, Walmart was the only store open. What did I buy there? No gifts, just stuff we needed, that costed me over $100.00. Nice. Merry Christmas. So I just had an over $300.00 night, and I didn't buy gifts for anyone. Oh yeah, except BaBa, I found her some Uggs. Good, at least one person was off of my list.
Our next event....
Appetizers at Sean's House
My family has an entertaining problem. I will give you one guess as to where we get that sickness from. Oh, yes, you guessed it, my Mother. We all wanted to have something at our homes to celebrate the season. Sean hosted a lovely appetizer party at his house on Friday night. I made stuffed mushrooms, and got tricked into making the meatballs, and Brie. Mom, you are good. She brought me a coffee and the ingredients and said, please???? So I did, and everything was yummy!
My Grandma brought some delicious guacamole and chips, and Gi Gi brought some really good scallops. Mom brought over some dessert, and we had a great spread of yummy appetizers. It was really good you guys. Seriously, really good. I'm still full from it!
I will post pictures of this later, my Mom is a slacker and has not uploaded pictures of this or my dinner party.
Oops, I forgot about...
Seeing Santa at Victoria Gardens
Which reminds me, Riley asked for a choo choo train from Santa, now I have 5 more things to buy.
We did this on Friday, before Sean's app party. The girls did pretty good.
This is your chance to guess, I had one crying child and one happy child. Who was my crier????
If you guessed Riley, than....
You Are Wrong.
Madi was my crier. I was shocked. I thought for sure, Riley would have a heart attack and pass out at Santa's feet, or scream hysterically and run away from everyone. Nope. She was a little unsure at first, but she saw other kids sitting on his lap, and I bribed her with a hot cocoa (that girl is a sucker for hot cocoa, let me tell you.) So, we went in, I told my Mom to back Madison into Santa so that she wouldn't see him, but Madi has a mind of her own, and doesn't miss anything. She went crazy. The pictures prove it...
We enjoyed a "nice" lunch at CPK, the girls got a little tired and gave us a hard time torwards the end, but it was worth it! Fun day.
Look at the sky that Friday morning when I woke up, gorgeous!
Saturday was....
The menu:
Chicken Kiev
Blue cheese salad with walnuts, red onion, and a balsamic vinaigrette
Ravioli with browned butter
Roasted asparagus
French bread.
For dessert,
an assortment of sweetness.
I invited my family over to our house for a little Christmas dinner on Saturday night. We waited for Joy and Dave to arrive and then, we dug in! We had twelve people and it was great fun.
Pictures coming soon...
Yesterday we...
Decorated a Gingerbread House
I mean, just ate the candy, I mean licked all the frosting, I mean, licked the candy and then put it on the gingerbread house.
We saved this little event for Nana. I thought she would enjoy watching Riley get "artistic".
There is no artistic with kids under 3.
They put blobs of candy in one spot, and you watch as it all slides down the side of their house. So fun. I decided we'll do artistic things later, and have sloppy fun now!
Riley's creation...
Gorgeous, I know. We only decorated half. Next year, I'm using my own frosting. This frosting sucks, but it tasted good!
Last night we went to...
The Mission Inn to See the Lights
All I can say is Wow! Gorgeous. Love it. So pretty. Amazing. I hope my pictures do it justice.
Mom and Dad were supposed to come with us, but decided that they should let us have a night alone with the in laws. It was nice, and the girls really enjoyed it.
I took sooo many pictures, and to try to speed this post up, I quickly picked some. In no particular order...
Tonight....
Getting Baked
My Mom is already in a bad mood just thinking about it. Baking. She hates it. I like it. I like to eat the outcome. I'm making snicker doodles, and a cake for Jesus, and maybe a new recipe of some sort. We are doing it over here at my house. Mom, what should we make pick up for dinner? How about pizza double doubles from In-N-Out. Man, I'm hungry now. I still have to go pick up my ingredients. Got to go...
