Merry Christmas....

Life is busy... I've been keeping up with my recipe blog pretty good but I'm quite the slacker at this one....
The month of December was a busy one. I did get my shopping done pretty easy this year... mostly gift cards (perfect for college age kids I think) but I got a few fun surprises for them everyone too!
We did the yearly 'treat the office' at work, this year I did fruit with coconut fruit dip and key lime dip, then homemade cheese stick crackers, and cinnamon nuts... Went over well I think.
Then after that was all done, Andrea and I decided we needed a 'Sveaty balls' party (have you ever seen the Svetty ball' episode of Saturday night live? if not you need to go look on You Tube)
So the office all wore 'Ugly' Christmas sweaters and we all brought Sveatty balls, I made ginger bread balls and key lime balls....

 And we had  a big Cheese ball and Oreo balls........ and the photo below is all the ugly sweaters in teh office and our ugly office Santa........

Then..... Christmas came.... For Christmas Eve I made Chowder and we had Mom and Dad over for a Christmas Eve game of scrabble(that's are favorite thing anymore... scrabble games)

 We LOVE our scrabble games.......

 I had surprised the kids this year with their Christmas ornaments. They got me hooked on the TV series 'The Walking Dead' and we had been watching the old episodes we had missed and couldn't wait for the new season to start. If you don't know, it's about Zombies... so I looked up Zombie ornaments and found some!!!

 Sarah got a Christmas stocking (with the foot still in it) and a Zombie Gingerbread man.... Yes.. she still makes the face she did when she was a little girl posing for pics!! LOL

 Andy got a Candy cane arm and hand shaped like a Candy cane and a zombie gingerbread man...

They loved them! 

Then I had one more surprise for Christmas eve.... red flannel bum pajama's for all of us!!! Yay! 

 Should make one of these our Christmas card pic for next year shouldn't I???

We all went to bed after that with visions of sugar plums (and zombie ornament and red pj's) in our heads!

Christmas morning we slept in, then got up and did the usual Christmas breakfast at Mom and dad's with scones, fruit, quiche, scrambles eggs, bacon , sausage and eat to our  hearts content YUM! I thought I had pics of our breakfast feast but alas I didn't take any. After breakfast.. which lasted all morning. We came home to open our presents......

 Finally... I got a slight smile from Jim....

 As you can see I kept my long johns' on all morning!!!

 After Jim passed out the gifts... we began taking turns opening them!!

 How can Jim NOT smile with that person handing him a present!! LOL

Then after that I got ham and sour cream potatoes in the oven for dinner in the evening with Mom and Dad. LOVE ham and sour cream potatoes!!! And of course we ended our day with a game of Christmas Day scrabble. I had also gotten us a game of Head Bandz.... LOVE it! 

And that was our Christmas 2012... I'm so thank-ful for the times I spend with my family and the happy memories we make to keep with us always. Merry Christmas!

Happy Thanksgiving!

As you can see, I'm still trying to get caught up on my blogging. I keep up with my recipe blog pretty good, but have fallen behind on this one. I usually get a blog book made every year, and I need to catch up! I"ve been getting coupons for discounts but can't use them because this isn't done!
Anyway... we had a happy Thanksgiving. I took the day off the day before so I could bake all day instead of doing everything the big day. I don't really like getting up on Friday the day after to shop in the crowds, so I volunteered to work it. Sooooo glad I did.
One year, I did an all day eating day for Turkey day... was fun, but a LOT of cooking. So this year, we had a Thanksgiving "eve' feast of stuffed mushrooms, pumpkin rolls, and butternut squash soup, and a game of scrabble. It was fun, and yummy! My parents LOVE scrabble so we try to work a game or two in every chance we get!

 So fun! The food was good, and the competition was tough with Jim's mom here as well. I love holidays with lots of food and family.
Sarah helped me bake pies and rolls for the next day and we had a grand time. You can't be in the kitchen with Sarah without taking a few pictures here and there.

Thanksgiving Day, I got up and got the Turkey ready. I had let it soak in a Brine all night so we didn't stuff it. Instead I do my stuffing in the crock pot. We had rolls , yams, turkey , mashed potatoes, stuffing and a new recipe for green bean casserole. Jim's mom said this was one of the best 'tasting' Thanksgiving's I'm ever done.

We had a lemon meringue pie, pumpkin-pecan cheese cake (tried to be like the Cheesecake factory, it was yummo), and Sarah's Jello cheesecake for dessert, and pecan pie of course. If you click on the collages they will enlarge so you can see all the pics better.

 It was all soo good. We visited and played more games and that was our Thanksgiving.
I LOVE Family and food holidays..... they were made for me :)