Menu Jan 1-5

Now that the holidays are almost completely behind us it is time to get back to weekly menus.  It helps me in a few ways......it forces me to make a list of needed ingredients on the weekend for the store and it helps by keeping the meals healthy and not of the frozen/ fast food variety.  Here is the 1st menu:

Tuesday Jan 1- NYE leftovers and Spaghetti Squash and Tomato Bake
Wednesday Jan 2- Hungry Girl's Apple Raisin Chicken foil pack (no link)
Thursday Jan 3-  Cheesy Salsa Tuna Burgers served with a veggie or two
Friday Jan 4-  Hungry Girl's Cheeseburger Mac Attack (crock pot)
Saturday Jan 5-  Hungry Girl's Spaghetti Squash and Meatballs (though I will be using ground turkey instead of beef)

The meals on Jan 2nd and 5th are new for us so I will likely review them later in the week.  :)

Getting ready for Santa

After the party was over on Christmas Eve it was time to get ready for Santa......Brody had already gone to bed (it was almost 10pm at this time) and so for the 3rd year in a row Brody missed out on leaving out cookies for Santa etc.  Travis sprinkled the reindeer food around, put out milk and cookies and made his list.  I have been asking him to make his list for awhile but he wrote it at 10pm--I informed him that Santa was already packed up and may not have everything he asked for.  ;)  Thankfully one of the things I knew already because he told the Santa at the mall and a few other things I just got lucky with.  lol

Spreading out the reindeer food

His pile of reindeer food ;)

Front walk way

Travis with his list, milk and cookies

Santa came!  (Tigger wouldn't get out of the picture)

Stockings!

This could be trouble......

The other day I learned that one slice of this

Put into one of these

And put into the microwave for about 20 seconds equals a WARM AND READY TO EAT COOKIE!  I must "un learn" this trick NOW!  lol  Though I will say it does keep your portion control in check since you aren't making the whole tube of cookies at once!  :)

Christmas Eve Party

Our 16th annual Christmas Eve party was a success!  Last year I didn't take one picture.....and this year I made an improvement and took SIX!  lol  (and 3 of those 6 are of the food--LOL)  Oh well.  I get too busy talking, cooking etc and I forget to take pictures.  Anyway a lot of the food was prepared ahead of time and frozen which was a huge help.  I did try 2 new holiday treats and they came out "so so".  The picture of how they are supposed to look is way better than how mine turned out.  ;)  Oh well.

Mmmmm food

Mmmmm desserts

Close up of my reindeer donuts and snowman cookies--not so great but the kids ate them up!

Cal and Nicholas playing the piano

Brody and Lucas playing trains

Travis and Ethan playing xbox

Charlie Brown Village and School Sing Along

The third graders at Travis' school create a gingerbread Charlie Brown type village in the hallway of the school.  I had seen it in years past when I went to school for the holiday sing along.  But I had no idea what it entailed to have your kid join in the gingerbread fun.  A paper came home stating how Travis could participate.....of course it was an after school activity, after dinner and when Evan was in Europe aka I had to bring Brody and hope that he didn't run off.  ;)  When we got there we saw the art teacher had cut out these huge buildings from cardboard and the parents were in charge of the icing detail and the kids were in charge of placing the candy on.......thankfully we were early because it got HOT and PACKED!  I put a bunch of icing down and told Travis to meet Brody and I back at the car---at some point he was laying on the floor in front of the door begging to leave.  ;)  When we went to school for the sing along we saw the final product!

The village!  It smelled SO GOOD in this hallway!

Travis wanted to decorate this sign--he did about 1/4th of it

All of the kids that participated made snowflakes with their name on them and they were hung on the wall behind the village

Nice face....

Much better....

Singing along!

Reindeer food

For some reason I decided to make reindeer food for all of the kids that came to our house on Christmas Eve.  It's a pretty easy idea in theory.....get some bags, dry oatmeal, sprinkles, ribbon, tags and presto!  I found the idea on Pinterest (shocker) and the printable tags here.  They were easy to assemble thanks to my funnel from the Pampered Chef.  ;)  Once they were all bagged up I had them in a pedestal bowl by the front door with signs for the kids to take them as they left.  I totally forgot to take a picture of that however.

The supplies.....

You can't see the sprinkles in this picture but they are definitely there!

Remember......

The other day I posted a picture on Facebook and asked people what it was going to become.......it was the 1st ingredient in my chocolate chip cookie dough balls!  I changed the recipe a bit but you can use this one as a guide.  I used chocolate chip cookies (a whole container of Chips Ahoy) instead of Oreos and I used the Wiltons melts for the chocolate.  They melt so much easier than regular chocolate.  I have the worst time melting white chocolate properly--it always seizes up on me and I end up with a useless ball of white chocolate.  Well useless in the respect that I can't use it for this recipe.  ;)  I highly recommend them for any time you need to dip truffles, cookies etc.  They are generally cheaper than the chocolate chips too so that is a bonus.  :)  These look pretty and tasty fabulous and it looks like you slaved over them for hours!  (and the one on the top was cut in half to show what the inside looked like--I ate one half and Travis ate the other--we both approved!  )

Food labels for the party

Normally I cut out shapes for my food labels but I stumbled on these place cards at
Michaels.  They were 1/2 off (marked down to .79) and I cut them all in half to get more cards out of them!  I think it's helpful to have signs for the food that "isn't super obvious" like the cheese plate.  ;). I know I like it when I go to a party.  :)

Gifts for Travis' hockey team

The team mom from our team last year made all of the kids these very cute ornaments and I said to myself "I can't draw worth a darn but I am trying that this year!"  So on Sunday I ventured out to Michaels and braved the 20+ person line to buy 2 boxes of white satin ornaments (8 to a box), a silver paint pen (I already had a black one) and some silver sparkly ribbon.  The ornaments were 50% off so each box was under $5, the pen after my coupon was $1.29 and the ribbon was on sale for .59 a roll (I used two rolls).  Each gift was around $1 (maybe a little less since I have extra ornaments for another craft and obviously the pen was hardly used.

I drew a hockey kid on the front--their team color is grey and put their name, the team name (yes the league spells it "grey"), their jersey number and the year on the back.  We will give them to the kids at practice on Wednesday night.  I hope they all like them--I just thought the idea was too cute not to copy!  Sorry the pics aren't very bright--I was messing with the settings on my camera and gave up after awhile.  ;)

Neighbor gifts!

We had a great party on Friday night with our neighbors.   There were 8 families there and until this year we had all lived in this neighborhood for 10 years!  Two of the families have moved to the neighborhood next door recently but it's maybe a mile away.  ;).  I always do some type of gift for the neighbors and this year I went the non-food route for once.  I made everyone a Christmas tree made out of wine corks and a cinnamon Christmas tree ornament. I hope they liked their gifts--I had fun making them!

Travis and Kelly

These two have known each other since Travis was 3 months and Kelly was 5 months old.  Even though they have changed through the years they still really enjoy each other's company.  :)  We had a neighborhood party on Friday night and Elise and I forced them to get together for some pics in front of Cal's tree:

CHEESE

Cuties

Then I caught a few other moments that were equally as cute:

Watching "Elf"

Reading a monster book

For a look back in time.......here are the same kids in 2007:

OMG--look how little they were!!!!

Prepping

I am beginning to prep for our Christmas Eve party in earnest.  This involves not only making all of the dishes (29 in all) but also mapping out where things will go on the tables etc.  Usually two days before the party I get out all of the serving dishes and place them on the table where they will go on Christmas Eve and I label them all.  That way not only do I know where each food goes but so does anyone else who happens to show up to the party early and asks if I need help.  :)

Yesterday I made Jalapeno Popper Dip, Sausage Balls, Bacon Cheddar Bites, Buffalo Chicken Dip and Peanut Butter Fudge.  Everything but the fudge went into the freezer to be pulled out again on Christmas Eve to cook.  5 down and 24 to go.....too bad some of the things I am making can't really be made days ahead of time.  There will be quite a few dishes that are left to the last minute---thankfully most of them aren't terribly complicated but I will be spending most of my day on the 24th cooking.  :)

The prepping table--filled with ingredients for my dishes, plates and some serving dishes!

We got a new garage fridge (yay!  the old one died-boo) and I have already packed it with things for the party--everything here is for the party except for that huge box of waffles--those are for Brody's breakfast.  lol

3 year old well visit....

Earlier today Brody had his 3 year old well check up with Dr. Powers.  We love Dr. Powers for many reasons (she's a Hokie--that should sum it up) but what I love most about her is her uncanny ability to get through to even the most stubborn children.  Brody was being a pain in the butt---big time---but she was able to get him to giggle and let her listen to his chest etc.  She knew Giggy was his buddy and Giggy got his chest listened to first.  Maybe all doctors would have taken this approach but I love that she does.  Anyway he wouldn't say much of anything (shocker) but I was able to tell Dr. Powers that he knows his ABCs, can count to 100, knows his colors and shapes and a few 3 and 4 word sentences.  (very few like.....go over here)  Overall he checked out ok except for his speech but since knew that was an issue and are working on  it all is well.  Next came the dreaded (to me) eye test................

When Travis was 3 they had just gotten this eye refracter in the office.  Basically it has lights and makes sounds and the kids look at the lights and it gives some type of eye readings.  When Travis did this we were referred to a pediatric opthamologist and found out he had severe amblyopia.  :(  So needless to say the fact that Brody was having this test today made me VERY nervous.  Brody came out borderline and they still referred us because of our family (Travis) history.  :(  I am hoping beyond hope that Brody doesn't need glasses like Travis did.  Not only do I not want to deal with another 3 year old in glasses because of losing them, breaking them etc. but with Brody's limited speech and communication I don't know if he would even understand why he would have to wear them.    Keeping everything crossed that the follow up shows no issues--the paper they gave us says 3 out of 4 referred have no issues in the end.  I had them look up Travis' numbers and one of his eyes was a 2.7 on this test--they refer when it's 2.0 or higher.  Brody is a 2.0 in one eye.  Fingers crossed!

His 3 year old stats:

Height: 37 3/4 inches 50th percentile
Weight:  32 pounds 5 ounces  50th percentile
Head:  50 3/4 cm 50th percentile

Travis' stats at the same age were:

Height:  40 1/2 inches 95th + percentile
Weight:  42 pounds 95th+ percentile
Head:  52cm 95th percentile

How is that possible?

Last week I noticed the Grinch was on TV......which prompted me to ask Travis if he wanted to watch it.  He looked at me and said "what is it?". . What?  Travis hadn't seen the Grinch?  I honestly don't remember ever watching it with him--I remember talking about watching it when he was little but he was scared of the Grinch and we had to turn it off.......well this had to be remedied fast!  

So we sat down to watch it together and he seemed to really enjoy it---the picture shows how engrossed he was.  ;)  At the end we talked about the message behind the show--I asked what was it trying to tell you?  And he said "be nice and happy".  I tried to explain how even though the Grinch took all of their things they weren't sad at all......they were happy because they had each other and they were all together.  He then said "yeah yeah same thing".  LOL

New York Mouth

I stumbled upon this website about a month ago when it was mentioned in a "holiday gift ad" in a magazine I get.  I tried to order the thing that was in the ad at the time and of course it was sold out--I tend to read my magazines a few weeks after I get them.  So I went back to http://www.newyorkmouth.com/ about 2 weeks ago to try again and the items were available again!  Yay!  This site has all kinds of wacky gourmet foods--their tag line is "indie food tasty gifts".  Basically things that probably taste really good that you may never just buy for yourself.  Think popcorn, candy, jams, beef jerky etc.  I can't say what I got on the site in case the person(s) that are receiving the items are reading this.  :)  They have free shipping on orders over $50 and I loved how they shipped it:

Everything came wrapped in the corrugated cardboard with their name on it to keep it safe in shipping, a handwritten thank you note with a chocolate attached?  Yes this is a good company if you ask me.  The care they obviously take in even shipping it is obvious.  This picture shows just one of the 8 things I got from them.  I bet if you ordered today you would still get it before Christmas!  :)

One's trash is another's treasure......

I have mentioned my love for Freecycle before.  If you don't know what I am talking about you must go to http://www.freecycle.org/ and find a group near you.  Basically it's like goodwill in your neighborhood.  People give all kinds of stuff away---things that are helpful like kitchen ware to things that are weird like opened food (gross).  I get emails from my Freecycle network all day long and normally I just delete them but every now and then something looks interesting to me and I try to be the 1st person to respond and get them.  Yesterday it was 2 boxes of "assorted Christmas stuff".  Some of the stuff I wouldn't use (there were some religious pieces and we aren't really religious) and those things got "re-Freecycled".  But the other items were awesome---there were  a bunch of ornaments but I didn't picture those--just the random things added around the house. I still can't believe this person let some of these items go........

See that cute little metal gift box?  There are two on them now on the mantle and I love them!

The ceramic gingerbread house and people work well in the winter village

I love these little ceramic kittens

This snowman and reindeer set came with a flower arrangement I bet---they are plush and super cute heads on what look like chop sticks--I stuck them in this little tree and they look great!

Cute block set

I haven't put these guys up yet because the blue one had the snowman off--he needs a glue repair

Travis the goalie......

This happened over a week ago but I am still behind.  Anyway--Travis played goalie for his hockey team last Sunday.  This is a very nerve wracking thing for the parents--well at least it is for me.  It was extra hard because that game meant whether they were in the top 6 or the bottom 6 of the league---they were in 6th place going into the game.  (after last week the top 6 teams play each other for the rest of the season and the bottom 6 play each other)  Thankfully Travis' team scored more goals than he let by him and they won!  The team they beat was already in the top 6 so they were a tough team for this game!  Here are the pics and video my dad got--there are some good ones!

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