Oh, my goodness! Am I tired! I spent 13 hours on my feet in the kitchen today, baking. I don't like to bake - I don't like the mess and I don't like that once the food is in the oven I can't tweak it if necessary. Its like the point of no return. So, when I bake, I bake a LOT.
I got up at 7:30 today and fed the baby. I got up again at 8:00 and changed her diaper and fed all the kids and started making batter. I made sugar cookies, thumbprints, peanut butter blossoms, chocolate chip, white chocolate chip and chocolate raspberry chip cookies. The first 3 required refrigeration for 1-3 hours before baking, so I made those first. Then I started on all the chip cookies, nursed the baby and laid her down for her morning nap, made lunch for the kids, made some more cookies, made lunch for myself, made more cookies, nursed the baby and laid her down for her afternoon nap, and finally finished up the cookies.
Then I took a shower, at 4:30 pm, got out and reheated leftovers for dinner. After dinner, I cleaned up, gave the kids a bath, played crazy eights and started tomorrow's dinner - lasagna. While that was simmering, the kids and I watched the Grinch Who Stole Christmas (animated) and I nursed the baby and put her down to bed. Then I assembled the lasagna and here I am watching the last episode of Friends, Season 7 and blogging. As soon as the episode is over, I'm going to switch the disk, make some popcorn and PUT MY FEET UP!
Back to the cookies, I made what must be about 1,000 cookies (only a slight exaggeration). I used 21 eggs, almost 5 pounds of butter, 6 pounds of flour and about 5 pounds of sugar. It was a lot of fun making the sugar cookies with the kids. I was much smarter than I was last year, when I let the kids decorate in the (carpeted) dining room. They used so much colored sugar that my carpet was red and green and took more than 3 swipes with the vacuum to get it all out. This year, I had them decorating in the kitchen. Still lots of sugar used, but MUCH easier to clean up.
Now I've got to figure out how I'm going to get everything done that I need to get done tomorrow: sweeping, mopping, vacuuming, heating up dinner, dropping off cookies to my brother- and sister-in-law's house, taking care of all the kids plus my nephew and dropping him off before getting to church at 7pm; all while being lazy and relaxing. Something tells me that the being lazy part isn't going to happen. Especially with the forecasted 10 inches of snow that we are going to get making the roads all nasty.
I love Christmas!!!
Showing posts with label holidays. Show all posts
Showing posts with label holidays. Show all posts
Tuesday, December 23, 2008
Monday, December 22, 2008
Christmas "Break"
So, we had ourselves another busy weekend this past weekend. My son was a reader in the Church Christmas Program. He had a practice on Saturday at 3pm, while he was practicing, we went to Meijer down the street to get some groceries. The place was an absolute madhouse! Every single checkout lane was open and had at least a 15 minute wait. By the time we got done shopping and got back to the church, we had about 20 minutes to pass before the first performance, which took place at the 5pm service. We left as soon as the performance was done - we had to feed our dog and get the kids home, fed, bathed and in bed at a decent time. As it was, my oldest daughter fell asleep in church and didn't wake up until we got home.
The kids were in bed by 8pm and asleep by 9. I went to bed at midnight, well, I attempted to anyways. The baby woke up just as I was laying down, wanting to nurse. I had to get up at 6:30 the next morning. I got up at 6:30 and got myself ready, then woke up the rest of the clan at 7am to get dressed and out the door. Did I mention that it was blizzard conditions that morning? Being that there were 40mph winds, I let the van warm up for 30 minutes rather than my usual 10 or 15. The roads were nasty and visibility was worse. I had to drive the whole way with my hazards on, because there is a fuse out or a loose connection causing my tail lights not to light.
We got to church by 8am. I nursed the baby and got her dressed while my wonderful husband got the breads that I brought ready for the breakfast after the program at the 8:30 service. The kids performed, had breakfast and then went to Sunday school. I went to the nursery to feed the baby some Cheerios and crackers. And to change her clothes 2 more times because she managed to pee through 2 diapers within one hour. Then we went in for the 11am service and performance. We left as soon as the kids were done with that one. We were all tired and had had enough. We went to Meijer to pick up a few things that we had forgotten on Saturday and we bought our "big" family Christmas gift - a Wii. Yay!
We went home, had lunch and the kids watched a movie while Mom, Dad and baby napped. We were beat!
The kids were in bed by 8pm and asleep by 9. I went to bed at midnight, well, I attempted to anyways. The baby woke up just as I was laying down, wanting to nurse. I had to get up at 6:30 the next morning. I got up at 6:30 and got myself ready, then woke up the rest of the clan at 7am to get dressed and out the door. Did I mention that it was blizzard conditions that morning? Being that there were 40mph winds, I let the van warm up for 30 minutes rather than my usual 10 or 15. The roads were nasty and visibility was worse. I had to drive the whole way with my hazards on, because there is a fuse out or a loose connection causing my tail lights not to light.
We got to church by 8am. I nursed the baby and got her dressed while my wonderful husband got the breads that I brought ready for the breakfast after the program at the 8:30 service. The kids performed, had breakfast and then went to Sunday school. I went to the nursery to feed the baby some Cheerios and crackers. And to change her clothes 2 more times because she managed to pee through 2 diapers within one hour. Then we went in for the 11am service and performance. We left as soon as the kids were done with that one. We were all tired and had had enough. We went to Meijer to pick up a few things that we had forgotten on Saturday and we bought our "big" family Christmas gift - a Wii. Yay!
We went home, had lunch and the kids watched a movie while Mom, Dad and baby napped. We were beat!
Tuesday, December 16, 2008
My All-Time Absolute Favorite Christmas Song
O Holy Night, as sung by Josh Groban
This song gives me chills up and down my spine. The beauty of it almost brings me to tears.
This song gives me chills up and down my spine. The beauty of it almost brings me to tears.
The Holiday Craziness Isn't So Crazy This Year!
This past weekend, however, WAS crazy. Since 1999, my Decembers have been a flurry of activity, being double and triple booked for Christmas parties each of the 4 or 5 weekends of the month. Both my wonderful husband and I come from divorced (and mostly remarried) parents. With all that dysfunction comes a lot of holiday expectations. There's always the party with my Mom and Step-father, the party with my Step-father's family (who are all great), with my Mom's side of the family, with my Dad and Step-mother (which has recently been eliminated - their decision, not ours), with my Dad's side of the family, with my wonderful husband's Dad and Step-mother, and my former employer had a party and we each threw parties at our respective restaurants. And then, there's the Christmas Eve service at church and, starting last year, the children's musical at church. Finally, there's Christmas day, which we ALWAYS spend at home, because its no fun to open all the presents and then leave.
This year, we only have/had a few parties: with my Dad's side of the family, with my Mom's side of the family, with my Mom and Step-father and siblings and, eventually one with my wonderful husband's family - that still isn't set.
Over Thanksgiving, my wonderful husband's brother asked him to help him clean up and and make his desktop and laptop computers more efficient. They live in Sterling Heights and we live in Grand Rapids. My wonderful husband thought it would be easiest to go there and do what needed to be done. My sister-in-law insisted that our whole family come over to their house so that the kids could play together. Then, all of us were invited to a birthday party of a different nephew, who lives in Holly. And, there was an extra practice scheduled for the musical at church on Saturday morning.
So, Friday night, my husband has to work the closing shift - until 4am. I spent Friday evening packing and making a fruit salad and cutting vegetables. Saturday, I had to get up at 7:30, to get everything else ready that couldn't be done the night before. I let my wonderful husband sleep for as long as possible. So, we all loaded up (including the dog) and went to my mother-in-law's house to drop off the dog, the husband and the girls. Then I took my son to church for practice, went to Meijer to pick up some baby food and juice and dropped my chopped veggies off to my brother's house so he could bring them to the party for me. Then I went back to my mother-in-law's house so that my wonderful husband could go deliver the rest of the popcorn from the Boy Scout's popcorn sale.
Then we made the 2 1/2 hour drive to Holly and did the birthday party thing. It was a nice party, but very busy. My baby just started the separation anxiety thing (I've never had to deal with that before!) and with that, she had 2 offended Grandparents. Can she help that they've only seen her twice? After we left the party that ended late, we drove another hour to brother and sister-in-law's house for dinner and computer stuff. I got the kids ready and in bed by 9:30. My son fell asleep by about 10, which wasn't bad, since he was sleeping on an air mattress with 2 of his other cousins and another cousin was in the bed. My oldest daughter fell asleep around 1:00am and the baby never slept for more than 1 hour at a time.
She cried all night long. As a result, I only got a cumulative 3 hours of sleep. Then we went to church, where my wonderful husband proceeded to fall asleep about 1,000 times. Then we went back to the house, where my husband worked on finishing up computer stuff until 1:30. At which time, we said our good-byes and made the 3 1/2 hour drive to Greenville. We had to stop 3 times! My oldest daughter slept for about 3 hours, which was definitely necessary.
We had a good time at the Christmas party and left at 7:00pm, at which time, my daughter had already had at least 2 meltdowns and the baby had already offended almost every adult there with her mommy clingy-ness. We drove 45 minutes to my mother-in-law's house to pick up the dog and then another 20 minutes home.
We got home, got the kids in bed, unpacked and crashed. The baby slept all night, until 5:00am and we were back to business as usual Monday morning, with a 2 hour school delay.
Yeah, not so crazy...Yet.
This year, we only have/had a few parties: with my Dad's side of the family, with my Mom's side of the family, with my Mom and Step-father and siblings and, eventually one with my wonderful husband's family - that still isn't set.
Over Thanksgiving, my wonderful husband's brother asked him to help him clean up and and make his desktop and laptop computers more efficient. They live in Sterling Heights and we live in Grand Rapids. My wonderful husband thought it would be easiest to go there and do what needed to be done. My sister-in-law insisted that our whole family come over to their house so that the kids could play together. Then, all of us were invited to a birthday party of a different nephew, who lives in Holly. And, there was an extra practice scheduled for the musical at church on Saturday morning.
So, Friday night, my husband has to work the closing shift - until 4am. I spent Friday evening packing and making a fruit salad and cutting vegetables. Saturday, I had to get up at 7:30, to get everything else ready that couldn't be done the night before. I let my wonderful husband sleep for as long as possible. So, we all loaded up (including the dog) and went to my mother-in-law's house to drop off the dog, the husband and the girls. Then I took my son to church for practice, went to Meijer to pick up some baby food and juice and dropped my chopped veggies off to my brother's house so he could bring them to the party for me. Then I went back to my mother-in-law's house so that my wonderful husband could go deliver the rest of the popcorn from the Boy Scout's popcorn sale.
Then we made the 2 1/2 hour drive to Holly and did the birthday party thing. It was a nice party, but very busy. My baby just started the separation anxiety thing (I've never had to deal with that before!) and with that, she had 2 offended Grandparents. Can she help that they've only seen her twice? After we left the party that ended late, we drove another hour to brother and sister-in-law's house for dinner and computer stuff. I got the kids ready and in bed by 9:30. My son fell asleep by about 10, which wasn't bad, since he was sleeping on an air mattress with 2 of his other cousins and another cousin was in the bed. My oldest daughter fell asleep around 1:00am and the baby never slept for more than 1 hour at a time.
She cried all night long. As a result, I only got a cumulative 3 hours of sleep. Then we went to church, where my wonderful husband proceeded to fall asleep about 1,000 times. Then we went back to the house, where my husband worked on finishing up computer stuff until 1:30. At which time, we said our good-byes and made the 3 1/2 hour drive to Greenville. We had to stop 3 times! My oldest daughter slept for about 3 hours, which was definitely necessary.
We had a good time at the Christmas party and left at 7:00pm, at which time, my daughter had already had at least 2 meltdowns and the baby had already offended almost every adult there with her mommy clingy-ness. We drove 45 minutes to my mother-in-law's house to pick up the dog and then another 20 minutes home.
We got home, got the kids in bed, unpacked and crashed. The baby slept all night, until 5:00am and we were back to business as usual Monday morning, with a 2 hour school delay.
Yeah, not so crazy...Yet.
Wednesday, December 10, 2008
Wednesday, November 26, 2008
Happy Thanksgiving!
I am thankful for:- My Wonderful Husband, who is a kind, loving husband and a great partner to me.
- My Son, who is so sweet and smart and funny.
- My oldest Daughter, who is clever, smart and imaginative.
- My youngest Daughter, who is a beautiful challenge.
- Being able to stay home and take care of my family and my nephew.
- The rest of my family, who are loving and supportive.
HAPPY THANKSGIVING!!!
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