We had ordered an extra big gift for Rori that should have arrived two days before Christmas, but due to the storms, it was delayed. And because of the back up with all of the orders that were delayed, it took until today for it to finally arrive. So when Ryan got home from work today, he locked himself in the playroom and put together Rori's new kitchen center.
He wanted to keep it a surprise until it was totally finished, and when he was done, we had her put on her new little chef's hat and apron (which she was happy about even without knowing what was coming next) before going in to see her surprise.
As soon as she saw her new kitchen, she was all over it! She was so into it, that it was really hard to get a picture of her - all I could see was the back of her! Soon she was hard at work, cooking food and sharing it with all of us. It was adorable! Ryan got it all on film, but for now you'll have to see it through these pics.
Now, don't worry, Acadia wasn't completely left out of the gifting fun. We also had a couple gift cards for her - she LOVES gift cards! So, earlier today we went out to Barnes and Noble where she bought a book that she's been asking me for. We also went to Target where she bought a couple more Littlest Pet Shops (because apparently she doesn't have enough yet, lol) and some Christmas PJs on clearance. She still has balances on both gift cards so she's excited that she'll get to go shopping again another time.
As we speak, Cadi and her friend, RaeAnne (who has been spending a few days with us), are cooking up a storm with Rori. They keep bringing out plates of food from Chef Rori for Ryan and I to eat. They are all having a lot of fun with this!
It is a tradition for our family to have Lentil Soup at the beginning of each new year. Ryan's mom is the one who started us on it. I'm not sure where it came from, but the story goes that by eating Lentil Soup at the turn of the year, you will have financial success in the year to come. We're not superstitious and we do not believe eating soup will affect our finances at all, but the soup is really, really good and we like it a lot, so we've continued the tradition simply because it's so yummy. I also tend to make this soup around Easter... and really, any other time I have a craving for it. lol
Lentil Soup
10 cups water
1 lb lentils
8 bacon slices
2 cups chopped leek
1 cup chopped onion
½ cup chopped carrot
½ cup chopped red pepper
1 can v8 vegetable juice *or 16 tomato juice
2 cups chopped ham
4T oil
4 T flour
1 ½ can condensed chicken broth
2 t salt
4 T vinegar
2 bay leaves
1 t pepper
pinch of thyme
Put water and lentils in crockpot. Simmer for 3-4 hours.
Put oil in skillet, stir in flour until smooth, then gradually stir in broth. Add salt, vinegar, pepper, bay leaves, and thyme and bring to boiling point, stirring. Pour into lentils; simmer for 30 minutes.
You may recall my mention of being a winner in a 12 day of Christmas giveaway by Elfster.com, at the time I knew I had won but I didn't know what. This week a package arrived and in it was a Christmas gift, all wrapped up and hand labeled to me from the elves at Elfster. And the prize was...
YUM! We love pretzels around here... in fact, earlier this month we enjoyed some yummy apple filled pretzels sprinkled in cinnamon and sugar... Delish!
Because they sent me a Christmas gift, and because of our very positive experience using Elfster this year, I want to give a shout out to them. My family used Elfster to organize our Christmas gift exchanges (we had a homemade exchange as well as a store bought exchange). It was easy - they allowed us to limit who could be assigned to who (we didn't want people in the same household to get each other), we were able to ask each other annonymous questions, and post wish lists, etc. We really enjoyed the exchanges and are definitely going to do this again - and I'm sure we will be using Elfster again. I recently learned that Elfster is family runned, too. That made me like it even more! So check it out sometime and see if it might be helpful to you! :)
We usually make a french toast casserole for breakfast Christmas morning. I love them because you make it the day before and let it sit in the fridge until you're ready to bake it in the morning. We've tried a few different recipes and so far, this one is our favorite.
Baked Apple French Toast Casserole
•20 slices French bread (1 inch thick)
•1 can (21 ounces) apple pie filling
•8 eggs
•2 cups milk
•2 teaspoons vanilla extract
•1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
•1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
•TOPPING:
•1 cup packed brown sugar
•1/2 cup cold butter, cubed
•1 cup chopped pecans
Arrange 10 slices of bread in a greased 13-in. x 9-in. baking dish. Spread with pie filling; top with remaining bread. In a large bowl, combine the eggs, milk, vanilla, cinnamon and nutmeg. Pour over bread. Cover and refrigerate overnight.
Remove from the refrigerator 30 minutes before baking. Meanwhile, place brown sugar in a small bowl. Cut in butter until mixture resembles coarse crumbs. Stir in pecans. Sprinkle over French toast.
Bake, uncovered, at 350° for 35-40 minutes or until a knife inserted near the center comes out clean.
...my true love and I had a fight! And so I chopped the pear tree down and burned it just for spite! And with a single cartridge, I shot that blasted partridge my true love, my true love, my true love gave to me."
lol, I love that song. Haven't you heard it? Oh, well if you haven't, watch this:
Happy Day After Christmas! I have a bunch of pics to share (of course)!
The girls woke up around 7am yesterday. We went out to check our stockings and see what Santa had left us. We had a lot of presents to open, so we got right to it! Everyone loved their gifts and we all had a fun time.
After we opened presents, we went to my aunt's house. This proved challenging as we approached her house; she lives in the hills and you need to take a few backroads to get there. Things were fine until we got to the last half mile or so. After getting stuck, getting unstuck, turning around, and finding a place near the main road to park, my Grandpa came in his truck to shuttle us to my aunt's house. Once there, we had a wonderful visit! Dinner was delicious! It was fun to talk and watch the snow. I was finally able to meet my grandpa's new wife and she is very, very nice. I look forward to getting to know her better.
Later, as my grandpa was coming back from shuttling my cousins out to their car so they could leave, his truck slid into a ditch had got stuck. Unfortunately, he was blocking the road so no traffic could pass. It was about an hour until nightfall so we decided to hike the half mile or so to our car before dark instead of waiting and running the risk of not making it home that night. About half way to the car, we met up with my Grandpa's truck and Ryan and my uncles decided they could dig him out. It took about an hour, maybe a little more and it was dark before they finished, but they did it! We didn't want to risk getting it stuck again, so we borrowed a flashlight and finished our night hike. Getting our car out wasn't too bad, but after plowing through a pile of snow trying to get onto the main road, a couple of our car lights came on. The same couple of lights that had come on two weeks ago just before we lost our transmission. That's not good. Fortunately, my uncle was right behind us, so he followed us back to town in case we had any problems. And even more fortunately, we didn't have any problems.
(Ryan ran a diagnostic on it today and there didn't show any problems. We think/hope that plowing through the snow bank just jostled something and made our car mad for awhile. Now that she's had time to "sleep it off", she's not as mad anymore. ;) Ryan cleared the codes and the car's running fine; we'll just watch for the next few days/weeks to see if any of them come back on.)
We wish we could have stayed at my aunt's longer, we didn't even get to eat the dessert I had made! I decided to leave it there because I didn't want to carry it out to the car when I had enough stuff to carry already. I hope they liked it! lol When we got home we watched a couple of the movies Santa had brought us: Kung Fu Panda and Wall-E.
As you'll see in the pics, we had a lot of cleaning to do today! Of course, not until after I hit some after-Christmas sales! lol We also managed to watch a couple more movies and play a little Wii.
In short (yeah, I know - too late for that! lol), Christmas was eventful but still wonderful and the first day after Christmas was pretty good, too.
And for the record, my true love and I did NOT have a fight! ;)
The problem with adding last minute gifts to your plan is when there are huge snowstorms both in your area as well as in other parts of the country, you risk not getting that item in time for Christmas. Oh well.
I had already gotten all of our shopping done but last week decided at the extremely last minute to get Rori a kitchen center. I found a really nice one, much like our friends have, which is really sturdy and Rori loves... but it hasn't come in yet. Looks like it will be a post-Christmas gift. Drats. :S
We're just trying to share Holiday Cheer to every car repair shop in the Pacific NorthWest.
For the record, I didn't think this was a good idea but Ryan kept saying it would be fine...
And now we have an appointment to take my car into the glass shop tomorrow. Yeah, that's another couple hundred dollars to make someone else's Christmas a little brighter. Hope it helps.
