I feel like a new woman

For Christmas I got new kicks. Thanks Mom! I don't remember the last time I bought shoes just for casual, fun wear. I'll be spending some Christmas money of fun socks.
I also spent a few hours out and was able to get a good haircut and manicure! Thanks Barb!

Merry Christmas

I hope everyone is having a great holiday season!

This year there was the usual traveling to visit family, but you can read about that at the Ringing in the New Year blog.

One thing different is that with our new house and new baby, we wanted to at least wake up at home on Christmas day. It ended up being that we were here the entire day and I made my first Christmas meal. I actually had a written schedule of when to start each food so dinner would be ready at 6(ish). Here is all of the hard work I did, with a few fun facts:

1) White Bread - the first time I made bread in my 5 dollar bread maker. It did not come with instructions, but did have a short informational video that I watched. It turned out pretty well, but I'll try a more exciting bread next time.

2) Berry Banana Bread - this was actually for my family on Wednesday, but I made it Christmas afternoon.

3) Ham - when Chris and I were at the grocery store we picked up a 4 lb chunk. Chris commented that he could probably finish that by himself, so we traded in for a 7 lb+ chunk. I threw it in the oven for a couple of hours, no fancy toppings or marinade. It was good, but as some of you may be thinking we had a LOT left over.

4) Christmas Green Beans - ok, these didn't actually happen. It's a recipe from a cook book, but I never got around to making them. I was a little too caught up with trying to dominate at Star Wars Episode 1 Monopoly. So instead I heated up canned green beans.

5) Cornbread Stuffing - from a box.

6) Yams - from a can. However, I did manage to spill half of the yam juice on the kitchen floor when I was trying to get them heated up. That was fun.

*Picture was pre-food, in case you are thinking I'm amazing at cleaning.

Christmas Early

My wonderful husband gave me my Christmas gift early because we had to make sure it works.

3-in-1 Beverage Center

At first I was all "It makes coffee, which I don't like, and you've been wanting one of these for years." But after using it I realized it's great for my oatmeal, tea and best of all hot chocolate. Once we buy the pods for it, it will be awesome for things like Game Night. I mean after driving for thirty minutes to see us and consuming a couple of beers, the least we can do is send people off with a hot cup of caffeine.*

* This requires you to bring your own travel mug people!

No vampires here

Yesterday I tried a new recipe called Black Bean Soup with Sausage. It was ok, Chris really liked it. I did miss the last part of step one that says 'Drain and rinse beans' so the soup was watery and looked black. What can I say, I rarely cook with dry beans. And since it need so much garlic, the kitchen reeks of it today. I like garlic, but it's a bit much to handle.

There isn't much excitement around here at the moment. Christmas decorations are up, including lights out front and cards ready to be dropped in the mail. I plan on doing some shopping tomorrow, I'm just debating which mall to head to.

I did forget to post that we had another successful Game Night last weekend. Dandy brought SceneIt (the regular movie edition) and the girls team conquered. And I have to say Dandy is a wiz at translating pictures into names. The guys won at Cranium. I would say they won because we were rolling the dice at the wrong time, but that would make me sound like a sore loser.

Not a screen cap (I couldn't find one for this movie) but here is a toy based on a character from the movie. Can you name it??

Sharing the love

The cats have adapted fairly well to having Xander in the house. In general, they leave him alone and don't get in his stuff. Oh, there was the one time where I found them both in his Pack and Play. But they have been deprived of some love and attention.

Ainsley is dealing the best. She just compensates by getting extra love and attention from anyone who visits. Seriously, she'll be all over whoever is sitting on the couch. The trouble with this is that my one student is horribly allergic, so Ainsley has to be trapped in the basement. My other student is fine and ends up spending half of the sessions with a cat in his lap.

Min has been acting up more. The chewed toilet paper is happening more often. I'm seriously considering sacrificing a few rolls by spritzing them with Bitter Yuck! so she'll learn not to chew on them. However I am afraid that I'll forget these rolls will be out, they will be used and then some pain might ensue.

I did spray my plants with Bitter Yuck! I'm not sure which cat has been chewing on them, but it has stopped.

About once a day I'll find an ornament from the tree on the ground or the gold bead garland hanging funny. Today I caught Min pulling down some and I scared her pretty badly. We'll see if that happens again.

And of course there is the hose obsession that Min has. I hung some from a shelf and it was at least five feet off the ground. Yeah, found it on the floor but it didn't have an holes. And I just found the head of the dusting rod I use (think Swiffer but made of cotton or something) sitting in the cat bed when it was last on top of the drying rack. I have no idea how she negotiated the rods on the rack to get it down.

Guess I need to remember to give them both a few more hugs.