It comes but once a year----the holiday stress!!

So school is done with for the quarter...as of two weeks ago.....feels good to be on "vacation" and be able to spend more time with my husband (even if it's while 3 kids are screaming at us!)......I got a B+ and an A in the two modules I completed in the baking program (quick breads & cookies), and got an A on my final project (see photos in previous post)....

The project took forever....especially because everyone in class was split into pairs to complete it, and my partner flaked on the program, so I had to do the entire hacienda by myself! Eek! It was fun, though.....and frustrating as well---the front wall fell off 5 times and broke into 3 pieces.....and the back wall split as I was taking it off the baking sheet (even though it'd been sitting there for two days).....I made all the people, snowmen, snowballs, the and the dog house at home, just to be sure I'd have enough time to finish everything within class time.....the roof is made of mini shredded wheat's, chimney is gingerbread with green peppermints "glued" on, the windows are stained glass (hard candy melted), the trees are upside down sugar cones with royal icing painstakingly applied, the dog house is made of graham crackers and candies for the roof, the fence is peppermint candies and pretzel sticks, the walkway is gingerbread with red hots and royal icing....everything is "glued" together with royal icing.....everything that you can see is edible (although I wouldn't do that....the gingerbread is as hard as a rock when you construct it!)....the snow on the ground is a mixture of coconut, royal icing, and powdered sugar.....all of the figures are made of pastilidge and/or marzipan.....the house's measurements are 12" high, by 10"wide and 6" deep....

All of the finished projects were auctioned off for charity....which is pretty cool! Hubby and L came to school with me on my final day to see it before it was auctioned.....I'm so glad they were able to....L loved it and said "mommy, I touch." To which I responded with "No, you do not touch!" Hehe.

In other areas of life....we've got all our Xmas decorations up---stockings, tree, gate around the tree to keep unruly kids and pets away, lights on the house (we've had them for years and this is the first season we have finally put them up! Yay, go us!), a construction paper countdown, and the garland that D and I made when L and E were sleeping. I'm pretty excited this year for Christmas, more so than I have been in a long time....but also really far behind (WAIT, WHY AM I POSTING AN UPDATE, THEN?!).....we're going to a party with my hubby's side of the family this weekend, then to a couple of parties next weekend with my side of the family......I still need to finish making cards.....maybe they'll turn into Happy New Year's cards.....with an Xmas theme! =) And I need to finish the baked goods that I always make for family......oh and the biggest thing of all is L's play kitchen!!!! Aaaaaaahhhhhh! December has snuck up on me! We've barely started with her kitchen.....I hope we can have it done enough so that she can play with it on Christmas.....jeez!

Okay, now must get off of this computer and start getting my butt in gear for tomorrow.....having family portraits taken by my fab cousin!

Holiday fun!

L's had a cough at night for awhile now.....I think it's just allergies....but she does the cutest thing.....she's learned to hold her arm up while coughing because I've held her arm up before while she's coughed.....she cracks me up!

We celebrated Christmas with the extended fam in Yaktown over the weekend. Was lots of fun! It was so good to see people we haven't seen in sooooo long. It's just too hard to get over there most of the time, so it was really nice to get to spend some holiday time with our families.

We went to an Ugly Sweater Xmas party at a friend's house on the 12th.....it was so fun! We bought some pretty hideous sweaters from the 2nd hand store down the street and donned them for the party. We even got the host to take our picture:



I sent the photo out with the cards I made this year! LOL I love how "classy" the pic is! =P

I also finished all of the goodies that I planned on making for gifts for our immediate families for this year....I handmade soap (hubby says it looks professional!), I made dog treats--since our families are dog lovin, and I made biscotti....we also gave out a pound of SBux coffee to each fam....I'm so proud of myself for getting it all done and on time, with almost no stress because I planned ahead-----thank you FLYLADY!!!!!

I'm FLYing!

Another day....another flybaby step down! I'm totally loving the flylady system, my house looks amazing, and I'm not even done with all the cleaning and decluttering. I've been doing the "crisis cleaning," in the last couple of days and it has really made a huge difference! I know how to clean, but this system is helping me keep the house clean. Here's a big shout out to www.flylady.net and all the wonderful people who run the site!

Thanksgiving is fast approaching.....I think it has to be one of my favorite holidays of the whole year! I love that we get to spend it with family and talk about what we're thankful for. I've been slowly working on the menu. We're going to be doing our brined turkey, cranberry sauce, mashed potatoes (some with butter, some w/o) with gf, dairy free gravy, gf cornbread stuffing (also dairy free), gf rolls, glutenated rolls, roasted green beans with olive oil and salt and pepper, 3 pies: 1 gf, dairy free pumpkin pie, 1 traditional pumpkin pie, and 1 traditional apple pie. I've also bought some wine and sparkling cider. Hubby also has some homemade hard cider and some sour wine that he made from the grapes growing on the vines in my parents' yard. I still need one or two more side dishes but I don't know what else to add to the list....any ideas?

We are having my mom, dad, and youngest sis over this year! I'm excited to share a mostly gluten free meal with them....my poor mom, she has no idea what gluten is. I've tried explaining it to her and she seems to understand but then just the other day asks me if hubby can eat turkey! How silly! (haha....there's a word I never, ever used before becoming a mom!)

For Xmas gifts in the past, we've always made goodies for our families. But with hubby's and my diet restrictions, I've decided to go a slightly different route. Instead of doing all different kinds of goodies (fudge, cupcakes, cookies, truffles, etc), I'm going to make only 3 things.....and 1 of them isn't even food! I'm excited to get started on making the gifts. I'm also going to finally get back to making cards this year, too. I didn't do it last year because L was only 2 1/2 months old, and I wasn't ready to take on the task and make the goodies. But this year I'm going to do both!