Alright!
Busy day, as usual for a Saturday. The fun news is that I am getting a haircut which means that I will be dyeing my hair tonight. Purple. I might even post pictures if it comes out as cute as I think it will. :)
From hair chopping to food shopping. We have finalized our Christmas Buffet menu and now cheese must be purchased. It's not a party without cheese.
Wish me luck on my missions of merry.
Saturday, December 22, 2007
Thursday, December 20, 2007
Some Ideas
Let me toss some ideas around here. It looks like the majority of my family will be here in the late morning...perfect brunch time, although my dad and Susan will have already eaten, it being a family tradition to have cinnamon rolls Christmas morning. (sorry for the long, awkward sentence) With that in mind, I took a peek through my Williams Sonoma Breakfast cookbook. It's a small book with nice brunch ideas and the recipes have always turned out well for me. Some dishes that sound good for our Christmas feast:
Either Chocolate Croissants (purchased frozen then proofed overnight and baked fresh...I don't have time to make my own. Really, I don't.) or a make-ahead Cranberry Chocolate Breakfast Cake. With Streusel!
Cinnamon Rolls. Whole wheat, although with the hard white winter wheat flour, you can hardly tell it's whole wheat. The secret is love.
For eggy-goodness we could have either a wild mushroom quiche with a cheesy pastry crust or a broccoli rabe strata. The small advantage the strata has over the quiche is that it can be layered the night before and left in the fridge over night, as it uses bread cubes as the base as opposed to pastry dough. The quiche pastry and filling could be made ahead and simply assembled and baked the next day, but we have a lot going on in the oven first thing--so maybe the strata would be better, time wise.
Banana bread? I have bananas in the freezer just waiting for the chance to become bread. I could even make it tomorrow and wrap it tight. It keeps up to a week!
And for later in the day food:
Cold cut platter with cheese and sandwich fixings.
Fresh baked rolls for above sandwiches.
Nummy cheese and bread and crackers. Maybe goat cheese fondue? I love me a pot of warm cheese!
Veggie tray and fruit tray. Mostly citrus. And apples and pears. Seasonal fruit. And nuts. This is California, after all, "the land of fruits and nuts". As my Idaho family would say.
Stuffing? Maybe...
All day sweets:
COOKIES! 3-D reindeer cookies. I'm baking some today to see how they work and if I need to tweak them at all for the big day. Plus all the others I'm baking for cookie boxes.
Rocky road candy...at least what ever is left after my gift boxes are made.
Bourbon balls. Ditto on above conditions.
Pretzel sticks? These will be dependent on time constraints. I'd like to get them done for the cookie boxes...but...we'll see how that goes.
Comments? Votes? This is mainly for John, so hon, "Um yeah" doesn't count as a comment. ;) We'll winnow down the list tonight and get a shopping list ready for Saturday morning.
Here we go, ho ho ho!
Either Chocolate Croissants (purchased frozen then proofed overnight and baked fresh...I don't have time to make my own. Really, I don't.) or a make-ahead Cranberry Chocolate Breakfast Cake. With Streusel!
Cinnamon Rolls. Whole wheat, although with the hard white winter wheat flour, you can hardly tell it's whole wheat. The secret is love.
For eggy-goodness we could have either a wild mushroom quiche with a cheesy pastry crust or a broccoli rabe strata. The small advantage the strata has over the quiche is that it can be layered the night before and left in the fridge over night, as it uses bread cubes as the base as opposed to pastry dough. The quiche pastry and filling could be made ahead and simply assembled and baked the next day, but we have a lot going on in the oven first thing--so maybe the strata would be better, time wise.
Banana bread? I have bananas in the freezer just waiting for the chance to become bread. I could even make it tomorrow and wrap it tight. It keeps up to a week!
And for later in the day food:
Cold cut platter with cheese and sandwich fixings.
Fresh baked rolls for above sandwiches.
Nummy cheese and bread and crackers. Maybe goat cheese fondue? I love me a pot of warm cheese!
Veggie tray and fruit tray. Mostly citrus. And apples and pears. Seasonal fruit. And nuts. This is California, after all, "the land of fruits and nuts". As my Idaho family would say.
Stuffing? Maybe...
All day sweets:
COOKIES! 3-D reindeer cookies. I'm baking some today to see how they work and if I need to tweak them at all for the big day. Plus all the others I'm baking for cookie boxes.
Rocky road candy...at least what ever is left after my gift boxes are made.
Bourbon balls. Ditto on above conditions.
Pretzel sticks? These will be dependent on time constraints. I'd like to get them done for the cookie boxes...but...we'll see how that goes.
Comments? Votes? This is mainly for John, so hon, "Um yeah" doesn't count as a comment. ;) We'll winnow down the list tonight and get a shopping list ready for Saturday morning.
Here we go, ho ho ho!
Wednesday, December 19, 2007
Quick List
Things Done:
About 10 dozen assorted cookies and coffee and eggnog delivered to John's office today!
Most of my presents secured.
Johns' family presents wrapped and handed off.
Sugar cookies cut and ready to bake. Ditto for gingerbread men.
Rocky Road candy.
Bourbon balls.
Chocolate crinkle cookie dough ready to roll and bake.
Tree trimmed.
House lit.
Things Left to Do:
Yikes. Wrapping. Maia's presents alone will take a good chunk of time.
A menu for Christmas day.
Spritz cookies.
Cookie decorating.
Cookie boxes.
All the other normal day-to-day stuff.
Eegads. I can't wait for New Years with no plans but to relax. And begin house projects...
About 10 dozen assorted cookies and coffee and eggnog delivered to John's office today!
Most of my presents secured.
Johns' family presents wrapped and handed off.
Sugar cookies cut and ready to bake. Ditto for gingerbread men.
Rocky Road candy.
Bourbon balls.
Chocolate crinkle cookie dough ready to roll and bake.
Tree trimmed.
House lit.
Things Left to Do:
Yikes. Wrapping. Maia's presents alone will take a good chunk of time.
A menu for Christmas day.
Spritz cookies.
Cookie decorating.
Cookie boxes.
All the other normal day-to-day stuff.
Eegads. I can't wait for New Years with no plans but to relax. And begin house projects...
Sunday, December 16, 2007
Wii...
...got one.
And kind of on a whim. Last weekend John and had the chance to play on our friends' console and we became hooked on the Wii. We decided we needed to add one to our household. Now. For Christmas...at least for End of Year Bonus Time. Good enough reason to spend money, right?
Of course, it is only a week to Christmas and we were getting in on the hottest game in town. John spent last week looking for deals and getting to know the delivery schedules of the closest Wii dealers. Target looked good...Costco had a package deal..and there was the game store right around the corner...the breakdown went like this:
Costco gets them in at various times but only puts them out in the morning because of the pandemonium they cause.
Target gets a regular shipment Sunday morning.
Game Stop has a delivery on Friday between 10 AM and 1 PM.
Disadvantages?
Costco bundle is $500 and still has only one controller. Not such a great deal, plus you have to call everyday to see of they might put some out the next morning.
Game Stop wait time is hard on jobs and babies. More on that later.
Target is an early-rise job. And "everyone" knows when they get their shipment. So it can get crazy in line.
Friday I went to Game Stop after John told me they might have gotten their shipment in. I was in the store about 10:30 and a small group had gathered. Numbers were passed around. I was took the #5 spot form a man who was believed to have left the store. The other folks in the store knew what the delivery woman looked like. They had been here before. Apparently this store only gets a handful of units at a time...and they always instantly sell out. I had the Bee with me so I wasn't going to wait past 11 AM. We had a park date to get to. Just as I was getting ready to go, word arrived that the delivery woman was on her way. The store became more and more excited...one woman groaned that she was going to lose her job (she was on a loong lunch) but she couldn't leave--not this close to success. Another woman shared the fact that she had been trying for a Wii since November and still hadn't been able to secure one. She was #1 in line this time and wasn't going anywhere.
The Wii's were counted. Six units. I actually got a bit excited. I was five, after all, and this was our FIRST attempt to get a Wii. John's sussing out of the situation had payed off.
Then, sadness. The original #5 came back into the store. He hadn't really left--he had been pacing in front of the building. I was bumped to #7 and out of the running.
Oh well.
The Costco "deal" wasn't much of one, so John and I decided to skip that madness.
That left Target and Sunday, this, morning. John set the coffee pot last night and the alarm for 5:45 AM. He was up and out and in line by 6:10. He ended up with the #13 spot for a double holiday shipment of Wii's totaling 90! Woo-hoo! Wii-ness had been secured...along with extra controllers and nunchucks and games. Many games. In fact we returned later on in the day and purchased another game.
Check out his experience in line waiting
here.
Live blogging from the iPhone. Aren't we cool? And when I say "we" I mean "John".
So we have a new time sink addiction. And it is fun. But we did manage to get other grown-up things done today as well so we still have balance in our lives. And I might gain more as I learn to use that wii controller...
And kind of on a whim. Last weekend John and had the chance to play on our friends' console and we became hooked on the Wii. We decided we needed to add one to our household. Now. For Christmas...at least for End of Year Bonus Time. Good enough reason to spend money, right?
Of course, it is only a week to Christmas and we were getting in on the hottest game in town. John spent last week looking for deals and getting to know the delivery schedules of the closest Wii dealers. Target looked good...Costco had a package deal..and there was the game store right around the corner...the breakdown went like this:
Costco gets them in at various times but only puts them out in the morning because of the pandemonium they cause.
Target gets a regular shipment Sunday morning.
Game Stop has a delivery on Friday between 10 AM and 1 PM.
Disadvantages?
Costco bundle is $500 and still has only one controller. Not such a great deal, plus you have to call everyday to see of they might put some out the next morning.
Game Stop wait time is hard on jobs and babies. More on that later.
Target is an early-rise job. And "everyone" knows when they get their shipment. So it can get crazy in line.
Friday I went to Game Stop after John told me they might have gotten their shipment in. I was in the store about 10:30 and a small group had gathered. Numbers were passed around. I was took the #5 spot form a man who was believed to have left the store. The other folks in the store knew what the delivery woman looked like. They had been here before. Apparently this store only gets a handful of units at a time...and they always instantly sell out. I had the Bee with me so I wasn't going to wait past 11 AM. We had a park date to get to. Just as I was getting ready to go, word arrived that the delivery woman was on her way. The store became more and more excited...one woman groaned that she was going to lose her job (she was on a loong lunch) but she couldn't leave--not this close to success. Another woman shared the fact that she had been trying for a Wii since November and still hadn't been able to secure one. She was #1 in line this time and wasn't going anywhere.
The Wii's were counted. Six units. I actually got a bit excited. I was five, after all, and this was our FIRST attempt to get a Wii. John's sussing out of the situation had payed off.
Then, sadness. The original #5 came back into the store. He hadn't really left--he had been pacing in front of the building. I was bumped to #7 and out of the running.
Oh well.
The Costco "deal" wasn't much of one, so John and I decided to skip that madness.
That left Target and Sunday, this, morning. John set the coffee pot last night and the alarm for 5:45 AM. He was up and out and in line by 6:10. He ended up with the #13 spot for a double holiday shipment of Wii's totaling 90! Woo-hoo! Wii-ness had been secured...along with extra controllers and nunchucks and games. Many games. In fact we returned later on in the day and purchased another game.
Check out his experience in line waiting
here.
Live blogging from the iPhone. Aren't we cool? And when I say "we" I mean "John".
So we have a new time sink addiction. And it is fun. But we did manage to get other grown-up things done today as well so we still have balance in our lives. And I might gain more as I learn to use that wii controller...
Monday, December 10, 2007
Oooof
Yikes. I tied one on tonight. Red, red wine. Stay close to me...
I am super chilly cold right now.
I am soooo happy in how John and I are raising Maia.
I am not rally caring about a new TV. But I do want one.
John wants a Wii. And i don't know if I can find one. And I have his presents already.
Friends are good. Kebabs are really good.
Slings for baby dolls are super cute and I am so glad to get one for Miss E.
I would really like to sleep now.
I have used spell-check too many times for this short of a post.
Good night!
I am super chilly cold right now.
I am soooo happy in how John and I are raising Maia.
I am not rally caring about a new TV. But I do want one.
John wants a Wii. And i don't know if I can find one. And I have his presents already.
Friends are good. Kebabs are really good.
Slings for baby dolls are super cute and I am so glad to get one for Miss E.
I would really like to sleep now.
I have used spell-check too many times for this short of a post.
Good night!
Wednesday, December 5, 2007
Bless You!
Yesterday I was changing Maia and had one of my ever-present sneezing fits. When I finished sneezing I glanced down at Maia who looked up at me and said, "Bless you".
Moments like that make a heart melt.
Moments like that make a heart melt.
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