Christmas prep continued last week, ready or not.
Tuesday was spent at home, recovering from Monday's excursion to Hub's eye doc. Daughter helped me complete 2 large pizza for dinner and I got a few more ornaments on the Xmas tree.
Tuesday also found me deep into cookie baking.
Italian Ricotta Cookies. This recipe sure made a TON of them!
I don't usually make so many kinds of cookies for Xmas but A-I had to be close to home more than usual, due to Hub's and B-this year I have 5 people here(plus 2 more on Xmas Day)to eat all this stuff, so why not get "into" cookie baking this year.
Coconut Macaroons cooling in the snow.
I had printed off 7 cookie recipes I wanted to do(plus 2 usual varieties I make). I also had some mint chocolate chip cookie dough that I bought Nov. 30th at the store on clearance that just needed putting onto a baking sheet and running through the oven.
This potentially gave us 10 different cookie types for Xmas...yikes!
Lemon Gooey Butter Cookies. Good but a PITA to make.
I didn't get to all of them(either due to lack of energy/time or special ingredients-who knew the grocery store would run out of white chocolate chips!?)but I did make the following 7.......
Lemon Gooey Butter Cookies
Coconut Macaroon Cookies
Peanut Butter w/PB M&Ms Cookies
Mint Chocolate Chip Cookies
Italian Ricotta Cookies
Butterscotch Cashew Cookies
Chocolate Chip w/M&Ms Cookies
The Cookie Tree, the best kind of tree.
I had to resort to this to keep the kids out of the cookies until Xmas.....
Yes I am that mom! 8-)
Also on Tuesday we spent an inordinate amount of time dealing with paperwork for Hubs' disability claim. Not only does he have to submit paperwork to his work's HR, but also the disability board AND the FLMA folks. His boss was suppose to handle some things with all this but she was wrong about it, Hubs had to do all this and he didn't jump right on it due to his boss saying she'd handle some of it and then she was on vacation this week. So the paperwork is already late and he was freaking out that he'd not get it taken care of before the window closed and he's lose some benefits($$).
But we got everything back on track and the paperwork is in the pipeline now.
Wednesday, while I was out doing a Rite-Aid and grocery store run, a package arrived.
A bounty of unexpected Xmas gifties from buddy Kim.
MORE Cookies! lolz
Hubs even received a package...........
Homemade CANDY! *drool*
Thankfully the tag on his gift said he had to share it. Score! lolz
My present said to open immediately.
And indeed I did because the next day I began the pie baking marathon.
And this lovely ensemble Kim sent me came in very handy..........
It's a Maxine apron(complete with ginormous rick-rack trim)and matching pot holders.
I posed for a photo with one of the pecan pies I made for Daughter. Photo bombed by the dog too....how nice. ;-)
On Thursday I made 3 pies-2 pecan and 1 mincemeat(for Hubs). I bought 2 cream type pies at Weis(PMITA)Markets last week for $3 each. One pie was for the BF and the other for the Nephew and me(Key Lime).
I also moved some stuff in the family room and found this.....
...a bag of items that were supposedly taken up to the food bank last month.
sigh.
On Friday, at least I think it was Friday, I made a quick shopping run to 4 different stores at the ass crack of dawn while the weather was good. I was still in search of something for Hubs for Xmas(a style of shirt he likes that NOBODY makes anymore), plus some odds and ends for stockings and such.
The shirts were found at Kohl's and I used gift cards to pay plus got $10 in Kohl's Cash for later.
I also saw this sweet Xmas decoration........
A Xmas tree made from a plunger. 8-P
I found a Sara Lee pumpkin pie on clearance at Walmart(in there looking for Hub's shirts). The pie was $3.50 for which I had a $1 off Q and there was a $1.50 rebate so for $1.00 OOP I didn't need to make College Boy his pie of choice for Christmas. Woohoo!
I also saw this at Walmart.......
I picked up 2 containers of 18 count eggs at Dollar Tree for $2 but my trip to Family Dollar netted me nothing.
A run to Weis later that day for a bottled water stock up and Christmas candy for 50% off and using coupons may have also been purchased. ;-)
I found this at Weis.....
Zitner's is a Philly area candymaker. I knew they made Easter confections but I'd never seen a Christmas one. Ok, so it's just a peanut butter Easter egg in a red box. lolz
Saturday was pretty uneventful here thankfully. I didn't need to go anywhere, just fill stockings and do some last minute wrapping.
My cookbook from the giveaway I won did arrived Christmas eve...........
I haven't had a chance to do anything but glance into it but something Anne didn't tell anybody about this book is that she was one of the editors for it! It looks to be interesting and chocked full of recipes from famous chefs and/or restaurants throughout the country.
Thanks Anne!
Sunday....oh Sunday!!!
Santa came!
The kids arose about 10 am....finally! Daughter made Sausage Gravy and Biscuits for breakfast.
The biscuit took twice as long to bake. The oven just wasn't heating up for some reason. Come to think of it, my cookies were all baking "weird" the other day....taking longer to bake and spreading out like crazy due to that.
After the oven cooled off I took a close look in there with a flashlight and noticed that there were a couple of places on the lower element that were deformed, like they had super heated and melted a bit.
Sigh.
But onward to the gift opening, which commenced around noon.
Daughter not thrilled with having to play Santa first.
Cinnamon hugging her new toy from her other grandparents in Louisiana.
Who invited this lumberjack to Christmas? lolz
My new slippers, purple of course!
The BF grinning about his Teletubbies wrapped gift.
If you haven't guessed by now, we have OLD wrapping paper we still use, that has been collected over many, many years.
The Daughter excited for her Justin Beiber paper.....
We had a new Santa's elf this Christmas. Everyone takes a turn in the Santa hat.
My "Precious" giftie. A robotic vacuum built specifically for pet hair. Hmmm, I wonder why I now need this? lolz
The BF confounded by massive amounts of tape. The tape monster(aka me)strikes again!
Daughter loved this tie-dyed psychedelic kitty head shirt that was a last minute purchase at Walmart on Friday.
The doggy chilling out.
College Boy with his obligatory AXE gift set.
The BF seemed to like his lined work pants we got him.
Even Hubs got festive and decorated his "boot".
And he really liked the authentic Viking chain and pendant Daughter gave him.
And likewise, Daughter was thrilled by her WOW(aka World of Warcraft)wallet and Firefly hat that the BF gave her.
WE followed gift opening with stocking emptying. I think everyone was well taken care of by Santa this year.
I think the doggy sums up my morning on Christmas. Happy but tired. 8-)
So I warned Hubs that our oven may be shot and our Roast Beef and Mac & Cheese Xmas dinner may be in jeopardy. I had him call his brother to let him know we may be bringing a hunk of meat, mac and cheese and pans of rolls to his house to cook off. I had done the Green Beans in a crock pot so that was one thing I didn't have to worry about.
After punching down the dough and making it into rolls at 1 pm I tried the oven again.
Nothing.
It barely got warm.
So Hubs called his brother to have him preheat his oven and Daughter and I headed out to brother in-law's house to cook the food.
When the food came out and hour and 15 minutes later, we called home to have College Boy bring over the pans of rolls and take the roast and mac back home.
20 minutes after that all 4 of us heading to our house with the rolls and got dinner on the table.
The hungry diners. We ate about 3 hours later than planned.
And me, silly with hunger trying another failed selfie. 8-)
After dinner we exchanged gifts with brother in-law and the nephew.
Afterwards the youngin's sat and checked phones, vaped and checked out their gifts.
On Monday I didn't go out and hit any after Christmas sales. I was too busy with Hubs and digging out from Christmas(cleaning out, dishes, etc.)and getting the garbage ready for Tuesday morning's pick-up and locating a heating element for our oven.
I think I can just replace the element and get the oven up and running again and not have to go buy a new appliance. Spending $16 as opposed to $500+ would be much better, right? ;-)
And those are the highlights of our week here at Chez Sluggy.
So what's up in your world lately?
Sluggy
Tuesday was spent at home, recovering from Monday's excursion to Hub's eye doc. Daughter helped me complete 2 large pizza for dinner and I got a few more ornaments on the Xmas tree.
Tuesday also found me deep into cookie baking.
I don't usually make so many kinds of cookies for Xmas but A-I had to be close to home more than usual, due to Hub's and B-this year I have 5 people here(plus 2 more on Xmas Day)to eat all this stuff, so why not get "into" cookie baking this year.
I had printed off 7 cookie recipes I wanted to do(plus 2 usual varieties I make). I also had some mint chocolate chip cookie dough that I bought Nov. 30th at the store on clearance that just needed putting onto a baking sheet and running through the oven.
This potentially gave us 10 different cookie types for Xmas...yikes!
I didn't get to all of them(either due to lack of energy/time or special ingredients-who knew the grocery store would run out of white chocolate chips!?)but I did make the following 7.......
Lemon Gooey Butter Cookies
Coconut Macaroon Cookies
Peanut Butter w/PB M&Ms Cookies
Mint Chocolate Chip Cookies
Italian Ricotta Cookies
Butterscotch Cashew Cookies
Chocolate Chip w/M&Ms Cookies
I had to resort to this to keep the kids out of the cookies until Xmas.....
Also on Tuesday we spent an inordinate amount of time dealing with paperwork for Hubs' disability claim. Not only does he have to submit paperwork to his work's HR, but also the disability board AND the FLMA folks. His boss was suppose to handle some things with all this but she was wrong about it, Hubs had to do all this and he didn't jump right on it due to his boss saying she'd handle some of it and then she was on vacation this week. So the paperwork is already late and he was freaking out that he'd not get it taken care of before the window closed and he's lose some benefits($$).
But we got everything back on track and the paperwork is in the pipeline now.
Wednesday, while I was out doing a Rite-Aid and grocery store run, a package arrived.
A bounty of unexpected Xmas gifties from buddy Kim.
MORE Cookies! lolz
Hubs even received a package...........
Homemade CANDY! *drool*
Thankfully the tag on his gift said he had to share it. Score! lolz
My present said to open immediately.
And indeed I did because the next day I began the pie baking marathon.
And this lovely ensemble Kim sent me came in very handy..........
I posed for a photo with one of the pecan pies I made for Daughter. Photo bombed by the dog too....how nice. ;-)
On Thursday I made 3 pies-2 pecan and 1 mincemeat(for Hubs). I bought 2 cream type pies at Weis(PMITA)Markets last week for $3 each. One pie was for the BF and the other for the Nephew and me(Key Lime).
I also moved some stuff in the family room and found this.....
sigh.
On Friday, at least I think it was Friday, I made a quick shopping run to 4 different stores at the ass crack of dawn while the weather was good. I was still in search of something for Hubs for Xmas(a style of shirt he likes that NOBODY makes anymore), plus some odds and ends for stockings and such.
The shirts were found at Kohl's and I used gift cards to pay plus got $10 in Kohl's Cash for later.
I also saw this sweet Xmas decoration........
I found a Sara Lee pumpkin pie on clearance at Walmart(in there looking for Hub's shirts). The pie was $3.50 for which I had a $1 off Q and there was a $1.50 rebate so for $1.00 OOP I didn't need to make College Boy his pie of choice for Christmas. Woohoo!
I also saw this at Walmart.......
I picked up 2 containers of 18 count eggs at Dollar Tree for $2 but my trip to Family Dollar netted me nothing.
A run to Weis later that day for a bottled water stock up and Christmas candy for 50% off and using coupons may have also been purchased. ;-)
I found this at Weis.....
Saturday was pretty uneventful here thankfully. I didn't need to go anywhere, just fill stockings and do some last minute wrapping.
My cookbook from the giveaway I won did arrived Christmas eve...........
I haven't had a chance to do anything but glance into it but something Anne didn't tell anybody about this book is that she was one of the editors for it! It looks to be interesting and chocked full of recipes from famous chefs and/or restaurants throughout the country.
Thanks Anne!
Sunday....oh Sunday!!!
Santa came!
The kids arose about 10 am....finally! Daughter made Sausage Gravy and Biscuits for breakfast.
The biscuit took twice as long to bake. The oven just wasn't heating up for some reason. Come to think of it, my cookies were all baking "weird" the other day....taking longer to bake and spreading out like crazy due to that.
After the oven cooled off I took a close look in there with a flashlight and noticed that there were a couple of places on the lower element that were deformed, like they had super heated and melted a bit.
Sigh.
But onward to the gift opening, which commenced around noon.
Daughter not thrilled with having to play Santa first.
Cinnamon hugging her new toy from her other grandparents in Louisiana.
Who invited this lumberjack to Christmas? lolz
My new slippers, purple of course!
The BF grinning about his Teletubbies wrapped gift.
If you haven't guessed by now, we have OLD wrapping paper we still use, that has been collected over many, many years.
The Daughter excited for her Justin Beiber paper.....
We had a new Santa's elf this Christmas. Everyone takes a turn in the Santa hat.
My "Precious" giftie. A robotic vacuum built specifically for pet hair. Hmmm, I wonder why I now need this? lolz
The BF confounded by massive amounts of tape. The tape monster(aka me)strikes again!
Daughter loved this tie-dyed psychedelic kitty head shirt that was a last minute purchase at Walmart on Friday.
The doggy chilling out.
College Boy with his obligatory AXE gift set.
The BF seemed to like his lined work pants we got him.
Even Hubs got festive and decorated his "boot".
And he really liked the authentic Viking chain and pendant Daughter gave him.
And likewise, Daughter was thrilled by her WOW(aka World of Warcraft)wallet and Firefly hat that the BF gave her.
WE followed gift opening with stocking emptying. I think everyone was well taken care of by Santa this year.
I think the doggy sums up my morning on Christmas. Happy but tired. 8-)
So I warned Hubs that our oven may be shot and our Roast Beef and Mac & Cheese Xmas dinner may be in jeopardy. I had him call his brother to let him know we may be bringing a hunk of meat, mac and cheese and pans of rolls to his house to cook off. I had done the Green Beans in a crock pot so that was one thing I didn't have to worry about.
After punching down the dough and making it into rolls at 1 pm I tried the oven again.
Nothing.
It barely got warm.
So Hubs called his brother to have him preheat his oven and Daughter and I headed out to brother in-law's house to cook the food.
When the food came out and hour and 15 minutes later, we called home to have College Boy bring over the pans of rolls and take the roast and mac back home.
20 minutes after that all 4 of us heading to our house with the rolls and got dinner on the table.
The hungry diners. We ate about 3 hours later than planned.
And me, silly with hunger trying another failed selfie. 8-)
After dinner we exchanged gifts with brother in-law and the nephew.
Afterwards the youngin's sat and checked phones, vaped and checked out their gifts.
On Monday I didn't go out and hit any after Christmas sales. I was too busy with Hubs and digging out from Christmas(cleaning out, dishes, etc.)and getting the garbage ready for Tuesday morning's pick-up and locating a heating element for our oven.
I think I can just replace the element and get the oven up and running again and not have to go buy a new appliance. Spending $16 as opposed to $500+ would be much better, right? ;-)
And those are the highlights of our week here at Chez Sluggy.
So what's up in your world lately?
Sluggy
Your dinner and cookies sounded so good. The pictures of the cookies are making me hungry. They look delicious. I don't know how you did it all with a broken oven. I hope you can install the new element and not have to buy a new stove. Happy New Year to you and your family.
ReplyDeleteWhat a way to make the most out of all the dings happening to you! I hope somewhere your activities will read, "took a rest", and undisturbed! Well, I said I was using the week off work to recharge, and that I did, feeling positively lazy compared to all of the posts I'm reading.
ReplyDeleteDenise, you all had a fabulous Christmas. YAY!!!!
ReplyDeleteAny chance you could share that ricotta cookie recipe with us? Did I miss it somehow? THX.
Ok exactly how many dozen cookies did you bake?
ReplyDeleteLooks like you had a fun and festive Christmas, and what would Christmas be without a little drama (heating element), and why does this crap always happen on a holiday?
BTW editor of the book is a fancy term for Band Parent Association fundraising chair or co-chair for 4 years (What some people will do to get out of working the concessions stand, right?)
I was getting worried as you had not posted for two days and I thought oh no Hub's took a turn or you died from exhaustion. Why, why do things break at the holiday? Why does the plumbing back up on Christmas? Why? Nut as usual you made the best of it. Your cookies look scrumptious. I have to go heat up soup for mom.....
ReplyDeleteYour failed selfies always make me laugh. Why do oven elements always seem to go on the fritz just when you need them the most? Our TV was acting weird since before Christmas and we should have shopped for a new one on Black Friday, but we waited and hoped for the best. Yesterday it decided to go berserk, so hubby went to Best Buy after work and now we have a new tv. It wasn't a bad price, but I'm sure we could have gotten a better deal had we acted sooner. Oh well. Have a happy new year and congrats on winning the cookbook!
ReplyDelete