Hi friends!

I must say life has been (and will continue to be) a little bit CRAAAAZY!  I have a ton going on this week and the goal is merely to survive.

Geeesh.

I love, love, love Christmas so much, but it makes life crazy doesn’t it??

I went to a fun “Girls Night Out” Christmas party with a bunch of my friends from church on Tuesday night.

We went to Archibald’s Restaurant (cutest place ever!) at Gardner Village and it was so much fun.

I love all my friends so much.

I ordered the Cobb Salad (I’m a sucker for Cobb salads!) with Lite Raspberry Vinaigrette on the side and it was awesome.

There’s just something about the whole chicken, olive, bacon, egg, tomato, avocado, blue cheese mix that calls my name.  LOVE it.

Oh, and this pic has some psycho bluish glow going on, but I decided to share it anyway…

I ended up eating just over half of my salad and taking the rest of it home.  I had the leftovers for lunch yesterday and it was perfect.

After dinner, we went back over to our friend’s house for dessert and a gift exchange.

Speaking of dessert, my goal for the holidays is to survive and maintain.  I’m going to eat as well as possible and really watch my portions, but I’m still going to enjoy myself a little bit.  It will be fun.

It will also be the perfect little break before I hit it hard for the New Year!

Oh, and here’s what I got at our fun gift exchange…

A cute Laundry Room picture that I love!  I actually “stole” it from one of my friends.  My poor little laundry room was naked and needed some sprucing up.  However, it’s now the only thing on my wall and looks a little bit dumb, but it makes me happy anyway.

I may just need to go shopping for some more cute laundry room “essentials.”  Kev will be so thrilled. 😉

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Sooooo, I’ve been setting up all the Christmas stuff at our house the past couple days.  It’s such a huge job.  MAN.  I love it, but I sorta kinda hate it too.  First off, I spent all morning Tuesday cleaning my house.

I love, love, love a clean house.  It puts me in a good mood quicker than anything else!

However, THIS is how my house looked yesterday…

Oy.

Pure and utter chaos.  AND, if you look closely around all the Christmas boxes and other crap scattered around my house, you might just see a bunch of dirty footprints all over my nice clean floor.

Lovely.

The snow hasn’t been kind to my wood floor.  I try to get the kids to take off their shoes as soon as they walk in the door…..but, it seems like they only remember after they’ve sufficiently killed the floor.

Needless to say, it’s been snowing here the past few days.  It pretty much snowed ALL DAY LONG on Tuesday…

My two littlest kiddos (and Jimmer!) couldn’t wait to get out and play in it!

My five year old had a ball and played for quite a while, but my three year old lasted about 2 minutes.  He quickly came back inside and said, “I’m sooooo cold mom!”

Yes, he’s a “cold wuss” like me.  I do not like being cold AT all….like not even a little tiny bit.

When my five year old finally came in he said, “I think I deserve a nice cup of hot chocolate!”

Hot chocolate is one of the perks of cold weather.  Love it.

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Well, I’m helping with the food for our church Christmas party this Saturday.  It will be such a fun party, but it’s tough to plan to feed 300 people!

It’s been quite hectic this week as I’ve been planning and shopping for the food for the party.  I went to Wal-Mart the other day to buy a bunch of the ingredients and the lady at the checkout asked if I owned a restaurant!

Too funny!

Sooo, I’m going to be busy cooking the rest of the weekend.  Thankfully, a bunch of people in the neighborhood are helping me cook everything.  But, I’m going to be making roast beef, a couple potato casseroles, a couple desserts and 200 homemade rolls (my friend is also making 200!)

It was actually my idea to make homemade rolls.  I figured I have a bunch of extra time on my hands and nothing else to do, right?  Ha.

I just think homemade rolls are SO MUCH better than anything else you can buy at the store.  I also really love this recipe!!

I’m a little bit crazy, I think.

Oh and sadly, we won’t even be able to go to the party!  Kev’s work party is the same night.  So sad.  Did I mention this week is crazy!???

On a brighter note, I was so happy to see not one, but TWO empty jars of peanut butter in my cupboard this morning!

Oh happy day.

I love to make Oats in a Jar and get so excited when we finish up a jar of peanut butter.  Oh, and FYI, I like to use “all natural” peanut butter, but the kids really like Skippy or Jif Natural peanut butters.  They pretty much taste like regular peanut butter, but there are no hydrogenated oils.  Yay.  There’s a little bit of sugar and palm oil added in though.

Anyway, Since I wasn’t eating grains for a couple weeks, both of these jars had to wait until I could eat oats again.  I was so happy to make my Chocolate Peanut Butter Oats in a Jar this morning!

That’s heaven in a jar right there, folks.

Well, I gotta go finish Christmas decorations, party planning and a bunch of cleaning!  Oh, and taking a shower and putting on some makeup might be nice too.

I hope y’all have a great day and are enjoying your holiday season!  Try not to stress out too much (like me!)