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!)
Your house is amazing – I love those floors!! I also love oats in a jar – yummy!
I hear you about being busy – my goodness I have so much going on – but it’s fun!
Thanks so much! I’m trying so hard to get all my “to dos” done so I can really enjoy the holidays!
OMG soooooo many people! Have you ever seen Top Chef or The Next Food Network Star?!?!?! You cooking for 300 people sounds like one of those show’s challenges!!! There is no doubt in my mind that you won’t be able to knock this out of the park though!!!! 😀
I know, it was SOOOO crazy. I’ve seen Top Chef, but I haven’t seen The Next Food Network Star. That’s so funny! I pretty much spent the bulk of my weekend cooking. Everything turned out well though.
I love this time of year too, but it can get soooo busy. I “hosted” treat day at work today and madev40 cheese and cranberry sliders and peppermint hot chocolate. I’m having a girls holiday brunch on Sunday, plus it’s the Santa shuffle this Sat! It’s fun though. You have a beautiful home by the way. That’s is some crazy snow fall.
Everything sounds like so much fun, buy busy, busy, busy! I hope you enjoyed your weekend!
You do have a lot going on – I hope it is a great week even with all that you have going on!!!
Thanks so much. I did have a good weekend, but MAN, I’m so glad it’s over now. 😉
Oh my goodness your house is so pretty and cozy!! I love it! It snowed here all of Wednesday and I think the high today is 14 or something. Yay 🙁 I wish I were in Hawaii! But I don’t think hot chocolate would be as good there with the warm weather 😉
Awww, thanks so much! I’m SO HAPPY you said my house is cozy. We have really high ceilings and a lot of wood floor, so I’ve always worried my house doesn’t seem cozy. You just made my day. 😉 Our weather has been in the single digits and teens this week too. Crazy! Let’s both go to Hawaii.
IT’s a sad day when the PB jars are almost finished but it also means OIAJ which makes it all okay 🙂
I agree 100%! I’m always happy to make OIAJ. YUM!
Your rolls look so good, but making 200 of them sounds a little overwhelming! You’ll deserve to put your feet up after that, but you’ll probably have an exercise class to get to instead!
I really love those rolls, but it was a HUGE job to make so many of them. Crazy. I did try to take it easy today though and it was so nice! Sadly, I skipped my exercise class on Saturday because I was go, go, going all day long. 😉
Oh my gosh, the holidays are so crazy! I feel like I am all over the place. Luckily I’m going on vacation soon so I’m hoping that will mean more time to relax! PB Overnight oats…yes please!
How fun to go on vacation this time of year! I hope you’re going someplace warm and I hope you get a lot of R&R!
Omg I’m the same way…I absolutely cannot relax or enjoy the day with a dirty house. I feel so much better. That’s a lot of rolls omg!! I love Christmas time, it makes me so happy but yes there’s always so much to do! I’m sure everything worked out perfectly though!
I know, when my house is a wreck….I’m not a nice person. Sad, but true. YES, I’m so tired of making rolls too!! The party turned out great, but I’m so glad this weekend is over! Phew!
I feel like the holidays are ridiculously crazy busy. I cannot wait to have some holiday time of work so I can relax a bit.
I hear ya! I love the holidays so so much, but I just want to sit back and enjoy them!