Christmas Whirlwind Part 3

Finally after all the preparation, baking and decorating Christmas day arrived!  Let me tell you… I had 95% of my Christmas shopping done by Thanksgiving so I could ENJOY the rest of the month before Christmas.  But with all the projects, wrapping and such time still flew by!

All the stockings were LOADED with love and affection and goodies for everyone

Dad camped out in his favorite chair waiting for the festivities to begin.

My three nephews and my niece were decked out in the Christmas jammies watching Spongebob while waiting to have breakfast so we could open presents.

Here’s Mom & Dad’s tree fully decked out with presents.

My cutie-pie niece Lilly Jo with her pigtails and dimples.  She gets embarrassed when “Auntie Kim” points the camera her way

The fun began with the opening of stockings.

My brother Thad holding his youngest – my nephew Cole.  He’s such a sweet baby boy.

I got the coolest little Nerf toys in some McDonad’s happy meals (which wound up as stocking stuffers).  One was a little plastic basketball hoop and ball and the other was a set of goal posts and a foam football.  Here’s Thad showing Lilly how to “flick” the ball.

The present opening “mayhem” starts

I think Cole had a fun first Christmas!  He was doing really good for being passed around from person to person.  He is such a blessing and we all wanted to share some love with him.

Here’s “Nanna Kaffy” (as my niece calls her) holding Cole after a wonderful Ham feast.

Ever the doting Mother AND Grandmother, my Mom just can’t get enough of her grandkids

And now it’s “Papa Tim’s” turn with his little grandson.  I just love the way Dad looks at him

And the way Cole looks at “Papa Tim” – “Yeah, I think he’s pretty okay.”

Cole kept sticking his tongue out all night!  It was cracking me up!  I have about 15 pictures of him with his tongue out so I had to share at least one.  What a bundle of joy!

Last but not least – someone actually pointed my camera at ME!  I’m usually the one behind it

Hope you all had a warm and wonderful Holiday Season!  Here’s to a Happy and Prosperous 2010!

xoxo

Christmas Whirlwind Part 2

I was a baking MACHINE this year.  With 9 different kinds of cookies and 3 pies.  I usually do gift baskets for my parents and my brothers and their families, with cookies and chocolates and goodies.  This year I opted to do cookie buckets for them and some of my other friends.

I spent 4 nights in a row after work up until after midnight baking and baking and baking and then cleaning and scraping and washing   It was all worth it as everyone enjoyed the tasty treats come Christmas Day!

This is what my counter top looked like every night after work for about a week.  Bags of sugar and flour, mixers, measuring cups and measuring spoons.

I am SO glad I went to Costco and bought the huge bags of brown, white and confectioners sugar there.  It’s MUCH cheaper and I probably would have run out half-way through my baking.  And NOBODY likes having to run to the store in the middle of baking something!

I made Russian Teacakes or as we have always called them, “Snowballs”  which are always a favorite at Christmas.  Here they are cooling on the cookie sheet before being rolled in confectioners (powdered) sugar.

Here they are after being rolled in sugar and waiting to be packaged up for gifts.

By special request I made some Snickerdoodles for someone very close to my heart   xoxo

Frosted sugar cookies are probably in the top 3 of Christmas cookie favorites.  These are usually one of the first to disappear from the plate.

These were so RICH and delicious!  Cookies made from devils food cake and frosting made from sugar and cream cheese….YUM!

This doesn’t even show all the types of cookies I made (oh and there’s mini loaves of banana bread in the back too).  But this is what my dining room table looked like for about 4 days before everything was done and I could box it up.

They were all delicious tasty treats!  I spent SO much time in the kitchen… maybe next year I’ll just make the top 3 favs   Maybe I’ll add a few of these recipes here to share with you all later

xoxo

An Excursion to IKEA

I don’t go to Ikea often… because it is always a zoo.  There are hordes of people there with strollers who like to run over my feet, bang into my ankles or just stand in the middle of the walkway while they try to decide what to look at next.

Because of my work schedule I can usually only go on the weekend too, which means there are even MORE strollers out to get me!

But I did go this past Saturday and I enjoyed myself quite a bit.  I don’t know if it was because of the Halloween holiday, but there didn’t seem to be as many people there for a Saturday.

Every time I go to Ikea it makes me wish I had a home of my own that I could tear apart and redecorate from the floor up.  Their room setups are always beautiful and the storage in each space is wonderful.  I always come home swimming with ideas of things I could do around my apartment to help me organize and make cozy.

I mean I just love IKEA!!!  I was thinking about getting a buffet table for my dining room, but honestly now I just want to build a floor to ceiling cabinet space with a serving area!  Their built-in kitchen systems are kind of expensive…. but SOMEDAY I will have the kitchen of my dreams   and Ikea may help!!

Anyway… for now I think I will have to stick with upgrading furniture and decorations for my apartment.  I will probably look into some of their storage solutions for getting this organized around here