Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

The mad rush to get everything done by the 25th of December has come and gone. Most things got finished, but the sewing did not. That will be something to do when we get back from Salt Lake City.

Bob and I went to “early Midnight Mass” at 10 PM after spending the day baking cookies (Bob), and last minute Christmas and grocery shopping (me). Christmas morning we were going over to our son Dustin’s home for brunch along with his wife’s Dad and Step mom, and watch Paige open presents at her first Christmas. At 10 months she didn’t quite understand what the big deal was, and was easily distracted from the presents.

We left in the early afternoon to go home and start cooking dinner, and finish wrapping presents. Dustin, Erin and Paige were coming over for dinner and to open more presents at our house. It seems like I only really cook from scratch at Thanksgiving and Christmas. The rest of the year cooking doesn’t seem as creative, more of a necessity. We had a spiral ham, with a variation of au gratin potatoes, asparagus, whipped sweet potatoes, Cole slaw and an apple Danish with ice cream for dessert. The apple Danish and the au gratin potatoes were from scratch. Usually Betty Crocker does the potatoes, but we’re trying to cut down on the sodium. Once you start making the dishes from scratch, you really notice the salty taste of the box mixes. So I’ve started making my own mac and cheese too, something I thought I would never do.

Bob bakes the cut out Christmas cookies in the family and a good share of them are Christmas gifts to the neighbors. This year I actually baked some peanut butter clusters with the candy kisses, easy fudge and chocolate covered peanut clusters. The peanut clusters were by far my favorites as I made them with Hershey’s dark chocolate.

Tomorrow we’re driving up to SLC and help Carlee and family get settled in their new home. They moved yesterday and today, sleeping in the new house for the first time tonight. Hopefully we won’t run into snow on the way over the mountains by Beaver, Utah. We’re probably take a peek at the house, although we may wait until the trip back. The builder emailed us last Monday that they had shoveled about 18 inches of snow out of the basement, and were breaking for Christmas on Tuesday. So I don’t think too much has changed since the last pictures we’ve seen.

I’ve shown some pictures of our Christmas tree and a couple of the hand painted Christmas ornaments that my mom painted. She passed away over the holidays in 2003, so the ornaments are especially dear to me. We don’t plan to return until just before New Year’s so this will be my last post of 2008. Best Wishes to ALL.