Busy Busy Busy

Wow, only a few more days till Christmas. I've wanted to post but it is just so hard to get a few minutes away from it all to write. I'm soooo glad I did 99% of my shopping last month as I am not feeling the "oh my gosh I've got to get to the mall ASAP and what happened to my list of gifts to buy??" What have I been doing these past two weeks? Baking and more baking. A few weeks ago my MOPS group had a goodie exchange so I spent some time making people puppy chow and oatmeal scotchie bars. I got some great stuff in exchange and that did not last too long in our household. With two children in school it becomes common to give out gifts to those who are such a big part of their education like the teachers and bus drivers. Last year I gave coffee and Casey's gift cards. This year I had a few more people on that list so I needed something more budget friendly so back to the oven I went. I do like to give out puppy chow as a nice gift and have done so to teachers in past years but with peanut allergies so common, especially in Matthew's class I decided to forgo the puppy chow in favor of oatmeal chocolate chip cookies. The really nice thing about baking in the winter is that Mother Nature provides you with the perfect blast cooler to chill the cookies when they first come out of the oven. One Saturday it was very below zero with really really cold wind chill so all I did was take my pan out of the oven, put it on the chair I had sitting outside my patio door and wait five minutes or so. Presto--perfectly cooled cookies and a cold pan to make more. I got everything bagged and ready for the next week, happy that I was done with that set of gifts. The funny thing about gift giving is that all of the sudden people pop up on the list that you have totally forgotten about or did not expect to add. After a few days of handing our bags of cookies it became quite apparent that I would not have enough for everyone on the list. Last year I tried to give our mailman a gift card and we got it back with a very nice note saying he was not allowed to accept monetary gifts so I had planned to save him a bag but quickly realized that another cookie baking session was needed. I also had to make something for hubby to take to work for all his coworkers and boss. Between bouts of baking there was the snow shoveling. Luckily we did not get the massive amounts that other places got so I only had to shovel eight or nine inches total. Why was I doing the shoveling? Because the snow kept falling during times when the loving husband was not at home. Last Friday he borrowed my van and did not move his car into the garage the night before so when it did snow everything was covered and I had to go out and shovel the driveway and clean the car off due to Andrew having an appointment for his ear check. I wasn't too happy with him until later that night when he came home and the van had been equipped with a brand new stereo system that was MP3 compatible. I love my Christmas gift. Driving around looking at lights just got a whole lot better. We were supposed to drive halfway across the state this past weekend to meet my parents for an early Christmas but there was a blizzard warning out for almost all of the state plus it was going to be really really cold out with the double digit below zero wind chills so it has been rescheduled to next week. I hope the weather cooperates. Yesterday I finished up my stocking stuffer trip to the grocery store. It is amazing how easy it is to buy items for the stockings without the kids even realizing it. They helped pick out the apples and oranges and selected the candy too. I had this totally paranoid thought that I would forget to buy the last minute stuff and all the stores would be closed on Wednesday and the kids would only have a small toy in the socks. I also got our of lasagna (thank you Stouffer's) for Christmas Eve dinner. I need to make cookies for Santa so the oven will be warm. Santa doesn't like the store bought kind or the stuff that comes out of a refrigerated package so this year he'll get peanut butter. I'm hoping that they will look better than last year's chocolate chip disaster. I still need to wrap all the gifts and my Christmas letter is written but the loving husband still needs to finish revising and reformatting it. I'm hoping to get those out tomorrow--so much for Christmas cards on time. I will try to write once more before the big holiday but if I don't get to it--Merry Christmas everyone.