Martha freaking Stewart

I love to cook.  I would rather bake than cook a meal anyday, so I love the holidays.  It's my excuse to bake things to give away as presents.  But for all the baking I've done I've never tried to do a traditional sugar cookie where you make the dough, chill it, roll it out, cut with cookie cutters then frost.  So I decided that this year is the year to do it. You know, since I don't have anything else going on like studying for a major certification test, finishing out year end stuff at work, two small children who's idea of helping is to create a disaster in the living room....nothing like taking on a major baking project. 

Carrie and I made the dough on Saturday night.  Trying to explain to a three year old why you could only make the dough and not actually bake the cookies was a bit challenging.  So first thing Sunday morning we got out some of the dough and rolled it out and Carrie used the cookie cutters to cut out bells, angels, candy canes, gingerbread men and Christmas trees.  She thought it was great, I had so much fun watching her have fun, and Jerry loved the trimmings of cookie dough that were left over. 

We baked the cookies and I took on the task of frosting them.  This was a first for me and even though they may not look as nice as hers, you can just call me Martha Stewart. :)

Stay tuned...I still have to frost the bells, angels & trees so I am sure I'll take more pictures of my handiwork!

Update on the experiment

Operation Real Christmas Tree seems to be a success so far.  Thought I'd put that out there since I know all of you have been dying not knowing whether or not it was working ;)  It's odd....I think I sneeze more at work than I do at home sitting two feet away from the tree.  Perhaps there's something to that....think I can claim worker's comp and get some down time away from the office?  Sick building syndrome maybe?  Hmmm....

Now if we can just manage to get the ornaments on the trees we'll be doing well.  I imagine that will happen this weekend, along with trying to finish Christmas shopping, starting the Christmas baking (with these cookies and my attempt to make them look like the picture), trying to find something to wear to the annual Playgroup party...oh yeah, and somewhere in there I'm supposed to be studying for my HR certification exam!! 

The $21 Experiment

Pretty much everyone who has spent any time around me knows about me and my infamous allergies.  I swear I am allergic to myself sometimes just because I sneeze for no apparent reason.  My sinuses are, as a general rule, congested and miserable.  I've had surgery to help this little problem out, which actually reduced my problem somewhat, but it's definitely still around.

Enter the real Christmas tree.

This has always been a bone of contention in the Reeves V house.  As I've mentioned before I am freakishly allergic to the things.  If I get around them I start sniffling, then sneezing, then the eyes get swollen, you get the picture.  It's not fun to be around for anyone.  Because of this my family always had a fake Christmas tree.  I see absolutely NOTHING wrong with this.  Actually, I think it's way easier than the real version - you can get the damn thing pre-lit for crying out loud.  You pop that sucker out of the box, set it up, plug it in and WHAM - you have a beautiful 9 foot tree with gorgeous white lights all aglow.  A real tree means unraveling a thousand feet of lights, seeing which ones need to be replaced, then stringing the suckers on the tree.  And then you have to reverse the whole process once Christmas is over.  Yes I sound like Scrooge but for someone who's allergic to these things, none of that process is fun.  Jerry's family has always had a real Christmas tree.  And don't get me wrong - I love the tradition they have of taking the whole family to pick out the tree and cut it down at the tree farm, etc.  They have some wonderful family memories and pictures from those experiences - just ask Rhett ;)  It was a lot of fun this past Sunday to take the girls there for them to run through the tree farm and look at all the trees, but literally within about 5 minutes of riding home with the real tree I told Jerry I could already feel the tickle in my nose. 

So Jerry's been doing some research and apparently Leyland Cypress trees are hypoallergenic.  While we were at said tree farm on Sunday I said "Fine.  Let's do a little experiment and get a small one and see what happens.  Worst thing that can happen is we put the thing on the back porch because I can't be within 20 feet of it.  Needless to say we now have our very pretty fake tree in the living room and our "kid" tree in the den.  It went up last night and I have to say that I didn't sneeze once while we were in there watching TV. 

Perhaps we'll be able to have a live tree next year after all.....I'm just not sure I'm ready to give up my pre-lit tree though :)

Christmastime

I love this time of year, even though it feels like the stress level shoots through the roof!  Having kids at Christmastime is the best.  They are in total awe and wonder at the lights, the trees, presents, etc.  It's so much fun!  Of course, we have yet to put up our tree....that's this weekend's project!  We just got back into town the Sunday after Thanksgiving, then I had to turn right back around and drive back up to Atlanta Tuesday for my class on Wednesday.  So there's literally been zero time to decorate for the holidays.  Hopefully we'll remedy that soon....

I had a GREAT time shopping with my mom on the day after Thanksgiving!  She recently had shoulder surgery so I wasn't so sure she'd be able to go all out like she usually does, but she was a trooper and hung in there all day long (with the help of a little Lortab I think!).  People think I'm totally nuts going shopping the day after Thanksgiving with all the other nutjobs out there...but for me it's more about having uninterrupted time with my mom than marking stuff off my Christmas shopping list (although everyone that knows me knows I LOVE being able to mark stuff off a list!).  And a huge thank you to Jerry and Ken for watching the girls all day long while we were out running around!

All that shopping got me to thinking, though....exactly how did we get from Christmas being a religious holiday to one that we go out and spend gobs of money on the people in our life?  This in no way is a religious rant or anything...I'm just truly curious as to how it all evolved.  I guess I could Google it and find out.  But it just made me think that it was sort of silly to go out and spend all this money at this one particular time of the year.  Don't get me wrong - I love buying stuff for my kids and seeing their eyes light up when they get the toys they've wanted.  And I enjoyed a very blessed upbringing where I was never left wanting for more, and so did Jerry.  And we have the means to buy pretty much whatever Carrie or Anna may want/need (at least for now....get back to me when their wish list starts to include things such as "new car")  I love buying things for the people in my life that I love.  I do it to show them that I care about them and I love the feeling of giving to others.  But there just seems to be so much pressure to buy, buy, buy, spend, spend, spend that it gets a lot of people in trouble financially, not to mention the whole premise behind Christmas gets lost. 

My family decided this year to only buy for the kids in the family rather than even swapping names of the adults and buying for just that person.  I thought this was a great idea.  Maybe in the future we'll take it one step further and perhaps adopt a charity or a needy family in addition to the kiddos and "pay it forward."  I know it sounds cheesy, but it's just how I'm feeling these days.  I am planning on setting aside an afternoon very soon to have Carrie help me go through her toys that she no longer plays with or has outgrown and pick out some to donate.  It's important to me that she grows up learning that not everyone has everything they need or want and that we have a responsibility to give back.  I'm not sure how this whole process will go....I'm thinking probably not so well :)  But I figure if I start now perhaps it won't be so "painful" for her in the future. 

I know this post is a little all over the place.  Sorry!  That's what happens when I have a bunch of stuff rattling around in this head of mine....