This morning was busy straight out of the gate! Before 9am, I had made two batches of granola bars! I had help, of course.
Then, I took a load off and had coffee with Cher before she got back to studying and I got back into the kitchen! Of course, by that time, the babies were up, so I was less efficient by far. It was still cute, and I have zero complaints!
Still in the morning, I made a batch of jam jams (my first ever batch) and in the afternoon, I made the cookies for some oreos that I will fill closer to the date! I think most of us over here prefer my lemon oreos, but the chocolate ones are also delicious, and some weirdos out there don’t like lemon as much. So we’ll leave room for those people. I guess.
I got the girls to ballet and whipped up a batch of pumpkin muffins. I usually do two batches in the same sitting but one will do for today. Tomorrow is another day! Though, that day holds more than this day did, so we’ll see how far I get! 😅 That preparation bug has bit hard, as it tends to do, so I’m trying to bake it away! Wish me luck!
What are your favorite Christmas treats that I haven’t made yet?
I love that my people aren’t full of pressure and judgement. I love being able to let down around my people 💜 I was reminded of this yet again today when lunch was served to the group, and lunch waaaaaaas…
Sandwiches and broccoli salad.
With meat out of the freezer. Buns also out of the freezer, with a bit of freezer burn on them. Broccoli that was juuust starting to get old. Nothing at all was perfect.
And everyone was happy just to share air. And also food.
Of course, I don’t have photographic evidence, but I made a HUGE batch of peppernuts/pfefferneusse/pappanate yesterday, so we finished our lunch off with those, and I felt like a bit of a mennonite rockstar. Though I’m certain those do not exist. Until now, heyooo! 😎
Tomorrow is not a crazy day on the calendar, so I will likely fill it with more prepping and fun worky stuff, looking towards Christmas and all the other busyness on the books 🙂
A couple of days ago, Dekker got home pretty late, and I was whisper chatting with him in the chilly basement while he got ready for bed. The kid just kept on talking, oblivious to my visible shivering in my little jammie shorts. I finally reached into his pile of discarded clothing on the floor and put his pants on. And while they did not fit comfortably, they did fit 😳😅 We both laughed HARD, and Dekker asked for my phone to take a picture of me.
We commemorate weird things over here 🤷🏼♀️
Now to today, where the plan was to finally set up the house for Christmas. I bought Brady some funny Christmas tshirts to wear to work on the Fridays this month, and he wanted to wear today the one he wore to work yesterday. I decided to wear one of his other ones 🙂 Just for fun. So as we quietly snuck out of our room this morning, careful not to wake the babies, I reached down and grabbed his shirt from yesterday off the floor before closing the door behind us.
Except it wasn’t his shirt. It was mine.
Hey Brady. I can see your nipples. Uuuuunmistakably.
We laughed pretty hard, hahaha! Might’ve woken the kids. It was worth it. We took our selfie and then I immediately retrieved his shirt for him. But man. It was SO funny.
I wonder whose duds I’ll wear tomorrow 🤔 The morsel has style…
I had such lofty goals today, but as tends to happen, plans changed and it was seeming pretty darn impossible to get things done, or even started. I got going late, and of course, was immediately interrupted by the babies. So we stopped for a milk break, which was cute. Rae invited Wavy for the day, so while the babies played, I got to some of my baking.
I took out a carton of 18 eggs and I believe 3 lbs of butter to bring to room temperature.
I chiselled apart about half a large ziploc bag of frozen bananas and set them aside in a bowl to defrost.
I cooked up the first part of peppernut dough to give it time to cool.
I made another large batch of sugar cookie dough and baked some of the cookies.
The pot of peppernut stuff refused to cool so I put it out on the back deck and got into the banana bread.
I made four loaves of banana bread with a dark brown sugar crumble on top.
In the midst of all of this, babies went down for naps, napped, and woke up from naps.
Milk break!
Thankfully, the milk break took place while the banana bread was baking. Success!
Quickly before the kids got home, I grabbed my pot of syrupy goodness from the deck and got that dough made and into the fridge.
You’d better believe that after all of that, we had crummy easy supper 😅 Apparently I hit a wall, haha! But thats ok! Tomorrow is another day, full with lots of good things! 💜
Never before have I baked so much, but it seems I’ve found a hobby that I REALLY enjoy right now! So I found myself back in the kitchen today, pulling out all the sweet things.
Of course, I was short more ingredients than I thought I was. Merp. Mainly milk. I think I HAVE to buy some powdered milk, just for times like these, as it tends to be the thing I run out of most often. Also butter. I should just buy more at once but its SUCH a hit financially, hahaha! Stinking expensive butter. But I had that today. Anyway.
So, without a few things, the recipes I had in mind for today were off the books. Rather, I decided to dehydrate marshmallows. But that was easy and they do their thing on their own, so I wanted to try to accomplish one more thing. And I settled on a big batch of sugar cookie dough. It did not look nice.
It tasted nice, though!!
I wrapped it up in a few bundles so I could keep chunks of it chilled as I’m actually cutting the cookies.
The question is – should I freeze the dough until I’m ready to have cookies? Or should I bake the cookies and freeze them already made? Hmmm. Input please!
I made Dekker a toque this fall. He got to choose his color, and he picked this great green/blue/turquoise color. He loved it! And then he lost it.
He lost it a couple of weeks ago already, and it was a real bummer. These toques are uncomplicated but they take a pretty long time to make and I didn’t want to remake it, only to have him find it the very next day. So I let him suffer a little bit, hahaha! The days have been quite mild as it is, and when they’re cold enough for a toques, he snags one from Brady. I don’t actually let him suffer, I promise.
Anyway. This afternoon I was in the city, and I get an email from Dekker, which virtually never happens. The subject was “look.” So I looked. And this was it.
I am both so happy, and also SO enamoured with this little dork of mine 😍 He is so funny, and also knew how happy I’d be that he found it.
Though. I argued that he found out, considering it was in the lost and found. Therefore, someone else found it. 😏 I think I’m funny. So does Dekker. Sometimes. Not this time. But thats ok. He can be wrong.
He’s definitely reading this over my shoulder as I type…
Its been SUCH a lovely, productive day, and the kids aren’t even home yet! Thats probably why I got so much done 😏 I tease. Sort of.
Before 9am, I had texted my doctor and booked an appointment, texted a social worker and set up a phone appt, sorted and started laundry, ordered some things for the girls ballet performance, ordered some important items for the morsel, and began an Amazon return. Oh and I pulled out eggs for the baking I planned to do later in the day, because room temperature eggs are usually important. Right? Right. I think.
After those things were done, Cher came over for coffee and some breakfast toast. Yes, I am that classy, serving my guests toast 😅 But she was happy and we had a really nice couple of hours together. In that time, the babies also got up. I fed the morsel and Cher fed the spoonful. It was a really nice time all together!
When Cher headed home, the babies went for naps, and I got back into it! I had some lunch first, and watched 20 minutes or so on YouTube. I hung to dry the annoying load of laundry and kept that all moving. My baking plan turned out to not be possible today, so I shifted gears and decided to bake something else. Three batches later, I have enough cookies baked and contained to make 95 homemade oreos! And I do mean LEMON oreos! They are incredible. Don’t knock them until you’ve tried them.
I have them ready to freeze, and when the time comes to actually serve them or gift them, I’ll make the filling and they’ll come together SO quickly. Boom. One big batch off the list! The other baking can wait for another day.
Or. Maybe I’ll get into that once the kids are home. I could at least make dough. Hmmm 🤔 They’ll be home very shortly, and I have a few chores for them.
If I’m done baking for the day, that is also ok 💜 I’ve done plenty of good work today. And there is still supper to cook! I think I’m officially almost out of ground beef, which I have not been for a LONG time, thanks to the crazy generosity of people we love 💜 Who/where do my local friends buy their beef from? I’d so love to support those around me!!
Ok. Whew! Gonna put my feet up for five more minutes!! Except the morsel just started crying… 😅
We had a REALLY lovely family photo sesh this weekend, courtesy of my own personal best friend, sweet Cherice 💜 I have them in hand now, and a couple have even been emailed out to become *gasp* a Christmas card!! I’m SO stoked to actually get some of those out again this year!
Of course, as you can imagine, I can’t post any! Because yes, we did include our beautiful bonus babes in them. So the internet can forget that, hahaha! You’ll have to take my word for it that they are beautiful and lovely and just absolutely exactly what I pictured 🥰 I am SO happy.
Since I can’t show you those, I’ll show you Brady rocking our big grill, making pancakes for an army.
I can’t flip that many that close together without some overlap. He is a MUCH more capable pancaker than I am. And that is why he is breakfast man.
Pancakes, bacon, and peaches from a can. What else does a person need?
We are working intentionally to not get ahead of ourselves, but we are also finding some deals on furniture that would really be ideal in the next house. Don’t worry, I am aware we don’t live there at this point 😅 I know it could all fall apart. And if it does, the things we’ve found can also exist here 🙂 So there is no real loss here except that, for the moment, we have too many bed frame. Things could be worse.
On Friday, I found us a better table! I was SO thrilled!! Someone was clearing out an abandoned property and was selling a beefy, beat up, gigantic dining table. I spoke for it as soon as I saw it, and it was ours! We even paid the people a little extra to deliver it, which we never do, but it was so worth it this time around. Whew! So we moved all the chairs out and got our black table cleaned up for sale.
Someone asked for it within the hour and it was gone and picked up before the new one came in!
Brady LOVES this table. Which makes me feel pretty good for finding it. As he and Rowan assembled it, Brady raved about how it was solid maple. Hand built. SUPER heavy and strong. He said the amount of lumber that would’ve needed to be bought to build this table now would be around $1000. He is thrilled with it.
We put little cork feet on it and it was readyyyyy!!
Its already bigger than our last table and we still have another leaf for it! What a huge win for our large family, as well as for our future family gatherings! Its perfect!
By perfect, I do mean its beat up to no end. The table top has huge gouges on it, and even paint. But its big and beautiful, and totally possible to refinish down the road. We are kind of loving the dark chairs alongside it, so maybe someday we’ll paint the base to match the dark chairs, and refinish the top with some kind of lighter stain. Who knows. Not anytime soon anyway!
Also yesterday, I locked down the purchase of a HUGE until for Dekker and Solly. Ideally it’ll be for the next place, but again, it could work here if need be. No issues! I unfortunately don’t have a picture of that one, but take my word for it that it will be awesome.
We found something of a bunk bed, but it has a dresser and desks and shelving all attached! Its kind of like that big Jysk loft bed, but its better and will last longer for the boys, I think. Dekker will even have a little alcove where he could read while Solly is asleep if he wanted to. It is SUCH a win, and for a good price!! But man. It was ALMOST the first thing that didn’t fit in the van! Hahaha! But we got it, thanks to Brady, the really kind guy who sold it to us, and their mad Tetris skills.
And I thought fitting a kayak in there was impressive! WOW! This was a LOT of pieces, but it was really nicely labelled and organized so it’ll be pretty straightforward to rebuild.
Today is yet another day that holds many plans! We did get to sleep in a bit, which was lovely, but once everyone was up, we were UP and going! The three kids who didn’t get baths yesterday had them this morning, and I washed my hair in the kitchen sink, as I do. I buzzed three heads and curled three heads of hair. Around 10am, my mom and Cher came over to get us set up forrrrr
Family pictures!! We settled on some beautiful, casual photos this year, filled with LOTS of love and close snuggles!! Cher came to take the pictures, and my mom came to help get everyone to look at the same time. As a team, things moved quickly and we were probably taking photos for a cool five minutes. I’ve only seen previews so far but I absolutely LOVE what I’ve seen 💜 They are exactly what I was hoping for!! I’m SO excited that we’re still going to get cards going, even if they end up shipping a bit late. Big deal. They will be worth the wait!
Thank you SO MUCH to Cher, for taking our pictures and for showing us love in that way. And thank you SO MUCH, mom, for coming and being part of the crazy, and being a silly, fun grandma that the kids want to look at 💜 You guys are the BEST team for our family! We love you!
Those were taken, and we all came inside and got back to our morning. We RELAXED for a little bit, even!! Coffee was drank, and lego was brought out.
Lunch began right around noon. Babies went down for naps. We all started getting some lunch together.
My current to-do list is mostly managed from the laptop. I need to finish the blog (almost done!) and also write out what I want our Christmas card to say. I need to make some notes on how our evenings run for my mom this evening, becauuuuuse Brady and I are going to the Zaks Christmas party tonight! Heyooo! I’m so stoked to be out for the evening together!!! Beyond those things, I need to finish cooking up some supper, and I’d love to get our December calendar written out.
Never a shortage of things to do, or be grateful for! 💜
