Chellisms

White Christmas!

Yay!

Oh oh oh!

Happy Christmas to all!

All of the presents have been opened and the kids are enjoying their spoils.

Tim surprised me this morning with news that he had the day off. Originally he was supposed to go in for his regular schedule, from 2PM to 11PM, but in the end he worked it out and is spending the day with us. I sent Tim on a scavenger hunt for his gift this morning, up and down the stairs he went and up a block to mom's house for the final clue. He was surprised and excited, that is the best part for me. To be able to surprise him with something is the best gift.

Pete got into the spirit as well and surprised my mom with a new wedding ring. She was really very surprised.

Okay, it's a bit blurry. She was so excited and hopping around that I couldn't get a clear shot.

Even the cats got in on the action. Max wasn't too interested but Madison thought it was great.

I am off to celebrate and eat good food, the prime rib is in the oven and the potatoes are ready to be mashed.

I hope that your day is as wonderful as can be. Happy Holidays to all!

Christmas Overload

I have gotten a few e-mails asking about whether or not we are really canceling Christmas. I would very much like to tell you yes. But I was vetoed by the man. I am not exactly sure why he is adamant we have a Christmas. He hates every bit of it. He did his shopping on Friday, waiting until the last moment as usual. Because I bought the Nintendo's so long ago I can not return them at this point, had I still been able to return them I would have and just started over.

While Christmas has been reinstated it has not been added to. It was left as is, same presents under the tree. Same decorations, nothing new has been added since that post. The below picture also includes presents for my mom and Pete, presents from Ashley Glen and Ethan, and presents from Lisa and John.

Look, no present overload.

Or should I say there was no present overload until Friday evening when I came home to discover that the UPS man had left 2 large boxes on my doorstep. Boxes from my dad and G. The girls always send then a list of ideas, this years list has 7 items on it. Total.

Somehow, somewhere someone got carried away...

Smooth Pants

Bailey came home from school singing a new Christmas song:

Grandma's gonna smooth the pants off of Santa...

Once I got done laughing I assured her that she had to be wrong. Either that or her kindergarten teacher is teaching things that I am sure are against standard curriculum. Heh.

Carrot Cake Duplication

Is today only Tuesday? It sure feels like a Thursday. I think I have accomplished more in the last 2 days than I did all last week. Then again, maybe if I had accomplished more last week I wouldn't be rushing around this week.

The girls and I have been putting together baskets for their teachers. We have spent the last two days running around gathering ingredients and baking, mini carrot cakes and fudge. Oh, and Borders gift cards. They have to have something to read while they induce a sugar coma.

Moving right along.

This carrot cake recipe is one that I have been working on for awhile. A few years ago while working for a mortgage company in CA I made a wonderful friend, Monica, whose sister makes the best carrot cake I had ever tasted. Since moving away from Lucy and her cake of carrot-y goodness I have tried numerous recipes, most of them pitiful replicas that came nowhere near hers. This time I think I may have gotten it.

Carrot Cake

Cake Ingredients

2 cups flour

1 3/4 cups sugar

2 teaspoons ground cinnamon

2 teaspoons baking soda

1 teaspoon baking powder

1 teaspoon salt

3 eggs

2 cups shredded carrots

1cup vegetable oil

8 oz crushed pineapple, drained well

3/4 cup golden raisins

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Frosting Ingredients

8 oz cream cheese, softened

1/4 cup unsalted butter, softened

2 cups powdered sugar

1. Grease and flour a 9 x 13 inch pan.

2. Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.

3. Mix flour, sugar, baking soda, baking powder, salt and cinnamon.

4. Add in eggs, carrots, oil, pineapple, raisins and vanilla. Mix until smooth.

5. Pour into pan and bake for about 45 minutes or until a toothpick inserted near the center come out clean.

6. To make the frosting: cream the butter and cream cheese until smooth. Add in the powdered sugar and beat until smooth.

7. Cool cake and frost.

8. Eat copious amounts.

Okay a few side notes. As you can see from the above picture I did not use a 9 x 13 inch pan. I used two Wilton mini-bundt pans. Each has 6 baking cups, so I have a total of 12 mini-cakes. I kept the temperature the same but cut my baking time to about 25 minutes. I began checking them after 20 minutes, I had one pan filled with a bit more batter so they of course took slightly longer.

You can definitely add nuts in, 1 cup of walnuts added in with the wet ingredients work well. You can also add in coconut, 1 cup added in with the wet ingredients. Tim hates nuts and I hate coconut, so that's where we stand on that.

Tim thinks mine need more frosting. He prefers the frosting taste in every bite, I am more of a purist and want mostly cake. Either way they are delicious. The cake itself is moist, the raisins give it a slight crunch that the addition of nuts would also give and the pineapple gives it a bit of oomph.

There are currently 4 left in my kitchen and they are calling my name. I think that means I need to go upstairs fast, before my willpower starts lacking. 

Monotonous Monday Mash-Up

I love alliteration.

The past week has been kinda funky, time wise and just plain funkwise. I am freezing, have switched to flannel sheets and am loving my electric blanket. I live in layers. A tank top, a long sleeved shirt and a sweatshirt. And that's just while inside. My jacket is a must have when outdoors and my gloves too. Holy hell people, it is fricking cold here. I can definitely understand why snowbirds move away during the winter, my knee is killing me and living in a 3-story house is not helping.

Hell, shoot me now I'm not even 30 yet!

The sickies have left our house. We are recovering. I never fully got it, thank the stars for that one. We have been drinking a ton of orange juice and washing our hands every time we turn around. Tim didn't get it at all. I think he might have had a runny nose for a day or two, I blamed it on his allergies. Bastard.

Speaking of allergies, we used our health insurance for the first time a couple of weeks ago. Tim had to go back and have some lab work done a few days after the fact, when he went to check in they informed him that our insurance had him marked as inactive. Twelve hundred dollars a month does not equal inactive and I almost keeled over when he told me. Needless to say it was a glitch on the insurers side and was remedied quickly, but I was sweating it.

Tim and I spent the morning in Taylor's classroom helping out. By the time we left I am pretty sure Tim was ready for a drink. We get in the car and he says they just never shut-up. Ever. If that isn't the story of my life I don't know what is.

We visited the carousel last week with some friends, pictures are forthcoming.

Today was the girls' Christmas program at school, pictures are forthcoming. Be very glad there is no sound to go along with those pictures.

I have a Harold update for you and some good gossip. He has a girlfriend... Pictures are forthcoming.

Now where did I put that camera?

Sick-ays!

The sickies have invaded the house. Bai still has her cough but nothing else. Tay now has the cough and the runny nose, clear but still runny. Of course the coughing means that no one gets a full night of sleep. Every time they start hacking I get up to check on them. I can't not do it, I have this great fear that they will cough until they vomit and then I would be up cleaning it anyway. Better to get up when I first hear it and offer a drink or whatever it takes. I woke up with a scratchy throat this morning, I thought for sure I had dodged the bullet but I think I may have been too hopeful too soon.

Tim is able to sleep through all of this. I kind of hate him for that.

Quick Update

Bai stayed home today and spent all morning in our bed watching cartoons while Tim slept until 10:30, he pulled a double yesterday and was dead tired. I spent the morning in her classroom helping out her teacher, I had already committed to it so I decided to go ahead and go. She laid around the rest of the day, didn't eat much but her temperature is down to about 100.7. She decided about 7 that she needed a bath, which I had been trying to talk her into since about 5.

I also figured out a way to get her to take her medicine, she has to psych herself out for a few minutes beforehand by saying I am Bailey Elisabeth and I can do this over and over again. It is pretty darn funny, but if it keeps her from spewing sticky red cough syrup all over the place (again) then I am all for it.

103.6 and steady

That number? Up there in the title? That is Bailey's current temperature.

Yikes.

She came home on Monday complaining of a tummy ache that seemed to have resolved itself by Tuesday morning. Tuesday she came home a bit hoarse. No sore throat just the cough that sounds like a million crabby baby seals fighting over a lone fish. Not a pretty sound. She was bright and peppy this morning, in hindsight I should have known from that alone that all was not well. Her teacher called about 2:30 to say she was feeling bad. She wound up coming home on the bus like usual as I couldn't get there before school would be out. She now has a sore throat and is just kind of meh, listless and ooky.

Edited to add: I got her in a bathtub and got some Tylenol cough syrup into her and her temp is down to 102.2. Keep your fingers crossed.

I hate sick kids, especially when they decide that shots sound better than liquid medicine. Oy.

Cook-ays! The Finished Product

Unfortunately my youngest assistant came home from school yesterday not feeling so hot. In the game of life she wins and cookies lose, so I decided to finish the cookies up this morning and spend time lounging around the house with her and her sister last night.

I had a bit of trouble with the dough this morning. It was a tab crumbly and uncooperative. I added 1 teaspoon of water to each log and rolled it into submission. Now, when I say rolled I mean with a rolling pin. You can definitely cut straight from the log, but I was feeling the need to work out some aggression. So, rolling pin it was! If you are going to use a rolling pin place your dough between 2 sheets of parchment to avoid having to add any flour to the dough. I used a shot glass as a cookie cutter.

No tequila was opened in the making of these cookies.

I didn't frost the whole batch and I may have eaten a couple along the way. Okay, five six. I have 24 single cookies set aside to be vacuum sealed and shipped to Hawaii. Ashley, you are going to have to add your own filling. Cream cheese and USPS do not mix, sorry.