Loving this time of year!!

I really should be sleeping now but I'm not even close to being tired....

Just sitting here on the couch, listening to Christmas music and enjoying the lights of my Christmas tree :-) I just got done baking cutout sugar cookies and now I FINALLY get a chance to sit down. I was bummed for a bit because the first batch of cookies I made turned out BEAUTIFUL and so yummy looking....but not yummy tasting. Turns out my baking soda was old and the cookies had a yucky aftertaste to them. NOT good. I just about said heck with it and gave up on baking for the night, but I REALLY needed to get some more done. SO... I made another batch (same recipe but with baking powder instead) and they turned out AWESOME!! I made snowflakes and gingerbread men and trees :-) Can't wait to put icing on them... I *might* have Aly help me...but the question is-- How messy do I want things to get??!! lol

So now I officially have a whopping TWO cookies made. Chocolate chip and cutouts. I want to make a few more things since we'll be going a bunch of places over the holidays... not sure what yet. Probably Divinity (my grandma's favorite-- I make her a batch of her own every year), peanut butter cookies w/ reese's pieces in them (yum) and who knows what else. I tell ya-- I have eaten more sweets over the past few days than I have in the past few MONTHS.My tummy is yelling at me for it... it's not used to a lot of sweets...lol We hardly ever have sweets in the house since Russ is diabetic, so it's very tempting right now! My mom gave me a tin of cookies to bring home to "have around when company comes"-- YEAH RIGHT. Those won't last for the company...haha!

It feels great to finally get a chance to sit down today. It's been go-go-go from the minute I woke up this morning. We had a birthday party for our friends' son who just turned 3, then once we got home around 4-ish I did a bunch of cleaning/laundry, made dinner, then it seemed like it was time to get the kids ready for bed. This day FLEW!

Russ is still gone... he left around 9:30pm to pick up his brother and his family from Pittsburgh airport :-) I just feel bad because their carseat and stroller got LOST... they had a connection in Las Vegas, I believe Russ told me. So, guess their stroller is livin' it up in Vegas right now :-( Seems like something gets lost every time they come here. Last time, Russ's brother's whole luggage got lost, and it was finally brought to our house 2 days before he had to leave. That's my worst fear everytime Russ and I fly somewhere-- I'm always a mess while we're waiting for our luggage to come out!!

But anyway....I'm so excited to see them! They live in Alaska, so we don't see eachother much. MAYBE once a year, if that. They have 2 kids-- an 18-month little girl and a 3 month-old baby boy :-) I'm looking forward to seeing if our boys resemble eachother!

They will be in town until New Year's Eve... unfortunately they can't stay longer than that because they both have to work at the beginning of the week following New Year's, and flight time back to Alaska is looooong.... they need time to recover after getting home.

Well I gotta cut this short now... Will just woke up crying so I gotta see what my baby boy needs. Nighty night!