Christmas Baking!

Every year at Christmas time Eric asks me to bake some "goodies" for his customers that he can take to them as he sees them the two weeks leading up to Christmas. So, scary as it may sound, it is two weeks before Christmas so the baking marathon has begun around here. This year I made four different things. Peanut Butter Balls, Peanut Butter cookies, fudge & chocolate covered pretzels. I put them in cute little containers & send them off every morning with him. I do some quality control along the way to make sure that I am putting out the best possible product of course. I make fudge every year and never seem to have problems with it...until this year. You see, two major factors changed in holiday baking this year...

1. I am working in a much, much smaller space with a cook top & oven I know pretty much nothing about how it cooks...to hot, to cold, does it need to cook longer or shorter etc.

and #2. A little person that require much attention at. all. times.

So, I successfully ruined two batches of fudge today. So I see much more fudge making in my near future!

Santa!! Santa!!

So, we have been busy & haven't really gotten into the Christmas spirit around here. But last night we decided it was time to get Abbie dressed in her Christmas dress & take her to see Santa. So, we headed to Bass Pro Shop because I loathe the mall this time of year and I strangely like Bass Pro. And we got our ticket to see Santa. See Bass Pro has a really smart system. They give you a "voucher" when you get there that has a time to come back to see Santa. It is usually like 30-45 minutes away so they tell you to go shop around and come back at your time and they will line you up! Very clever if you ask me! People are willing to wait 45 minutes to an hour if they don't have to wait in line the whole time. And BP gets more business because, lets face it, while you are walking around waiting for your time you are bound to buy something!

So, at 7:30 we lined up to see the big man himself. I was worried we would sit little miss down on his lap & that would be it. The screaming would start, the tears would poor. Everyone in line around us had been talking about how sweet she was & how cute she looked & I kept thinking just wait....just you wait! But to my surprise, she sat with Santa. Looked at him then at us, then a him & then gave a little grin! She liked him!!