Life's a parade!

Just a reminder for everyone in the Lincoln area that the Star City Parade is on Saturday!!!!! WHOOO!! I love the parade though it is always soooo COLD!! Almost without fail!! ;D

Anyway, if you are planning on going I may see you there!! Have a great time!!! :D

DECEMBER 1ST!! :D Yippppeeee!!!

I have to say, I do love the Christmas season!! ***Happy sigh*** !!

The kids are in the room singing to Christmas music on the radio...!! Too sweet!! I'm all up~and~at'em since my friend Lisa and I are having a contest to earn points and ultimately to win free dessert!! We get bonus points if we get up, showered and dressed before 8 am.... ! It's a good motivator to get out of bed in the cold winter mornings!!

I hung our Advent Cups out last night and I LOVE them! They are so pretty! :D The children were thrilled to come downstairs and hunt for the first one and happily shared out the jelly beans!! Today's "event" is to go to Super Target (dun duh duh duuuuuuh!!) and get "Zappers" so the children can "zap" the toys and gifts they like and make an online list for friends and family. Part of me worries that they will be greedy and just blindly ZAP everything but whenever we have done this in the past, they always impress me with how considered they are and everything they pick is something they really like. Also I'm always surprised how they don't even think about it once the list is made... the best fun for them is simply the zapping! They hardly even think that they might actually get something afterwards!! ;D

Well I suppose I should get to work... lots of invoicing to do today, ugh... and it's bill paying day, just remembered.. : ( Boo. Ah well.... I'll get them done!! Also library van day....!!! Glad I got up early!! ;D

Only make this if you have company coming or will be giving some to friends!!!

Oh man!! I made this at Thanksgiving and I've made it before a few times, but honestly, if you don't have someone else to share them with… well, I'm just warning you, you will eat them all. You won't be able to help yourself!!!

 

PS….. Here I would usually add a photo….. but we ate them all…..!!! ( the bars, not the photos! Silly!!)

 

Merry Berry Cheese Bars from Eagle Family Foods, Inc.

 

2 cups unsifted lour

1 ½ cups oats

¾ cup + 1 tbsp firmly packed brown sugar

1 cup butter, softened

1 ( 8oz) package cream cheese, softened

 

1 (14 oz) can Condensed Milk

¼ cup Lemon Juice

1 (16oz) can whole berry cranberry sauce

2 tbsp corn starch

 

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. With mixer beat flour, oats, ¾ cup sugar and butter until crumbly. Set aside 1 ½ cups mixture, press remaining mixture on bottom of greased 13 x 9 inch baking pan. Bake 15 mins or until lightly browned.

With mixer beat cheese until fluffy. Gradually beat in condensed milk until smooth, stir in Lemon juice. Spread over baked crust. Combine cranberry sauce, corn starch and remaining 1 tbsp sugar. Spoon over cheese layer. Top with remaining crumb mixture.

Bake 45 mins or until golden. Cool and cut into bars. Refrigerate leftovers. The recipe suggests you cut these into large bars and serve with ice cream (!! Are you KIDDING me?!? ) but they are sooo rich that I cut them into 2" squares and we devour them unadulterated!

Christmas is coming… apparently!! ;D

Thanksgiving's over…. You know what comes next !! ; D

 

EVERY YEAR I am blindsided by Christmas !!! EVERY SINGLE YEAR !! Each year I VOW that this time I'll be on top of it, gifts bought, cake made, cards HOMEMADE, written and mailed by November's end. Um…. Have you noticed today's date?!? Yah. Have I done ANYTHING from my list yet??? Nope !!! LOL!! I guess I'll have to get cracking in the next ONE DAY I have before November ends. I don't know about where you live, but here in the Central time zone, the hours run three times faster in December!!

 

Anyway, griping over!

 

The children and I did have a super time recently building Babylon from a piece of Styrofoam and Lego pieces!! I wrote about it for the Online Examiner and included tons of pics….. Please feel free to check it out! I'm actually quite pleased with this article and we really enjoyed the project! It came up from nothing since Jack had this really neat piece of Styrofoam that reminded me of Aztec homes… I looked up images of Aztec homes and then realized that actually Babylonia was more like it!! I read more about Babylon to the kids and we remembered reading about the Hanging Gardens of Babylon…. And so it went on!! Bunny trails they call it!! ;D Anyway, if you read the article you'll see what I mean! ;D

 

So today is bright and sunny ( oh yeahy!!!! ) and 48 degrees outside!! I will no doubt be cajoled into a walk with the dogs and kiddoes before too long and I'm going to make the most of it whilst we still can! I keep threatening the kids with … you should play NOW…. It's going to get COLDER soon!! ;D But hey, it's the end of November and yesterday the temps were in the 70's….. WHAT is going on?!!?!? Here in Nebraska they have a saying.. "If you don't like the weather, wait 15 minutes… it will change!!!" I have honestly seen days that have been 80 degrees one day and SNOW on the ground the next !!! CrrrrrAAAAAzy!! ;D

 

Well folks, I suppose I should get back to the chores… right?? The kitchen is a disaster, the living / dining / bath/ basement / bed rooms are ALL disasters…..and Mum is flying in two weeks today!!!! ;D Aie aie aie!!!

Hold on tight folks, it's a slippery slope from here!! ;D