I am fairly certain that I have to buy one gift card tomorow, and then I am done with my Christmas shopping for everyone. The wrapping is just about done as well too. I don't know why but I have just felt completely stressed out this Christmas, and have felt an overwhelming sense of panic to make sure I have finished everything.... I am not behind or anything, so I don't know why I have been feeling this way. My husband has even impressed me this year by putting together some toys to help Santa out, instead of waiting until Christmas Eve night. That it huge people! Now that just about everything is done, and I can relax a little now, but like a idiot I have planned a family gathering at our house later this week. Yepp, that's what stupid people do.

I shouldn't say that I guess, it will be fun, and gives me an excuse to cook some treats, and an extra push to keep that kids from messing up the house, which is a full time job. Seriously what was I thinking.

Saturday morning thoughts...

So we are one week away from Christmas. YIKES! As far as shopping goes I still have 2 or 3 more gifts to purchase, and I have not secured those yet mainly because we have had some winter weather preventing me from getting out. You have to understand, in our area of Virginia we do not get a lot of snow, 1-2 inches and everything shuts down, and people lose their minds and wreck into everything... I have been too chicken to go out shopping with the crazies with bad roads...

I did take advantage of some online shopping yesterday with promises that it would be here before Christmas, so that's something done....If all goes as planned I may be able to knock out the rest this evening... fingers crossed.

I have not been crafting at all this holiday season, unless you count me cutting out snowflakes with the kiddos yesterday with construction paper. I have had some cute ideas but time just has not been on my side... I am working on getting neighborhood goodies together though... I went with my idea of making large batches of the spiced oyster cracker snack. I have a few more batches to make this weekend, and then I will force my kiddos to take them door to door.

More fun with mesh....

With some leftover mesh I added it to our breakfast nook light. I did this last year with wire ribbon, and I liked how fun it made our kitchen, so I repeated it with mesh this year for a different look!

My weekend....

I have had a semi-frantic weekend, as I thought my computer was shot. It was saying it couldn't find my harddrive and nothing would work... I was freaking out as I have a crap load of pictures organized on here, and my digital scrapbook stuff too... I backed everything up but it was stressful. To make a long story short I was able to fix this on my own (knock on wood), and everything is back to normal...

Deep sigh of relief....my laptop isn't that old, and I really don't want to buy a new one... I would honestly like to hold out and get a macbook pro one day, but I am kinda waiting to see if the creative memories software for my scrapbook stuff will one day be compatible with Apple products...

So enough about my drama, I have been busy with wrapping presents and trying to figure out who else I need to buy for...I have all the kids stuff done (minus Dave putting together Emily's big gift). I probably just have a few gift cards left to purchase, so that's not too bad.

The girls made some ornaments this morning with a little project I bought from the dollar store. They loved making them, and were excited to hang them on the tree. We plan on going to look at lights later tonight and go to Krispy Cream and have some treats. Should be a sugar fun fest!

At this point it's safe to say I have gained 20 lbs...

I have two Christmas parties to go to Sunday, so I spent a little bit of time making a few goodies to take. I made another Pumpkin Log, and then I decieded to make spiced oyster crackers. A patient where I used to work made these for the staff a few years ago, and they were sooo addictive. I found a receipe, sent my husband to the store to get a few things, and then whipped out a few batches. The kids have gone bonkers over them, so hopefully I still have enough to take with me. I think I might try to be all super sweet suzy homemaker and give some out to neighbors closer to christmas...

Here's what you have to do:

3/4 cup vegetable oil
1 (1 ounce) package dry Ranch-style dressing mix
1/2 teaspoon dried dill weed
1/4 teaspoon lemon pepper
1/4 teaspoon garlic powder
1 (12 ounce) package oyster crackers
Directions
Preheat oven to 275 degrees
In a mixing bowl, whisk together vegetable oil, ranch-style dressing mix, dill weed, lemon pepper and garlic powder. Pour this spice mixture over the crackers in a medium bowl, and stir until the crackers are coated. Arrange the crackers on a large baking sheet.
Bake in the preheated 275 degrees oven for 15 to 20 minutes.

I also tried my hand with making Peppermint Bark. It's really easy... I just lined a baking sheet with tin foil, melted about a cup of chocolate chips, spred that on to out 1/4 thickness, then I melted some white candy coating chocolate stuff (real big technical name haha) and poured that on top once the other chocolate hardened, and then I had crushed up candycanes (about 5) sprinkled on top. Let sit in the fridge for about 30 min or so, and then break up. Super easy.

An awesome giveaway!

My mom is having a giveaway for the cutest cookbook ever! Go to her blog now to enter! http://averettladynana.blogspot.com/

Christmas Town 2010

A while back if you were a follower of Busch Gardens on twitter there was a special code to get tickets to Christmas Town for just $5, the deal only lasted a few hours, but I acted fast and scooped them up for us. We went last night and it was really nice! We got free parking with our regular season passes, and we had a good time walking around, watching a few shows, and eatting some treats...We had never been before. The girls favorite part was seeing real penguins, and eatting popcorn. There easy to please! The best part was there were hardly any people there last night, so we were able to take our time and now be trampled by crowds. I think most of the people in the area were at the fireworks in our hometown, but I am glad we chose Christmas Town over that as I heard it was chaotic...