Moving On

REALLY yummy cookie recipe: Pillsbury's Peanut Butter Brownie Cookies. I modified it a bit to make it more healthy: made my own brownie mix and used chocolate chips instead of frosting. To make it even healthier, I could have used organic cream cheese and used the chocolate chunks I made the other day (but I had a handful of store-bought chocolate chips that needed to be used). Anyway, it was the perfect cookie for D (at least in my opinion) because he loves Buckeyes (the peanut butter and chocolate center of this cookie) and brownies. He was expecting just the buckeyes, so it threw him off a bit, but he recovered nicely and had three. Mom was another one who was taken by these little cookies. I won't tell you how many she had ;).

Couples' Gifts: The reason I made the above-mentioned cookies (along with chicken pot pie and salad) was because Dad and Mom were coming over for dinner and to give us our couples' gifts. It's a tradition they started last year and it goes like this: they go to each of our (mine, Ryan's, and Nick's) houses and give us gifts they picked out for our home. We got some pretty nifty things again this year, including FLEECE sheets for our bed. A friend of Mom's recommended them to her, so she decided to try them out. She loved them and insists that we will, too. Can't wait to try them out in this 20 degree weather!

Micah: has yet another cold. He was well for a grand total of five days before getting a runny nose and a cough again. I think we're going to go into hibernation after Christmas. Maybe that's why the bears do it, to avoid colds. D made him some tea, along with the rest of us, after dinner. He included some dried sage, chamomille, and honey in the concoction and M drank it all. I'm going to make him some of this syrup (natural version of a cough syrup) as soon as I get one more ingredient. If you have a cold, don't go near Micah because he will catch it and we'll have to put up with him. Actually, he's the happiest, non-caring-that-he's-sick sick child I know, but still, stay away :).

Speaking of herbs: I signed up for a free online course to learn some basics. Herbs can be more powerful than conventional medicine with none of the weird side effects. We'll see how much I actually get into it, but I'd like to know some basics (especially about garlic, cinnamon, ginger, and chili powder).

IKEA: has a free breakfast/kids eat free all day the day after Christmas. We just might spend all day there and save on our grocery bill since our Little Man can eat and eat and eat. We're also in the market for a 4 or five shelf bookshelf for the living room, to relieve some of the clutter that tends to pile up in the form of books. Mom says we're crazy to go there the day after Christmas, but I'll be crazy for a free breakfast and a nicely-priced bookshelf.

I started reading: Shepherd's Abiding today. It's the last book in the Mitford series, but it's about Christmas, so I wanted to read it now. I don't usually do fiction anymore because I literally have a list of 144 non-fiction books that I want to read, but I wanted to take a break and do something a bit mindless to counteract the busyness that is my life right now. I'm enjoying it.

Another thing on my To Do list: is, after the New Year, to go through this house and write down all the storage items I would need to make everything less cluttered and piled-up around here. I've found/been given some really nice wicker baskets, but they've already found a home. And I need some plastic bins for outgrown clothes, crafty items, etc. I'm looking forward to it at this point, so it's motivating me to do it. Hopefully the motivation will last when it's time to actually do it!

I rented a Christmas-y movie from the library and am torn between watching that or MI-5 with David. So very sad!

Oh, and David got his two staples removed today. By a coworker. During work hours.

A year ago......ironically enough, these writing tools are some of M's favorite items to play with at Grammy/Grampa's!