What a (sweet) week
Last week being the last full week before Christmas, not to mention the last full week of school for the kids before break, made life around here a little bit crazy more crazy than usual. As I thought back on the week, two themes emerged: 1) I'm not ready for Christmas and 2) Sugar has been a pretty big part of the week.
Because thinking about how not being ready for Christmas stresses me out, I'll focus on sugar.
On Monday, I added candy canes to the Christmas cards for the girls on Abby's dance competition team and some of our neighbors. I love the taste and look of non traditional candy canes.
On Tuesday, Donnie came home from work with a box of Esther Price chocolates. They were a gift from one of his best clients. A client who gives Donnie a lot of work to do, pays his bills on time, and gives Donnie a Christmas gift of chocolate?? I wish the client peace, goodwill and health in 2016... with a few complex legal issues pertaining to his businesses for which Donnie can provide his services thrown in for good measure!! We all enjoyed noshing on the chocolate confectioneries Tuesday evening and into Wednesday.
Wednesday, Jacob was done with school at 11:00 am. At the high school, the week before break is exam week and the school runs on a different schedule. Only certain exams are on certain days so kids can leave school when they are done with their exam(s) of the day. When I picked Jacob up, he was giddy with the prospect of an afternoon ahead of him with nothing to do except play 2k (he hadn't considered studying for his exams on Thursday- I had to break the bad news to him that we expected him to study and get good grades on his exams). He asked if we could go to lunch. We decided to go to Steak n Shake. I ate sooooo much including a full meal, part of Jacob's fries and of a course, a milk shake. I wasn't hungry for HOURS after that enormous fat/ sugar consumption fest.
(no photos of our Steak n Shake gluttony)
Thursday, I made a double batch of peanut butter meltaways to give away as gifts. Of course I didn't give all of them away. We needed to try them to make sure all was well with them:). I found the recipe for the meltaways here but tweaked the recipe a bit. The recipe had the white chocolate/ regular chocolate ratio as 3:1 which seemed a little off to me. I made them the original way twice (about two weeks ago) and while they were, good, I thought more "real" chocolate than white chocolate would taste better. So the two batches that I made on Thursday were with the ration of chocolates switched- 3:1 with regular chocolate/ white chocolate ratio. I thought they were much better with more real chocolate. I packaged the meltaways up cute (I thought) and then added gift cards to Panera for Alyssa's teachers. I made another package for one of the secretaries at Alyssa's school whom I interact with when I sub at the school.
Here are the peanut butter meltaways packaged to give away...
Friday was Alyssa's school holiday/ winter/ if we could say the "C' word then it would be called the Christmas school party. I was able to help out with it. The party was similar to the Halloween party whereby parents donated lots of food/ party supplies and the kids helped themselves, buffet style to the food. There was a variety of food- fruit, veggies, chips, candy and lots of yummy looking desserts. I thought for sure that Alyssa would fill her plate with many of the yummy desserts available; surprisingly, Alyssa filled her plate with many carrots, popcorn and only a brownie. After the kids ate, they went to the gym to dance. Alyssa didn't like that part of the party. I didn't get to see her dance; I stayed in the cafeteria (where the food part of the party was held) and helped clean up the party.
Here are Alyssa and Kara at the party. I'm certain that Alyssa took a Dr. Pepper only because Kara took one. Alyssa has a huge sweet tooth, but her love of water trumps drinking any other beverage 99% of the time. I grabbed a water bottle for her because I knew she'd want water. Sure enough, she took about two sips of her Dr. Pepper and asked me to drink it or throw it away for her. I had a couple of sips- YUM, Dr. Pepper) and then asked her if she wanted water. She said that she did. I knew it :).
Saturday was gloriously not busy for us, but in keeping with the theme of the week, consisted of lots of sugar. Donnie had a board meeting in the morning and then in the early afternoon, he, Alyssa and Jacob went to see the Star Wars movie. Abby and I aren't Star Wars fans (we've never seen any of the movies in their entirety and have no desire to do so :)). I worked on making Jacob's cookie cake and cupcakes (per his request) for his 15th birthday party on Sunday. Donnie brought home Chick- fil- A for dinner for us all after he and Abby arrived home from running an errand. He bought milkshakes, despite my asking him not to (I don't think they fare well on the 12 minute drive home from Chick-fil-A- they get too warm or something that seems really unappealing to me). He bought me one of their incredible chocolate chip cookies. I simply cannot not eat their cookies.
Pretty cookie dough batter for Jacob's cookie cake- Ideally, I would have had mini M & M's for the cookie cake. I prefer those to the normal size M & M's in my baking. Oh well, they did the trick.
Cookie dough making mess-
Worth the mess!!
So that was our week (Monday through Saturday) as it related to sugar consumption, gifting, baking and elevated glycemic levels, I'm sure. It was a *sweet* week!!
Because thinking about how not being ready for Christmas stresses me out, I'll focus on sugar.
On Monday, I added candy canes to the Christmas cards for the girls on Abby's dance competition team and some of our neighbors. I love the taste and look of non traditional candy canes.
On Tuesday, Donnie came home from work with a box of Esther Price chocolates. They were a gift from one of his best clients. A client who gives Donnie a lot of work to do, pays his bills on time, and gives Donnie a Christmas gift of chocolate?? I wish the client peace, goodwill and health in 2016... with a few complex legal issues pertaining to his businesses for which Donnie can provide his services thrown in for good measure!! We all enjoyed noshing on the chocolate confectioneries Tuesday evening and into Wednesday.
Wednesday, Jacob was done with school at 11:00 am. At the high school, the week before break is exam week and the school runs on a different schedule. Only certain exams are on certain days so kids can leave school when they are done with their exam(s) of the day. When I picked Jacob up, he was giddy with the prospect of an afternoon ahead of him with nothing to do except play 2k (he hadn't considered studying for his exams on Thursday- I had to break the bad news to him that we expected him to study and get good grades on his exams). He asked if we could go to lunch. We decided to go to Steak n Shake. I ate sooooo much including a full meal, part of Jacob's fries and of a course, a milk shake. I wasn't hungry for HOURS after that enormous fat/ sugar consumption fest.
(no photos of our Steak n Shake gluttony)
Thursday, I made a double batch of peanut butter meltaways to give away as gifts. Of course I didn't give all of them away. We needed to try them to make sure all was well with them:). I found the recipe for the meltaways here but tweaked the recipe a bit. The recipe had the white chocolate/ regular chocolate ratio as 3:1 which seemed a little off to me. I made them the original way twice (about two weeks ago) and while they were, good, I thought more "real" chocolate than white chocolate would taste better. So the two batches that I made on Thursday were with the ration of chocolates switched- 3:1 with regular chocolate/ white chocolate ratio. I thought they were much better with more real chocolate. I packaged the meltaways up cute (I thought) and then added gift cards to Panera for Alyssa's teachers. I made another package for one of the secretaries at Alyssa's school whom I interact with when I sub at the school.
Here are the peanut butter meltaways packaged to give away...
Friday was Alyssa's school holiday/ winter/ if we could say the "C' word then it would be called the Christmas school party. I was able to help out with it. The party was similar to the Halloween party whereby parents donated lots of food/ party supplies and the kids helped themselves, buffet style to the food. There was a variety of food- fruit, veggies, chips, candy and lots of yummy looking desserts. I thought for sure that Alyssa would fill her plate with many of the yummy desserts available; surprisingly, Alyssa filled her plate with many carrots, popcorn and only a brownie. After the kids ate, they went to the gym to dance. Alyssa didn't like that part of the party. I didn't get to see her dance; I stayed in the cafeteria (where the food part of the party was held) and helped clean up the party.
Here are Alyssa and Kara at the party. I'm certain that Alyssa took a Dr. Pepper only because Kara took one. Alyssa has a huge sweet tooth, but her love of water trumps drinking any other beverage 99% of the time. I grabbed a water bottle for her because I knew she'd want water. Sure enough, she took about two sips of her Dr. Pepper and asked me to drink it or throw it away for her. I had a couple of sips- YUM, Dr. Pepper) and then asked her if she wanted water. She said that she did. I knew it :).
Saturday was gloriously not busy for us, but in keeping with the theme of the week, consisted of lots of sugar. Donnie had a board meeting in the morning and then in the early afternoon, he, Alyssa and Jacob went to see the Star Wars movie. Abby and I aren't Star Wars fans (we've never seen any of the movies in their entirety and have no desire to do so :)). I worked on making Jacob's cookie cake and cupcakes (per his request) for his 15th birthday party on Sunday. Donnie brought home Chick- fil- A for dinner for us all after he and Abby arrived home from running an errand. He bought milkshakes, despite my asking him not to (I don't think they fare well on the 12 minute drive home from Chick-fil-A- they get too warm or something that seems really unappealing to me). He bought me one of their incredible chocolate chip cookies. I simply cannot not eat their cookies.
Pretty cookie dough batter for Jacob's cookie cake- Ideally, I would have had mini M & M's for the cookie cake. I prefer those to the normal size M & M's in my baking. Oh well, they did the trick.
Cookie dough making mess-
Worth the mess!!
So that was our week (Monday through Saturday) as it related to sugar consumption, gifting, baking and elevated glycemic levels, I'm sure. It was a *sweet* week!!
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