We had our family Christmas tonight at mom and dad's house. We had a wonderful (and garlic-y) supper of lasagne, caesar salad and garlic toast. I baked an apple cake for dessert as tomorrow is mom's birthday and it was enjoyed by all! Then after supper we opened gifts. Got some good ones, and enjoyed giving gifts to my family and especially James. He is about 19 months old now and is about at the age where he can really enjoy Christmas and opening presents. I won't list everything that I got, however Jay got Settlers of Catan (if anyone wants to come over and play...) and I will be purchasing a fair amount of Old Navy clothing in the new year as I have gotten 3 Old Navy gift cards for a total of $120 so far!! Oh and Grandpa sent us some cash and mom and dad bought us a gift card to go for supper at the Keg...totally looking forward to that!!! I thought I would share this picture of James from this evening. He's pretty darn cute!!

Amazing recipe!

I did a bit of Christmas baking this year for the very first time. I made whipped shortbread, butter tarts, marshmellow peanut butter squares and caramel filled chocolate cookies. The first three things I listed were some of my childhood favorites around Christmas time. The last, a new recipe that my great aunt made for us when we went to Calgary for grandma's funeral. They were a little bit labour intensive to make, but I wanted to post the recipe. They kind of taste like those two bite brownies that you buy in the store, except they are cookies, have walnuts in them and have creamy caramel in the middle.

INGREDIENTS:
1 cup butter, softened
1 cup white sugar
1 cup packed brown sugar
2 eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1 cup chopped walnuts
1 tablespoon white sugar
48 chocolate-covered caramel candies (pieces of Caramilk chocolate bar)

DIRECTIONS:
Beat butter until creamy. Gradually beat in white sugar and brown sugar. Beat in eggs and vanilla. Combine flour, baking soda, and cocoa. Gradually add to butter mixture, beating well. Stir in 1/2 cup walnuts. Cover and chill at least 2 hours.

Preheat oven to 375 F.

Combine remaining 1/2 cup nuts with the 1 tablespoon sugar. Divide the dough into 4 parts. Work with one part at a time, leaving the remainder in the refrigerator until needed (this is very important as the dough gets very sticky as it warms up). Divide each part into 12 pieces. Quickly press each piece of dough around a chocolate covered caramel (we found it easier to handle the dough with wet fingers). Roll into a ball. Dip the tops into the sugar/nut mixture. Place sugar side up, 2 inches apart on greased baking sheets.

Bake for 8 minutes in the preheated oven. Let cool for 3 to 4 minutes on the baking sheets before removing to wire racks to cool completely. Enjoy!

A new game

For Christmas this year Arleen bought Jay and I a new game. I had never heard of it before. It is called Carcassonne and it's the Hunters and Gatherers edition. Jay and I played for the first time yesterday and it was fun! Definitely need some work on the strategy, but I think playing for the first time was just about getting the rules and scoring down. I think the game is by the same people who created Settlers of Catan, but it seems a fair bit more simple. And I have heard that anyone who loves Settlers will like this game. When we got home on Wednesday from getting this gift from Arleen, I opened it up and read the rules and they were quite intimidating. There is just a lot of different scoring and a lot of long explanations that made a lot more sense once you were playing. I think probably after playing one or two more times we will be able to set the rules aside and just play. The suggested time for playing it is 30-45 minutes on the box and last night we were at it for an hour and a half. But it is fun, and I think it might be interesting with more than two people, but it is a great game for two, which Settlers is not. Anyway....just thought I would share that it is a fun game :) If anyone wants to play a new and interesting game give us a call!

Flashbacks

Most of you who read this probably will not understand the significance of these words, but they came up when I was talking to Jay just a little while ago and they made me laugh a little bit....

Rock Candy with Grant and Anita

I thought maybe you could share in the laughs if you remember those awful long Saturday afternoon hours.

While we are at it...one more....

Meeting Tereasa's Baba with gitch on her head as a hairnet...hehe.

Stupidity

Today for the second time in my life, I locked the keys in my car. The first time was a few years ago when I was working at Impark. When I leave work I always get my keys out of my purse before I leave the office and walk a block to my car so I don't have to fumble through my purse to find them when I get there. Today was no different. I took them out, and carried them. As I got nearer my car I tested out the command start (I've been doing that in the last couple of weeks to get an idea of the range I can get). So I started it, walked to the car and opened it up. Because of the snow today, I decided I would brush the snow off the windows. So I set my backpack and purse on the passenger seat, the keys on the drivers seat, and hit the 'unlock' switch so I could go around and get the scraper out of the backseat of the car (it was closer to the passenger side). Well unbeknownst to me, I had hit the lock button instead of the unlock button and locked myself out of the car, with the keys and my purse inside the car. I smacked myself in the head and wondered about my options. I do have a second set of keys, but I keep them at home, and as Jason was resting with the ringer on the phone turned off I could not contact him. So I swallowed my pride and went and asked at Crestview Auto if they could call a tow truck for me. So they did and I waited about 5 minutes which wasn't too bad. The guy got the door unlocked and for the 5 or so minutes of his time (I suppose he had to drive there too....) it cost me a whopping $29.96. *sigh* It has been a slow week at work and today with a cancellation I only ended up having one half hour appointment. So basically I went to work today and made $5.04. With the roads in the shape that they are in....I would have been better off to stay at home!

Christmas Cards

This morning, I had some time to myself before I had to go to work, so I sat down and started writing up some Christmas cards for some friends and family. We purchased some fairly inexpensive cards a few weeks ago at Walmart. They were $4 for 40 cards, so they aren't the nicest cards, but they are alright, considering mose people just throw them away after Christmas anyways. Anyway....I pulled out this one cards that had a picture of a little boy on the front saying his bedtime prayers. I looked inside and found a Bible verse that read, "We always thank God for all of you mentioning you in our prayers." which is a nice verse. However the reference read 1 Thessalonians 2:1, which reads, "You yourselves know, dear brothers and sisters, that our visit to you was not a failure." Hmmm, maybe that's what happens when secular companies try and print Bible verses in their cards...hehe. Oh well, it's only 4 cards out of 40 and they are kind of ugly anyways.

I love Chinese food.

Last night, Jay and I took his friend Patrick out for supper to Genesis. For those who are not familiar with Genesis, it is a Chinese food restaurant on 22nd street. We were introduced to it by Karen and have been back probably at least once a month since then. We told Patrick that we would take him out for Chinese food as a Christmas gift to him and that is why we went last night. The food was excellent as always (they have especially good egg rolls!), then at the end of the meal our fortune cookies came. I took one and noticed that the fortune was sticking part way out between the opening in the cookie. I pulled it out without breaking the cookie and found that there were TWO fortunes. Now this has happened to me a number of times before, so I read them both and figured I would break the cookie apart and eat a little bite. I cracked it open and there were TWO more fortunes inside the cookie. I got FOUR fortunes last night in ONE cookie!!! None were particularily insightful, but I think the best one was "Only the lead dog gets a change of scenery."