Peanut Butter Cuppies

Last week I found this recipe on Bakerella's website and just like the Chocolate Chip Comfort Cookies that I made from her recipe before, these did not disappoint. 

The cookie is a pretty simple peanut butter cookie recipe. 

Roll the dough into small balls and place into mini muffin pan. 

After wards, enlist the help of small hands to help open mini Reese's cups. 

Have those little hands eat two Reese's cups for every one they lend to a cookie. 

Press the mini Reese's cups into the center of your cookie dough.

And press.

Pop those babies into the oven and bake at 350 for about 8-10 minutes. 

Then enjoy. 

Prior to Quality Control Testing, we ended up with about 32 cookies from one batch of dough. Following Quality Control Testing, we had about 25. Hey, what can I say... We like to be sure we are offering a quality cookie. 

The Little Monsters highly recommend them. To be honest, (without telling my diet...) I highly recommend them myself. They are addictive! 

Enjoy!

IT'S OVER!

Don't let the door hit you on the way out!

I am a HUGE Christmas fan. HUGE. But by the time we get finished driving from here to kingdom come stuffing ourselves with copious amounts of less than figure friendly food, I am exhausted!

Not too mention, we don't have adequate floor/closet space on a good day, much less when a huge tree and presents are littering the house!

So now, as much as I enjoyed our Christmas and realize how blessed I am.... I am SOOOO glad we can get back to normal (at least as normal as our house gets... Which to any "normal" person, is pretty insane).

On to the festivities!

Christmas morning I was awoken by the heavy breathing of my overly excited 6 year old as he stood less than a foot away from my face as I slept. (Something that happens more often than I am comfortable with) 

"Santa came and he left 50 billion toys!"

Soon after that, everyone was gathered in the living room and the madness began.

Pre-Craziness

He was so excited.

This is the best age for all of this. 

This is the first and last time that Ethan touched a gift. He is too smart for his own good and decided that opening the gifts was too much work, so he just went and grabbed stuff that had already been opened. 

Taking his time. He opened every present like it was the last one he'd ever have.

Mason, on the other hand.... Opened his gifts something similar to what I described in my previous post. National Geographic would have been proud. 

Proudly displaying the ONE GIFT he asked Santa for. Also, as mentioned before, the one gift we had not bought considering it wasn't out when we did our shopping. $60 in a little plastic package. (Also, for $60 this baby should have come with batteries, especially considering that it takes about 7 of the things.)

The only picture I got of all three of my little monsters on Christmas morning and Mason isn't looking at the camera, Brady is beyond cheesing, and Ethan is, well, backwards. Typical picture of the three of them together.

On their new mat/stain deterrent. 

After all of the hubbub, we got dressed and ready to head out to family get togethers.  Brady absolutely refused a single shot, but I did manage to coerce  the oldest and youngest little monsters to partake. 

And might I just say, they looked VERY handsome.

Mason Luke

Ethan Cole

Since they were all dressed and matching and precious as can be, I had to attempt a group shot.

Considering the earlier group shot... This one was a winner. Even if two thirds were still shoeless. Hey, can't win 'em all. 

I hope everyone had a very Merry Christmas and will have a very fun and SAFE New Years! 

From our family to yours!

Mall Santa Can O' Worms

As I mentioned previously, we managed to work a Mall Santa visit into our busy schedule of ear infections, colds, and mass antibiotic purchases.

Have you ever had that wonderful moment of hearing your child tell Santa the ONE THING they want for Christmas just to realize that the ONE THING is NOT one of the many things "Santa" already has hiding throughout your home...

Yeah.

Out of the massive number of things we have hidden, a talking, remote control Lightning McQueen wasn't one of them. We also managed to realize that we had purchased an item that Mason had already gotten for his birthday.

 Solution, exchange the talking Mater for the talking, remote control Lightning McQueen.

Issue here? Talking Mater cost all of 20 bucks.

Remote control talking Lightning McQueen..... 60 freaking dollars.

As if shelling out an unexpected 40 bucks isn't enough, I manage to get a babysitter last night so that I can FINALLY finish my Christmas shopping and my husband decides that he has some time before he is called for work and he is going to go with me.

What happens? He gets called immediately upon walking into Target.

So guess who STILL hasn't finished her shopping?

Nothing puts me in the Christmas spirit quite like last minute shopping while having strangers glued to my elbows. Not too mention that usually the strangers I end up next to, choose not to bathe regularly.

As previously mentioned, next Christmas's shopping/decorating/preparation starts (not in August as previously suggested) in January.

A year should put me on track for getting it right.... Right?

Bloglovin!

I finally figured out and signed up for Bloglovin!

The fact that I can search for blogs based on topics I like is AMAZING!

It's like Pinterest for blogs!

The Adventures of Charley Days 18-20

 Day 18- Burt Reynolds Fan Club President Charley! Mustaches for everyone!

Day 19- Flying Trapeze Charley!

Day 20- Lion Tamer Charley!



I am glad that Charley will only be here for another 3 days. Charley needs a break!

(AKA Mommy needs a break... I love how just about everything to do with Christmas takes my hard work and gives credit to someone else. Thanks Charley and Santa! Lazy jokers.)

Wine and Wrapping

Next year, I may start an annual party, aptly named... Wine and Wrapping. A little too late to start it this year, with guests anyway. This year it may be a one woman party, that one woman being me.

I love mounds of pretty little wrapped packages. I also love shopping for way too many things for my kids to open on Christmas morning. The love stops there.

 The love does not extend to turning the way too many things into mounds of pretty little wrapped packages. Now one or two things, I can do. Heck, I even enjoy.

Enjoy is not the word I would use describe my state while sitting and wrapping the massive piles of future Goodwill donations that are currently spilling out from under our king sized bed/hall closet/bedroom closet. Don't get me wrong, LOVE seeing my boys open the stuff. Super love it. As a matter of fact, if it wasn't for those little fat cheeks glistening in the 5 a.m. glow of twinkly tree lights while opening the things they have left drool puddles in the toy section of Target over, I'd be tossing those babies under the tree like Santa had one too many eggnog's before getting to our house.

Which leads me to another point.... I've been seeing an awfully lot of, what I call, fancy Christmas wrappings floating around lately. You can't tell me that these people wrap ALL of their gifts like this.... Seriously now. I have three boys.

THREE BOYS.

Do you know how little boys open Christmas gifts????

The process is worthy of a National Geographic special.

Why in God's green earth would I wrap their gifts in strips of vintage fabric, lace, and twine and then top them with freshly picked snozberries from the land of Oz?

Now, I can understand maybe doing some gifts to friends or grown family in such a manor, but a tree full of these ornately wrapped gifts is nuts.

So, folks, my living room will not look like a scene out of Better Homes and Gardens or Martha Stewart Magazine this Christmas season. As a matter of fact, it will probably be closer to resembling one of those homes from an episode of Hoarders.

Will our Christmas be any less special? No. Will my boys enjoy every second of it? Probably not. Christmas wouldn't be normal without AT LEAST 5 sugar induced meltdowns. But it will be ours.

Simply wrapped boxes with bows, destroyed living room, sugar induced tantrums, and all.

We FINALLY saw Santa!

As a mom, you always find yourself guessing how your Santa photo will go. Who's going to scream. Who's going to handle it like a pro. Who will flat out refuse to sit on Santa's lap... 

2010's Christmas Gem

I decided, long before our trip to see Santa, that this is how it would go down...

• Mason would handle it like a pro, as always. Notice the pose in last year's photo above. He's calm. He's cool. He just told Santa what he wanted for Christmas and he was feeling good.
• Brady was a toss up, but for some reason I was seeing a repeat of last year. Notice the look of shear terror and panic.... But, he was also a lot more "in" to the idea of Santa this year. Fat guy giving me free stuff? Yes, Please!
• Ethan.... Ethan was NOT going to have it. On the mend from double ear infections and fussy as all get out, he was going to freak.

So we wait in line all while building up how awesome it was going to be to see Santa in an attempt to get Brady past the trauma of last year...

It's our turn...

Brady flat out refuses to sit on Santa's lap. As a matter of fact he turns and heads back to the line, to complete strangers. He wanted OUT. I get Ethan on his lap and Mason settled, snatch Brady up, toss him on Santa's lap, and jump back in an effort to snap a picture before the damn breaks and the seventh circle of hell breaks loose in the middle of Mall Santa's "Winter Wonderland."

And we get this... Besides the fact that two of my children look as if they are 22 and I am STILL making them take a picture with Santa, everyone is looking, no one is flailing like a rabid monkey, and no one is making the "AAAAAHHHHHHHHHH" face!

SUCCESS!

And go figure that as soon as the picture was snapped and Brady scrambled like he had a lion hot on his trail, he acted like it was nothing.

Then afterwards... A little spin on the mall train.

A little lunch at Steak and Shake. YUM.

And THIS is how a 1 year old can take up half of one king sized bed... But he sure is cute.

Magic Christmas in Lights

Every year a local attraction offers admission to what they have appropriately named the Magic Christmas in Lights.

Bellingrath Gardens is a gorgeous place no matter what time of year you go, with their sprawling gardens, fountains, and just all around gorgeousness. I mean this place gives even some of the most seasoned green thumb wielding granny's a run for their money... But at Christmas.... At Christmas this place is simply amazing.

They string up MILLIONS of lights throughout the property.

MILLIONS.

Think Griswolds and then multiply that by.... A million.

It is a huge attraction and if you don't time your visit just right, you WILL end up waiting in line for hours and having some random stranger glued to your elbows as you maneuver your way through the awesomeness.

We, as seasoned pros, timed our trip with the boys just right. We chose to go on a Wednesday night. We figured at the very least, church goers wouldn't be there, thus alleviating some of the crowding.

The boys LOVED it. As they do every year. (Minus Ethan, but he's still small so we will leave out his screaming throughout the majority of the visit. Next year he will love it.)

                                 

                   

   

    

             

      

Nothing like millions of Christmas lights illuminating little fat cheeks to put you into the Christmas spirit!