In the midst of the holiday mayhem....

...A birthday!

Kim turned 24 yesterday. She was coming over for dinner after work, so I got up and put some beef stroganoff in the crockpot (her request)...baked her cake (cherry chip, her request)...made a loaf of bread...washed the dishes, cleaned up the house....headed out to do some last minute Christmas shopping....came home and helped Jake make a card for Kim....at which time I thought to myself how wonderful it would be to just. close. my. eyes.

Looked at the clock and saw that it was 4:40! Nope, no time for a cat nap. Went back to the kitchen and started making a huge batch of noodles for the stroganoff. (I love me some homemade noodles...mmmm.....) Before I knew it Kim was there and we were ready for a wonderful birthday dinner. Unfortunately her husband Drew didn't show up for quite a while but we warmed up dinner for him when he got here. Meanwhile my parents came for cake (no ice cream....silly me forgot it during my trip out in the afternoon) and coffee and a nice visit.

Kim got a bread maker and electric knife from us. Kaitlyn gave her a sweater, and Jake gave her a bag of bread flour, some yeast, and powdered milk. So she's all set to make bread! I hope she enjoys her bread maker as much as I love mine.

My bread machine is getting a workout right now. We are in the process of making 6 dozen dinner rolls for the first of our Christmas celebrations on Saturday (the BIG one with Mike's side of the family...probably about 50 of us in all).

I am also going to make the dough for Christmas morning cinnamon rolls in the machine. And will probably make a loaf of bread sometime tomorrow since we are out.

Sunday is our second celebration with my parents, and my brother and his family. I have made a cheesecake for that, and also 2 more cheesecakes that will be cut into quarters, wrapped in foil, and frozen, and this will be my brother's Christmas gift. He LOVES cheesecake, and I did this for him about 5 years ago and he says it was one of his favorite gifts, so I figured it was time for a repeat.

I still have 2 Christmas gifts to finish knitting. One is going to be late, but thankfully the recipient is very understanding of my procrastination. (Hi Maria!) I'm pretty sure I can finish up the other one tomorrow. I have another gift that will be late, but once again....good friends understand (Hi Jane!)

So tomorrow is my last day to get it all done. Then it's 3 days of Christmas. After celebrating in a big way with both of our families Saturday and Sunday, it will be so nice to stay home on Christmas day, just the 6 of us. (Kim and Drew will spend the night Christmas Eve to be there for the fun in the morning, as has become their tradition). We will get up "whenever", open our gifts in a leisurely fashion, stop for breakfast when the mood strikes, and then just hang out. Maybe watch a movie, maybe take a nap.....eat whatever and whenever we feel like it...stay in our jammies if that feels right. We don't go anywhere on Christmas, nor do we have people over. Too many years we were running around on Christmas day and I finally put an end to it. I'm so glad we have turned our Christmas day into a "just us" day. It feels right.

Happy Holidays to you all!