Merry holiday season

I made it through the holidays,, whew! Its a lot of work being the hostess with the mostess. I had my whole family over on Sat nite for a big appetizer party, and to exchange the family gifts.
Rochelle and I were busy making all the sinfully good food, here is a run down of what we made.

• Spinach Dip
• Fat loaf aka french loaf, this is so good, has cream cheese, cheddar, bacon and a bunch of other stuff and you dig out the inside of the french loaf and load in the cheesy mixture and bake for an hour and half.. then serve with bread to dip.. so good
• Honey garlic meatballs
• Cheese ball, got the recipe from Sage the secret is the flakes of ham..
• Pepperoni slices/pickles/olives
• Tortilla Chips and 3 layer dip - mom brought this
• veggie platter - Randy brought this
• Oriental party platter- Nicole brought
• shrimp ring- Mom brought, though we forgot to put it out and mom ended up taking it home

that was the main course, Rochelle and I actually dropped 2 dishes off the menu b/c my mom called and said she was bringing a bunch of stuff so we dropped the brushetta and the stuffed mushrooms.

Lotta food but seems like everyone enjoyed and ate alot..

We then opened the gifts which there were alot of for the grandkids. My dad went crazy this year shopping. He bought everything himself for the kids.. It was pretty cool.

Oh almost forgot, Rochelle had picked up these cute little tins from walmart and she made peppermint bark to put in them. We gave these to everyone as little gifts form coming.. How Martha Stewartt is that?? lol When I gave it too Nicole, she said, 'I am so glad Rochelle lives here' .. nice..

On Xmas eve Rochelle and I got busy tiling the slate in the ensuite. Got to try out the wet saw which aside from being messy works pretty good. We also mixed the mortar with a drill.. holy shit that is easier.. just like mixing cake batter.. why didn't we do this for the kitchen??? Oh well live and learn. ANyways we got 33 tiles laid and about 40 left to go.. Looks really good though I will post a pic later.

So far the visit with my dad and Mary is going ok. We put the spare bed down in the suite in the basement, its pretty nice down there, they have a couch a fridge etc.. more room than the old spare room/ensuite. plus there is a little space in the house when they go down to nap we have the upstairs to ourselves. They only thing that is driving me nuts is when I get up in the morning at 5am I like to do my computer thing, read blogs, drink my coffee ALONE... As soon as I get up good ole Mary comes up the stairs and joins me.. I don't feel like talking this early.. this is my time but she doesn't get it that I am not really talking back.. just responding with ya, oh, no kidding.. etcc.. today for some reason she is not up yet which is why I can blog.... I hope I have another hour atleast before I have to listen to her again..

So yesterday I woke up rochelle by 7am to open our presents. It was pretty funny how excited she got when she opened up her vacuum... now I know that most women would find a vacuum a bad gift, but Rochelle has been wanting a good vacuum forever..I have an old Rainbow that my mom gave me and we both hate it.. so she was doing a little vacuum dance when she opened it.. lol I also got her a fancy toolbag for her new job. Its made for telecom/electrical work and looks like a sachel you where across your chest.. really cool and fashionable. I also got her a photo printer. This is more of a household gift but she has been wanting one so she can do her scrap booking again.
I got a new copy of Running with scissors from Addie, since she ate my last one.. lol I thought that was cute, plus Dewie gave me the other book from him,, can't recall the name right now. I got 2 roots shirts from Rochelle, a 50 dollar starbucks card and a gift certificate (homemade) to get my windows tinted in the spring.. pretty cool eh?/
Rochelle and I did pretty good in the couple gifts, my mom gave us 300 dollars to buy stuff for the ensuite.. pretty generous.. My dad gave us 100.
Oh and Rochelles parents got us matching jammies from la senza , some socks and her mom gave me 100 dollars to spend on myself (she put that on the card).. I have officially become a spouse member of the family according to Rochelle. Pretty cool :)

Then yesterday we cooked a bird with all the trimmings for my dad / mary and my brother came over. Was really good.

So that is my xmas ina nut shell, Hope everyones xmas was good as well and that santa treated you good.. :)

Margo