Monday -December 19th

Here is the 9 ft. tree in our family room

My oldest suprised me with this little tree in our front room!

Merry Christmas Everyone!   After Christmas I will be much better about blogging, but right now my life is crazy!!  I'm sure it's the same with all of you too.   I'm pretty happy right now because I got on the scale this week and I am officially down a pound - 167lbs!  In fact my scale went back and forth between 166 to 167 for awhile before it settled on 167.  So I am happy, even for that small loss!!  I have been pretty good about keeping to the BFC so far this month.  I had the one cheat I told you about last blog and then the other night we went to Chili's and I had Salsa and Chips.  But other than that, no cheats!  To not feel deprived at the holiday time I made myself a bunch of the Mexican coffees that Dawn talked about on her blog one time.  I love it with some cinnamon and cayenne in it and then topped with Reddi Whip. Yum!  I also made a few "treats" that I could have instead of the traditional Christmas cookies.  I always make rum cakes at Christmas and thought maybe I could re-invent that into a BFC rum cake.  I took Jeri's orange pound cake recipe and changed it up by adding 3 tsps. of rum extract to it and after it was finished I made a glaze with 1/4 of butter, a few tsps. of Truvia and a glug or two of rum that you heat up and spoon of top of the finished "cake".  I think it came out pretty good! Here is the recipe if you want it.

Rum Cake-
350 degrees- 30 min. baking time in muffin tins
Mix in bowl-until well blended:
5 eggs
1/2 stick melted butter
1 C almond milk
2/3 C water
3 t rum extract
9 pkg. Stevia
1 T apple cider vinegar
1/4 cup chopped pecans for bottom of pan
In separate bowl sift:
1 C coconut flour
2 t baking powder
1/4 t salt
Mix well - wet/dry ingredients together.  Line loaf pan with parchment paper and sprinkle bottom of pan with 1/4 cup chopped pecans. Pour in batter. Cook at 350' for about 45-60 minutes,cool and flip out upside down onto plate so nuts are on top.


 Glaze:  In saucepan melt 1/4 cup butter, 3pkts truvia  after melted and hot add 1/4 cup rum.  It will steam!  Stir constantly for a couple minutes and then spoon over rum cake.

My other treat was something I found on Pinterest:  Almond flour Gingerbread Cookies!  These came out really cute.  The recipe makes twelve gingerbread men.  I don't decorate them or anything but they taste very similar to real gingerbread men and it's fun to have one when everyone else is eating cookies!   You can find the recipe for these here:http://mariahealth.blogspot.com/2010/12/gingerbread-cookies.html

The rest of this week is going to be extremely hectic!  I just found out yesterday that my girlfriend from Richmond, VA is going to come up this week with her two young kids to visit her mother.  She asked me yesterday if she could come here on either Wed. or Thursday and stay over.  Yikes!  Plus my parents emailed me over the weekend and asked if they could come for dinner on Friday after they visit with my brother, so that we can exchange presents.  They are going to my other brother's house for Christmas and he never invites ANYONE over.  On Christmas Eve we are going to my brother-in-laws house by orders from my mother-in-law.  He lives about an hour and half away from us in Virginia but we HAVE to go.  Christmas Day we just be my family for most of the day and then after dinner we will go to my brother's house for desert.  His wife prefers everyone to come AFTER dinner for cookies and punch.  (I'll bring my treat). I also have to move my son out of his college dorm on Tuesday and bring him home, so that leaves just today to get everything done!  I must mail my Christmas cards, wrap all the presents, and bake some regular Christmas cookies for guests, plus shop for Christmas dinner, and my parents dinner, and my girlfriends dinner!  I thought I had all week!!  You can be so organized and then things like this happen.  It is the norm for my life! In the end, it will all be OK and fun!(I hope)
I probably won't be back on the blogs this week until things go back to normal.  I wanted to wish all of you a very Merry Christmas or Happy Hanukkah, or both!!  My gift to myself this year has been getting myself healthy and my gift from all you all has been the support you've given me all this year!! Thank you!

Happy Holidays from my family to yours!!