Merry Christmas (a couple days early)

 Merry Christmas Everyone!!

I thought I'd better wish everyone a Merry Christmas now while I have a chance.  I really like being part of this blogging community and though I've never met any of you, I feel I know you a little because of these blogs. I think about all of you as you go about your day to day joys and struggles with this diet and life in general.

For this blog I thought I'd just share a little of what I'm making to eat to help me through the holidays!  Only my husband and I were home last night (weird) and we had the best soup and sandwich meal ever.  I wish I had taken a picture of everything, but anyway, here is what we had.   The soup was a spicy butternut squash soup with black beans, red peppers and cilantro, that I found over here on kalynskitchen.com.  Then, because I LOVE to watch the show Top Chef, I got inspiration from a sandwich challenge they had and made a really good sandwich on some homemade Flax Meal Focaccia Bread.  I cut the bread into sandwich squares and then mashed up some avocado mixed with lemon juice, garlic and a little olive oil, and spread that on the bread.  Next some carmelized onion and cooked cherry tomatos, cheddar cheese, smoked turkey and bacon!  Yum!   It was a little messy to eat but SO good.

For Christmas I have alreay made regular gingerbread cutout cookies decorated with icing, ginger spiced chocolate chip cookies, meltaway bars, and snowtopped mint chocolate cookies for the boys and any guests we might have.   For me, my husband, oldest son, and his girlfriend I'm making Maria's Healthified Italian Pillow Cookies, New Chocolate Chip Cookies ( I use Jay Robb vanilla whey and sugar free chips instead of the chocoperfection bar), and lastly Orange Pound Cake from Jeri's old blog (I miss Jeri).  I might even make some more lemon coconut bread for Christmas breakfast....remember how much we used to all make that?!  I love having goodies sitting out in old fashioned tins for the holidays and this way we can have things to grab all the way until New Years.

 I tried to take a picture of our two trees this morning with my cell phone, but my phone doesn't have the greatest camera.

   So I'm almost finished with everything, just have to to a little more baking today, wrap the last few presents and then I'm ready.  My oldest son and his girlfriend are coming to stay with us on Christmas Eve and into the holidays.  I tried to get my dad to come for the day, but he doesn't want to go anywhere this year, which I can understand.  It will be a little sad for him.  The Thursday after Christmas my family and I are going to go down and see him and take him out to an old Inn for dinner and then stay the night at his house.  I might try and get my brother and his family to come too.  On Christmas day my husbands's parents are coming over to see us.  They take care of two mentally handicapped people through the county that they live in, so those "ladies"(they seem like kids to me even though they are in their forties) will be coming too.  I bought them coloring books, crayons and slinkies so they'll have something to open over here. 

For Christmas day I started a tradition of NOT having a big dinner and instead I set up a buffet in the mid-afternoon for everyone to get food as they want.  This year I think I'm putting out fried mozzarella and sugar-free marinara sauce, spinach artichoke dip and tortilla chips, a spiral ham, rolls (for those that want to turn the ham into a sandwich), a crock-pot of spicy meatballs, deviled eggs, and a huge veggie tray.  Also all the goodies listed above.  Most of this stuff I make ahead and that gives me a chance to enjoy the day with everyone too and not be stuck in the kitchen.  Plus I realized from years past, that when everyone is home on Christmas, spending a lot of the day in their PJ's, and snacking on goodies,  no one seems to want a huge dinner that night anyway.  

                                  Merry Christmas Everyone and Happy New Year to all of you!

The gift of love. The gift of peace. The gift of happiness. May all these be yours at Christmas

Christmas is Coming

Hello Everyone

Where have I been!?  I know, it's been quite awhile since I posted.  Thanksgiving has come and gone and now it almost time for Christmas!   I'm not sure what my problem is with blogging lately, I just haven't been motivated to put anything down these days.  My Thanksgiving was a little hard at my Dad's house with my Mom being gone and everything.  It was a little sad for me to use her pots and pans knowing the last time she used them she had no idea what was about to happen to her.  On the plus side, it was nice spending time with my older brother and his family since they stayed at Dad's house too.  Also, I think having us all there made everything a little easier for my Dad .  We were sad, but we did a lot of laughing too.

-So now it is time to get ready for Christmas.  I have the house decorated, but have just only begun my shopping, sigh.  We put up one little tree for the front living room and we are going out this weekend to cut down the big one for the family room.  This is going to sound awful, but this stuff used to be so much fun and lately it's all seemed a little bit like a chore.  The boys are much more into it then I am I think.  Even my oldest, that has his own apartment,  is coming home for the day on Sunday to help pick out and decorate the tree.  I'm sure I'll be more into things as they start happening.  I hope anyway.

Remember how my weight was up six pounds and then I lost three of those six pounds?   Well, I'm back up those six pounds again!  Ugh!!   What did I do wrong this time?   I'm pretty sure that it's because I had a lot of beer with my dad and my brother over Thanksgiving.  I bought Michelob Ultra, which is supposed to be the best beer as far as carbs go, but over the four days I was at my Dad's house I had nine beers.  Oh well.  I really felt like having them so that is that. Food wise I did pretty well, and think I stuck to the BFC.   One thing that was different for me this past month was I stopped taking my probiotics because I ran out of them.  I recently bought two more bottles and starting using them again.  I think they really do make a difference.  I also decided the "no snacking at all" rule did not do me too much good except for the first week.  I've decided to make some more BFC friendly treats to get me through the holidays.  As long as I don't overdo them I think they'll be OK at least for this month.  Today I bought a little donut pan that I've been wanting to try out.  In fact, as I'm typing this, I've just put my last batch of almond flour donuts sweetened with stevia into the oven.   The pan looks like this

 I used Maria Emmerich's recipe for Peanut Flour Donuts.  Since I didn't have any peanut flour I used almond meal flour and used Z-Sweet for my sweetener.  Here is how they look all done.

They came out pretty good. My husband and I are going to try and get an early start Christmas shopping tomorrow morning so I thought it would be nice to have something to grab and go. 

I'm going to go catch up on the blogs now and see how everyone else is doing. 

 Why do my dogs not want to wear their Santa hats?!!!

Hogwarts Express coming around the village under the tree.