Thursday, November 29, 2007

My Christmas Wish List

I've been kind of making a list of some things I'd like for Christmas:

Barenaked Ladies: Disc One – All Their Greatest Hits
Shopaholic and Baby by Sophie Kinsella (in paperback) along with Undomestic Goddess also by Kinsella
Energizer e2 AA Lithium Batteries
The Simpsons on DVD – seasons 6 and up
Nintendo DS Lite In pink, naturally with Brain Age and Brain Age 2
A fast laptop with wireless internet and Windows XP
Clinique's All About Eyes

And I'm trying to think of things to get for Lauren still.

Here's a small portion of Ben's list. Let me know if you buy anything on it so I can remove it:

-Glade apple cinnamon scented candles
-mouse pad
-pumpkin seeds
-funny nose and glasses

As soon as I get a good list for Lauren I'll post it.

Wednesday, November 28, 2007

Mailing to Ben

You can start mailing packages to Ben! They are there and the address that I sent to you (with the line including 6061) is correct. He doesn't have a big list, but he did ask for Dunkin' Donuts coffee and glade apple cinnamon candles. :)

I also wanted to share this funny video:



If you have a few minutes, fill out this form to enter Ben to get a whole case of Dunkin' Donuts coffee for free.

Saturday, November 24, 2007

Thanksgiving!

I wanted to share the recipes I used for this year's feast. We decided to make homemade cranberry sauce, especially since the recipe was so easy, and I made Paula Deen's apple pie again. I was going to make the green bean casserole, too, but another person brought theirs, and arrived right before I was going to start mine, so I didn't make more. Good thing, we had leftovers of EVERYTHING. It was all delicious.

Cranberry Sauce

INGREDIENTS
· 1 cup white sugar
· 1 cup orange juice
· 1 (12 ounce) package fresh cranberries
DIRECTIONS
1. In a medium saucepan over medium heat, dissolve the sugar in the orange juice. Stir in the cranberries, and cook until they start to pop (about 10 minutes). Remove from heat, and transfer to a bowl. Cranberry sauce will thicken as it cools.

I know, I told you, super easy, right?! And the cranberries really do "pop". This had such a delicious smell to it, and it tasted a lot like the orange juice. I could have even done less orange juice with a little apple or something, like 1/2 cup of each. Maybe next year I'll experiment a little.


Paula Deen Apple Pie
3/4 cup sugar
1 tablespoon all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
Dash salt
3 1/2 cups peeled, chopped cooking apples
1 (16-ounce) jar applesauce
1 tablespoon lemon juice
2 tablespoons butter, chopped into small pieces
2 premade pie crusts

Preheat oven to 425 degrees F.
Line a 9-inch pie pan with one crust. Combine the sugar, flour, cinnamon, and salt in a bowl. Stir in the apples, applesauce, and lemon juice. Spoon the apple mixture into pie pan and dot with butter. Cut remaining crust into strips; arrange in a lattice design over top of pie.
Bake for 10 minutes, then reduce heat to 350 degrees F and continue to bake for about 45 minutes, or until crust is golden brown.

We topped the apple pie with whipped cream since we had it out already for the pumpkin pie. mmmmm!

Wednesday, November 21, 2007

Kuwait, Ear Infection, T-shirts

Ben is now in Kuwait. It will be a little while before he gets to Iraq, and that's just fine with me. He could stay the entire deployment in Kuwait and I'd be thrilled. We've gotten to talk on yahoo messenger a few times and he's gotten to see Lauren on the webcam. Hopefully we'll get a better connection in his room in Iraq so she can see him, too.

Thanksgiving is tomorrow! Lauren and I will be going to Katrina's house. It will be Katrina and her three daughters, Arlie and her son and daughter, Kim and her son and daughter, Amy and her son and niece, and Katrina's brother with his girlfriend. Packed house! I'll be making an apple pie, cranberry sauce, and the green bean casserole. I'm looking forward to hanging out with everyone and eating lots of good food.

Lauren has an ear infection. She started acting sick last Thursday and I took her to see the pediatrician on Monday. She's on antibiotics now and already doing a lot better. She'll have to stay on the medicine until Saturday morning.

We got our T-shirts back yesterday! Thanks to everyone who bought one! I'll get them all packaged up and I'll try to get them out on Saturday or early next week. Our final total raised was over $700! We should be able to plan some great events with that money.

This year for Christmas, Lauren and I will be driving to Albuquerque. I only plan to stay about a week and a half, and hopefully the weather will cooperate for smooth driving. I'm going to save flying to California until after the holidays when maybe I'll feel less stressed out about it and everyone has a little more time to hang out.

Oh, and for everyone that I send Ben's mailing address to: please hold on and let me get you the more current info. We've been notified of a change, and I'll send it out in an email as soon as we have the right (or at least newest) information.
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