souffle on Christmas morning

I made a French Toast Souffle for breakfast on Christmas morning.  Thought I’d share the recipe.  Jason and I thought it was just okay, but the kids LOVED it and scarfed a couple of servings each down.  I think if I make it again, it will be mostly for them and I’ll halve the recipe.  I made a few changes based on a reviewer’s suggestions, here’s what my recipe ended up looking like:

10 cups bread cubes (I used Sarah Lee’s Brown Sugar Cinnamon bread - yummy!)
4 oz cream cheese
1/2 stick butter
6 eggs
1.5 cups heavy cream
1/4 cup maple syrup (I used a splash or two more)
3/4 tsp vanilla (I used a splash more)
powdered sugar and cinnamon for garnish

In a small bowl stir cream cheese, butter and maple syrup.  Microwave for one minute, stir until melted together.  pour over bread cubes (in generously greased 9×13 pan).

Combine eggs, vanilla and heavy cream.  Pour over top of bread cubes, sprinkle with cinnamon and refrigerate overnight.

Let stand out for half hour in the morning before baking.  Bake for 1 hour at 375.  (mine got very brown on top, so keep an eye on it!)

back to real life

It seems like it’s been forever since I’ve been home alone with the kids while Jason worked.

 Jag had half a day on the 14th, which also happened to be the day his Aunt Sara came into town for a weekend visit.  At the last minute, the kids and I hopped into the car and followed her home to Orlando to surprise my Mom.  Poor Mom had been so down about not seeing the kids since April, and especially not seeing them around the holidays.  The surprise was awesome.  There’s video of it on my dropshots account, if you have that link.  I think it’s on my Elsewhere page, if not I’ll come back and link it in the comments of this entry.

So anyway, we were in Orlando for the whole week.  Got home Friday night (drove the entire 9.5 hours with 2 kids all by myself - go me!!), then Saturday morning Jason’s Dad came in for a weekend visit.  Jason was off work Sat, Sun, Mon, Tue and Wednesday.  So today is his first day back to work, and therefore my first day back to real life in *counting on fingers* two weeks!  Eeep!

So far so good, Jag’s only been sent to his room once so far, and Kat’s already down for her nap.

For those of you who watch my flickr stream, I’ve mentioned briefly in my private photos but I’ll mention it here as well for those who don’t have access - I took all my kids and family photos private last week.  Honestly, the orkut thing never really bothered me much.  It was just annoying.  But then I had a large, nationwide builder steal my photos, make and frame prints, and hang them in their model homes - all without asking and without paying for them.  They were my personal, family photos - photos of the kids, of me and Jason, even of my Mom and her husband.  That really upset me.  I’m still dealing with that.  And then I was alerted to a flickr account last week where someone had stolen and used pics of Jag in their stream.  That was pretty much the last straw.  All along I’ve been very aware that this sort of thing could happen, and I took the orkut stuff in stride.  But I just got tired of worrying about it.  Tired of wondering who else was stealing my pictures that hadn’t been caught yet.  Flickr’s not as much fun when you keep everything private, but I feel good about my decision.  Maybe later down the road when there’s not much activity on my stream, I can start sharing publicly again and keep a low profile so as to not attract the thieves.

In the meantime, I will still share some here because the general public on flickr does not know about this blog.  I’ve got a smaller number of people checking in, and yes I’m googable, but I’m just not as easily found here.  However, there will always be more shared for family and friends on flickr.  If you are reading and would like access, and you aren’t a weirdo thief, then leave a comment here with the link to your flickr stream and I’ll add you as a friend.  (or you can flickr mail me if you’d feel more comfortable)

Moving on… lots of other stuff going on too.  For instance, we cancelled our Costa Rica trip.  No fun, eh?  Two reasons.  One, Kat is still nursing, and recently she’s picked up the nursing a good bit (not really sure why)… we don’t feel good about the idea of weaning her for a vacation since she’s only 19 months old.  And two, we decided that although we’d love to go to Costa Rica one day, we’d rather go to Peru first.  And March isn’t the time to go to Peru.  We’ll have to schedule that for another time, maybe next year during the summer months.  So now we’re trying to figure out what we’ll do with our March time.  Jag has 3 weeks off school for spring break, and I refuse to sit home those entire three weeks.  I’m thinking of maybe renting a cabin in Maggie Valley for a week and inviting my family to come stay with us (hopefully Jason could make it too, but we recently found out that one of his employees might be leaving soon so we’re not counting on it - I guess another good reason we decided against Costa Rica, eh?)

This is getting long.  I still have plenty more to say but I’m sure nobody wants to read it all in one entry, so hopefully I’ll remember to post more later.  Hope you all had a Merry Christmas and you have a Happy New Year!

Oh, a couple of pics!

 

all before 10am

(well, it was before 10am when I started typing this anyway… )

I’ve washed the sheets, washed the dishes and bought groceries already this morning.  Woohoo for a good night’s sleep (the first in AGES) and some strong coffee!  ;-P

Still trying to get back into the hang of life again.  Some of us are still sick.  One or more of us has been sick at all times since before Halloween, it’s getting old.  I can’t wait for us all to be healthy again so we can enjoy the cool weather and the holidays.

Speaking of holidays, I’m trudging along.  Jag and I put the tree up over the holiday weekend.  He was such a huge help!  I totally underestimated him, he did at least 1/3rd of putting the tree up (fake tree again this year, one day I’ll talk Jason into a real one) and put on more than half of the ornaments.  Granted, he likes to bunch the ornaments up into spots along the middle of the tree still but he had fun and it got the job done (I went back and only moved a few, didn’t want him to notice I moved them but did want some ornaments on other parts of the tree, hehe).

I took a new route with the tree this year.  I didn’t get out any of the old family ornaments.  I feel kinda lousy about it, but the majority of them are breakable and I just didn’t want to fret about the kids touching (which is inevitable).  So I bought all new, unbreakable ornaments.  Lots of plastic, wood and paper. I did the whole thing in a theme of red, white and silver (with the occasional green ornament tossed in for good measure).  It’s actually quite pretty, if I do say so myself.  ;-)  And it’s GREAT not having to worry about little fingers exploring the decor!

Also bought all new stockings and tree skirt.  I get bored with them so easily, so buying new is a bad habit of mine.  Most of the trim (silks, candles, etc) can be re-used no matter what my theme, but my stockings are usually retired every 2 years or so.  This year I got cute, felt craft-style from Macy’s (I think they were from the Martha Stewart line) - ya know, for the $10 I spent on them each (on sale), they’re really very nice.  Just as good of quality as my Pottery Barn stockings from the past years, if not better.  Honestly!  (and this after I went all over town, spent 4 hours going into 7 or 8 stores looking for stockings - I saw a lot of shapes, styles, colors and qualities)

Also finally broke down and got something to count down Christmas with.  I’ve been looking at advent calendars for ages, of all different types.  The little wooden houses, the calendar looking kinds you hang on the wall, etc.  Ended up going with a Kaethe Kruse advent stocking garland that was probably over priced, but is just so so darling.  I hung it up on the mantel already and the kids love looking at all the different little stockings.  Now I just need to go out and get some little treats to stuff in them!  Jag can’t wait for December 1st!

Oh and speaking of my mantel - I’m almost done.  I went a bit overboard this year, it looks kind of overdone but I still love it.  I’ll post a photo when I’m done, still need to add my “G” monogram letter on the mirror and still need to decide if I’m going to add lights or just leave it as greenery, berries and candles.

Welp, that’s enough rambling about my Christmas decorations.  I’ll spare you the long list of things I still need to do.  ;-P

One of these days I’ll type up an update on the kids.  They’re doing really well, of course with the typical challenges, but still - really well.