Christmas and other stuff

The kids are with the ex for the week visiting his family.  They have recently announced they see huge positives in having divorced parents -- the fact that Santa visits two houses.  [Insert huge eye roll from me] Just lovely.  My children.  Always seeing the glass half full. 

I miss them terribly, but the baby has a horrible bout of bronchitis (as does my poor hubby who stayed home today).  So I'm glad they are off having fun and not stuck with mama and the sick baby.  The pediatrician has her on round the clock dosing of Benadryl, so I have certainly caught up on my lack of sleep.   

For Christmas my wonderfully sweet hubby gave me this lovely Vera Bradley bag.  It's huge and has a zipper, which is what you need in a purse/diaper bag all in one.  I love it!  It holds everything including cloth diapers and a sling all in one, and I can zip it closed so it doesn't dump everything the minute I set it down and it falls over. 

He also got me a very nice hard wallet that looks like this one pictured, but it doesn't have that strap.  With the amount of cards I have to carry from insurance cards to business cards and everything else for the kids, I need a HUGE wallet, lol.  This one seems to be doing the trick.

My quilting mama wants to do craft fairs and I'm going to do them with her.  She wants us to make mug rug sets and include mugs with them.  Well...I found the deal of the day at Walmart.  They are getting rid of Christmas stuff and they have a package of 1 dozen porcelain mugs with golden rims for $2.40.  I bought the last 2 boxes they had and was very proud of my 20 cents/mug deal.  They even have a lot of toys 50% off, if you need anything. Since it was just the 3 of us, hubby, the baby and I played in the toys and Xmas stuff at Walmart last night for about an hour.

Since I've had a sick baby who is only interested in nursing 24 hours a day, I've been reading and watching movies.  I rented Devil on Dish last night.  I love M. Night Shyamalan movies because they are so Hitchcockian and this one I enjoyed to the last minute.  Though, I have a very analytical mind and constantly try to guess the ending of everything.  It's like some weird OCD thing which I think stems from my reading way too many books.  

In the beginning of the movie after I got a look at all 5 characters, I guessed correctly who the devil was but began doubting myself until the very end.  The story involves 5 strangers in an elevator and as events unfold, the story reveals that one of them is the Devil and will end up killing them all before stealing them away to hell.  With five people in a tiny room, you are still guessing until the very end who did it. And apparently, I just read, this is the first chapter in a series called The Night Chronicles. 

I have this theory...

that Great Wolf Lodge is much like Chuck E Cheese or a McDonald's playground because we all came home with some nasty respiratory infection.  My poor little baby is the sickest probably compounded by her well baby visit and vax's, complete with puking on mommy a few times (at least it's only breastmilk coming back up).  I've been running a fever, hubby came home early a couple days ago and expired on the bed (lol), and Em seems to have the mildest case of it.  Whatever it is, it makes you extremely tired.

Today I made the yummiest pumpkin muffins...evah. I love to bake, and it's hubby's turn to bring food for a meeting at work.  I made a knockoff of some pumpkin cream cheese muffins from Starbucks.  I found a recipe online and changed a few things to my liking (i.e. I did not want to go to the store to buy the missing ingredients and my version sounded better).  They were so moist, and the cream cheese center was so good, better than icing. 

I forgot to take a picture, but they are so damn good, melt in your mouth with a little bit o'cheesecake in the middle.

Pumpkin Cheesecake Muffins

Cream Cheese Filling
8 oz cream cheese - softened
1 tsp vanilla
1 cup powdered sugar

With mixer, whip cream cheese, vanilla, and powdered sugar til well mixed.  Take a sheet of wax paper and roll it into a log, wrap ends closed, and freeze for 2-3 hours.

Pumpkin Muffins
1 tsp cinnamon
4 tsp pumpkin pie spice
1 tsp salt
1 tsp baking soda
4 eggs
2 cups white sugar
1 1/4 cups oil
1 can of pumpkin
3 cups flour
nuts (whole walnuts or pecans) optional


Preheat oven to 350.  Mix eggs and sugar, add oil, pumpkin, salt, soda, cinnamon, and pumpkin pie spice until well mixed.  Add flour gradually while mixing until all is mixed well.  Fill muffin cups 2/3 full.  Take frozen log of cream cheese mixture and cut into squares about 3/4 inch x 3/4 inch.  Insert a square of cream cheese mixture into the middle of each muffin batter.  Bake for 20-25 minutes, until toothpick inserted into muffin comes out clean (do not insert into cheesecake mixture).  Let sit in muffin tins for approximately 5 minutes before removing. 


Yields 24 muffins