2011, Christmas Baking, Odds and ends, 2012, Baby......

As I sit here waiting for my cup of tea to brew (its got to be brewed for a good 5 minutes or it isn't tea. ;-) I'm thinking back on the past few weeks, indeed, actually the past months or the latter half of 2011. It was a great year in so many ways, definitely a year of growing (and not just because I'm pregnant, hah!:-D). I've always felt very close to Jay, he is such an awesome man and I love him very much but as we passed the 2 years married mark it obviously got me to thinking about things, being married and how different life is from even when we first married. I thought that when we married that we were really close, not that we couldn't grow closer but just that we were way ahead on being a newly married couple in that I trusted, adored, loved.....(you get the idea;-) him very much. But, all that said, I still realize how much closer we've actually grown together and if its possible, love each other more than that day over 2 years ago. LIFE IS GOOD!!!!

Oops...tea's brewed and the mail just arrived....be right back.........

Okay, where was I...? Oh, right! Getting really sappy....alright, I think ya'll know what I mean, at least those of you that are married will understand what I'm trying to say, hopefully its not so jumbled that you can't make head or tail of what I mean. :-)

Ahhh....there is nothing like a hot cup of tea with shortbread cookies....(except maybe a nice cup of coffee with a dollop of ice cream on top where the coffee is super hot and the ice cream is really cold and slowly melts into the coffee.....;-D)

This year (or actually, it was last year....;-) I decided to do homemade baking for Christmas gifts for family and try to make it fun and easy but really good.....good tasting I mean! :-) It sorta worked, it worked in that I got the fun and good tasting part down but easy was not, well, not so easy. ;-) Being almost eight months pregnant and staying up 'till 2:00 in the morning making apple butter was lots of fun but I did sort've crash the next day. Crash in that I had to drink four cups of strong coffee to stay awake because it was Christmas and I didn't want to miss anything. Silly reason I know but still. I loved making all the different goodies though and I would never have been able to do it without the awesome help from a super sister.....hats off to T.W.!!!!!!! She not only made several batches of Pumpkin Cranberry bread but also did the family recipe for Shortbread and gave loads of advice and encouragement as I fretted and worried over this or that. Thanks T.W! 
I do think that if I do it again I will plan much better, do things that can be done ahead of time much sooner...(like canned apple butter.....;-) and make sure I don't worry too much over what so and so might think about such and such. :-D Oh, and T.W very kindly took pictures for me to show you the end result of all that fun and yummy work which I will show in the next post since this one is getting very long.

I haven't made any New Years Resolutions really.....I did decide to get outdoors more but that's not too hard for me anyways so I don't think I'll count it as a resolution. Other things coming up in 2012 are baby of course! This pregnancy it seems like the months have gone by much quicker and that might be because we've not only been really busy but I've also felt better. Baby should arrive sometime next month, probably later rather than sooner and we'll see just which side of the collective cousins wins out....boys or girls. ;-) I do have an inkling as to what it might be but I'm not saying since I'm not sure enough and I will be really thrilled with either. :-)

Well, I think this post is long enough ;-) and so I shall say good evening and I'll be posting other random things very soon.