Christmas is over!

I thought about adding a frownie face after that title. Well, I did add one, but then I hit the backspace key and made it a smiley face instead.  And then I deleted that too, so that people wouldn't think I'm some pagan or something horrid like that.  As much as I loved Christmas and all the craziness that comes with it I was exhausted for most of my trip.  I did too much, as usual.

Also as usual, my granddaughterly guilt got the best of me and I worked hard to snuff it while I was in town. Mama and Papa aren't doing much cooking anymore, so I try to make a ton of healthy meals while I'm there so they can have some choices in the freezer. I made Senegalese peanut soup, chicken divan casserole, Italian beef (or turkey) and polenta casserole, baked ziti, a huge batch of meat sauce, butternut squash casserole, salsa and black bean soup, crockpot minestrone, and a couple loaves of harvest bread.

A couple of my triumphs.

I'm really not crazy. I've been tested.
Other than that, I was busy hanging out with kiddos and taking way too many pictures.  Here are a few of my favorites:

Holy cuteness.  This Christmas just had to go and kick every other Christmas I have ever had in the groin.  Children make the holidays so much better.  Their excitement and crazy antics made even my favorite childhood Christmas (the year I got the TI-83 plus graphing calculator... yeah I'm a nerd, why do you ask?) seem just silly.  Watching those kiddos grow up is going to keep me young, I think.  :-D

It was a really great visit.  I also went out to a fondue dinner with besties Cassie and Elisha (so much easier than buying presents for each other!) and then went out to the pub to see other friends as well.  For several days my calorie count lingered at around 2100 calories... on Christmas it was at 2700.  I'm not proud, but at least I was honest with myself.  How many people actually count points or calories during the holidays?  This is quite difficult at the in-law's home where the wine seems to just magically appear in your glass when you could have sworn you just finished it a second ago...

Our trip was just about the perfect length of time- our families were just starting to drive us crazy (kidding!).  But, we were missing our bed at home and I had finally caved in and started taking steroids to calm my lupus and it was making me feel wonky.  It was around time to take our leave at day seven. In fact, it was actually cut a tiny bit short by a winter storm warning the night before we were due to leave.  We packed it up in record time and missed ALL of the storm.  We were very thankful to have such great weather and road conditions on the drive up and back.  I was not prepared to have huge anxiety attacks (at least not on the ride up to Spokane... on my way back I brought extra "juice", a tip from my awesome MIL!).

Now that Christmas is over we have to get back on track.  All the laundry is clean (just not hung up), we've discussed tearing down the tree (frownie face), and I purchased many of the ingredients for my upcoming Food Lover's Cleanse (more to come!).  In a day or so I'll go over the rest of my plans for the new year.... it's time to focus on Kara!

I hope everyone had a great holiday!  

Celebrate SAFELY tomorrow night and have a Happy New Year!