Snow Leads to Christmas

 Last night our dining room and staircase hallway were finished and painted. I love how the color looks with the dark wood. I guess after living in places with white walls we're both pretty excited about painting our walls.

 We could now put our dining room back together.

 It snowed more than an inch for the first time all year. Brooke shoveled the last time, so I was out the door, clearing the sidewalk and driveway.

 

I hoped that I'd have breakfast waiting for me when I got back inside, but Brooke was busy putting stuff back in the dining room. Less than a week later our house was back to normal.

 I also brought out all our Christmas decorations. Scott was pretty upset that breakfast wasn't made when he came back in.

Brooke wanted waffles, but I thought we should use our new griddle.

 We planned on getting a Christmas tree, so Brooke brought out the Minnesota Growers map to find a tree farm nearby. 

 Meanwhile I greased the new griddle with Brooke's homemade butter. 

Thanks mom for the new griddle!

While she prepped things for peanut butter cups.

Usually every year I try to bake a million things a few days before Christmas. I ended up staying up late and spending all my free time doing this. Scott came up with the good idea to make one thing at a time. We thought one a week would be good, but since we both a sweet tooth we decided on two treats a week. 

The new griddle didn't heat as evenly as the old one. Cast iron takes longer to heat, so the different size flame in the front and back threw it off.

Scott loves his pancakes like I love oatmeal.

Brooke finally got to use our new chalkboard.

After breakfast I melted chocolate while Brooke combined the peanut butter with powdered sugar.

There's like 3 ingredients in peanut butter cups. Why so much other added ingredients Reese's? Why?

They looked so promising.

 While I finished making the candy and washing dishes, Scott did this.

The pb cups cooled quickly. Unfortunately the shortening we added to temper the chocolate was way past expiration. The chocolate tasted like cardboard and shortening. I was surprised by this since there wasn't much in there.

 We finished our decorating. Scott didn't think our car could handle a real tree so we pulled out our tree forest instead.

 Scott got bored quickly.

I get tired from putting up all the Christmas tree decorations.

Before we met with Tyler, Emma and Olive for Ikea dinner, we headed south along the lakes to our favorite antique store.

 Last winter and spring we went to Hunt and Gather quite a bit.

I hadn't been back since I picked up numbers from what I'd call the number and letter room for my photo show.

They were having one of their big sales again. We didn't find anything we needed or wanted this time.

We stopped by Bachman's for a wreath, but then decided they were too expensive. Instead we meandered about looking at all the overpriced indoor trees and knickknacks.

We had nothing else to do, so we headed over to Ikea where they keep you safe by dulling the knives.

Here's an embarrased Brooke with her only purchase.

He love's doing this. 

 He also loves doing this.

While I checked out, Brooke tried out some Glogg. We have a bunch of bottles at home to drink this year. 

To our surprise they were already upstairs when we came to wait for them.

They're a big family now so they needed the tray cart.

Brooke and I decided to share a salad, apple torte, mash and meatballs. Tyler really wanted to come and get this for a while. On Saturday I told him I wouldn't come to Ikea because they no longer carried Daim. I guess we caved in.

 Now you can eat your meatballs on a stick.

 What would dinner be without Olive?

 I guess she didn't like her carrots.

We finished the night with knitting and Harry Potter, that is until Brooke found out she was working on Monday. Darny.