Caramel Corn and Puppy Chow

My mom makes homemade caramel corn from "Chester's Puffcorn" every year around Christmas. The best pieces are the ones that are extra 'buttery' and just seem to melt in your mouth. I always try to figure out which ones will taste like that, based on appearance, but I've never been able to master it, so I just keep eating until I find a good one. Then I think, "Oh, so that's what the good ones look like. I'll just eat one more like that and be done." But the next one is never like that, so I keep eating until I find another good one. This cycle can go on and on and on until I realize I've eaten half the container of caramel corn.

I have the same problem with puppy chow. I always want to end on one that has extra peanut-butter-chocolatey goodness, but have a tough time picking them out. It is a little easier with puppy chow though, because if two pieces are stuck together, it generally means that they have the p-b-c goodness, but they're hard to come by, so I try to find other good pieces.

You might be reading this and thinking, "Uhh, somebody's a little neurotic." I, however, am thinking "How in the world am I going to fit into my wedding dress if I keep eating like this?!?"

In the spirit

It's amazing how much happier and friendlier everyone is around the holidays. In the sales office today, we had a brunch. Everyone brought food and we actually sat around, with our General Manager, NOT WORKING, for close to an hour while we all ate and talked. This afternoon we had our All Staff Holiday Party. Everyone got a fleece blanket with the Gateway Logo on it and there was a present wrapping contest. You were randomly paired up with a partner and could only use one hand, that had to be adorned with a mitten. Aaron and his partner dominated the competition!! They finished in only 30 seconds and 2nd place finished in 48 seconds. We got an awesome prize and are super happy about it!!

As we left the hotel, all kinds of people that never talk to us otherwise were wishing us 'Happy Holidays' and the like. We also delivered some Christmas goodies to a few people tonight, which was fun, because everyone was so grateful. Then we spent the rest of our night wrapping up the last of our presents. It was awesome and wonderful.

COOKIES!!!

After working 67 hours this last week, Aaron had today off. I worked 40 hours and took all of my finals, so today was my first free day in a while as well. Let me tell you, it was a great day!! I never thought I'd say this, but I am so happy that I got to do dishes and laundry today!!

After eating breakfast together this morning, we spent the next couple hours (yes, more than one) doing dishes. It was very exciting when we got them all done. Then we started in on making Christmas cookies. We made 4 kinds of cookies and one kind of bars today. That's about half of our goodies. Amazingly, we only sampled a couple!! I don't think we gained more than a pound each ;-)

We did learn a couple things about making Nestle Tollhouse cookies that aren't flat. (1) Make sure your butter is soft to light pressure. If you need to soften it, microwave it at 30% for 10-15 seconds at a time. (2) If you're not adding nuts, add an extra 1-2 Tablespoons of flour. (3) Put your cookie sheets in the freezer for about a minute before using and make sure they are free of grease. If you do all of these things, your cookies will turn out nice and fluffy. We may or may not have to remake one batch of cookies, because we didn't know about all of these suggestions until afterwards.

Driving in Iowa weather

Next time you have to be out driving in Iowa's winter weather, I would suggest NOT having a 90 pound dog in the backseat as well and a 45 pound, 6-month old puppy in the front seat. It is not conducive to keeping both hands on the wheel and eyes on the road!!

Happy Birthday dear Fia-a-ance...

We're only a few hours into Aaron's birthday, but I've already learned a few things about making his day great.

#1--I should make sure the dogs don't start whining a half hour before we are going to get up.
#2--I shouldn't try making him breakfast, not even muffins from a box, because it just won't go right!!
#3--If I am going to attempt to make him breakfast, I should make sure I have everything I need for it.
#4--I should order up some weather that is above zero!!
#5--I need to try to remember all the surprises I have planned BEFORE we leave the house in the morning.
#6--I should blast Christmas music throughout the house all day long. There's not much he likes more than listening to Christmas music!!
#7--I should dress the dogs up in costumes and teach them to bark "Happy Birthday"

I guess above all though is making sure he has a great day and knows how much I love him. I think I can be successful at that!!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY AARON MICHAEL MORTVEDT!! YOU'RE THE BESTEST!!

Christmas Tree

For the second year, Aaron and I picked out a Christmas Tree together. We headed to Captain Jack's Tree Farm yesterday and cut down the best tree we could find. As you can see, I had an active part in cutting down the tree ;-) What you can't tell from this picture is how big our tree is. We thought it was a beauty and about the right height, but didn't really think much about how big around it was. Once we got it home, we had to trim it down and do a lot of pulling and shoving to get it through our door at home. It's amazing how being out in a 'winter wonderland' can impair our judgment on the size of the Christmas Tree.

We also remembered to go see the reindeer this year. They were very friendly and walked right up to the fence to greet us. It's so exciting to know that we have traditions together now!!