It was a busy day at Nordie’s today! Lots of returns and exchanges and good stuff.

I started off my day right!

Mmmm, waffle!

I just went classic and did butter + syrup. I have big plans for this week’s Waffle Wednesday though!

I packed up my lunch and headed to work! Lunch was lasagna and some sweet treats!

Right after work, I picked up Jodus and we ran to the grocery store for a few things.

When I got home, I threw together a quick salad!

On top of spring mix was some sautéed chicken and red onion in a chili lime seasoning, then a dollop of sour cream, a spoodge of hot sauce, and a crinkle of tortilla chips on top!

It was so yum and just what I needed!

We are watching a movie tonight (500 Days of Summer) and taking it easy!

Tomorrow is a BIG day in our household. I am very much looking forward to it!

Stay tuned!

-L4L-

It was a very busy holiday for us this year! We were up at 7, showered and ready to scoot out of the house by 8:30 for an almost 2 hour drive to my mom’s side of the fam.

Breakfast was a delicious breakfast sandwich: complete with whole wheat english muffin, an egg, bacon, and some mayo and pepper.

With coffee and OJ.

Then we hit the road! Last year, we had a white Christmas, this year, not so much. It made traveling much easier.

And somehow I managed to not really take any pictures with Oma, Aunt Steph, and Allissa! We were only around for maybe an hour or so before having to head over to my Dad’s side of the fam for a late lunch.

My Grandma Sue has two new cute kitties!

Bunker

And Messello

If I had a pet, I’d be one of those crazy pet owner bloggers that spammed you with pics of their lovelies on the daily! Lucky for you, I am slightly allergic to my furry friends.

My Grandma’s house had lovely decorations up and the table looked lovely!

The snowflakes on the napkins are handmade (by my Grandma!) ornaments for the guests!

I really like my grandparents house! It’s always a work in progress but it is so homey!

Stove/heater:

Library with reading corner:

Pretty much first thing when we got there, we were handed hot butter rum’s!

So good!

And there was an array of some munchies to fend off hunger for our late lunch!

I made a small plate…

(Meatballs, cracker + tapenade, rice cracker + salmon cheese ball, devilled eggs)

And a second of more meatballs…

And I may have munched on a couple more things!

While the grub was cookin’ up, my Grandma made me a cocktail!

Cosmopolitan, Leahfied. We added an extra splash of triple sec and an extra glug of cranberry juice.

Mmmmm so good!

When dinner rolled around, we cracked open some red wine.

The spread was fantastic!

I brought this green salad with gorgonzola, red onion, navel orange pieces, walnuts, and an orange vinaigrette.

Marinated shrimp

Orange and pineapple skewers

(And unpictured green beans and a rice salad)

But the highlight, of course, was a mean prime rib!

Jodus was ready to EAT!

My plate:

Then we had obligatory family pictures!

And dessert was ice cream + a cherries sauce! Yum!

I was given a hot butter rum for the road!

I drank it then passed out for half of the drive home.

(I was tired!)

We came home with a lot of goodies! Leftovers + baked goods + seasonings + a new necklace!

Managed to make it home by 6pm with a tree full of presents from Jodus’ side of the family (and one from my Aunt!).

(Waffle Wednesdays, here we come!)

Cookies from Jodus’ sister!

Our new ornaments from this year:

We ended up putting a movie in, sharing some leftover lasagna and hitting the hay.

Merry Christmas!

Thank you to all of our fantastic family members for the wonderful presents! I look forward to using them all soon!

And to all my readers, all 10 of you, I hope that you had a very Merry Christmas as well!

What is the one gift you are most excited about?

We are stoked on the waffle iron, and of course the knives my mother gave us! Of course you knew my answer would be kitchen-centric!

-L4L-

I trust that you are all enjoying your holidays! Christmas Eve didn’t really feel like the Eve of Christmas at all for me, with working and all. And the anticipation you have as a child is sadly amiss in the adult years.

We started the day bright and early! We got to work on making lasagna for dinner along side breakfast!

The saucy business was made with Sweet Italian Venison Sausage + onion + garlic + mushrooms + tomato sauce + a wheeee bit of water.

The cheesy business was made with mozzarella, cottage cheese, parmesan, tofu, an egg, pepper, and oregano.

I stuck it in the fridge with instructions for the boy to put in the oven while I was at work.

And of course our breakfast:

Since it was Christmas Eve and I knew our Christmas was going to be busy, I decided to open my Bloggie Secret Santa gift!

The darling Whitney from Whit’s Getting Fit got me! She hooked me up with some fabby TJ finds! For some reason not all the pics turned out well.

Along with these two items, I got Almond Butter, Pumpkin Butter, a cute plate, and some hazelnut delights! THANK YOU!!!

If you are curious, my secret santa gift went to April at Food Of April.

For a mid-morning snack at job #1, I ate me some fudge!

I ended up swinging by the house in between jobs and ate a couple slices of pizza for lunch!

Times that by 2!

Then I worked. Got home around 6.

When I got home, Jodus and I decided to go ahead and do our stockings that we did for each other!

We decided to stick to just stockings for each other this year to help save some cash monies.

Jodus opened his first!

Then it was my turn! (I scored some sweet stuff!)

And Jodus had an overflow bag because he likes to break the rules!

Mariah Carey’s newest album!

And her Ballads CD!

And her perfume!!

The most amazing thing ever:

Isn’t he so thoughtful?!

I immediately used the little shelf things for some organizing!

Before:

After:

Before:

After:

Dad showed up shortly after for dinner!

We immediately opened up one of his wine’s!

And opened some gifts from him!

We got Dad a bottle of Jaegar!

Then it was finally dinner time!  

The best thing about lasagna?

Leftovers!

The rest of the evening was spent with wine + Catan!

I kicked the boys’ butts!

We crashed around midnight. Exhausted but very content!

Merry Christmas Eve!

-L4L-

Ahhh… dudes and dudettes! Sorry for my absence yesterday, it was pure hecticness! (Is that a word?)

Let me REWIND all the way back to Tuesday night.

The boy scooped me some ice cream with a lady finger. It was yum.

We watched The Visitor (very good) and I think we need a new DVD player now.

This old one that I think Jodus bought off craigslist years ago is trying to eat DVDs now. He had to operate to get it out!

OK.

Now  we are at Wednesday, Christmas Eve Eve!

Breakfast

Mega quick and easy, I did micro-poached eggs over toast.

These were the most perfect looking micro-poached eggs I have ever made.

However, they were slightly  more cooked than I would have liked.

And of course they were served over a slice of heaven (aka Dave’s Killer Bread).

Work #1 was pure craziness cuz our admin was out on vacation so I was essentially doing 3 different jobs simultaneously.

Don’t worry. I was appropriately compensated!

(Soy misto!)

Lunch

So good. I had half a salmon fillet and some roasted potatoes which aren’t as good reheated cuz they lose their crispiness.

But still good!

And some steamed brocc on the side.

Dinner

I left for Nordie’s around 2 and worked until after 11pm! We were BUSY!

I did break for dinner around 6:30 but in my haste, I didn’t take a pic.

Don’t worry, you’ve seen it before. I had the leftover Cuban black beans + rice.

In the absence of a food photo, here is the boy sporting an apron the night he cooked this meal!

Isn’t he darling?

I passed out exhausted last night after my very long busy day. But I loved every minute of it actually. I thrive on being busy and chaos. Maybe I’m just a glutton for punishment. I made good dough though yesterday! My savings account is looking mighty nice at the moment!

-L4L-

It felt rather odd to be home at 4:30 today. Really quite odd.

I almost didn’t know what to do with myself.

Almost.

Google Reader took care of that though.

And I also had a lovely 1 hour convo with my Grandmother.

I’ve been looking forward to this evening… well… for weeks! But especially today. I am exhausted. Drained. I’m excited for bed at a decent hour.

I promise, I’m almost done complaining about my schedule. I know I did it to myself. But you are my sounding board.

Breakfast

I made a quick batch of slightly cheesy scrambled eggs topped with sour cream and hot sauce.

AND… (queue awesome music) dun dun duuuuuuuuuuuuun…

The Return of The Killer Bread!

Ahhhh!

Jodus found this at our local COSTCO this past week and bought it and I am SOOOO excited for my Good Seed! This is the ONLY bread that I will eat the heel of! All it needed was some toasting and a pat of buttah and it was fab! I <3 Dave!

Unfortunately, something about this meal and/or the vitamins I took right after hit my stomach all wrong and I ended up hugging the toilet dry heaving for a good 10 minutes this morning. Gross, I know.

I think it was the pills. I had tummy issues yesterday too. I had stopped vitamins and such for awhile because I was having all my tummy troubles before and started back up last week or two? I think they are the culprit and not another morning-nausea-inducing-disaster.

I made it into work and was swamped. Our division admin is out so I was basically wearing 3 different hats at the office today and I think I managed quite nicely. I had a late morning snack of banana. It got me through.

Lunch

Hot hot hot!

Last night, Jodus made Cuban Style Beans over rice with a few changes to our previously used recipe. I had him add jalapeno and double the bell pepper, and leave out the corn. I think I had him add some more jazzy spices too like paprika and cumin. Oh, and we were out of pimentos.

Oh lordy it was good.

Tangent: you know how I officially dislike white noodles now? Not true for white v. brown rice. White rice is very yummy. Brown is too. But I don’t think I will ever 100% give up my basmati love affair.

Dessert was courtesy of someone in Jodus’ office that hooked us up with some sweets.

I’ve been seeing these guys in the blogiverse! Pretzels with chocolate and shizz. So yum!

This afternoon, I happened by a cup of cocoa as well.

Dinner

I planned a really simple meal for this evening. Doesn’t it seem retarded to spend a sacred evening off in the kitchen? I think so. I wanted to relish in my laziness for once.

I roasted up some red potatoes with some EVOO and this jazz:

And I baked some salmon up with some of this jazz:

And I steamed some broccoli and sprinkled it with this jazz:

Jazzy, right? I was all about the easy dry seasonings tonight fo’ sho’.

The potatoes deserve another shot.

Really, the potatoes were all I wanted out of my dinner.

I just added the salmon and broccoli to round out my meal.

Evening Agenda:

Watch movie. (The Visitor)

Snuggle with boy.

Bed NLT 9pm.

PEACE!

-L4L-