Ever seen what about bob?  Remember this clip? That is how I felt this weekend, only with baking. Dave was out working in the garage and I went out and said…honey, I'm a baker…I bake.  He looked at me kinda weird and said what he thought I wanted to hear….oh, good job honey! lol! We had a FUN FUN weekend!  Here are some ( a ton) of pictures! (Sorry for the horrible quality. We have still not found the charger for our good camera, so the only camera I have is an OLD crapy crapy one that I can barley get to focus)

I spent the morning on Friday printing out yummy recipes.

I three hole punched them so I could add them to my future recipe book.

I love Christmas time because when I get home there always seems to be something waiting for me at my front door!

After I opened up the packages, I turned on the fire place, got my lap top and turned on my favorite Christmas music. After Renee sent me an email about personalizing a cook book, I remembered that my mother in-law had done this same sort of thing for me a few Christmas's back. I just had to find it! Since I haven't ever loved cooking/baking and haven't had a kitchen to cook or bake in I haven't put it to use just yet.  It is perfect though! Just what I needed! Thanks Julie!

Tabs for all the different categories

She had set it up perfectly! I added my new Christmas cookie recipes to the book and got started!
Dang my stupid old camera. Blurry every time. It's not me I swear!

In junior high and high school, our cooks would make Molasses cookies that were to die for. They were my all time favorite cookie so I decided I would give making them a try.

I'm messy.

I had to try the dough. I look cross eyed in this pic! lol

Finished product. Oh, they are so cute huh? Or am I just proud I baked something that didn't come from a premade mix?

Yum! They were really good. A little strong in the molasses area, but very tasty.  Dave didn't like them  much. He is more of a chocolate chip kinda guy.

Later that day, I wrapped Dave's Christmas presents and put them under the tree.  His are the ones with actual wrapping paper. The other perfectly square red and green boxes are just decoration.

Later that night we went and saw Avatar. It was really good. I loved it. I didn't think I'd like it that much, but seriously I loved it. The graphics were amazing.  Ever since I've known Dave, I've had a new appreciation for computer graphics. Since I now kinda understand how it works, it AMAZES me when something is done so well. This show was amazing visually and had such a great story. I seem to think everyone will like it!

Saturday was spent laying around watching movies for most of the day. Have you seen "The Holiday"…what a cute movie. I really liked it. Later in the day Dave worked on his four wheeler and I did some more baking.  Ever had Magic Bars? I think they really are magic.

They consist of  a buttery gram cracker crust, sweet and condensed milk, butterscotch chips, chocolate chips and coconut.  OOOOHHHHHH MMMMYYYYYY GGGGGOOOOOOOOOOSSSSSSSSSSHHHHHHHHHHH these things are the best dessert I have ever tasted!

Would you think we were crazy if I told you we ate 12 of the 15 bars in just 2 days? That's 3 bars a day each. I think it was more like 4 for Dave 2 for me.  They are so good. Oh my. It was impossible to not eat them. IMPOSSIBLE I tell you.

Later that night, we headed to the mall to get some presents to complete our Christmas shopping yippe!  Look what else we got…
I Love yummy smelling soaps! 3 for $10…awesome!

After shopping we went to Olive garden where we split a meal. My grandma gave us a gift card and since spilt a meal, we will be able to go to eat twice with just one card! It was perfect and even though we split the meal, we left completely full!!

Last but not least when we got hoome, we put up Christmas lights on our pillars!! You can't really see them too well cus of the stupid camera but you get the idea.

Although you can't tell, the lights look really cute. I was super happy we got them up…just in the nic of time.

One more thing….I know I said I was going to deliver my PFM food this weekend, but there has been a change in plans.

On Wednesday night I saw a story about a family on the news whose home had caught on fire. They had no insurance and had lost everything. To make matters even worse, this was not their first tragedy this year.  Two months ago they had a 9yr old daughter die from swine flu complications. My heart broke as I listened to this story. After we turned off the tv and went to bed, I laid there not being able to sleep feeling so upset and heart broken for this poor family.  I wished there was something I could do. Just as I soon as I realized there wasn't much I could do..I had an Idea and realized there WAS something I could do. 

I took some time Thursday and Friday calling family, friends and co-workers asking them if they had any items around the house that they would be willing to donate to the family. They have nothing and need everything.  I figured everyone has something lying around the house, extra towels, blankets, bowls, etc.!  Yesterday we had a family party and I was able to gather a TON of stuff. Today at work people have been bringing me tons of stuff too!  Dave and I plan on delivering the items this Wednesday to the family.  What does this have to do with PFM you ask? Well, I decided that instead of dropping my items off at the bank, I would give them to this family.  My sisters and parents are doing the same thing.  It worked out perfectly, almost like it was supposed to be this way.  Because of Project Feed Me, between me, my sisters and my parents, we will be able to give this family over 100 items of food.  Not to mention hundreds of house hold items that everyone has pitched in to donate. I know most of you don't live in Utah and aren't able to donate any items, but if you can and would like to help, you can make donations to a pay pal account set up in their name.  Here is the account name: shahlufu@gmail.com . Any amount, even a dollar will help!  Or if you know any family or friends in Utah that may want to help, please spread the word!

I'll make sure to take some pictures of all the items that are donated. It seriously blows me away how willing people are to help! YOU are one of them. Thank you all for your efforts with PFM and with this family.  It is so wonderful to see people pull together to help those in need!  Like I said, our weekend was awesome. It was filled with everything christmasy and joyful. 

I plan on making another batch of the oh so magical magic bars tonight to take to my grandmas Christmas party.  These suckers are too good not to share! (and too dangerous to leave hanging around the house).  I also hope to get a little run in before the party BUT we are closing on our house today so I don't know if there will be time.  Ya, I haven't mentioned it, but we haven't close on our house yet. Crazy right? We have been in it for 6 weeks rent free and are just now closing. It has been a NIGHTMARE trying to get everything worked out since it's a short sale, but in the same breath it has been in our favor because we got to live for free for 6 weeks and we got a super low interest rate!  

I hope you all have a MERRY MERRY Christmas week! HO HO HO!!

PS…. If you live in Utah and would like to donate any items to this family, it's not to late. Please call me. I am not delivering the items until Wednesday afternoon. If you can't make it to me, I'd be happy to pick up the items from you!

QA: Since I'm now a baker (ha ha), I'd like some great baking Ideas.  So,what is your favorite holiday treat??

FYI: I added a Whittle My Middle (WMM) page to the top of the blog. Logging my WMM and fitness on the same page was getting messy looking, so I separated them. I know you could care less are dying to check it out, so here ya go: Whittle My Middle

I have some good new and bad news. Good news first! I made my very first granola bars yesterday! They were very very good! I was SUPER surprised how good they turned out.  Bad news… my camera batter died, and I don't know where the charger is….so, NO PICTURES. boo hoo! The entire time I was making the bars I thought about how great of a story I could tell with some pictures, but there was no camera available.  Here is a picture I took this morning with my crapy cell phone camera…this is the bar I am going to eat in just a minute!

I had such a blast making them…(yes I just said the word blast in the same sentance as cooking/baking). Cindy my go to gal, gave me some great tips and I put them to use. I changed the recipe up a bit (something I would usually be too AFRAID to do) I added raisins, chia seeds, more coconut, dark chocolate chips, whole almonds, a little agave, and some a hand full of other dried fruit I had on hand. If your interested in the recipe, you can check it out here.

Dave and I sampled the mixture before putting it in the oven and we LOVED it. I couldn't wait for it to come out. I kept checking on them every few minutes and finally when they looked golden brown I pulled them out.  You should have smelled our house….it smell AMAZING!  Dave immediately came in the kitchen and started to pick at it…I slapped is handasked him politely to wait until they cooled.  With anticipation we waited for them to cool and once they were ready, I cut them into 8 bars (I halved the recipe) and then wrapped them in saran wrap, minus the two bars Dave and I ate on the SPOT! THEY WERE SO GOOD! Seriously, I couldn't believe it. We both scarfed them down and loved every bite! I can't believe that I have been missing out on SO MANY amazing foods! Geeze. While eating a  million ideas of what I could do with this stuff ran through my head. SO exciting!!  Here is a pic of the bar all wrapped up and ready to go, doesn't it look cute? Or am I just proud of myself? lol

Yesterday we picked up some Nutri Grain bars for Dave (he usually has one for breakfast) and they were almost $4 a box. I couldn't believe they were so expensive. I believe they come with 8 bars, SO today, Dave and I are going to add up all the ingredients it takes to make the bars I made last night, and do a price comparison against the Nutri Grain Bars. Dave is a math wiz and can do all the measurements and conversions in a jiffy, so I'm going to send him the info he'll need and then presto, he'll send back the numbers and I can then do a price analysis.  Fun right?

I know there are THOUSANDS of recipes out there, which is exciting because I can just keep trying new ones!  I picked this recipe because I had all the ingredients, and it sounded super easy (which it was).  The only complaint I have is that they don't stick together as well as I'd like. Maybe I needed to add more honey or more of something? I don't really know, I'll have to mess with it. If you have any suggestions let me know.

Oh, I am SO happy its Friday! We have TONS to do this weekend, but when you don't have to add work into the mix of things, it's always better! Our goal it to get a couch for the bonus room, find some decorations to fill a bunch of the dead space, finish the laundry room, hang up the pictures/clocks…etc, oh and much much more! (Any design/decoration ideas for the side walls where our tv hangs? The sides are so bare. I have a giant picture I might hang to the left of the tv…take a look at the space  and if you have any ideas…please share!)

Exercise Note: We went to the gym again yesterday. It was wonderful. You can check out what I did here. I would have liked to stay at the gym longer, but Dave never wants to be there for longer than 30 minutes, so 45 was pushing it.  I got to thinking yesterday and now that the gym is 10-15 minutes from our house, I think I'd rather workout at home. Since I am no longer working out in the mornings, It kinda sucks to get home from work, change, go to the gym, and then have it be dark and late by the time we get home. I don't like that. If we worked out at home, we would save ourselves at least 30 minutes. I talked to Dave last night about starting/buying PX90 (I want him to do it with me), he said he'd think about it. He doesn't know ANYTHING about it and is worried that it might be more of a girl thing "like the shred" (his words, not mine) not that the shred isn't hard he said…but he wants something that will build muscle, not just tone. He is already toned, he wants to get bigger and stronger.  I JUST KNOW that PX90 would be enough, I just have to convince him of it. I plan on sending him a few testimonial/videos today. I think they will do the trick…..the first time I saw the infomercial I was a believer!! I think he'll come around.

Fridays are SLOW around here so I'm going to get to reading this baby!
(I talked to the nutrionist yestserday, and she recommended I read this book, what do you know!!)

Have a wonderful weekend!! 

PS..it's not too late to get people involved in PFM.  Have you asked anyone at work to get involved? If not…why not? Go over there right now and tell them all about it, ok? Ok, great…good job!
-loves to all-

QA:
Are you a Twilight fan?
Do you plan on seeing the movie this weekend?
Did you squirm/get butterflies/feel like an idiot teen girl on the first movie right before they kissed…or was that just me?