November Goals Wrapup

1. Buy all advent calendar stuff. DONE

2. Plan Christmas gift shopping and budget. DONE and have even started shopping

3. Keep running. 3 miles 2-3 times a week should be doable. No more long runs, I'll start that up again when the weather gets better. BIG fail here. I ran my 15 k and have barely run since, mostly because I've been using my kidless time to take care of the first two goals.

4. Give the house a good deep cleaning. I have done about half the house.

5. Make curtain for laundry area. Nope. Will have to tackle this one this month

6. Sew flannel duvet cover for Little Hugger. DONE. Now she's all warm and snuggled.

7. Get passports for the kids. Applied for 1 set and have an appointment for the US ones in January. My husband has to be there for those.

So not too bad, but not great

Christmas Is Coming

Christmas is my favorite time of year. While I get annoyed when stores decorate and play Christmas music before Thanksgiving (or even Halloween), once Thanksgiving has passed it's time to celebrate the Christmas season. And to me it really is a season not a day. It's about the feeling of being with family and friends. It's about all that winter time nesting, staying in and working on crafts and baking because it's too cold to go outside.

My husband put up all some of our outdoor lights this past weekend, and plans on finishing this weekend. Yesterday my kids and I decorated our house. Here's one of my little helpers. Our decorations are a mix of store bought and stuff that the kids have created over the years.

We get a real tree so will wait on that for another couple of weeks, although my husband and daughters will be selling trees at our local tree lot tomorrow along with other members of their Indian Princess tribe.

 Stockings are all hung up ready for my modified advent calendar tradition to start on the 1st. More on that in a future post.

I'm looking forward to starting baking this weekend, just have to figure out what the first batch is going to be. I've found so many great recipes on Pinterest recently I'm a little overwhelmed.

Over the next few weeks my posts will mostly be about Christmas - favorite traditions, crafts, recipes etc. If you love Christmas as much as I do, follow along, and share your favorites too.

Swedish Apple Pie

This is my go to dessert when I need to bring one to a fall pot luck.  I've brought it to every Thanksgiving I've attended since my friend first gave me the recipe almost 15 years ago.  It's super easy as it is more of a crisp than a pie, and is always well received.  For the record, I am not Swedish, neither is my friend, so not sure where the name is from.  She got it from a Girl Scout cookbook her troop put together.

5-6  Macintosh apples

2 sticks butter

1 egg

1 cup flour

1 cup sugar

Preheat oven to 350. Peel, core and cut apples into chunks.  Put into a 9x9 baking dish.  

Sprinkle with cinnamon sugar so all apples are covered.  

Combine egg, flour and sugar.  Melt the butter and add that to the sugar mixture.  

Pour on top of the apples to cover.  Spread out the flour/sugar mixture with a spatula if needed.

Sprinkle with more cinnamon sugar.  

Bake for 35-45 minutes (until golden brown) and a little crisp on the edges.

Let cool a little and serve with vanilla ice cream