The 26th.. after Christmas... and a birthday!

We started celebrating Tim's (Steve's brothers)40th birthday early.. 10am Starwars(3D) movie at the  theater with the recliner seats. I had been really looking forward to seeing the new movie. Tim was seeing it for the 2nd time. 

We all got a break from each other till dinner. 

Tim requested Prime rib and my popovers. Finally, I had an oven free  where I could actually make popovers. They take 45 minutes to cook which is far too long when the oven is always in use. We had dinner over at Steve's parents house so I baked the popovers at our house and brought them over. 

Don't do what I did.. spend years trying to figure out how to make fluffy huge popovers.  It took reading up on popovers, many different recipes to finally know the secret to getting the popovers huge! I'll tell you the secret. Hot or warm milk. Yep, simple but the key to making popovers. If everything is cold they will be hockey pucks. I'd take all the ingredients out of the frig and think I could just make them and have them turn out like this.. Trust me, warm your milk! 

After not running since Monday morning.. I finally got to do some cardio exercise for an hour. I couldn't get anyone to come with me skiing.. which was probably okay because it was dangerous out there. I fell 3 times.

I only fell because we really don't have enough snow coverage. 2 to 3" does not cover up the sand/dirt 100%. I was going kind of fast down a little hill and all of a sudden my ski stopped but I didn't. It wasn't pretty and it hurt falling on the frozen ground. I was lucky to not get more hurt. Just a little snow covered. 

I tried to be more careful but once you get going on a hill.. you go.. I ended up falling two more times. I need to wait for more snow. Monday night into Tuesday we are expecting up to 10" of snow. Plenty of fresh stuff. Lets just hope once they groom the trails it will keep people from thinking the ski trail is a walking path. I hate nothing more then to see people walking all over my ski trail on a clearly marked path for only skiers. People, you have trails for walkers.. use them, not the ski trail! It's soooo RUDE. I have zero patience for people walking in my way when I'm skiing. They should not be there and I hope they know it. 

5 days of not doing my daily exercises/planks.. felt wrong. It just felt normal getting back to doing what I do every day instead of skipping my exercises for all the holiday work and activities. Nice to get back to a normal schedule. I'm starting out eating 100 percent healthy today. It's day 70! Another Goal day for my diet. I was way off track on dieting this past week. I pretty much let myself indulge in candies, deserts but not go crazy. Just more like 2000 - 2500 calories for the day. Not thinking about losing weight this past week. The plan  this week is to be super mindful of what I eat. It's going to be tough quitting sugar.. once you start up, it's hard to go cold turkey. It's all about replacement. Instead of fudge or candies, it will be fruit and greek yogurt. Time to start that new years resolution and kick it into high gear. The next big Goal day, day #80, I want progress! A real reason to celebrate my goal day!

A day late for our snow to have a White Christmas.

I woke up this morning to seeing at least 2 inches of fresh snow. Its just enough to go cross country skiing and enough that I don't want to get out my Yak Tracks and run on the snow and ice covered roads and trails. A day late for a white, white Christmas. We did have a dusting of snow for Christmas so I guess that counts as white? 

I like Christmas, but I'm sure glad its over. I prefer the holidays that don't require so much prep. 4th of July is by far my favorite over all the holidays. 

Christmas is fun with little ones and not so little ones. Children are what the holiday is all about. It just is a lot more fun and exciting to watch the little ones get a new toy. 

  Here are our Christmas day photos..

We were all together from 9am to 9pm. Now that it's the day after, we are celebrating one more birthday. It's Steve's brother, Tim's 40th. I planned for us to see Starwars in the recliner seat theater this morning, followed by lunch, cross country skiing and then a prime rib dinner with cake and ice cream. One more day of eating not so healthy. 

Speaking of healthy, I snacked on nuts instead of cookies and candies. I did have a few chocolates like this peanut butter cup while finishing up wrapping gifts. 

A favorite gift was this Go Pro camera from Kendra, Paul and Evan. I'm charging up the camera so it's not in the case. I had fun trying to figure out how it all works yesterday. I can't wait to try it out cross country skiing and biking with the Go Pro so fun! I also like the gift cards. I'm looking forward to shopping for some new running clothes. 

Off to get ready for the day after Christmas. .. I can not wait to see Starwars! Plus, go skiing in fresh snow. It's going to be a GREAT day!!! 

Merry Christmas 2015!

Merry Christmas 2015... 

I'm the first one up at 5am like most mornings. This morning I get to play Santa and stuff the stockings. The roads are far too icy for running. I'll be skipping my Santa run through our neighborhood. 

Christmas eve we all went to Tim's house (Steve's brother) to celebrate. We ate a ton of food. 

I made another great Pintrest recipe from Pillsbury, a chicken buffalo croissant ring. It was super easy and delicious! Next time I'll try the Mexican taco ring. Same concept, but with ground beef, cheese and salsa. 

We just snack away all night. I did the pre-snack meal and had some cheese ravioli at 250 calories before going to load up on a bunch of high calorie foods. Steve made some baked veggie egg rolls and I had two of those, a slice of my buffalo croissant ring, a slice of hard salami, some carrots and a hard apple cider for the night. Trying to not over do it. 

My trick to not wanting to eat a whole lot was to wear my tight skinny black jeans. Not a lot of stomach expansion room. Which was exactly the reminder I needed to just stop snacking. I've still got to lose weight and  want to keep moving down, not up in weight. 

There was also a lot of oyster shelling and eating which I didn't partake. I'm not a oyster eater, I do love my clams. 

 We played a few games, cribbage and throw and catch the sock with Evan.

 Every year we watch the Christmas Story while listening to Christmas music.

And now on to Christmas day at our house. 

We have everyone over for brunch, present opening from us and then we go to Steve's parents in the afternoon, open gifts and eat a few snacks from them. We all gather back at our house for Christmas dinner. 

We, I mean Steve has brunch to make.. A waffle bar this year instead of my usual quiche, raspberry coffee cake and caramel rolls. I was okay with skipping making my favorites this year, to not have a week of eating delicious leftovers. We all have presents to open, afternoon naps to take and more food to eat. 

Celina's chocolate nut pie she made for Christmas. 

Merry Christmas! Ho ho ho....