Sorry for the lack of weekend post, if you saw my quick note this morning you’ll see why there wasn’t one.  I was just too darn busy making all these treats…..

The Halibloggers are having a cookie exchange this coming Friday so my Mom and I got together and spent this past Saturday afternoon chatting and getting some holiday baking done.  Started off with the Sugar Cookies for the exchange…

 
I tripled the recipe and ended up with 11 dozen.  Whoops. 

I let them all cool, iced and sprinkled over 8 dozen and when I woke up all my green sprinkles had melted into the cookies. I have no idea what happened because the cookies were completely cooled. Of course this meant that I needed to spend another few hours yesterday baking even more damn cookies.  All is well though, I have 5 dozen naked Christmas trees and a huge bag of ugly iced ones that hubby can slowly eat in his lunches. hehe

Moving into the danger-zone….. the decadent Christmas Squares. These are a shortbread bottom sprinkled with green and red cherries, sliced almonds, mini chocolate chips, drizzled with sweetened condensed milk and baked until bubbly.  I may have already consumed a 1/3 of the tray…… Yup, the baking did me in with the WAPs for sure. 

 
Oh and I also whipped up 2 dozen rolls in the midst of all this holiday yumminess. Unfortunately, I was out of ww flour so these were basic white rolls.  The house smelled amazing though!

They were a perfect companion to the cream of broccoli & cheddar soup (Recipe found on my old cooking blog here.) that I made for my lunches yesterday.  The soup recipe is compliments of the beautiful Jen.  (A few years ago I took her recipe and re-vamped it a bit to make it lower points) Mmm so good!

 
 
And last but not least, I finished off the cooking with a batch of banana chocolate chips muffins (snacks for the week.)

 
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I know you’re probably wondering how my WI went on Saturday.  As expected, I was up…. by 1.8 lbs.  Not a shocker considering the salty food I had on Thursday night  BUT not anything that is going to get me down.  Realistically, I do have a feeling that the next few weeks are going to be quite challenging but nothing that I can’t handle. :)   The usual WW pose from Ang, Holly and I.

I want to give Holly a special shout as she was down a whopping 3.6 lbs this week!! She is totally rocking it and I’m SOOOO freaking proud of her!!

After the meeting the three of us, plus my hubby and Holly’s hubby got in a great workout.  I ran for 25 mins, walked for 5 and cross-trained for 20.  What a way to start off the weekend!

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In keeping with the holiday theme of this pose….check out the start of our holiday decorating.  I LOVE LOVE LOVE pulling out all the rubbermaid bins and being surprised by all the lovely decorations complete with fond memories. :)  This may be the busiest time of year for me but it is still my most favourite time! 

FYI:  So jealous of Amy’s SLR camera…. hoping Santa (*ehem* Hubby or Mom) brings me a new one; these pics just didn’t turn out the way I hoped.

I stole this elf from my parents.  He’s one of my fav decoration, been around since I was little…. my Mom used to tell us he was spying for Santa. heheh 

 

It’s tradition for J to get me a new Disney decoration every year.  The sleigh is from 2006.

And the beautiful Eeyore snow globe from 2005.

 
And of course, the stockings!  I’ve had mine since I was baby; it’s looking a little old.

Our little table.  

We don’t have our tree up and probably won’t until I start my Vacay.  The lovely kitty kats made a complete mess of it last year and I want to be home to keep a close eye on my cherished ornaments.

There you have it, this turned into a long post but I really enjoyed sharing my decorations with you, hope you enjoyed it!.  What are some of your favourite traditions for this time of the year?