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?