We are in our house! Almost seven months of renovations and now we’re happily living in the chaos that is a relatively unfinished home. I am trying my best to find a place for everything and sift through the eight years’ worth of junk that we somehow accumulated, which is easier said than done. I can’t wait to show you the photos! I am going to make a little video that will best show the transformation, so stay tuned.

And we should be getting our internet hooked up tomorrow (if you see the heavens parting and hear the Hallelujah chorus, you’ll know why). In the meantime, I’ve been posting at UrbanMoms. Want to check it out? I thought so…

Take a look at why I love doulas, how horrific it is to move while pregnant, and what I do to make myself feel a little more like “me” now that I’m in the third (!!) trimester. Thanks for reading! You guys are the best!

The Christmas baking has begun! Here’s what I’ve tackled so far: Sugar Cookies, Coffee Toffee and Vanilla Bean Shortbread Sandwiches With Orange Buttercream Frosting. BOOM!

I couldn’t do it without my trusty kitchen sidekicks. Props to Rolo and Karenna for all of their “help”.

As requested, here’s the recipe for Homemade Oreos.  They are easy, delicious, and totally low-cal.

You know those days when you feel like you’ve got it all together?

It’s been a while since I’ve had one.

Perhaps it’s the post-Christmas slump, or the lack of routine, or PMS, or the winter blues.  All I know is that it often seems like I am scraping through the day and feeling as though I’m failing in virtually every task I’ve been given.  The house is in a perpetual state of disaster; there’s yogurt and baby barf on the ottoman; my cooking skills have been reduced to “place frozen pizza in oven and bake for 25 minutes”;  Avelyn is acting like a wild, rebellious, grumpy bat; Jolie is waking up twice in the night; Avelyn is also waking up once in the night; I NEED SLEEP; I am hungry and my weight loss is at an aggravating stall; I thought I would be better at this whole Stay-At-Home-Mom thing.

Anyone got a nanny to spare?

I had this terrible, torturous idea to bake cookies with Avelyn.  She was not impressed.

Yes, we have matching aprons.  I bought them on etsy and am in love with them.  I even got one made for Jolie.

Once we got rolling, Avelyn was happy to dip her fingers in the batter and toss in fistfulls of flour when my back was turned.

We were making the dough for sugar cookies, which are one of my holiday staples.

Butter (lots of this), brown sugar (even more of that) and flour.  You can’t mess it up.

They are in the oven right now and we’ll ice them this afternoon.

See, kiddo, that wasn’t so bad now, was it?

(Gotta love self-timers.)

While in Regina I stumbled upon a classy little stationary store on 13th Avenue and bought a stack of postcards that poke fun at domesticity.  They just rub me the right way.

Today was rainy and gray and my mood matched the skies.  I just felt kind of blah and have nothing really inspiring to write about today.  Here are my thoughts as they naturally spill…

The baby has been starting to move around a lot which is such a strange, yet reassuring, sensation.  I am happy to be home and back in the swing of our daily routine again.  There are three towering hampers full of laundry in our catch-all of a bedroom that are begging to be folded but I can’t seem to muster the motivation to fish through the rubble.  We had beef stew tonight and, if I do say so myself, it was quite good.  And I don’t usually like beef stew.  Yes, I have been eating small quantities of meat in the past month, thanks to the searing  images from Earthlings beginning to fade.  I am trying to only eat meat one or two times a week and to limit it to local meat.  No more mystery meat from the grocery store.  Except when I was in Regina I had some pepperoni pizza and it was heavenly.  I am officially six months pregnant and feel like a tugboat.  I can’t believe I still have over three months to go, and during the hottest part of the summer at that.  My great-grandmother passed away peacefully two nights ago.  She was 99.  There won’t be a funeral.  I am glad I go to see her last fall when she was still well and that she got to meet her only great-great granddaughter and take a photo of the five generations with her.

Steve just got home and I am going to go spend some time with him.  Tomorrow he’s taking me out for a special date that he planned in honour of Mother’s Day.  Our Sunday was a write-off since he had to graft a couple thousand new apple trees all weekend but I am excited to go out with him tomorrow and see what he’s got up his sleeve.  We were joking that his idea of a great night would be eating Kraft Dinner in the van at the bottom of the orchard with Avelyn screaming in her carseat since he forgot to get a babysitter.  I am one lucky woman.

I just had the most satisfying vacuuming experience of my life thus far.  I went out and bought the Dyson this morning and came home to see if it was going to live up to my expectations.  It didn’t.  It surpassed them.  I LOVE THE POWER.  The suction is phenomenal and after doing a quick run over the carpet upstairs the canister was filled past maximum with musty old dog hair and fine particles of nasty dirt.  We had been living with that grime being pressed against the soles of our feet.  Sick.

It was so satisfying to see all that hair and dirt whirring around the canister; kind of like popping a ripe whitehead that’s been festering on your chin for a week and it loudly sprays all over the bathroom mirror.  Yeah, just like that.

As I type, the aroma of freshly baked Pecan Tassies is swirling in the air.  Oh, goodness.  They are delicious morsels of delight.

The recipe is very easy and you needn’t be fearful of making the pastry for these tiny tarts.  It’s not conventional pastry that uses lard and requires a delicate, trained hand.  Instead it’s made with cream cheese and buttah, so it’s a no-fail deal.  Go on, try it!  Here’s the link to the recipe:  Pecan Tassies.   (Also, some of you missed where I put the link to the Chocolate Covered Cookie Dough Balls, so here it is:  Cookie Dough Balls.  And just for fun, if you want to try making the Cranberry Bliss Bars [though I don't recommend them] here:  Cranberry Bars.)

I know I said I wouldn’t be posting very often, but haven’t you heard of the Blopposite Phenomena*?  Basically, if you blog about something, the opposite happens.   So yeah, here I am.

*I totally thought that name up myself.  Where’s my prize?

My second attempt at holiday baking was a smash hit! I made…wait for it…Chocolate Covered Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Balls.

Mercy. They are tiny orbs of divinity.

First you whip up a batch of safe-to-eat cookie dough (made without eggs so you won’t get worms) and roll it into tiny little balls.

Then you put those balls in the fridge for a couple hours to chill. Once they’re nice and firm, melt a pot of chocolate (with a few tablespoons of shortening to smooth it out) and dip, dip away!

They look like homemade truffles and they taste even better. Really, whose favourite part of baking cookies isn’t eating the dough?

And here’s a little something to make you smile.

Untitled from Amanda on Vimeo.

Have you ever had the Cranberry Bliss Bar at Starbucks?  It’s one of my favourites:  soft, dense, chewy blondie-esque bottom topped with thickly whipped cream cheese icing and sprinkled with tiny dried cranberries.  Its name is appropriate, since it sends me into a state of bliss after my first bite.

I got to thinking, “Why pay two dollars for a teeny slice of this sweet when I could make it myself?”  So I scoured the good ol’ internet and found a promising recipe.   I had been dreaming of making this for a few weeks and I planned to finally kick off my holiday baking tonight with this hopeful treat.

I spent the better part of my evening whipping up the batter, then the icing, then chopping craisins into tiny slivers, then melting white chocolate to drizzle on top.  It was a rather involved process.  The bars looked good.  Nice and festive.  So naturally, I carved myself a generous slice, for quality control purposes.

I am sorry to report that it was not everything I had hoped.  The bottom was more coffee-cakey than dense and chewy (BOO!) and it didn’t have enough spice to it (there was ginger in the recipe but I think we could have done with a dash of nutmeg or something) and was a little dry.  Instead of Cranberry Bliss Bars, I have renamed them Sadberry Miss Bars.

I even made a double batch, so sure was I that the recipe would be a smash hit.  Owell, they’re not terrible (I had no problem downing my big ol’ piece), but the reality didn’t match my dream.

What’s on your holiday baking menu this year?  And worthwhile recipes to pass my way?