What a Day!

Well, Sam and I are suppose to be here:

Instead, we are here:

All because of a little:

Yes, it's true. Sam and I were suppose to fly to Maryland to visit my parents for Christmas, but Mother Nature had a change of plans for us. We arrived on Saturday at the airport 2 hours before our flight was suppose to leave, only to find out that it had been delayed an hour. So, we checked into our flight, dropped off our luggage, went through security, had a bit of lunch, and then waited in our terminal.

15 minutes before we were suppose to board, there was a message over the intercom that stated that our flight had been cancelled because of the massive snow storm. By the time that we were able actually able to talk to someone from the airline, all of the flights in the next few days had been booked. The next flight that they could get us on was on Tuesday (mind you, this was Saturday when this all happened). So we booked that flight.

Then came the dilemma of getting home. Sam's parents had dropped us off at the airport. They had JUST gotten home when we found out our flight had been cancelled and it's a 2 hour drive just to this airport. So, we decided to just rent a car until Tuesday and drop it off at the airport when we flew out. We waited an hour for the shuttle to take us from the airport to the rental car company. We got our car, headed home, and arrived 2 hours later. We were SOO exhausted when we got home and then we realized that we had thrown out all of our food before we left that morning because we didn't want it to spoil while we were on the trip. So, we had to take a trip to Target, pick up some food, and then head home. By the time that we actually got home, it had already been a 10-hour day!

So, we're unexpectedly home this weekend, and we'll TRY to fly out (again) on Tuesday. Hopefully it'll work this time! :). Merry Christmas everyone!

Oh Where oh where have Sam and Marcie Gone?

You can always tell how busy things are for us judging by how clean our house is. And right now, our house looks like a tornado blew through it! Hahah! We've both had finals this past week. I've had report cards, Christmas programs at our school, and everything else in the world! It's been a VERY busy month! I've been waiting to do this post because I wanted my house to look clean so that I could take pictures of all our Christmas decorations. But, I don't know when our house will look clean again! So I'll just post about what pics I do have.

Well, the past few weeks have been very cold and stormy! This just puts me in the mood to cook! A few weeks ago I made Sam's favorite recipe, my Pumpkin Swirl Bread. Yummy! You can see a pic of it here!



It's SOOO yummy and it makes our house smell SOO good! It just puts me in the Christmas spirit. It's kinda a lot of work, but it's WELL worth it! Here's the recipe:

Pumpkin Swirl Bread

1 (8oz) cream cheese, softened

1/4 c. sugar

1 egg, beaten

1 3/4 c. flour

1 t. baking soda

1 1/2 c. sugar

1/2 t. salt

1/4 t. nutmeg

1 t. cinnamon

1 egg, beaten

1/3 c. water

1 c. canned pumpkin

1/2 c. margarine melted

Combine cream cheese, sugar and egg, mixing until well blended. Set aside. In a second bowl, combine dry ingredients. In a third bowl, combined pumpkin, margarine, egg, and water, mixing just until moistened. Add this bowl to the dry ingredients. Reserve 2 cups pumpkin batter; pour remaining batter into greased and floured 9 x 5 inch loaf pan. Pour cream cheese mixture over pumpkin batter; top with reserved pumpkin batter. Cut through batter with knife several times for swirl effect. Bake 350 for 1 hour 10 minutes, or until wooden pick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool 5 minutes; remove from pan. Makes 1 loaf

A few Saturdays ago I not only made my Pumpkin Swirl bread, but I also made homemade potato soup. (You can see Sam, as he's modeling his soup. And you can see our Christmas tree in the background! So cute!) This is my sister-in-law, Valerie's recipe. HOLY COW IS IT GOOD! It makes A LOT, so I cut the recipe into 4ths, and it made about 4 servings. Here's the original recipe:

Cheese-N-Potato Soup

4 c. water 4 chicken boullion cubes

1 c. celery, finely chopped 1 c. carrots, finely chopped

3 large potatoes, cubed 1 small onion, diced

6-8 strips bacon, cooked

Cook all these ingredients (minus bacon) 20-30 minutes until vegetables are tender. While the veggies are cooking, cook bacon and set aside. Then add to the vegetables:

2 small cans cream of chicken soup

1 lb. Velveeta cheese (cubed) then stir until melted

Crumble the bacon and add to soup.

The finished product! SOO yummy! Especially when you dip bread into it! It's even good cold or reheated! Enjoy! Merry Christmas everyone and happy cooking! :)

Please help my class!!

I entered my class into a video contest. I had to make a video of my students. They're singing Christmas songs, but that's only half of them (only the ones whose parents signed their permission slips to be entered).The top 20 classes will get $500 gift cards for Staples. They're really cute and so please vote for them! You can vote as many times as you'd like, you just have to refresh the page. Please help my class out!

Go to: www.cashforclasscontest.com/view_vote.php
Then go down to the bottom and look for :

1st grade, Evans
Riverside Prep

Thanks so much! My kids REALLY want to win (and so do I! :) )