Christmas 2.0

So, here's what you missed on the rest of our Christmas celebrations so far... After leaving some time for our fondue dinner to settle, Michael and I made a wonderful milk/dark chocolate fondue for our desert. It turned out wonderful!! I tried a recipe a few weeks ago that didn't work out well at all, so I tried something different for our Christmas Eve dinner, and it was great!!! We watched Jim Carry's "The Grinch" and ate our fondue. It was a perfect evening! :)

On Christmas morning I woke up about 6:30, but Michael wasn't ready to get up yet, so we slept till about 8 or 8:30, then got up and made ourselves beautiful to begin opening our presents from each other, Santa, and Harlee. :) Harlee got several new toys, including a new rope. A circular rope with a penguin on it (Which has since, already broke) a thinking toy where she has to work to het treats out, and a couple new rawhides. She was quite content while we opened the rest of our presents. Some of the stuff I got was stackable coffee cups, the Owl City CD, the newest Green Day CD, some new mint chocolate flavored coffee, the Rocky Horror Glee CD, season 1 of Glee, new slippers with rubber bottoms so I can wear them outside without tearing them up, and lots of socks!! There's lots more, those are just some of the highlights! Michael got some new shirts and ties as he will be entering the working world soon. He also got some new pajama pants, because I am always stealing his. He also got a whole slew of left-handed things to make his life in the right-handed world a little easier. It was a wonderful morning!! After we got all of our presents opened we packed things up to head to Topeka for the next few days. :)

We decided to go spend Christmas day in Topeka since we spent Thanksgiving day in Wichita. It was nice to see all of Michael's family there. Maggie even joined us!! (Maggie is Michael's older brother Nick's fiancé) We all got there and began opening even more presents! Harlee did well again there in Topeka! She got about 4 new bags of treats as well as a new toy duck that's really tough, so hopefully it will take a while before she has it open and the stuffing out everywhere. I got my iPod speakers that I've been so excited about, a chalkboard cloth, the game Would You Rather, the game Pit, some lottery scratch tickets (I won $1 and 2 free tickets in 10 attempts, just a yearly reminder that I should not gamble), a cookie press, and Mulan. Once again, just highlights, I got lots more!! Michael got lots of fin stuff too! He got the show "The Pacific" which is like "Band of Brothers", a remote control helicopter, a game called Dominion, the Settlers of Catan 5-6 player expansion pack, and wii sports resort (which turns out you need the wii motion plus to play... So Michael got those for his birthday) :) We had a wonderful Christmas. We spent the next few days just hanging out with the family, playing with our new toys and games. We went through food poisoning (Michael) and chocolate eating (Harlee), so that evening I was concerned about both my babies. I ended up letting Harlee sleep with us that night because I wanted to keep an eye on her, didn't get much sleep that night. But both of them are ok now. :)

Last night I met up with my friends Cara and Michelle, both of whom I've known since Kindergarten. We had some spaghetti for dinner, ate some cake truffles (I'll share the recipe at the end of this post), drank some wine, did mud mask facials, watched The Hills, chatted it up, and played some wii Mario Cart. :) It was a great girls night with two of my oldest friends. It was really nice to catch up with them.

Then this morning I was woken up by my handsome hubby who brought me scram led eggs and toast and coffee in bed. It was the perfect start to the day, in fact, I haven't got out of bed yet. ;) I'm looking forward to a quiet day of quality time with Michael before we're back on the road again. Off to Wichita tomorrow! Stay tuned for more of our Christmas adventures!

Cake Truffles
1 cake mix
1 jar of frosting
1 package of baking chocolate for dipping
Sprinkles (optional)

Make cake mix per directions on box. Bake cake. Allow cake to cool some before crumbling. Crumble baked cake into a large mixing bowl. Mix in jar of frosting into cake. The mixture should stick together. Form into balls and place on a cookie sheet covered in wax paper. Put cake balls into the fridge for 15 to 20 minutes to become more solid. In the meantime, melt your chocolate (I suggest on the stovetop at a low heat) Do not let chocolate COOK, simply melt it. When chocolate is melted, take cake balls and dip them one at a time intothe chocolate, then return them to the wax paper. 2 forks work well for removing the cake balls. When you have dipped all the cake balls, return them to the fridge to harden up. Add sprinkles when wet if you prefer. And you're done!! Enjoy!!
This can be done with any flavor of cake mix, frosting, or baking chocolate. :)