when the cat's away....

my mom has been in and out of town for the last few weeks. when she's gone, i throw baking parties. last week i took suggestions as to what to bake. ellison must have filed his somewhere in his brain - he immediately piped up with an "apple pie and that crunchy stuff sprinkled on the top....you know". I googled a recipe for French apple pie, and made about 4 in two days.

There's nothing better than dessert and a movie. We had warm pie a la mode and watched Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2. Or rather, Ellison watched Blake Lively and David watched Ell eat a few slices of pie. I found it all entertaining!


Last year, Kendra and I gave all our vendors little thank you gifts for Christmas. They were really simple gizmos and manly gadgets. This year, we put more thought (and less money) into our gifts and made goodie boxes.

*120 chocolate cupcakes with peppermint frosting

*150 brownies with chocolate chips and raspberry swirl...you can kinda see my new apron (from kendra) in the background! it was so cute i couldn't bear to wear it.

*300 cranberry white chocolate chip cookies that Kendra made. Rich, buttery, chewy...mmmm. they were an absolute hit with my family!

We packaged them in regular plastic containers and handed them out yesterday. People seemed to like them...and were surprised that I was actually "domestic". Our vendors work really hard for us and start their days super early in the morning (12am on most days). We appreciate them!

This is totally unrelated, but Christmas came early for me this morning. David had my present delivered to me at 10am:

*my new massage chair! i generally don't like massages because it's a bit too invasive of my personal space...he got this so i can relax and de-stress and not have to be touched. so thoughtful. :)

i love the holidays and i love my boyfriend!