This and That

So....I know I said I'd be back with recipes. And I will. I promise! But I've had a busy couple of weeks.
I did indeed refocus on my Weight Watcher's journey. I'm loving the new program. It's like a new project for me again and it's all fresh and kind of fun again. And I've already lost around 7 pounds in the first two weeks.
Because I'm back on the WW wagon I've renewed my commitment to ordering from the Bountiful Baskets and Utah Food Co-ops again.
Still happy as ever with what we've been getting although I'd be fine if they'd just give up on the tomatoes till after winter. They're not even good in the stores right now. Blech!

Last week I ordered their gingerbread house kit and Emily and Jaxon and I had a great time decorating that. Best gingerbread house I've ever had the pleasure of helping to construct!

Jaxon was surprisingly patient at building it. He meticulously placed almost every one of the roof "shingles" by himself, even carefully breaking them for the halves that were needed.
And Emily put the Smarties "siding" on 3 sides of the house before she ran out of Smarties. I finished up the 4th side after a trip to the store for a few more rolls of smarties.
If you look closely you'll see a little gummy bear replica of our family (the ones who live here anyway).
Emily chose the candy strips for the lawn and we added some snow drifts around the edges. All in all, it looks a lot like our yard with the warm weather we've been having.
I've taken Jaxon to storytime at the library for the past couple of weeks.
The first time he sat on my lap with his hands over his ears during the songs. He said they hurt his hears.
And he refused to sing or dance along.
The second time he sat beside me and even scooted forward next to some other boys for short periods of time. He also got up and danced as long as I did it with him. Baby steps I guess. We still have several months to get ready for kindergarten. LOL.
He checked out a great pop-up book about dinosaurs and has spent every waking moment studying it. Some of his sleeping moments too.

Maybe Santa will be inspired to bring him his own pop up book since he loves them so much.
Of course there has been some crafting related to Christmas decorating. Mostly taking 20+ year old stuff...

stripping it nekkid...

and rebuilding it.

Speaking of crafting, there was a Holiday Lights contest in our neighborhood and my friend, Summer, nominated little old me to create a tacky trophy to be given to the winner. I'm not sure why she thought I would be particularly suited to tacky trophy building, but whatever. ;)
Here's what the lucky winner gets to proudly display on their mantle.

I know, you're jealous right? Guess you'll just have to move here and compete for it next year. ;)
And, on a random note, we got the sad news that a recent storm took out the beloved globe willow at our old house.
That tree was a canopy for weddings, receptions, a few pet funerals (shhh...don't tell the new owners!), thousands of days of playtime in the shade.
Marsha loved it too. When she came to visit she would sit at one end of our dining room table and just watch that tree sway back and forth in the breeze for hours. :(
Just look at it now.

So sad.
Well...that pretty much sums up what I've been up to the past two weeks. I have made a few vegetarian recipes from that new cookbook I mentioned. Two of them were just okay. Nothing special. But one was pretty good and I'll be sharing it here tomorrow.