Lindsay, this one's for you.

My friend Lindsay posted this recipe on her blog yesterday, and I swear to you all that I have been daydreaming about these things ever since. So today, on the way home from school, I stopped at the store and bought the stuff to make them. I made them BEFORE dinner (big mistake) which explains the gaps on the cookie sheet. Carter liked them, too.



Line up pretzels on a cookie sheet, then place Rolos on top. Stick them in a 250 degree oven for 2-5 minutes. With broken pieces of pretzel, mush down the Rolo into the gaps in the pretzels and leave the pretzel piece on top. Drizzle with white chocolate (I just melted white chocolate chips) and let harden. DIVINE!!!!

Thanks, Linds!

Other people's children

The following picture illustrates perfectly the reason why I try to avoid Toys R Us. I realize that toy stores can be wonderlands for the little ones. When I was growing up, a trip to Toys R Us was roughly our equivalent to what Baptists refer to as "The Rapture." However, as a parent, anyplace that has chronically dirty floors and/or merchandise, unwashed and unsupervised waifs running about and an entryway that smells like someone's kid just took a leak in the corner is no place I want my child to be any longer than is necessary. And with a Target three minutes away from me and the internet just a click away, Toys R Us--along with Walmart--has become unnecessary.



(For those of you questioning the ickyness of this photo, YES, that's a wad of used chewing gum in the corner.)

Seriously? SERIOUSLY?!

You know, I love books. I freely admit to being a book geek. And I take full responsiblity for my choice to become an English major. But even I--book lover and English major that I am--find this stack of books a wee bit daunting.



For THREE classes?? Seriously??

Perspective.

I have decided that whenever I am having a bad day, I will look at this picture and say to myself, "Self, it could be worse. At least you didn't try to go skiing today like that poor schmuck."

Good thing we didn't spend our Christmas money.

This morning, Randy came out of the shower and said in a very calm voice (under the circumstances), "I think our water heater is gone."

We have been expecting this for a while because 1) the heater is original to the house, which was built in 1997 and 2) we had to replace the water heater in our last house, so why not this one too? I think it's a trend.

Anyway, lucky for us a guy in Randy's small business group is a plumber, and he has kindly agreed to come out today and replace it for us. I'm so glad about that. We were worried we'd have to wait until after New Year's.

On a more introspective note, as I was trying to wash my face in a basin of water I had heated on the stove, I became really aware of how much I take things like a comfortable (if not super-stylish) bed, a warm and cozy (if not huge and brand new) house, and hot water at any given moment for granted. We are so lucky to live where we live and have the goods and opportunities we have--not to mention enough money to cover the cost of a new water heater.

Our family is truly blessed--especially since I won't have to take any more pioneer baths like this:

Does my Tropical Passionfruit body spray count as a serving of fruit?

So, we're almost finished with the holiday season. SAD. Do you know what's even sadder? I've gained five pounds in the last 2 weeks from all the junk we've been eating. As the title of this post suggests, fruits and vegetables have been scarce in the Archibald diet lately. They have been replaced by large quantities of turkey and mashed potatoes, ham and cheese potatoes, frosted sugar cookies, nuts, chex mix, Hershey's kisses, Danish butter cookies, peppermint sticks, apple pie, more chocolate in various forms, BAMBINOS from La Pizzeria in Rigby, ID, pancakes and french toast, frosted gingersnaps, lemon cheesecake pie, more chex mix, and so on and so on.

That being said, we had a really fun Christmas this year. We stayed with ALL of Randy's family at his parents' house--that's right, all thirty-something of us stayed at my in-laws. One word: CHAOS. But the cousins had a blast and it was fun to see everyone, so it was worth it.

On Christmas Eve, we spent the afternoon at my family's old stake center (church house) in Rigby and had a huge dinner with Randy's extended family.

Christmas Day, everyone got up at seven to have breakfast and a short devotional by Lynn. (Notice the FEET of snow burying our cars outside the window.)

Then the kids lined up on the stairs for the annual Christmas photo. But the kids are getting so big and so numerous that not all of them fit in the picture. (Sorry, Garrett and who knows who else.)

After that--PRESENTS!


And then the grand finale--it gets more bizarre every year. I present to you: my father-in-law Lynn.

He really is a lot more professional on the other 364 days of the year.

Anyway, the kids were pleased with their presents, and we had a good time together with everyone. We welcomed our future sis-in-law Stefanie who is engaged to Trevor, and even experienced the birth of a new niece--Shelby Jane Archibald was born on Dec. 26 to Ben and Cheri. Congratulations!

Now, if I could just find someone to put away all of our Christmas decorations for free. I would do it, but I'm now too fat to move.

It just isn't Christmas without...

This is what I did today. I made dozens and dozens of Christmas cookies. The bad news: we are so sick of Christmas treats. This is the pile as of today, and it's still growing.



And that doesn't even count the two gallon-size plastic bags full of Christmas Mix in my pantry.

We will be travelling to spend Christmas with Randy's family, but it just doesn't seem like Christmas unless you make cookies. So I took one for the team. (Actually, I enjoyed it. So did Carter.) And we'll just pack them up and take them with us to Idaho and hope everyone else eats all the stuff we shouldn't be eating!

Tomorrow: Pies, laundry, and hopefully a couple of phone interviews. (Deadlines, deadlines, deadlines. I HATE THEM!)