Faux Christmas and Lapskaus

Friday night, Maddy and Matthew arrived later than expected due to a snow storm system that they were driving through.  Roads were rough and wind was strong.  We had already eaten but had food ready for them when they got here.  I made use of the time with no company and worked on making binding for the two quilts for my folks.  Got it all ready to work on for the weekend.

When they got here, we visited until exhaustion set in for everyone.

Saturday, it was extremely cold, but that wasn't stopping us.  I still had a ton of Christmas shopping left to do so we all climbed into a warmed up car and headed to town.  Left Robb in the coffeeshop and I shopped my heart out in various stores.  Ate out.  The kids and I filled up a plethora of shopping carts and when we got home, a wrapping party ensued with lots of Christmas music on the radio.

DON'T LOOK OVER HERE!!!  I'M WRAPPING YOURS!!!

Then the Maid of Honor asking that I told you about yesterday....  

Then we ate out again.  Sometimes a whole week goes by with us only using the dollar menu at Wendys once and here we've eaten out twice in one day.  What is the world coming to??...

We visited the British pub/restaurant that Ryan works at and he was even our waiter!  Jen met us there and the food was great.  We got the cheese platter because that's just what Maddy and Matthew like to do...  Be cheesy together.

Ryan and Jen met us at home later and we played board games into the night.  A fun one about headlines that I can't remember the name of and Tenzi.  I had purchased Watch Ya Mouth and it was hilarious.  I'm not sure I want to play that all the time, but seeing everyone's teeth vividly and horrid attempts to spit out a weird phrase was quite a treat.  I now know why people keep posting pics of themselves playing this on FB.

Note to everyone.  Brush your teeth and maybe get a drool bib before playing.

Sunday after church, the kids ate out, just them.  I had a billion errands to do before going home and Robb went to pick up the boy.  We all got home roughly at the same time.  I spent part of the afternoon sewing on my dad's quilt binding and got it done. YAY!!!  

Since Sunday's temp was 15 degrees below zero for a high, our Norwegian Christmas dinner with my bestie and her husband was cancelled.  The cold really affects her and she didn't feel like she could leave the nursing home in that.  So we postponed it until Monday night when it would be a whole 20 degrees ABOVE zero.  You know... shorts weather.

So Sunday night, we had Robb's old standby of "Needs Salt Casserole", introducing Matthew to our boring food staples.  It's not ALWAYS steak and cheese platters around here!

Monday night was the Norwegian Christmas dinner.  Mike, Ada's hubs, used to prepare it for us every year at his house, but since their situation has changed, Robb thought we could do it for them instead.  I think we did a good job of it, but it's just NOT Mike's Lapskaus (Norwegian Hash). We'll perfect our version in time.

 Since our kids have such varied schedules and we wanted to include everyone, we're opening presents tonight.  Talk at you all later!  Have a great faux Christmas today!