A Little Christmas Fun...

I love to bake... I like to cook, but if I had the choice I'd definitely choose baking any day.  I love the results of baking: the wonderful aroma's wafting from the kitchen, the smiles from my husband, family & friends when they see what has been created, and that fabulous satisfaction eating these creations brings to my over-active sweet tooth!

I haven't done a whole lot of baking for Christmas, I bake often enough that there are usually some kind of goodies to be found on the counter, but last night I was on a mission.  My sister is the service manager at Chatters Salon here in Medicine Hat, and while she's not the baker in the family, her staff certainly enjoy the creations that her sister periodically brings in for them lol!  So in the spirit of the Season I thought I'd make something extra special for all of them.  I found this recipe online several weeks ago and as soon as I saw it, there was no question that this is what Mo's staff was getting for Christmas!

And what a blast I had making them!  Justin's mom is here for Christmas and we kinda tag teamed a bit on these.  As she watched me pipe on the icing, I'm sure she thought I was a little crazy when she saw my "icing tool"... or the lack thereof lol!  I'll admit, it was rather ghetto - maybe investing in a set of tips and a proper icing bag is in order :)  But we had fun laughing at my makeshift set up!  All in all, I think they turned out not too bad for my first try... and needless to say my sister is the most popular person in the salon today based on the reaction I got when I brought them in at lunch time lol!  If you know her at all she's not a "huggy" person, so I gratefully accepted the hugs on her behalf :)

These pictures were taken with my iphone, forgive the quality... I took better ones with my real camera... will post those too later...

Butter pecan cupcakes with raspberry pie filling top and french vanilla icing...

I was going to bring them and set them all up nicely for them on my cake stand... but then Mo pointed out that cupcakes with a side of hair clippings that seem to always be floating in a salon might not be so appetizing...but I thought this picture was kinda cool anyways!

And I thought I'd just whip up a quick batch of buns too since I was in the mood...















Of course there may not have been any left for Christmas dinner if I hadn't added this note to some of the batch!

A Happy Sigh...

Do you ever have those days where you just sigh with a smile and think, "I love my life!"

I had one of those moments on the way back to work this afternoon.  My heart is so full... it's been a great week filled with so many wonderful moments and memories... and I have so much to be thankful for...

• I celebrated my 30th birthday on Monday!  I am one of the last in my group of friends to enter the new decade and I can say so far so good lol!  With Justin having had surgery just 10 days prior, I wasn't expecting him to plan anything for me - I was still psyched from the surprise of my tickets to the Canada Cup of Curling earlier this month :)  So in true "Amber fashion" I kinda started planning my own party... just a night with some girlfriends, some yummy food and a chick flick.  Well my efforts were in vain as my friends started showing up on Monday night at our house for my surprise party lol!  My sister just shook her head, "Good grief... only you would plan your own party like this."  My husband just smiled at me and said, "See, you don't have to plan your own birthday.  It's all covered."  I felt very loved...it was the best way I could have thought to ring in the big day!

• Justin is doing well... we are two weeks after surgery now and he is walking on his own, getting stronger each day.  He still pushes it a little too hard some days but I'm very proud of him for how well he's progressing.  And we both slept much better the past two nights than the previous two... it never ceases to amaze me how much better the world looks when you've had some quality sleep! 

• We celebrated my brother-in-law's birthday too this week (December is a crazy month in our family!)  It was so much fun to be in on his surprise party and celebrate him!  His Facebook status the next day was that this was one of the best birthdays he's ever had... if you know Taerum, that is a HUGE compliment!  My sister definitely pulled off a gooder! :)

• I absolutely love our house.  We were incredibly blessed to buy our first home together this summer and I can honestly say that most days there is no where else I'd rather be than at home...I love the layout, I love the kitchen, I love sharing our home with our friends, I love the fact that it truly is my "home"... the place where my heart and my feet rest... 

• I have always loved entertaining... I love having our friends and family in our home and tonight I am blessed with a special opportunity.  In my feeble efforts to plan my own party, I was going to schedule it for tonight (Friday).  Well since my girlfriends already had the night booked off with their families we just decided to keep tonight on the calendar!  And my nerdy brain went to work thinking of what to make etc and what developed was an evening inspired by the movie "Eat Pray Love"... so we're dining on Italian cuisine (or at least my humble attempts at it!) and then watching the movie with dessert and a lovely beverage of their choice!  The details have been rolling around in my head all week and I can't wait to spend the evening with some of my dearest friends eating. laughing and just hanging out! 

• This weekend is full of moments with great friends too!  One of my best friends has just finished touring with the African Children's Choir and she will be in town tomorrow, so I get the privilege of stealing her away for a lunch date!  We chatted for a few minutes on my birthday, but it will be wonderful to see her face to face and have a heart to heart!  I also have another very dear friend who is hoping to make it into the city to do a little shopping too so it will be a full day!  And then we get to have lunch on Sunday with some great friends (Justin knows them better than I do, but I'm really enjoying getting to know them and having them over will be a great way to do that!).  So it will be a full weekend, but one I'm really looking forward to!

Thank you Lord for the blessings that You have so graciously given in abundance...thank you for so many reasons to smile on this winter day!

Finding Our Groove

I am so proud of Justin...he has made what could have been such a difficult situation as simple as I could have ever hoped for...

When they wheeled him back into his recovery room on the day surgery floor Friday afternoon, my heart just broke when I saw how much pain he was in.  It just drives home how helpless one feels when those we love are hurting and there is nothing that can be done to take their pain away.  I just stood beside his bed stroking his head... I couldn't bear to be any further away...

We were incredibly blessed to have wonderful nurses taking care of Justin.  They were concerned with the amount of pain he was in and they gave him an extra shot of morphine which carried him through the remainder of the afternoon. With that shot he became the comedic relief  on the floor and kept everyone giggling all afternoon :)  I kept joking that I wanted to videotape some of his antics, otherwise he may not believe me when I told him what he was saying lol!  We did learn though that the additional pain he was experiencing was due to the fact that they had to take a graft from his hamstring to create a new ACL.  Apparently there was no ACL left in his knee to be able to reattach...who knew that's how they did that?!

Now here we are 4 days after surgery and we are finding our groove.  We've figured out what configuration of pillows are most comfortable for him to be able to chill on the couch or be able to rest in bed.  We've discovered that he has to eat something before taking his meds or else his stomach does flip flops. We've realized that the bag of corn we're using as an ice pack stays much colder if it's left outside rather than in the fridge freezer lol! We've just sort of slipped into our groove and are doing this together, making it work...

We were back at the hospital to have his dressings changed this morning, we'll be back there next week to get the staples taken out.  And we'll be regulars in the physio dept over the next few months as he begins the road to gaining full mobility back in his knee.  

I've been very blessed to have been able to be off work for the past few days and just be at home with my hubby...tomorrow I will go back to work - not because I want to, I'd much rather be here with him!  But for tonight, the late night snacks are ready in the fridge to accompany the meds throughout the night and it's almost time for bed...hopefully we'll be able to sleep for several hours in a row!  Goodnight!

Today is the day...

Three weeks before our wedding in April, my wonderful husband-to-be blew out his knee at the last hockey practice of the season. The doctors weren't giving us much hope that he would walk down the isle on his own, but he is a fighter, worked hard doing physio and miraculously walked down completely free of his brace or crutches! At that point we knew that surgery would be a reality but had no idea what kind of time frame we'd be looking at.

Four weeks ago however, Justin got a call with a surgery date for today, Dec. 3rd. We knew he had been placed on the cancellation list and were really happy to get a date so soon! We quickly finished our Christmas shopping, put up the tree and took care of those last minute things we wanted to do before he was laid up for a few months.

So here we sit, Justin is all prepped and now we are just waiting for him to go to the OR... Life will look a little different for a while... He will be off work for several weeks, won't be walking on his own for even longer than that, but at the end of this all we are believing that his knee will be back to full strength and he will be able to light it up on the ice when he plays in the World Police and Fire Games in August!

Thank you to everyone who has asked how he's doing, for all of you who are praying for a successful surgery and a quick recovery... That means more than we can say.

So here we go to the next leg of our journey!