Playful Elf and Santa Pillow - Day 6

Our playful Elf seemed to have a fun filled night of playing with Steel's Lego guys...

Bought back another goodie from the North Pole...

It's a Lego Egyptian gal with her snake!

Chocolate Chip Cookie Cheesecake

I have to say that I made this the day of Thanksgiving and should have definitely made it the day before.  I had it the next day and it was 10x better than the day of.  I ran out of time in the days before the big Feast and popped this in the oven right as we started to eat dinner.  It wasn't cooled by the time we ate dessert.  It was WAY better on day two, after it had chilled properly.

This is a definite must make again!  Recipe source:  www.mrfood.com.

Ingredients
2 packages of prepared chocolate chip cookie dough rolls
3 eggs
3 (8 oz.) packages of cream cheese, softened
3/4 cup of sugar
1 tsp. vanilla extract

To Prepare
1.  Prepare filling:  combine eggs, cream cheese, sugar and vanilla in a mixing bowl and mix until uniform, set aside.

2.  Cut the first cookie dough rolls into 1/4 inch slices and line a 9x13 greased baking dish.  I found that the chocolate chips make it very difficult to cut nice, thin slices, it doesn't matter if the dough is cold or not.  (This really isn't an issue due to the next step...)

3.  Press dough to form an even layer at the bottom of dish.

4.  Add layer of filling.

5.  Slice second cookie dough roll into 1/4 inch slices and layer on top of the filling.  (See comment in #2.)  I sliced as best that I could and crumbled the dough on top to make it look nice and uniform.

6.  Bake for 45-50 minutes at 350°F.
7.  Let cool.
8.  Tranfer to frig to chill.

To Serve
Serve once chilled.  (Overnight is best.)

Inside Christmas Decorations Done

The Living Room...

The Living Room with the lights off...

Santas...

 A recap of the Steeler's Room...

Kitchen...

and Steel's tree (making room for more ornaments, lol)...

The Outside decorations are going to have to wait until this weekend, it is dark outside by the time we get home during the week!

Crazy Elf and Santa Pillow - Day 5

Steel was super excited this morning when he found that our Elf got himself all tied up in the Christmas tree lights.  He called me downstairs to see.

And he brought back another Lego man from the North Pole to put in his Santa Pillow.  Santa surely must know how much Steel loves his Lego men!  

Letters to Santa

This is the first year that Steel (age 6, Kindergarten) wrote his own letter to Santa.  Mom helped him out with the second page because it was an awful lot of writing.  

In years past, mom wrote the letter in pencil and Steel traced it.  We always cut out pictures from ads that Steel wants for Christmas.  This is from 2009, age 4...

and this is from 2010, age 5...

Steel's 2011 Christmas Pictures

All I want for Christmas is my two front teeth!  

Timing couldn't be better, though one tooth is starting to come in...

The Elf - Day 4

Our Elf never moved from the Shelf last year so Steel is now starting to catch on to its antics.  I never told him that the Elf can be mischievous because I didn't want to have to explain why he didn't move last year.  It's fun to see Steel laugh each day at where the Elf is.  Just wait until that crazy Elf really starts getting into trouble.  We have a long way to go before Christmas, the Elf can't get too crazy right off the bat.

 Our Elf playing Steel's Lego game, looks like he made quite a mess of it as well, or was that Steel?

He did bring back a new Lego guy so all was good in Steel's eyes.

Turkey Blast: Reloaded App

Steel wanted a new app on my phone and we came across this by chance.  Here's a quick run down at www.appbrain.com.  It is also available for the iphone.

Steel gives it 200 stars on a scale of 1 - 5 stars.

Elf and Santa Pillow - Day 3

We found our Elf hanging out on top of our mistletoe!  

Our Elf bought back another goodie...

a Lego Star Wars Spaceship!  

Green Bean Casserole

Not quite sure if there is anyone out there that has never had this casserole.  Hub says it's a standard for the holidays and there is no getting around it.  =)

Ingredients
3 (14.5 oz) cans French Style Green Beans
2 (14.5 oz) cans Cream of Mushroom Soup
Pepper, to liking
1/2 can French's Fried Onions

To Prepare
1.  Mix green beans and soup together with pepper in a mixing bowl.

2.  Transfer to a small casserole baking dish.
3.  Cover with layer of fried onions.

4.  Bake 45 minutes at 325°F.  I put it on the top shelf of the oven while the turkey was in the oven.  Mind you that I like foods browned very well in the oven, I like them crunchy, back off on the time a bit if you don't desire the extra crunch.

To Serve
Serve right out of the baking dish.

Elf and Santa Pillow - Day 2

Our crazy Elf was found dangling upside down from our floor lamp this morning and brought back a little goodie for Steel's Santa Pillow.

Steel was very excited to find a Lego Dragon Man.