I know many don’t do their Christmas cookies until after Thanksgiving, and then some like me will do them earlier. I’m making my cookies now because then I can take them to our family gatherings and share now, rather than just have them all here to eat by the three of us.

I am making a rolled sugar cookie with cream cheese, and naturally we’ll use a cream cheese frosting with it. (Yes this we all like cream cheese in this family.) The ones I made last year seemed to have gone over well with the extended family, but I couldn’t remember which recipe I used. Therefore it could be a new recipe this year, but most of them seemed very similar so it should be close if not exactly the same this year.

While I was searching on www.food.com for the recipe, I came across a recipe for a cream cheese cookie that’s completely sugar free. It’s what I would call a pinwheel style cookie and uses preserves. Since my dad is watching his sugar intake, I thought I would give these a try as well. For the preserves I choose Smucker’s Simply Fruit in Seedless Strawberry which does not have any sugar either. So these could easily be one of the healthier desert choices available on Thursday.

You might want to ask me how these cookies taste, but the truth is I don’t know yet. Cookies with cream cheese in them need to be chilled before they can be rolled out, so we’ll actually be baking them tomorrow, Though I have tried each of the doughs (naturally) and they both tasted good to me.

from Laura Lambert – Google+ Post

I can tell I haven’t checked our website in a while, when I look at page and find the last update was in May, and now it’s already New Year’s Eve.

Apparently we’ve been too busy with the day-to-day living of life to take the time to update this blog.  Or too busy with the changes to write about them, and then when things settle down it would slip our minds.  Who knows, all I know is that lots have changed in the last 7 months.

One of the first changes from the last blogs, was that Shane is not working for his former employer.  There was a parting of the ways due mainly to a misunderstanding.  Apparently the boss thought that as Shane’s employer he should be in control of when and IF Shane should have free time.  Our family plans didn’t apparently mean much to his idea of deadlines and launch dates, even when notified well in advance, or when it was the weekend.

With that change it became more difficult to complete the trailer in a timely fashion like we hoped.  One of the things that really needed completing before we could work on the interior was the roof.  Well, CraigsList helped us out there with finding the right sized trusses and a wonderful price  for them to redo the roof.  Unfortunately there was several rather heavy rain storms before we had a chance to start on the roof, and with other hold-ups as well we weren’t able to complete the roof soon enough.  What do I mean about not being able to complete it soon enough, well simply that things took too long and the interior became very heavily mold infested.  Too much so, for us to feel safe to complete the trailer or move in.  Therefore the project was abandoned.

In September we moved out of Karen’s.  Instead we moved in with Shane’s brother, Scott, and his wife, Charity.  So now we are living in Arcadia, WI.  We had thought/hoped that with Ashley Furniture and Golden Plump here in town, there might be job opportunities locally.  Unfortunately we are the wrong ages and have the wrong skill-sets for those employers apparently.

December 13, my cousin, Brandi Lynn Allen, was fatally injured in a car accident.  It’s hard to believe that such a bright young woman of only 19 is no longer with us.  She will be missed by many.

Allyssa made out well with Santa this year.  She received some Thomas the Tank things, TinkerBell items, a couple of dolls, and a few other things as well.  It took her about 30 minutes, I believe to open all her gifts and she enjoyed every minute of it, and then became busy playing with her new gifts.

Unfortunately the 26th we seemed to have a bit of a flu bug around the house.  Allyssa seemed to have it first, during the late night of the 23rd, but Shane and I seemed to have a bit of it on the 26th.

It’s been way too long since we were able to drive our car rather then the van, but as of today, we can! Those of you who know about this will want to hear about the hassle with the DMV I have dealt with this past few months. It seems our tax dollars, which are used to pay those idiots at the DMV, are being wasted. I will elaborate:

We bought the car on August 4th, 2008, but due to an accident I had back in 2004 when I did not have insurance, I was unable to register the car until I paid the damage judgment against me. This started a search for the person I owed the money to. Ironically, the DMV nor the court systems could help me find him, and any old contact information I had was long outdated.

After nearly 3 months of trying to find him, I suddenly remembered where he had worked, and thought to call there to see if they had current contact information. Fortunately, he still worked there and he eventually contacted me back. Problem was, he wanted all the money up front before he would release the judgement. I worked it out through family and friends to be able to pay him the full amount, but informed him if he wanted his money he needed to meet me at the court house in La Crosse and sign the satisfaction of judgement. He was more than willing to do that. This is where the fun began!

I received the satisfaction of judgment on November 13th and called the DMV the following Monday. The yahoo that answered the phone told me that he sees the judgment is satisfied and that I now need to file SR-22 insurance and pay a $110 reinstatement fee. This really frustrated me because when I called the DMV back in October to find out what I needed to do, that person said nothing about insurance or a fee, nor did the notice the DMV sent me when I tried to register the vehicle. If I had known about the SR-22 requirement back in October, I would have done it. Turns out it only added about $25 to our policy – not bad.

Then today I called the DMV to make sure the SR-22 filing was on record, and was told it was, BUT, the satisfaction of judgement was not. I flew off the handle – yelling at this poor woman, Mary, who quickly calmed me down and told me what I needed to do. I scanned and emailed the satisfaction to her, and she immediately called me back to get the payment of only a $50 fee. The $110 the other yahoo mentioned included the $60 to reinstate my license, which I didn’t need to do today. She then transferred me to someone in the registration department who expedited the filing of the satisfaction, and told me we could get temporary plates so we could use the vehicle. FINALLY, someone at the DMV who knows what they are doing.

To make this long story short, now that you’ve waded through the whole thing, Laura made a trip with the van to River Falls to get our temporary plates and we can now drive our more fuel efficient vehicle again. So, for those wondering, we will be back home for Christmas, though we will once again spend Christmas Day here at home as a family.

Yes, it’s Christmas. As Shane has said we have had a lovely quiet family Christmas, just the three of us. The 2 1/2 hours of travel it would have taken to be with family on Christmas Eve would have just been to hard with Shane having to work yesterday as well. While we both missed seeing family, having this morning with Allyssa in our home to open her presents made it extremely special to us.

Of course this day has taken it’s toll on Allyssa. Playing with her new presents has tired her out as you can see here. But look how angelic she looks while she sleeps. (Okay, all children look like little angels while they sleep, but to me she is the most precious little angel.)

I have to agree with Shane in that this is the best Christmas, I’ve ever had. While it may have been lean in material things it had the things that matter most, loved ones and joy. Thank you Shane for the wonderful words, and thank you for being you. It may have taken us a while to find each other, but I’ve never doubted that your my Mr. Right.

Allyssa is crawling. She’s been doing it since early December. And strangely enough, I don’t recall seeing her crawl backwards first. Of course that could be to the month we spend in the hotel, were we didn’t let her down on their floor. We kept her up on the king sized bed or in her walker, or in her pack ‘n play. I just had no way of knowing what kind of chemicals they may have used on their floors or how clean they actually were.

She is growing so much even if she’s remaining on the petite side of things. On the 19th when she had her second flu shot, she was 16 lb 3-4 oz and 26 3/4 in. She enjoys drinking from a glass, but still has problems figuring out a sippy cup. She also has liked everything she’s been given to eat, from beans to spaghetti (yes we pureed it for her). She loves ice cream and Red Vines licorice. She is also a big fan of potatoes, any way she can get them.

A few days ago, we felt the rough edges of her first tooth cutting thru. For the most part it hasn’t bothered her too much, or at least not yet.

We look forward to seeing family for a late Christmas when we are next in the Holmen area. It looks like it’s going to be the first weekend in January, but while we couldn’t be with them in person, they were in our thoughts on this beautiful first Christmas with our daughter.