Merry Christmas!

Not going to lie, a big part of me wanted to just go to bed Christmas Eve and wake up on December 26 and skip Christmas all together.  My grief is still so raw that at any given moment I can feel myself start to tear up and it’s all I can do to not to go into a full blown crying fit right then and there.

But, life moves on.  Without Tony and each day I have to just keep telling myself to put one foot in front of the other and just . . . get on with life.

The kids moved in on Wednesday, along with their two dogs.   This is Rummy – she’s almost 3.

And here is Red, almost 12:

We decided to have wontons and fried rice for our Christmas Eve dinner.  While the kids returned the moving truck, I whipped together the wontons.

I may have made a few!  We had leftovers though.  And my fried rice wasn’t anywhere near as good as Tony’s, but it was pretty tasty.

I made the Christmas tree of balls again – super big hit – every ball was eaten!

I started out our dinner with shrimp bisque – very tasty and a lot easier recipe than some of the others I found on Pinterest.

I ended up getting a beef tenderloin, because the price dropped right before Christmas – score!

I ended up using Tieghan’s rub on my tenderloin – it was really good!  I ended up making a blue cheese sauce on the side, but turns out no one in Tony’s family likes blue cheese!

And you can never go wrong with crab legs!  It was perfect timing because while I let the meat rest, I threw the crab legs in the oven at 375 and cooked them along with Hannah’s amazeball tater tot casserole – so simple – tater tots mixed with sour cream, cream of broccoli cheddar soup, milk and then cheese on top and bake it.  It’s her signature dish

I love my new stove!!  Not only do the burners get hot super fast, I got to use the internal meat probe for the beef – I can see exactly what temperature the meat is at the press of a button.  Took it out at 125, rested the meat 20 minutes for perfect medium rare.

Here is the best picture of the night – me helping Hannah crack her crab legs!  Um, let’s just say she didn’t like the sound or the taste of the crab legs.  I actually have two legs leftover so I’ll be making a crab cake for myself over the weekend with the leftovers.  Photo credit goes to my grand-nephew Sean!

Thanks to my brother for your box of loot – more Chex Mix!  That stuff is like crack to me.  And my niece made me this cute mug – love the color!  It’s another Pinterest project – just a sharpie marker on a plain mug – love it!

I got this beautiful scarf from Shelley in the mail – she says she names all of her projects and this one is “give Biz a hug.”  Love it!  Thank you!  It will definitely come into use because Hannah and I plan to be walking buddies!

I hope you all had a wonderful holiday, no matter what you celebrate.  I plan on getting a lot of organizing done over the weekend, hit the gym, get some steps in and meal plan for next week.  It’s been so long since I have done that!  Have a great weekend – see you on Monday!