Christmas Trees & New Recipes.....

Well this weekend saw us having a relatively quiet weekend, but that is not a bad thing. Thursday night after work I went down to Mum and Dad's for tea, as I usually do, as they have Ryan on Thursdays, and Mum likes to cook for me so I can have one night off a week.

Mum and Dad have had the same Christmas tree since I was born, so it is 30 something years old. A few weeks ago they bought a new Christmas tree, only they hadn't gotten around to putting it up. Every time we popped in I was like 'is it up yet?'....this time I didn't bother asking, I just snuck out the back, slowly opened the door and went 'Yay, the tree is up'. There were no decorations on it at that stage.

Two years ago I bought Mum and Dad some hand painted baubles, two that read Margaret and Brian, another two that read Michael and Tanya, and another two that read Michael and Cecelia. One Michael is my brother, the other my husband and Cecelia is my sister in law. So we had the family on the tree. This year having had two new additions to the family I needed to add two new balls to it. One each for Ryan and his new little cousin Seth.

So I went back inside and grabbed Ryan. Together we put up the first decorations on Nan & Pop's new Christmas Tree, the family Christmas baubles. If we are blessed with anymore little people in our lives, I will have balls painted up for them too. I finished decorating the tree after tea, and after Ryan had gone to bed, with my Dad placing the angel on top as the last decoration to go on. I have a rule that the man of the house must put either the star or the angel on top as the last decoration.

Michael had his works Christmas Show Friday night which saw me and my little man home alone. Ryan was in bed by about 7:30pm, so it was a quiet house let me tell you. Michael eventually ended up getting home around 2:30am, after having to wait nearly two hours for a taxi, but he had a good night, which I was happy about, as he had reservations about going in the first place.

Saturday after I had had my nails done, and Ryan had woken from his nap we hit the shops, sourcing Christmas pressies. I decided to get my SIL some cookbooks, so was on the hunt for Low Carb Cookbooks, and my Brother is really into Sci-Fi, so have ordered in the newest book from one of his favourite authors. Michael is really into cricket, so I thought I would get him the Ricky Ponting book that is out at the moment, I think Mum & Dad have bought him the Steve Waugh book too, so he will be a happy little boy. We are a family of readers, so I have also bought Dad a book too. Mum on the other hand, well I had gardening ideas for her, until Michael found what I wanted to get them already out in their garage....BUGGA....back to the drawing board, I guess I could always buy her a book too.

We bought Ryan some clothes, but will be going back in a fortnight to buys toys. God, there is so much to choose from. I want to get him fun but educational stuff. I know he is going to be spoilt this Christmas, not only from Father Christmas, but from his Mum & Dad, Nan & Pop, his Uncle Mick & Auntie Cec and his Grandma Douthie.

As for Michael's Mother and Brother, well we have no idea. They live in Tasmania and are so hard to buy for. I guess we are going to have to put our thinking caps on, as this year, I really don't want to do the gift voucher thing. But I do know that while shopping at Big W I found these drink coasters that you can slip photos into, so we will do a set up each for my Mum and Dad, and also Michael's Mum with photos of Ryan in them.

Saturday night we went down to Mum & Dad's to watch the basketball on 'Fox'. They were going out and didn't mind us going down there to watch it. So we packed up our bbq meat, and Ryan and off we went. Yummy bbq, but a sad result with the basketball with Adelaide losing.

Yesterday we had our first hot day for the summer, 38 degrees. I didn't want to take Ryan out in it, so Michael was a doll and went and did the groceries, while I stayed home and did the washing, not very exciting huh? Mum and Dad popped in around 2:00pm. I did however try a new recipe last night. I have never had, let alone made risotto before. Tragic, isn't it? I don't know why I got it in my head, but last night I just 'HAD' to make risotto.

Ham and Mushroom risotto. Having not had it before I had no real expectations as to what it should be like. It smelt good through out the cooking process so that had to be a good start. Michael kept passing comment on it too. But the test is in the tasting right, (or something like that). Well Michael loved it, I thought it was a little too heavy on the garlic, but I wanted to follow the recipe the first time, to see what it was like, and will play with it next time. Yes, there will be a next time...I LOVED IT!