Day Off from Work = Lots of "Work" Accomplished at Home

I had highly anticipated having this day off from work, as it landed just 3 days before Christmas with my enormous side of the family, 2 days before Christmas Eve with my hubby's family of less than enormous size, and 1 day before my annual Christmas Cookie Baking Extravanganza of Fun had with my cousins.  So all in all, this was a busy day of prepping for such events in anticipation of the Blessed Christmas Holiday, so I'm thankful for being afforded the day off from the family's business so that I could enjoy some of my own little family's busy-ness.

A bit of a set back with the start of the morning, beginning at 1:00am, though...My Girlies were rather feverish throughout the day yesterday, and although Elena seemed to recover fairly quickly from her grumpiness brought on by mild sickness, Katrina just did not seem to be able to fight the ill-effects of winter colds/coughs/fever, so she did NOT sleep well and was running a temperature throughout the wee hours of the morning.  And since I had a diet coke with dinner just hours before I intended to sleep, well, let's just say caffeinated & already sleep deprived working Momma+ feverish 2-1/2-year-old toddler who loves Momma=really poor night's sleep (yawn!).  Despite the poor start to the anticipation of my day off, I was determined to make the most of the time I had today to do everything I set out to do, and all in all I would say it was a rather relaxing yet wonderfully busy day at home with my little family.  And to make things even sweeter, some baking of deliciousness was accomplished amidst an hour of actually doing work work (couldn't resist...can't help but have the company's goings-on on my mind ALL...THE...TIME, plus there were organizational charts to be done...), loads of laundry cleaning, folding, and putting away, crazy tidying up of the house and its enormous messes created by my little family, reading books with my under-the-weather Girlies, taking temperature readings every so often to make sure no doctor's office visits needed to occur, requesting Alex to go to the grocery store for more baking needs (if I went, I would come back with the entire baking aisle...bad news bears), putting the last of the Christmas decor up for good measure, and squeezing in some easy meals so that none of us would waste away from hunger. I have to admit, I kinda liked the craziness of the at-home to-do list I tackled today with relative ease...Hmmmm, makes me want to ponder me in the life of a SAHM or at least a WAHM...hmmmmm....

Anyway, back to the most enjoyable part of my day off:  BAKING!  I was actually hoping to have done more than I had, but with the other to-do list items, I can't really complain...So, on today's baking short-list:

• 2 loaves of Banana Bread from the Simply Recipes site.  Love love love this quick & easy recipe! And I can't wait to share the love with my co-workers tomorrow when I'm back at the office for its Last Workday Before Christmas festivities (Who's my Secret Santa???)!
• A cookie sheet pan's worth of Tiny Apricot Almond Squares from the Land-O-Lakes site.  An easy and sweet treat that's sooooooo good with a cup of tea with a touch of vanilla creme!
• A good batch of citrusy Christmas Cherries, festive holiday cookies shared on The Pioneer Woman Cooks site.

Banana Bread ala simplyrecipes.com

Tiny Apricot Almond Squares, Land-O-Lakes style

Christmas Cherries thanks to The Pioneer Woman!

I hope you find these recipes and sites useful, festive, enjoyable, and most importantly nom nom nom-worthy for friends, family, and Santa!  Enjoy!