The Search for Miss Direction: Coal in my stocking and further proof I must have been bad this year...

I hate germs. With a passion. I am so over them this year that I can't even put it into words. Noah started throwing up again overnight which resulted in another trip to the doctor's office this morning. Great way to start break, right? Doc says he's got some kind of stomach bug and him just being off of his antibiotics for strep has only made it worse. Go figure. So we're in quarantine. Again. Still. (And I'm whining, I know. I'm sorry. Skip to the fun pictures, I wouldn't blame you) And I've been trying my best to keep Thing 1 and Thing 2 apart as I REALLY don't want it to be about 10am on Wednesday morning and the Bean comes down with it, too. So Noah has done quite well entertaining himself all day (between lego and lightbright I didn't hear much from him other than to complain that I wouldn't feed him. Not risking that one again yet...) and Kayla and I became "Christmas Chefs" as she has told me continuously.

We started out with Christmas Coal Popcorn in honor of Wyoming being the nation's leading coal producer. I liked this one better than the edible coal we made for West Virginia - thought it looked more real :) Plus this would be a great funny stocking stuffer.

From there we made Chocolate Mint Muddy Buddy mix that was inspired by this recipe for Orange Creamsicle Muddy Buddy Mix. We followed the recipe but used the chocolate mint flavoring packet. Love it! And it turned out such a pretty green color. The we tried Peppermint Crunch Puppy Chow (we had quite the time with the food processor today) and though I don't have a recipe for it, we also made Egg Nog Puppy Chow. I had snagged a bag of egg nog flavored Wilton melting disks (OMG - YUM!) and used those and then tossed the resulting mixture in powdered sugar, cinnamon and nutmeg. (Yay for me own creations!)

Then we started on the cookies. I saw this recipe for Rainbow Cookies the other day and thought the red and green ones would be so much fun! We made (sans the chocolate chips) one batch of each. About half we swirled the two together and left them that way and the other half, we of course had to frost and decorate. The Bean started in on making snowmen which of course meant I needed to get in on the action as well (ah cute food!) and she did a fabulous job.

We then set out to make some cake pops (which I've never done before!) based on this idea for Little Debbie Cake Pops. We actually used a box of "Fancy Cakes" and got 12 perfect sized pops which we dipped in peppermint crunch Wilton melts. We used the rest of the melts to coat some of the Oreo Truffles we made (just for Grant) and ended up drizzling the end of the rest.

If all that wasn't enough... We're *supposed* to be hosting brunch here on Wednesday and I'm a little ahead of the curve (hahaha) and had my recipes picked out and ingredients bought. So Kayla and I made these Glitter Grapes in red and green which we really hope to share with everyone on Wednesday. If not, more grapes for us, right? I'm trying really hard here, people...

You'll forgive me, but we have opted to move the geyser experiment until tomorrow. (Can't imagine why) It'll give you all something to come back and see, right? My little Christmas Chef has her eye on two more recipes tomorrow as well, so we'll see how that all pans out. Until then...

Wyoming Fun Fact of the Day: The Red Desert in south central Wyoming drains neither to the east nor to the west. The continental divide splits and goes around the desert on all sides leaving the basin without normal drainage