LorieByrd.com

2006 "News"

Gee, I wonder what will be in the "news" the next few months?  Unfortunately, this should get even more coverage than the Brad-Jen divorce did.

Fun Gift From Santa

Floam is one of the best (and smallest) presents Santa brought the kids.  My husband and I have both found ourselves playing with the stuff.  It is much more fun (and much neater) than Playdoh.  It is a bit pricey.  It can be ordered from television (or the website linked above) for about $20 plus S/H for four tubs.  It can also be found at WalMart (if you look really hard) for about $7 for one tub of one color.

One More Reason To Keep That New Year's Resolution

Obesity causes blindness.

Merry Christmas!

Thanks to all those who emailed Christmas greetings.  My family is enjoying a lovely Christmas.

Thanks to the readers of this blog for your support the past year.

Thanks also to GayPatriot for nominating me and to all who voted for me as their favorite "blogress diva."

Best wishes to all for a Happy New Year!

Track Santa On Christmas Eve

I posted a link to the NORAD site last year and for the first time let my kids track Santa on the site.  It was great fun. Here at The Officer's Club, John Noonan has a great post explaining the program (including a bit of interesting history on it) and providing many additional links.

Remember At Christmas

This is the first year I have seen this picture of Christmas at Arlington.  For ways to honor those who gave the ultimate sacrifice, visit some of the websites linked here.

Thanks to Michelle Malkin and Ace of Spades for directing me to the beautiful picture above.

Poli-blogging

I have been doing lots of political blogging on the President's speech and press conference and miscellaneous other topics at Polipundit.  Please check them out.   I especially had a lot of fun writing about the speech and press conference.

I am going a little bit crazy trying to catch up from my trip to California.  It is a bit insane to take a weeklong trip in December and still try to host the family Christmas Eve get together, shop for everyone, bake for school holiday functions, etc.  Right now the big challenge is getting the house clean (actually finding a place to put all my clutter) and finish decorating, then doing almost all of my Christmas shopping in less than five days.  I think I might have to find some tranquilizers by the end of the week.  Right now I have cupcakes baking for a school party tomorrow and I still have teacher gifts to buy.  I am going to just have to take it one day at a time.

Countdown to Christmas -- Day 20

A Gift For The Reindeer

Every year my kids make reindeer food at school.  It usually consists of a scoop of oatmeal mixed with a little glitter and is packaged in snack size ziplock bags with instructions taped to the front and decorated with ribbon or stickers.  This year, my four year old came home with this bag of reindeer food decorated to look like a reindeer, made from a brown paper bag, brown construction paper ears, google eyes, and a red pompom nose.  The instructions were typed out and glued to the back of the bag.  I am looking forward to opening the bag tomorrow night to see what the food looks like since this is the first year we haven't been able to see it and my daughter tells me it is made out of "sprinkles," but can't tell me what they are sprinkles of.  If you want to make these with your kids, the instructions that go along with the reindeer "chow" follow:

REINDEER FOOD

It's the night before Christmas, and since every year, you feed Santa Claus, now feed his reindeer!

Instructions:

1. Wait until Christmas Eve.
2. Open the bag and sprinkle Reindeer Food on the lawn.
3. Hop into bed.
4. Shhh...listen for Santa.
5. Close your eyes and watch for the sugarplums to dance.

Contents:  Enough Reindeer Food for 8 tiny reindeer and Rudolph.

[The post above is a rerun.  It was originally posted in this space on 12/23/2004]

Countdown to Christmas -- Day 19

Cookies

Here is the recipe for 3-in-1 Sugar Cookies, part of the 12 Days of Christmas Cookies recipes.

A great idea I saw on one of the Food Network Christmas specials was to take white chocolate coated Oreos and pipe a thin drizzle of red or green frosting on them, then let dry and set.  They were very pretty and super quick and easy.  They didn't even use a pastry bag and tip, but did what I often do using just a small zip lock bag with one corner clipped. 

Countdown to Christmas -- Day 18

I finally found Santa's head.  I bought one of these Santa's last year (at Walmart for around $50) and the kids love it.  It sings and dances and if you hook up the microphone to it, you can sing along.  Instead of packing Santa in the cardboard box he came in, I packed him in a plastic box so that he would stay dry and bug-free out in our shed.  His body fit in one box, but I had to pack his head in another.  I brought his body in a couple of days ago, but could not find the box containing his head.  I went through every box out in the cold, damp shed and could not find it.  Today I decided to make another go at it, since I knew it had to be in there somewhere.  I found it in the second box I checked, one that I looked in at least three times previously. I just did not look down underneath the two boxes of ornaments and wreath that I am not using this year, and didn't see it earlier.  Now all is well.  Santa is singing and the kids are dancing around and we will be making Rice Crispy treats soon (and maybe even some fudge if I feel like it).  Now if I only had any of my Christmas shopping done...

I will be blogging about the President's Iraq address at Polipundit tonight, so please check in there for some political blogging.