The Silk Road to Siena: All I Want for Christmas.....

......Is for my Baby to feel Well. Two Babies for that matter.

The news this week is that Siena is sick. She came down with what sounded like the croup on Saturday night & running fever. We got the fever down but other cold & cough symptoms persisted. So by Monday morning I called the Dr. & got her in. She did a number on herself all right, not with one, not two, but three bugs. The Dr. said that she had croup, RSV (thought that was for infants only) & the Flu. But I said, how can she get the flu when she had taken the flu nasal spray? (Nasal spray can be given instead of shots to some). She said that she could still get it but good thing she got the spray so at least this flu wasn't as bad as it could be. Needless to say we have the meds going in, just not willingly. She's usually a good sport about things like this but I guess they must taste pretty bad. (The picture below was taken just before we went out to the Dr. She's wearing last year's overalls. They still fit but just a bit short.)

Nights have been the worst. As usual the flu always feels worse at night. No one has had much sleep around here. Then to top things off, Daddy wakes up this morning feeling pretty rough himself. He must have the flu bug now. He never got around to getting his flu shot this year. I hope I can hold out at least to help Santa this Christmas. Santa still has presents to wrap.

I'm getting this post done while the two babies are getting their much needed naps. I still have more baking to do. Which brings me to let you all know that the Gingerbread House didn't go over well again this year, unfortunately. We got so discouraged just trying to get the sides & roof of the house to stay together that it ended up in file 13 (the trash can). So plan B was to make Gingerbread men. Well....they were much easier. Pre-cut & bake from Target. But I must have been in another zone that day. I ended up burning most of them on the bottom. What's with Gingerbread anyway?...I can't get it right even when it's almost done for me! Aarrrrgg!

Anyway...I did managed to salvage a few to send to my cousins & I just let Siena decorate 2 of the burned ones for fun. On to plan C. Real homemade, from scratch baked cookies. Okay, finally, I managed to pull this one off. I made several batches of good cookies. Key Lime cookies, Oatmeal Scotchies & Plain Oatmeal. I still have more cookies to bake so my next batches will be something with Toffee pieces in them & something with chocolate chips. I also made some great easy spicy candied pecans, thanks to the recipe from my good friend Chris. A second batch of those are coming soon too.

Until next time....stay well & Happy Holidays!