Christmas Breakfast Recipes & Family Room Pics

Happy Friday, friends!!  Are you all ready for Christmas?!  I’m happy to say that everything is falling into place at my house!!  I still have cookies to bake, which I’ll do on Monday.  I don’t like to make them too far in advance, otherwise, they’ll be gone before Christmas!!  Other than that, I’m ready!!

Today is the last day of school for Kory and Justin and so it’ll be nice to have the next week to be able to relax by a fire and spend some quality family time together watching movies and playing games.   We even have snow in the forecast!!  We’re suppose to get up to 2” tonight and on Christmas Eve there’s a 60% chance of some major accumulation!!  Perfect to snuggle up in front of a warm fire on Christmas Day, especially since we don’t have to go anywhere!!

We have a few activities this weekend to attend to.  Kory has bowling in the morning and then Saturday evening, we have a 50th birthday party for my brother-in-law to go to.  On Sunday afternoon, my Mom and Dad are having our family  get-together.  So that’ll be fun!

    Here are a couple of recipes that we like to make and enjoy Christmas morning after all of the presents have been opened.   I hope you enjoy them, too!

Cream Cheese Coffeecake

Batter:

1/2 c. butter, softened

8 oz. cream cheese, softened

1 1/4 c. sugar

2 eggs

1 tsp. vanilla

1 1/3 c. flour

1 tsp. baking powder

1/2 tsp baking soda

1/4 tsp. salt

1/4 c. milk

Topping:

1/3 c. flour

1/3 c. brown sugar

1/2 tsp. cinnamon

2 T. butter, softened

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Cream butter, cream cheese and sugar together.  Add remaining ingredients.  Pour into greased 9x13 pan.

Mix topping ingredients together; mixture will be crumbly.  Sprinkle onto batter.

Bake 35-40 minutes.  Let cool.

Breakfast Pizza

1 lb. Italian sausage

2 c. bisquick

1/2 c. water

1 c. frozen hash brown potato cubes

1 c. shredded cheddar cheese

3 eggs

2 T. milk

1/2 tsp. salt

1/8 tsp. pepper

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

Brown sausage; drain.  Mix bisquick and water; press onto bottom and up sides of an ungreased 9x13 pan.  Spoon sausage over crust.  Sprinkle with potatoes and cheese.  Beat eggs, milk, salt and pepper and pour over top.

Bake 20-25 minutes.

As always, if you’d like to see who else is participating in Colleen’s (And Baby Makes Five) Homemade Holiday Recipe Swap click here:

I wanted to share with you a picture of a cupboard my hubby and I made for my sister to give her granddaughter for Christmas.  This thing is huge!  She has a couple of American Girl dolls and my sister wanted us to make something for her to store the dolls in, along with all of the doll clothes and accessories.   My sister is going stencil something on the front of the doors and make liners for the baskets to give it a little color! (You can’t see it, but there’s another rod at the very top on the right side to hang clothes on.)

Okay, before you see these next pictures, I want to explain a few things.   First off, I’m sorry they’re dark.  My family room is in the basement and doesn’t have any windows so the lighting is very poor.  I’m enabling it so that if you click on each picture, you should be able to see a larger view. (But don’t look too closely!  lol)

The couch and chair definitely clash with the plaid wallpaper (check out the pillows on the couch).  When we got new furniture for the living room a couple of years ago, some of the old pieces came down here.  We put a slipcover on the couch, but I never got around to getting one for the chair,  so a sheet got thrown over it, which helps a lot when Sam, our Dalmatian, rubs up against the front and leaves dog hair all over it!  Even tough it’s not very pretty, it’s easy to take off and throw in the wash.

Eventually, we’ll get new furniture and new carpet and redo the ceiling tile by raising it up a couple of inches and installing smaller 2’x2’ squares.  We’ll also put in recessed lighting to brighten things up a bit.

As far as the decor, I really haven’t put to much effort into decorating down here.  Everything is pretty much odds and ends from upstairs that I don’t know what to do with. 

My hubby did the Christmas decorations.  While I was busy doing the upstairs, he took the things that I decided not to use and placed them down here.  I usually have the garland, the stockings (that’s where Santa leaves the treats for the pets) and the tree, but not much else. 

This is Sam.  I gave up trying to get him to move, he was way too comfy!!

 

It’s not a very good picture, but, the TV stand was made using 3 ready-made cupboards from Home Depot.  We attached them together, put sides and a top piece on, and then painted.  The middle door holds our satellite receiver, Wii and Xbox 360 consoles, and the VCR/DVD player.  The other cupboards hold DVDs and video games.

On the top of the cupboard is my collection of Byer’s Choice “A Christmas Carol” figurines.  I usually have them upstairs, but since I’ve rearranged things, they didn’t work in the place I usually put them.

 

This heads into the Rec room, which I had posted pictures of earlier.

The door you see in this picture leads into the utility room.  One day, when I get really, really brave, I’ll post show you pictures of it.  This is were Sam stays at night and while we’re away.  And also where Chuck comes in after work covered in concrete dust and muddy boots with stones stuck on.  On the extreme right, behind the pole, are the stairs leading up to a side door and then into the kitchen.

I mentioned in my last post that I was working on another Santa.  I love the ones that Druann makes and sells on her PictureTrail – Cinnamon Creek Cabin and the ones that Stacee makes and sells on her Picture Trail – Arnett’s Country Store.  I haven’t been fortunate to be able to purchase one of theirs, yet (I keep trying!!),  so I decided to try to make one of my own!  It’s definitely not as nice as theirs, but it turned out okay.  I didn’t have any patterns to use, so I had to create my own. I just kind of “winged it” as I went along.  I have a lot of tweaking to do!   I need to revise the pattern for the pants, because these make him look bowl-legged!!  lol   I’m not sure how I’m going to finish him off, yet, but I’m not going to worry about it until after Christmas.  I actually don’t even know where I’m going to put him!!  lol  He was kind of fun to make!  I’ll probably try to make more and experiment with other techniques, again, after the holidays!!

I hope to be back and do one more post before Christmas – I have a few more things that I’ve made and want to share them with you. . . but, in case I don’t, I want to wish all of you a very Merry Christmas and I hope that the time you get to spend with loved ones is a very memorable one and that Christmas turns out to be everything you’ve dreamed it to be!!

Merry Christmas!!!

 

Until Next Time. . . .Kris