Flight cancelled!

So, my mom is coming in for the holidays.. The woman who has not flown since I was a baby, so it has been 30 or so years and her flight is delayed. Well, she got through one flight which ran late on Continental, to have a layover for her connecting flight on Continental... Now this is also the woman who gets freaked out over anything going wrong. She was not like this in her youth, but the older she gets, she swears that no matter where you are there are outlandish situations that are not only going to happen, but happen to her! (even when we were going to the happiest place on the planet, Disney world, she lectured us the entire time on crazy people who target places like that... She goes overboard.
So, on top of her anxiety, she has a heart condition which she had open heart for and was already freaked out about the darn flight. I had to beg her to come for years and finally told her I already bought the ticket... so as scared as she was, she was raised to never waste anything, so after that, and some more convincing, she was on her way....
Now a delay, then a canceled flight, then a hotel that sent her and a dozen others away, and more issues has her in a state of traveling no one wants to be in... On top of this she also has a condition with her lymph nodes that they swell and she has to wear special leg wraps (yes if I put all her medical stuff out here it would look like a rap sheet for a nursing home, and I do realize these are the genes I inherited! Someone better be pulling for me up there so I do not have all that stuff to deal with!)
So as we stand right now, it went from a 20 min. delay to a 12 hour delay and hopefully all systems will be in "go mode" in the morning. So here is to my scaredy cat mom who is being broken in on flight issues the old fashioned way. I say face your fears right?! But it is Christmas eve and she did not want to fly on that date and she really wants to make sure she is here by Christmas.... And so do we of course.
This is a Continental flight (first class I might add, lucky her!) and her flight back is a coach Delta flight.... Let's see which she prefers......

Santa and Cocoa

These are my three little girls with Santa Claus.... We played Santa at home, so I thought I knew what they were going to say.... Until they got in his lap! My second born asked for a T- Rex & hello kitty slippers (the one's she saw in the window walking to see Santa), my baby daughter asked for a trampoline, and my oldest asked for a cat with gray hair and blue eyes! I snapped the picture and looked at my husband and whispered "Looks like we have some shopping to do!" What little hijackers! ;) They are all really into the holidays this year, and so am I. We started making kinderpunsch in October and it has been a spiral down the holiday band wagon ever since! I am glad they are so excited this year, especially since their daddy is home to see it!

Ok, so here is the hot chocolate recipe (one of the many, but this is an old stand by)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Ingredients:
6 T. Unsweetened cocoa
6 T. Sugar
Pinch of Salt
2 1/2 cup Milk
2 1/2 cup Light Cream
1/2 t. Vanilla (or more)
*one drop of coconut extract (do not over do it on this one or it will not enhance the flavor, but take it over)
OR
Pinch of Cinnamon Powder (optional)
Whipped Cream (to top)

Put it all in a pot and whisk the heck out of it until it is combined and to the heat you like to drink your cocoa. I suggest doing it on medium heat and only at the end, add heat if you want it to be more hot than warm. Last top with ice cold whipped cream of your choosing and enjoy.

So, I was adding my wish list to "Williams Sonoma" and found this Hot chocolate maker... I have to admit I am a hot chocolate fanatic and think I have perfected my skills as much as the little elf in the movie "The Santa Claus"... Anyhow, I make mine on the stove from scratch and found this pot and thought, how awesome. It was 40 bucks, on sale for 20, I need it! ...... Then I read the reviews talking about the frothing wand not being reliable and I thought to myself "Wait a second!"
Now fast rewind to August when I found my DREAM blender. A Blendtech blender that can juice, blend, whatever you want it does. It is awesoma nd amazing and I recomend seeing a demo if you can. I actually had a Jack lalane juicer in my cart and while I was on my way to pay saw this guy and after about 30 min, and him making a whole meal with it, I was sold! Anyhow, one of the meals was soup and so I think you are onto me now right?
YES, I will use my blendtech blender on it's soup mode and make hot chocolate... I tried it tonight and it works perfectly! I mean, I dont have to whisk and stand over the stove! If I want it hotter, I just press soup mode a second time and I have perfectly hot hot chocolate with an amazing frothy top and all I had to do was press it and I saved some moolah because I have one machine that can do what it advertises doing which is take the place of many....
Now it does have a heafty price tag, so for those of you who want to save a little (especially now) I saw another macine similar to this one (I have never used it) and it advertises to work similarly.... One is called "Back to basics smoothie blender" and one is "Smoothie Plus 700". Also there is one by Hamilton beech called the wave.
All the different price points, but I can only tell you the quality on mine and I am a huge fan of the Blendtech. It really does make ice into soft snow and there is not a hard peice left in it, then to go to hot soup... I love it. I suggest trying these babies out if you can and freeing up your counter top space! I will post one of my hot chocolate recipies tomorrow!

SO this is my first blog ever and I am excited to start it now. I guess I should try and think of something extremely catchy to get you all involved and itching to read my next blog, but I am not that creative at the moment as I just got little ones off to bed so I guess I can just sum up a little about me for those of you who may not know me that well and give you a sneak peak on what my blog will be about.
I am a mom of three little girls (that will make you tired:). I stay at home with them and do all the mom type things, so you will be reading many things I find useful in my daily life and routine as far as that goes. Also, I am a Photographer, although since this recent move (we moved state side from Germany to the west coast) I have not started the business side of it back up as I knew this was going to be a big move for me coming off the heels of a huge deployment of my husband's. I will also be blogging about the military side of things as they pertain to my daily life. And of course about my passion, Photography. Really anything and everything that is in my daily life is what you will get. Some posts will be on myself, my husband, my dog, or my girls (all three are so different, My oldest dreamer and animal lover, my second wild little leader who follows her own drum, and my sweet baby who melts my heart)... I really love reading blogs that are honest and put it out there, so that is what I am going to try and do.

I have very creative friends and the people I consider my best friends are the most genuine amazing people on the earth you could every meet! I love them with my whole heart and you will be hearing stories about us too.... names may be changed:) I love creative people and I love finding good deals! I have expensive tastes, but am willing to search for the deal or make something better by doing it myself (remember military budget). My OCD (not really) husband inspires me to be more and more organized and when he is here, I am totally on top of it, but the last deployment he was on, I fell completely off of the organization wagon and went into survival mode, which entailed us using my home as a pit stop for going from one place to another only stopping long enough to change clothes and go to an event or game and eating diner then being so tired that I did not care to exert anymore energy other than that which it took to put kids to bed and crash myself... Until the next day. I can not say it enough, BOY AM I GLAD THAT IS OVER! (For now) Deployments are hard, but the line my husband works and being deployed to a war zone reeks havoc on a wife's stress level. I did not realize how hard it would be as I thought I was one of the strong one's, but I think seeing the pain on my friends face when her husband died the previous year and then having guys get injured and loosing another in the same deployment put a somber reality check that this was not just another deployment, this was war and at that point, I began praying that I could just get through it, not because it was the holidays, but because I needed my husband and his borderline OCD behavior back in my life to drive me crazy a little longer. It was a harder road to walk than I thought, but we did get through it and are somehow here in a place that I can look back on it and remember how hard it was, but not really feel that pain... Like child birth! I think I learned a lot of lessons during that deployment that I can take with me to the next one. I just hope they are few and far between.
So, I guess that kind of sums up a little of what you will be reading from me. Please enjoy the blog as it is a direct reflection of my life. I am excited to start this blogging journey with all of you who read it!