Skylar's Christmas Train

When I was posting all the posts about our Christmas and New Years, I neglected to touch on a cute little addition to our Christmas table this year; Skylar's Christmas tree with his train.  

This year we decided to add a small tree to the center of our Christmas table and Skylar had to notion to add his train to the underside of it.  I think it turned out lovely!

Lifelike 152402 HO scale Diesel Electric Train Set - Rail Blaster (Google Affiliate Ad)

  

We had a lot of fun Christmas Day with the train and played around with different track setups to see which one we liked best.  I think we all agreed that the circle shape was the best one for around the bottom of the Christmas table tree.

Eco-Tip:  Simplify your life as much as you can.  Reduce the amount of stuff you have in your home, car, office, or even yard.  When you reduce your life down to the bare minimum, you use less and create less waste overall.  Try this approach, every day pick a room in your home and get rid of 5 things in that room each day.  By the end of the week you have reduced your impact of needing more throughout your entire home.  Try it every week and see how much stuff you can really get rid of.  For this and other tips on going green visit, The Earth and Me Go Green.

How we spent our New Year's

New Year's Eve we hung around our house a bit and drank champagne, sparkling grape juice, and spiked lemonade I made following a recipe I found on Pinterest.  We played games like UNO, CLUE, and even had a good game of Operation going till the batteries died from me hitting the sides too many times.  HA!

Source

Sparkling Spiked Lemonade

 3 cups Lemonade

2 cups Club Soda

1 Tbsp lemon zest

1 cup rum or vodka

mint sprigs or lemon wedges to garnish

Mix Lemonade, Club Soda, zest and rum or vodka into a pitcher.

Serve in a Tom Collins glass over ice.

Garnish with mint or lemon wedges.

(for a kid-friendly version, omit the alcohol and add in ginger ale, or apple juice)

  

Skylar was happy because he was winning almost every game.  :-)

Brybelly Holdings TMAT-03 UNO Card Game (Google Affiliate Ad)

We counted down the hours, then the minutes, and then the seconds until 2013.  Watching Dick Clark's New Year's Rockin' Eve just isn't the same without Dick Clark though.

New Year's Day we sat and ate our black-eyed peas and I made a homemade cinnamon apple crisp.  We shared the crisp with the neighbor girl, Keya, when she came over to say Happy New Year to Skylar and us.  We spent the day taking down the Christmas decorations and lounged around watching the original Mary Poppins, ELF, and National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation, to top off the night.

Southern Black-Eyed Peas

• 4 slices bacon (Cooked and cut into bits)
• 1/2 spiral-cut, fully cooked ham
• 1 white onion, chopped
• 1 package dried black-eyed peas (16 ounces)
• 1 tbs. lemon pepper seasoning
• 1 tsp. black pepper
• 1 tsp. sea salt
• 1 tbs. hot sauce (for milder beans omit the hot sauce)
• 1 tbs. chili seasoning
• 1 tbs. season salt

Add everything to a stock pot, except the ham, cooked bacon, and the onion, with 2-3 cups of water and cook for 2 hours.  Top peas with water as the beans soak up the water over the cooking time.  For the last 30 minutes of cooking add the ham and the chopped onion and cook on low.  Serve topped with the cooked bacon bits.

Cinnamon Apple Crisp

8-inch square glass baking dish

1 cup brown sugar

1 cup rolled oats

1 cup all-purpose flour

1/2 cup organic butter

3 cups organic apples

1/2 cup organic white sugar

2 tsp. ground cinnamon

Peel the skin from the apples and cut into bite-sized pieces and set aside in a bowl.  Coat an 8-inch glass, baking dish with a good layer of butter and preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Mix the brown sugar with the oats, and flour in a bowl.  Cut in the butter until blended to make crumbs.  Sprinkle the bottom of the baking dish with half of the crumbs and sprinkle the top of the crumbs with the cinnamon.  Add the apples to the top of the crumbs and sprinkle again with cinnamon and the white sugar and top with the rest of the crumbs.

Bake for 35 minutes until golden on top and the mixture is bubbling.  Cool a bit before serving and top with whipped cream sprinkled with cinnamon on top. 

ENJOY! And I hope your New Year was just as great!

Eco-Tip:  Purchase bleach-free, toilet paper that is made from the highest post-consumer waste content you can find (80% minimum).  For this and other tips on going green visit, The Earth and Me Go Green.