Follow-Up on My Favorite Christmas Gifts

Well Christmas has definitely come and gone and I'm still in love with all my Christmas gifts!  A lot of the things I posted in my "favorite gifts" blog post are getting a lot of use.  Most of all though, the Keurig is the gift I have used the most, at least once a day but usually several times a day. 

This thing is giving my Garmin GPS a run for its money in becoming my new non-human BFF.  Is that weird?  I'm actually not a huge coffee drinker but I have been using it for coffee on my more leisurely mornings, which should be more frequently now because I only plan on working 2 days a week this year.  Does anyone have any suggestions on what coffee K-cups they like the best?  What I use it for throughout the day though is to boil hot water to use one of my 500 teabags (that's only a slight exaggeration).  I love tea (both hot and cold) and I love that I am drinking it more often now. 

Another thing I have been using a lot is my new pajamas.  I've been wearing the pants more than the top because it gets pretty warm with both of them on.  You literally feel like your wearing a soft fuzzy blanket--it's awesome!  Mark says I look like a teddy bear when I'm wearing them.

We have been getting good use out of our OXO storage containers.  We use them for cereal and for snacks and even Mark gets a kick out of using them.  Who knew Mark would be into kitchen storage solutions!  It's kind of annoying they aren't dishwasher safe though--I hate doing dishes.

I must admit that I haven't touched the stand mixer yet.

To be honest, I'm kind of intimidated by it.  I mean look at it--large and looming.  And plus, I don't know what it make in it yet.  I'm not a huge baker for 2 reasons: 1) I usually prefer savory foods to sweet ones; 2) It's hard to bake for just two people.  What the heck am I going to do with 24 cupcakes or 48 cookies?  I know there's savory foods you can make with a stand mixer, I just haven't found a recipe yet.  I've always wanted to make bread, and I think you can do that with a stand mixer, but I have to do a little more research.  In the meantime, it'll continue to sit in the corner of our kitchen counter and mock me.  I need to find a cover for it to show it who's boss. 

As we are in the midst of winter, I am also getting good use out of my new winter accessories.

I've pretty much been wearing one of these scarves everyday.  Mark says I have to wear the Burberry scarf everyday for the rest of my life to make it worth it.  But it just doesn't go well with my blue Columbia jacket on days when I feel like wearing that one.  I try to wear it as much as possible though.

Oh yeah, and these are two of Mark's favorite Christmas gifts:

The Dan Persa (NU quarterback) jersey he is wearing and the Stay Puff Marshmallow Man is a coin bank.  I also got him a canvas print of a picture of Stonehenge that I took in England and a photobook from Shutterfly of our trip to England.