One more to go!

Last night was our Christmas with Josh's mom and siblings, niece and nephew. She loved her family picture (Kristen picked out a really beautiful frame - I got the picture printed in both color and b&w and the b&w one looked so gorgeous in it), and the photobook was a hit as well, especially the picture of us all with our cell phones, that I put on the back cover.

Our homemade goodies were a hit, too. I love it when those kind of things are appreciated, and people really seem to get away from that more and more as years go by. That makes me sad. I'd love to get a bag full of homemade, yummy stuff anytime of year!

We have Christmas with his dad on New Year's Day and then we're done. One more round of baking to go and then I will hang up my apron for a little while. I don't even want to think about all the boxes of butter I've went through in the last couple of weeks. It's an amount only Paula Deen could appreciate!

Speaking of aprons, us girls all got one last night!





Bros:




They're very special boys, as you can see.

In other news, I don't think Julio is feeling good lately. He feels very hot to me, maybe feverish? (But dogs do tend to run hotter) And he's crying a lot. The Bipster seems to think it's just a ploy for attention. Perhaps, as our little Julio is quite the attention hog. But whether he is a little under the weather right now or not, I can guarantee you he is not going to be feeling so well on Monday. Poor little booger is getting his man parts cut, his shots updated and his teeth cleaned all in one fell swoop. Say a prayer for the little feller, he's going to need it.




Notice how his little eyes are off center? God bless him. Last night after we had put the dogs to bed, they were fighting amongst themselves, and I went in to have a word with them. Jorge can't stand being corrected in any way, so he turned his head and wouldn't look at me. And then there was Julio with his little crooked eyes. I went back into the living room laughing and told Josh "Jorge wouldn't even look at me, and Julio was only looking with one eye." We both cracked up. Maybe not that funny, but then again, it was pretty late... ;)

Looking forward to a long weekend, a quiet NYE at home with good food and Mad Men, and hopefully a great 2011! I have a long list of stuff I want to get done in and around the house (of course)! Waiting for spring so I can get cracking on gardening and landscaping again. in the meantime there will be mad organizing done on the inside, and finally getting some stuff I really love up on the walls. Trying to convince Josh to see my vision....

Holiday Hangover

It's been over a week since I've read any blogs, and even longer than that since I've posted. Starting to get caught up, but it's a busy time of year both at work and home! And it's not over yet... tonight we do Christmas with The Bip's mom and siblings, and Saturday with his dad. Since I had the bright idea to do mostly homemade gifts this year, and since our gatherings have been so spread out (and we didn't go up north this year), I feel like I have been baking/cooking around the clock for the last week!

Christmas Eve morning, I gave the dogs their gifts (I couldn't wait)! Here's Julio guarding some of his new treasures:



Some of our Christmas cards (we put the picture cards on the fridge):


Later in the day we opened gifts, including the ones from my mom. She put these hats in our stockings:




I gave the Bipster some new lounging clothes... I think it's time we kissed that Cooter's hoodie goodbye! Expect to see him wearing this in every picture from now until summer:



That evening we had Josh's mom, sister, niece and nephew over for Christmas dinner. I made a roasted chicken, parmesan smashed potatoes, roasted veggies, rolls, and chocolate chip pie. I roasted the poor chicken upside down, but it still tasted good.









We woke up to a white Christmas:




Tim and Meredith came over for breakfast. We handed out Christmas slippers:


and then ate some delicious food, including this pastry (we also had cranberry scones, fruit salad, a sausage casserole and spicy mochas):


There's that sweatshirt again!


Then we watched Christmas Vacation:





It's all basically just one big blur, I am glad I took some photos, though. Wish I had a good camera so I could take more (ahem).

Josh also got a skull and bones snuggie from my mom. But he's probably wearing the new sweatshirt underneath, of course.

(I love Julio's face in that pic)

I am excited for the Christmas gathering tonight, very excited for Josh's mom to get the family photo we did and the photo book. Hope she loves it... feels like I've been waiting to give it to her forever!

Daily Photo for 12.20.10

First round of baking done. Packing boxes to send up North. This one went to my step-grandparents. And I forgot to send the fudge! So I brought it to work. Still have another pan in the fridge I have to figure out what to do with.

Daily Photo for Sunday, 12.19.10

I got a Charlie Brown Tree!

Weekend!!

This weekend was a lil cray-cray. Not to say fun wasn't had, but it was cray-cray.

Friday night we went to the Farmer's Market... they have started doing "night markets" once a month, and this was the first one I had been to - love it. Some of the restaurants were open, and everything was moved inside the market house. They have an international foods store in there, too, and it was the first time I had been in it.



Xmas lights on the ceiling:


Hubbin devouring a red velvet cupcake:


We had dinner there, shopped around a little. I hope they continue to do it every month! All of my favorites were there. There was one place that made their own marshmallows (Bang Bang candy co, I think?), and I got a drink from them - hot chocolate, peppermint schnapps (a lot of it) and a homemade vanilla marshmallow on top. It was yummy, and super potent.

Saturday we got up to run some errands, and ended up with this sexy desk chair from World Market we'd been eyeing for months.



The price had come down about $80, so it was a no-brainer. I was really pulling for a white chair in the library/office since the shelving is white and the trim will be, too. One of those black office chairs just wouldn't have looked right. Very happy with this one, especially since the price was so much lower than the first time we saw it!

World Market also introduced me to these wonderous little confections:




So yummy.

We stopped at Target, too...



But Saturday's main event was Donald and Kristen's xmas party. I won't post too many pictures, to protect the guilty parties. ;) Donald (Josh's bro) dressed up as cousin Eddie from the infamous "Shitter's full!" scene in Lampoon's Christmas Vacation:


How can you not love that?

Kristen, the elf. Love this pouty pic!


Me and my feller:


Plenty more where that came from, but I'll stop there!! Good times!

The Ghosts of Christmas Present

Oh, it hurts to write this post, because to do so is admitting to failure.

I do not have it together this Holiday Season.

Due to the hubbin's school and study schedule, and the fact that I should stay far, far away from ladders and electricity, this is the closest we're going to get to having Xmas lights on our house this year. Not even any on the tree, because it's aluminum. To say I feel a bit cheated is an understatement, but it's pointless to put them up now and just take them down in a week.



My baking is so far off schedule it's not even funny. Due to many factors, our Christmas gatherings are scattered in most places, and non-existent in others. Yesterday I was supposed to have had round one (of three) of my baking done. Today it was all supposed to be mailed up north to my side of the family. Do you think any of that happened? No. Know why? Two words: Flip Cup.

Long story short, there was a party at my Brother and Sister in law's on Saturday night (perhaps more on that in a later post). It was the kind of party that requires a week of recovery (they really should have put that on the invite! haha) so needless to say, yesterday I didn't do much aside from shuffle to the kitchen every couple of minutes to refill my water glass. So I will be baking my you-know-what off tonight, on a "school night", and then crossing my fingers and praying that the Bipster will actually go mail it all tomorrow morning so it gets there in time. I've already crossed myself multiple times today (and I'm not even Catholic) while praying he will actually go to the store today... I mean we're talking emergency level grocery store trip. You know, when you're down to your last roll of toilet paper kind of shopping and you need three pounds of butter RIGHT FLIPPIN NOW OR THERE'S NOT GOING TO BE A CHRISTMAS?! That's what needs to happen right quick.

Last I talked to him he was watching a movie and sounding like he was about to nap and reminding me that he's on 'vacation'. This should be really interesting.


Once round one of baking is made and shipped, then we have the actual main event - Christmas. Christmas Eve I plan to cook a nice dinner (a roast chicken, potatoes, etc), and I don't know if there will just be the two of us or more because I can't really seem to get a for-sure answer out of anyone.

Christmas Day we're having Tim and Meredith over for Xmas breakfast. That has been the easiest thing to plan, by far. This is how it went:

Me: "Hey, do you guys want to come over for breakfast Christmas morning?"

Meredith: "yes!"

That's how you do it, people. A yes or no. That's all I need.

The day after Christmas, I will be doing my baking all over again to give to Josh's family (mom, siblings) on the 28th when we get together with them.

We're not seeing his dad and family until New Years Day, so I will be baking again on New Year's Eve (or day, depending on what time we're getting together).

Since I will be doing this multiple times this year, I've opted to bypass any 'fancy' recipes and stick to the simplest things in my repertoire. No-Bake cookies (no baking!), 3 ingredient peanut butter cookies, beer bread (4 ingredients), and fudge. Perhaps not the most festive of menus, but if I have to make it all 3 times, I need to make it easy on myself. I'm a little sad that I am not doing anything more impressive than that, but oh freaking well.

Next year I will have it together a little better. If not... I will be blogging from a lunatic asylum... if they let me have internet access.

Cute stuff:

Hmmm...

Maybe Hubbin should have agreed to the other camera I wanted instead of making me wait... because now I've fallen in love with one that is twice the price!

Sigh. She's a beauty, ain't she?

Daily Photo for 12.17.10

Today was the first time I had ever had a McDonald's mocha - it was great! And way cheaper than you-know-who (though I still love them very much).

I'm flirting with the idea of a Tassimo or Keurig machine... but I hate countertop clutter, and we JUST got a coffeemaker a couple months back, so it seems kind of silly, but I like the idea of the variety and the fact that it only makes one cup! We have to make 4 cups minimum in our coffee maker and I rarely drink it and Josh rarely finishes the pot. Hmmm. It's nice to dream, though!

Daily Photo for 12.16.10

The last of the Bip's finals were yesterday. He made it through the day and the exam on about 2 hours of sleep. He crashed at 6pm and slept until about 6 this morning. No school for him for almost a whole month!! It will be nice to read together and go to bed at the same time, and generally feel like I am married to a human being instead of some dude who is cooped up in the office studying all night. NORMALCY! I welcome you with open arms.

Bonus photos:




I started another (small) batch of limoncello last night. Last time I used the larged-hole side of my grater to get the peels, this time I used a peeler. Still not sure which is faster, but I think the grater got less of the pith than the peeler. We'll see how this batch is.

I started some more pear vodka, too, and bottled the limoncello we already had for gift-giving. I had a small glass myself and it had me dancing and giggling in about two minutes. Potent. Sunshine in a glass.

Daily Photo for 12.15.10

Crazy, big, confetti-like snowflakes this morning. Wish I had a better pic, but this was the best I could do with the phone. SURE WISH I HAD A CAMERA WITH A MACRO LENS.

Daily Photo for 12.14.10

Because a fortune cookie knows better than to comment about what you look like on the outside.

Finishing playing catch-up....

It snowed Sunday. A pretty good amount for Nashville, where even a dusting warrants all schools and government buildings closed.


(outside our back door)



I'm not a fan of snow. It only stirs within me a desire to move even deeper south. The good thing was that we didn't have to be at work until 10 on Monday because of it, so I was feeling pretty smug that I got a little bit of extra sleep and figured the roads would be clear by then... plus, then we had our work Holiday party that day, as well. Smuggy Smuggerson over here, thinking I was about to have the BEST. MONDAY. EVER.

As I warned a few posts ago (cookie incident), me being smug = BAD THINGS HAPPENING.  I had not even made it out of my neighborhood (heading to the light that takes me out of it), and my car started skidding uncontrollably. I had two options - hit the person stopped at the light in front of me, or turn the wheel and hit the "triangles" (little landscaped cement-outlined lane separators at the entrance/exit of our neighborhood). So I aimed for the cement and got hung up on it, and was sure I blew my front tires, too. Just as I was about to call my boss and tell him I couldn't come to work because I totalled my car, a nice officer pulled up and helped me. Tires were not blown and the only thing wrecked was my ego.

On my way to work, this is what I saw when getting off on my exit:






They must have been feeling REALLY smug.

To add insult to (almost) injury, I lost the sock monkey wine bottle cover I really wanted in our office Dirty Santa game. I can't state it strongly enough, be ye not as smug as I was, lest you lose your monkey and your cookies runneth together.

In other, non-weather related news:

The gift vodkas are coming along nicely.


The Bip's stocking got so heavy that it toppled off of the hutch, taking the hook with it, and we had to relocate our stockings.


Gifts are being wrapped and put under the tree... I just love the look of wrapping them in kraft paper!


We had a luncheon at work on Friday and I was pretty hungry:


I also had a work-related Mac & Cheese incident last week. We had to bring a dish to take to the Ronald McDonald House, and I signed up for Mac & Cheese. Never mind that I had never made it from scratch before (I am a pretty good cook, if I do say so myself, but I really love Velveeta shells and cheese and have never had a reason to make it from scratch). I asked around for recipes before finding a simple one on the internet that only required noodles, velveeta, butter, milk, salt and pepper. Winner, right? It sounded so good (and easy) that I bought enough of the ingredients to make another batch for Josh and I to eat.

I followed the directions, stuck it in the oven, and 30 minutes later pulled out two pans of milk and noodle soup. We rummaged through the fridge, found another half a block of velveeta and put it in, then put it back in the oven. Several minutes later - still soup. Rummaged in the fridge some more, found a couple of bags of shredded cheddar. Dumped them in. Figured it couldn't get any worse and threw some seasoned breadcrumbs on top to at least give the illusion that I knew what I was doing. Popped it back in the oven, and pulled out a Christmas miracle:



It was delicious.

See? Smug gets you nowhere, but panic really makes things happen.