Happy Easter

We had a wonderful Easter--the bunny visited our house leaving the little bit with a fun basket.  We celebrated the holiday by going to church, followed by a big family brunch and then everyone took a gloriously long nap. Then we just loused around the house watching the Masters and eating leftovers. It was awesome.  

How was your holiday weekend?

Over the Christmas Holiday

Our first Christmas with little miss in our new home in Texas did not disappoint.  While these years when all of my siblings have been grown and the holidays have been all adults have been special, adding kids makes the holidays a-mazing and magical.

Here are a few pics from our day:

Helping open presents

Playing with our new doll

Scoping out Aunt Kathrynn's present

Looking at the tree never gets old

Playing with our doll

The bath squirties from Santa were a huge hit...unlike the VERY suspicious crawl tunnel

How was your Christmas holiday?

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas!  Hope your holiday is full of peace, joy, family, friends and laughter.  

A Quick Holiday Card Display

I love getting all the holiday cards in the mail--catching up with people, seeing all the cute pictures of the kiddos and grandkiddos.  Instead of keeping them in a basket or in a stack on the kitchen counter, I wanted to create a quick display so I could enjoy our cards a bit more this year!  

I took bakers twine and hung up two 3 foot strands and took tiny clothes pins to clip the cards up.  

Over the top I hung a little JOY banner that I made with three doilies and a cool font I found and saved from Martha Stewart but I can't find the link now to the pdf (If you know--let me know and I will link it up!).

These are not the best pictures on the planet--I took them too late int he day, but I really wanted to share this project before the holiday passed by!  

Tuesday Crafties {Thanksgiving Table}

So here's a few quick glimpses of our Thanksgiving table and especially our place cards which doubled as our napkin rings.

So I used what I had in my craft supply and took gift tags, stamped a little holiday greeting plus the name of the person whose place it was on the tag.  I then ran the tag ties through a button, tied it off around the napkin and finished it off with a sprig of orange dried flowers. I like the way it turned out and that I used what I had to add a nice little detail to our holiday meal.

Did you do anything to add a special touch to your holiday? 

Over the {Holiday} Weekend

How did everyone's holiday weekend go?  We had a wonderful holiday weekend--it was equal parts restful and adventurous and full of family-time awesomeness.  

Our Thanksgiving Day was low key with a small get together with family and friends, hosted at our house.  I cooked a full Thanksgiving meal which was awesome--I love cooking especially in my own home for people I love!  And bonus, we were able to get my sis to snap a few family pics for the Christmas card.  This one is of just T and I, so it didn't make the cut for the Christmas card, but I love it so much I have to share it here.  

And we got a few pics of us girlies!  

We are not big Black Friday people, in fact, we have only ever made one purchase on Black Friday.  Really, the whole Black Friday thing seems rather counter intuitive to how we do Christmas with a budget and a plan, but hey, no judgement here if it's your thing (unless you pepper sprayed anyone and then, shame on you!).  So instead of participating in mass consumerism we decided to create some family memories and enjoy the crazy warm weather by packing up our cute little family and heading over to the FTW Zoo.  I mean really, where else can you spend a gorgeous day at the zoo in late November but Texas?  So we took advantage and took the little miss to see the animals.  

Little miss loved the penguins and turtles and then just really loved all the people watching.  The cooler weather meant that all the animals were out and very active, rather than in the summer when they are either indoors or lounging in the shade. We saw a zebra get a full run going, which was stunning.  

Aren't these two just the most handsome date to the zoo a girl could ever have?!

On Saturday we started decorating the tree for the holidays and met up with friends for lunch.  Little miss and I also got some time together so we decided to pop over to the mall to say "hey!" to a friend that just picked up a part time job there.  And I am so glad I did because little miss was hilarious!  Every time we stepped out into the main mall crowd she would grin and bounce up and down--she was definitely excited to be around all the people.  

Sunday was more decorating and resting and family time and just sort of soaking up the last bit of family time together before a hectic week.  

How was your Thanksgiving holiday?  

Thanksgiving Prep

Happy Thursday all!  We are getting very excited planning our Thanksgiving meal, cleaning the house and getting the china out.  Every time I think about using the china I have a little inner squeal of excitement (goofy and girly, I know!). It's little miss's first Thanksgiving, but it's also our first Thanksgiving in our new home and truth be told it will be our first Thanksgiving in our own home period.  I am really looking forward to hosting and making memories in our home this holiday season.  Right now I am debating what part of our menu will be traditional classic dishes and what new dishes I want to try out and maybe incorporate as new family tradition in years to come.  Do you keep the menu the same very year or do you change it up?  Any recipe suggestions out there?   

And remember we have our first giveaway going.  Enter here and check out the shop here.  I have a few really cute things I am working on for the shop that I hope to get listed this weekend.  And I might even be working on a few cute things for the house to decorate for Christmas!  

Fall Goings On

We are pretty big on fall traditions and celebrations at our house.  Last year I shared a few of our favorite activities past and present.  This year as we physically acclimate to the warm weather here in Texas it has been a wee bit harder to get into the fall mood because my brain and my wardrobe say "its time for knits and tights and hot beverages" but the weather says "you can still wear shorts and flip flops." Either way we look forward to this time of year and of course this year we are excited to share it with the little miss.  

Here's a brief little recap of our fall comings and goings so far this year:  

Little miss and I went with our play group to the pumpkin patch and got some killer photos of her in the patch.  

We also took a drive out to the country and took some family photos in the patch.  

Nothing says fall like cider and pumpkin ale and all the deliciousness of a change in season and a change in the seasonal beers we buy.  Yum.  

We have started turning on the oven and busting out the fall recipes.  Bake stuffed squash is my favorite.  Here's how you make it.

We have drug out the fall decor and spruced it up a bit this year.

We had one (yes ONE) cool, foggy, rainy day.  

We dressed little miss up as a bear for her first Halloween.

And we may or may not be keeping the head of the bear costume out to put on from time to time.

That's a glimpse of our fall so far.  What have you been doing to welcome the season after such a brutally hot summer?

Christmas Recap, Part 1

I am a bit behind on doing recaps from over the holidays, but life has been super hectic with another little project I will be sharing here on the blog soon.  In the meantime here's a peek into our Christmas! 

We love spending the holidays together--we may be a small family but we are an awesome little family. So on Christmas Day T and I woke up to T's very first white Christmas!  He was so excited! 

We made a big brunch with Monkey Bread (a family tradition of mine), egg casserole and a huge bowl of fresh fruit!  While breakfast cooked we openned gifts and just enjoyed each other's company.  After breakfast and a little more relaxing we got cleaned up and headed over for a big lunch with friends and then off to church.  It was a wonderful day. 

Two days after Christmas we headed to my home town to see our family.  Everyone was really excited and my mom and step-dad planned a wonderful evening for us to celebrate the holiday together.  However, since my mom had already hosted two holiday celebrations and had one more to go we did catered Mexican food--yum! 

T and I in front of the tree at my family's house.

Me and my sister K--isn't she adorable?

My mom, me, sister K and soon-to-be sister-in-law A!

Yes, you read that right--soon-to-be sister-in-law! That's right!  My brother proposed to his girlfriend a few days before Christmas so not only will there be a baby and my sis's graduation this year but a wedding too!  2011 is going to be so exciting!

Here's a pic of T and my mom...and K! 

A Thankful List

I know that Thanksgiving was last month but in this time of hustle and bustle and shopping and stress I thought I would take a cue from another blogger and take time to list the things that I am thankful for this season. 

1. T, my lovely husband.  I know its seems cheesy or obvious, but this time right before the baby comes has been so much fun.  We are a really great team and I am just enjoying every last minute of our family of two.

2. My really great colleagues.  I don't really talk too much about my work life, but I work with some of the coolest people.  People that I even call my friends. 

3. For T and I's sense of humor which always seems to help lighten the mood

4. For basic human kindness and compassion that people show.  Being pregnant enough that I am now showing and don't jsut look like I've had one too many cheeseburgers I have found people to be very helpful and kind. 

5. For a mid-day skim hot chocolate and a snickerdoodle cookie

6. For being able to feel the baby all the time (whoa is it reassuring!) and being able to share that with T

7. That I only had to go to the mall once this holiday season. 

8. For my two siblings that are two really cool people who always have really sharp insight to troubling situations. 

9. For a season filled with wonderfully cheery mail that are not bills! 

10.  For having some really wonderful family recipies and tradition to look forward to sharing with T on Christmas Day

What are you thankful for this month?

Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving was spent in OK this year with my family this year.  T and I drove down there the first part of the week and while T met with clients and worked the first half of the week I spent time with friends and took my sweet grandparents to breakfast.  The rest of the week was spent cooking and hanging with my family, going on walks, and T played like 42 holes of golf while we were there.  

 

Actual Thanksgiving day we celebrated at my mom and stepdad's house with 20 family members.  My mom and I had spent the day before baking pies and prepping all the side dishes so things would go smoothly on actual Thanksgiving day and so things would be low stress.  The meal was yummy and the company was great!   These pictures are of my and my sister K and of me and T.  I think these are the first pictures we have taken with the bump (which happened to be acceptionally large with all the rich food--its now back to its "normal size" about half that!)

The day after Thanksgiving was mom and daughter day for my mom and I so we decided that we would go and look at baby stuff together.  Since we live so far appart my mom is missing out on some of these mom/daughter moments during the pregnancy and really, I miss having my mom around to ask questions and just talk to.  We went to a big baby super store to look at all the gear, because I don't have a clue.  It was fun!  Even when we couldn't figure out how to colapse strollers (eek!).  We then went and got smoothies at my favorite place Jamba Juice (they don't have them in Indiana--boo!) and then decided that we had had enough baby shopping and went to Macy's to poke around.  It was soooo fun!  Then we got mexican take out and met the family at home for a laid back meal of fajitas (that we didn't have to cook!). And my mom and sister got to feel the baby kick while we were there--cool huh?

On the whole it was a relaxing and great holiday week!

Halloween

I hope everyone had a Happy Halloween!  We had a wonderful evening.  We took a long walk late in the afternoon, then came home and make hot tea and cider, grab our Halloween candy and a book and sat on the front porch until the trick-or-treaters came along.  It was fun too because all of our neighbors did the same thing and we have some cool neighbors.  So we all hung out and talked and oohed and awwwed over the cute little kiddos in thier costumes.

Once it got dark and the trick-or-treating crowd transitioned into teens and adults in street clothes carrying trash sacks, we packed it up and brought our pumpkins inside to carve.  One of the things I will never understand about this holiday is how absurd it looks from a food stand point.  We Americans, set perfectly good food out on our front porches to rot, which encouraging our kids to go door to door collecting items that are basically chemicals and sugar.  Baffles me, but anyhow.  My favorite part of Halloween is gutting all of our pumpkins and pulling the seeds out and roasting them.  Its such a yummy treat we only get once a year!  One year, we went a got a dozen of left over pumpkins the church was just going to toss in the dumpster after the Pumpkin Patch and gutted every single one for the seeds!  This year we just had the ones from our front steps though so we took them into to carve while we watched the Wizard of Oz. 

After we had gutted and carved our largest pumpkins, I had an idea.  I asked T if we could put Ranger in a pumpkin.  T was pretty apprehensive at first and worried Ranger would be mad, but after a little coaxing, he agreed.*  Ranger was actually pretty non-challant about the whole thing.  He just sort of hung out until we were done snapping pics.  And the only thing that got messy were his paws.

Oh, and if you are interested in how we roast our seeds here's the basic idea:

Pumpkins seeds cleaned and patted dry

Melted butter (just enough to coat the seeds very lighly)

Wostishire Sauce (same as butter--just enough to lightly coat)

Preheat oven to 350 lay seeds out in a roasting pan and place in oven.  Roast for about 20 minutes, checking every 10 minutes and turning and moving with a spatula, or until golden brown.

Lay on a towel to cool and salt to preference. 

On the whole it was a great Halloween!  How was your Halloween?

*Basically by "a little bit of coaxing" I explained to T that it was either Ranger this year or the baby the next, but that I needed to get putting the dog and or baby in a carved out fruit or veggitable out of my system after seeing this YouTube video. Hehe!