Christmas in February

Friday, February 3rd was a joyous day. It was the day Caleb finally received his much anticipated Christmas gift. A gun. More specifically, an AR15. It was magical. Tennessee, we embrace your lifestyle completely.

Please note the other gun and knife on his belt. Necessary to protect the homestead.

We went out on Sunday afternoon to shoot her (as in, the gun... guns are girls, were you aware?). Again, magical.

Why yes, that is an old freezer we are shooting at.

He looks so happy.

Ah, Christmas. Extending into February. What could be better?

Now taking ideas for a name for the gun. The other gun's name is Lucille. Again, guns are women. Your suggestions are appreciated.

Recipe post coming tomorrow. In case you aren't really into guns or something.

Holiday Food Goodness: drinks, cookies, general yum

Ok, I did a fair amount of cooking/baking around the holidays. Not quite as much as last year, since being in Kansas for over a week took out a chunk of December. But I still got some done!

I did three kinds of cookies this year:

1. Peppermint chocolate cookies (aka Thin Mints!) I did these last year and they were delish. I never took any pics of the final product! But I did last year, so check it.

2. Pecan Pie Bars (recipe HERE): Caleb and I both thought these were ok, but they were the favorite of all his coworkers.

3. Cream Cheese Filled Snickerdoodles (recipe HERE): These were our favorite by far. We kept most of them for ourselves.

I also made these yummy little turtles the other day. I went ahead and finished them off today because they were haunting me and my weight loss. So eating them was the only rational thing to do. They are so darn good! And super easy.

I learned to make these from a kid I babysat. Here's what you need:
1. A bag of rolo candy
2. A bag of mini pretzels
3. Pecan halves (I got the small bag from the baking section)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Throw the pecans on a cookie sheet and roast for about 6-7 minutes. While they are roasting, lay out the pretzels on a different cookie sheet. Place an unwrapped rolo candy on each pretzel. Bake in the oven for about 4 minutes or until just melted. Immediately squish a pecan half into each rolo/pretzel combo. Let cool. (If you can!) Give them away so you don't eat them all yourself.

Next up, Cranberry Sangria. We had this on Christmas Eve. Really light and refreshing with all the heavy food.

What you need:
1 bottle white wine (I used a really cheap Chablis Blanc)
25 oz sparkling cranberry juice (I used 3 8 oz cans since my Target didn't have any bottles)
1 apple, chopped or sliced
1/2 cup fresh cranberries
1 sprig rosemary

Mix it all up, let it sit for a hour or so in the fridge, enjoy! Pretty sure this would be good with just the wine and cranberry juice.

(Recipe from HERE This blog has much prettier pictures!)

I also made the Pioneer Woman's Cornbread dressing with sausage and apples for Christmas Eve. It was yummy but time consuming.

And I made Simply Recipes' Cranberry glazed turkey meatballs for our work potluck on Christmas Day. Pretty delicious as well, but I would recommend serving immediately as opposed to reheating the next day.

In the spirit of food and Sandra Lee, here is my Christmas tablescape:

Yes, my wedding photo is in it. It just seemed to look good, ok? I am kind of in love with the plaid tablecloth I got at Target. I saw them on sale for 50% off today, so you should go pick one up!

I love holiday food. Which is why the personal trainer killed me with a walking lunge/arm curl combo today. Thanks, Chris.

Christmas Eve festivities

Do you ever have a day that you think is never going to end? I did. Yesterday. I got floated to the ER to help with overflow and I was wayyyyy out of my element. Around 10:30, I was like wow, this day is never going to end, I'm going to be down here forever, I'll probably get so old that I'll become a patient here and then die down here in the ER because the hospital is so full that they will never find a room for me. How sad. Sometimes I'm a little dramatic. Fortunately, I had the awesome new nurse I'm training to help me. (Thanks Chelsea!) Oh, and the day ended. And I went home and had wine and Chex mix for dinner while watching Boy Meets World with my hubby. Ah, the good life.

Anyway, I wanted to share our Christmas Eve. Because it was wonderfully fun this year. I had to work on Christmas Day, so we celebrated a day early. And it helped that we celebrated with our families a couple weeks ago...I think both Caleb and I had a much easier time with being away from home this year.

We woke up and opened stockings and gifts. Did your mom ever make you take a picture displaying all your gifts? Mine did. I thought the pics were dumb, but now whenever I see them they are hilarious.

I got massively spoiled this year by my honey. Also note my trendy new hairstyle.

Caleb's main gift is missing from this pic. He is getting a gun. (So crazy, I know. Tennessee, what have you done to us?) It is currently being shipped.

We spent the day hanging out, watching Christmas movies, and cooking. Then we went to dinner at Stephanie and Logan's, where they had some ugly Christmas sweaters waiting for us.

Logan was carving the roast and cut his thumb. Right after making a joke about cutting his thumb. Classic.

The food was amazing. I believe the roast is blood free.

Group photo shoot with the Christmas tree.

And we played a few rousing rounds of Settlers of Catan. Probably one of the best ways to spend a Christmas Eve.

One last great photo of Logan with one of his stocking stuffers, straw goggles!

Thanks Slogans, for a super fun Christmas eve! Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night!


For unto us a child is born, to us a son is given; and the government shall be on his shoulder, and his name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. 
(Isaiah 9:6)

Christmas in Kansas City

I made it through work this week! That means two days off before and after Christmas. Except I get to work Christmas Day. Aren't you jealous? Now I'm just waiting for the sweet hubs to get home and thought I would share some highlights from our Christmas trip to the 913. We celebrated a little early since Kiewit was flying us back to KC for par-tays. I mean...meetings.

I had a really great seat on the first plane and a really crappy seat on the second one.

We did a little Crown Center ice skating and general Christmas merriment with Caleb's family. We also enjoyed some Jack Stack. I love you, bbq. And here's something honest: I love to ice skate. Everyone was ready to go and I was like "but I just warmed up!"

We had "Christmas" with both sides of the family, since we will be hanging out here in Tennessee for the actual holiday. The most fun was watching George. We seriously love that guy. Caleb's dad got some KU tickets and gear for Christmas. We force our love of the Jayhawks on everyone around us! Baby June, guess where you are going to college?

My dad got a grill for Christmas. He was super pumped. I also made him grill our Christmas dinner but he didn't seem to mind!

I love my parent's Christmas tree, it always looks exactly the same as I remember it from when I was a kid.

We also babysat for George and June one night. Caleb was a jungle gym and his keys were the best toy ever.

June cried most of the time. So we just snuggled her and kept her out of bed. Oops. Sorry to mess up the sleep training...

We had SUCH a good time with our families! It's always hard to leave. Hopefully someday soon we'll be back for good!

Last sip of Boulevard Wheat in the airport before catching our flight back...

I got an early Christmas present from the hubs...a macro lens. So expect so close up pics soon...

Kiewit knows how to throw some rockin Christmas parties

Its an extravaganza because it was three (3) parties. That's right. I'm a high roller now. (Oh wait, I'm not.) I bought three (3) separate outfits. They were awesome. ThankyouExpressstore. Did you know that if you ask Express for the coupons in their mailer, they will just give them to you in the store? And then you get a large discount. It's quite nice. I'm never above asking for discounts straight up.

Ok. Party number one. This was my favorite. It was here in Tennessee for just us Tennesseeans. The band was super rockin'. There was even a prom photographer that took some super sexy pics. I left work an hour early for this party. And it was great to spend time with everyone before we all start moving to separate ends of the world.

This dress was my fave too. And my husband maybe smiled normal for half a second. Why are we holding hands like this? No one knows. Also, the things sticking out from my head is a reindeer antler, not some misguided curls.

There was a cocktail party in Kansas City a week later. No pics were taken. I work a cute purple dress. But my tights that claimed to be control top were not very controlling. Moving on.

Corporate Christmas party on Saturday night. I pulled out the big guns for this one. Super shiny top! I love it. Another awesome band played, Liquid Blue. The singers had a choreographed dance for every song and they played for hours. I was super impressed.

I love these girls. Our feet hurt (high price for heels) so we picked a table near the dance floor and did some people watching, learned some new dance moves, and found some dresses that should be on What Not to Wear.

Emily and Christi: Tennessee is not the same without you!

The hub, looking classic.

Elevator ride. Because I could never get him to take a super nice pic with me. Oh the burden I bare. I kind of love this pic actually.

Yeah so that wraps it up. We brought our big camera but sometimes we don't like carrying it around at parties. And we just love our little Iphones. But the moral of the story is, get yourself a nice sparkly top from Express. Thank me later.

And now on to folding laundry and my last of three in a row tomorrow... 

Christmas Card photo sesh: my husband is a hater

When we went home in October, my sweet sis in law Audrey took some Christmas card photos for us. Caleb hates having his picture taken and really hates Christmas card pics. But guess what? I don't care. We are doing it. Always. So suck it up, hubs. I always tell him that he can frown for the pics, which is how I get him out there. But I secretly hope he will make a sweet face. He doesn't. Even he can't sabotage these photos though, because Audrey is a genius with a camera.

Friends and family: Caleb will always be grumpy in the Christmas card pic. Some things never change.


I always like feet photos. Because I am a shoe lover.

This face is called: "I don't want to smile but I kind of can't help it."

"Why did I marry a crazy woman?"

"I guess I still like her ok."

"I am so done with this."

"Merry Christmas playas."

So that's it. One of these pictures may be in your mailbox very soon. With a witty remark and a Christmas greeting. Because that's what I'm about.

Check out Audrey's photo goodness at Twiceover Productions. She rocks.