Merry Christmas!

Here's a few images of Christmas in our house! The hubs is working all weekend, unfortunately, but we'll have a good 2 hour Christmas tomorrow :)





Cleo's just a little excited for her first Christmas :)

Turk-ish Dreams

This year we hosted our very first Thanksgiving! Thanksgiving has never been a big deal for me, as I'm usually needed at work before 4am the next day, and my parents were always out of town growing up so it was never a huge family event for me.

But, this year, we are on the other side of the country from our families and I don't have a job that will fire me for not coming on Black Friday, so we got to have Thanksgiving! Out here there are several people that we actually know from our hometown--we always find this truth odd, since we currently live in the middle of nowhere--and we all got together to great a potluck dinner last night.

Although we had a full dinner and much more food than we needed, I only made the turkey, stuffing, and cranberry/apple mold (thanks for the recipe, Family Circle). I was very nervous about the turkey, since I had never made one, and despite it taking 1.5 hrs longer than it was supposed to, it tasted absolutely delicious and I wouldn't change a thing if/when I do it again!

I decided to stuff it with celery, carrots, an onion, and sage leaves just to keep it moist and flavorful. I have read that actually stuffing a turkey with stuffing is no longer considered good practice due to some bacteria that tends to grow between the stuffing and the turkey, so I decided against that.



I used a mixture of honey, butter, and dried herbs (sage, thyme, rosemary) to baste with, and took it out of the oven (where it was covered in foil) about every 45 minutes to rebaste. It took about 6.5 hours to fully cook, but it was great!




And I went cheap for the stuffing..stove top, approx. 10 minutes total to fix. Best idea ever.




So, our first Thanksgiving was a total success!

Hope everyone else had a great one too!

I Love Thee, St. Valentine

B and I don't do "all out" Valentine's Day things. We put a very low spending limit on this holiday, and force each other to come up with something personal.

This year it was no different. And B always does a fabulous job with personal touches to things. He got me a basket, and filled it with all my favorite things (mostly foods, anyway). It was perfect!



And Brady...well Brady blessed us with this lovely Valentine's Day dance yesterday. What can I say? The kids got talent. And it's always nice to have a plan B just in case she doesn't get into medical school in twenty years. (please excuse her "just woke up fro" and lack of pants, it was a lazy day ha!). And no, you aren't the only one who doesn't know what she's saying.



But this right here? This is all I need to make me happy on valentine's day...



Hope you had a good one too!

P.S. Valentine's Day was a great movie, too. You should go see it :)

Happy Belated Kwanzaa

...Hanukkah and Christmas. It seems like it's been forever since I've posted anything. Also...I have to say that I found it funny that like 3% of bloggers make posts on Saturdays, but 85% of bloggers posted on Christmas. Awesome.

Christmas around here was awesome. I got a new camera, which was exactly what I wanted, and it is AMAZING. It's a bit slow on the action shots, so most of the pictures I took of Brady on Christmas were a bit blurry. But the focus on this thing makes me want to kiss a frog. Check out this picture focus:



It doesn't get much better than that with a point and shoot camera.

B and I were also granted a Wii. I have since kicked his butt in every WiiSports game and WiiPlay game. I bought The Biggest Loser the other day, but haven't tried it out yet. I love Wii.

B was the proud recipient of a PSP (from yours truly) and a point and shoot camera from my parents--he's needed one because all he has now is an SLR and that's hard (and risky) to lug around all the time. He also got some clothes. Because he needs some, and he won't buy himself anything, so I took the money other people were going to spend on him and bought clothes with it. He loves them, and my honey is lookin' good.

Brady got a powered "quad" from her Nana and "Gupa" and slammed into things around the house with it, loving every second of it. She ran into the couch and promptly demanded "move da couch!"



B's mom also granted all of her kids and her kids significant others marshmallow guns. And spent a good half hour cleaning mini marshmallows out of the corners of her living room ;)

Tomorrow though? Tomorrow is my birthday! And it's also Brady's birthday--because putting that much awesome on two different days wouldn't really be fair to the rest of the world. She'll be 2 and I...won't...and we're be celebrating!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving!

This year, with all of my parents out of town, we spent the entire day with B's family and it was wonderful!

Working at a ten hour shift at 430am tomorrow, so must go get some sleep!

Natural Halloween Decor

Today I'm taking part in Writer's Workshop hosted by Mama Kat's Losin' It. I may or may not be trying really hard to win myself a kickin' video camera this week.

Around here, we don't do much decorating for Halloween. We never get any trick-or-treaters unless they are related to us, and those who are related to us aren't allowed to travel around our tiny little, one-lane road neighborhood because it's honestly not that safe anymore. So, really, there's no point in decorating. We'll go all out for Christmas because we have an annual Christmas party, but Halloween? Nope.

We put a couple fake pumpkins on the porch, a scarecrow or two, and we're done...most years. But, this year, we have an addition!



This is one of about 10 spiderwebs on three bushes. Apparently, we made friends with some spiders recently and they decided to halloween-up the place for us! In the morning, when it's cold and dewey, the spiderwebs glisten and they are absolutely creepy...and it looks like we did it on purpose.

So this, of course, if my favorite piece of home decor. Thanks, Charlotte. That's "some web."

The Power Ranger that Wasn't

This week I'm participating in Wonderful Wednesdays hosted by Seven Clown Circus.


Power Rangers were the shit when I was growing up. Le shit. Sorry, but there is just no other way to put it. Everyone knew everyone in power rangers. We acted in out in pretend play. You know you loved it, too.

But, I never really played by the same rules as everyone else. All the other girls loved Kimberly--they wanted to play Kimberly, dress like Kimberly, and kick ass like Kimberly. Me? I loved the yellow ranger. I wanted to kick ass like Trini Kwan.

However, since I was seemingly the only girl who wanted to be the Yellow Ranger, it was impossible to find a yellow ranger costume. So I ended up being something else for halloween. I don't even remotely remember what that was.

That Christmas, I was still upset about my yellow ranger costume failure. So I gave in--or rather, my mom gave in for me--and went to the pink side. My mom bought me a pink ranger costume for Christmas, and I wore that thing alllll day. The gloves made kungfu sounds! And if you put them together, they made the "morphing" sound! I was in heaven! And I didn't care one bit that I was wearing a costume on Christmas. I think Jesus understood.



I still have faith in the Yellow Ranger. I will always love Trini the most.

That's right, Bekah. I said it. :D

Pumpkin Cake

I found this recipe probably in family circle as well, but I honestly don't remember. If doesn't matter, because other than the general idea I completely ignored the recipe and did whatever I felt like doing.

Like using box mix for Chocolate Fudge Cake instead of making my own blend of pumpkin cake. And using a smaller Pyrex baking bowl than they suggested (who knew those bowls we always mix in were actually baking bowls??). It turned out okay for the presentation, but the cake itself is amazingly delicious! So here it goes:

When you bake in a pyrex bowl, this is what it comes out like.

You have to use the same size bowl to make each one, and I baked them for 45 minutes each. Both halves.

And then you have to level the tops of each so that they meet closely when placed on top of each other.

Mix yellow and red with vanilla icing to make orange, and use that in between the halves to keep them together and on the outer edge to smooth it.

Then ice the rest of it, but I suggest doing one section at a time because the icing gets funky. Cut a hole in the top of the cake for the "stem". Cover the icing with reese pieces (it said M&Ms but they don't have an abundance of yellow and orange in them) in the pattern you want and put some kind of chocolate bar in the top hole for the stem.


Voila!

It worked well until I went to move it. Then things started to move. But it was a good thought. Next time I'd probably use a bigger bowl to make it easier, decorate on the presentation dish instead of the wire rack, and more red in my icing. But it's still at least kind of cute :)

Spider cupcakes on Saturday I think!

Banana Pancakes

I've never actually had those before, but I hear they are good...even made it into a song. Has anyone else had them?

Anyway, onto the current end result of the Uni sitchiation (or as Kim Possible would say, "the sitch". Um, yes. I do find it incredibly sad that I know that.) Basically Thursday morning I spent an hour and a half on the phone with Devil University being bounced around from department to department and then sent to dead-end phonelines. I did finally get to leave messages for three different people. I got an email from the Spanish professor a couple hours after calling, which I was thankful for, but nothing is resolved there yet as I emailed him back and now he has yet to return it. I got another call back today from the Theatre professor, who left a very long very cheery message on my phone while I was at work, and that was basically a dead end. I'm not getting that class. The phone call/email that I am waiting for that I actually really NEED is the one from my Education department advisor (hey, did you know I had one of those? I didn't.) She's the one (I hope) that has to OK my education classes for registration. No word. I'll call again on Monday while I'm on campus, so she can't escape.

Although I'm much less upset with this now, it's not over and I still have about a 66% chance of not attending Devil U next semester. I'll update when necessary. But, for now, onto the good stuff. :)

I took jlc's advice and went shopping last night, and also pretended like she said "and go to a movie!" So I got a couple cheap tees for work (with no writing, mind you) and then went to the movies. Today work went by ridiculously quickly and I even went in early, and all the kids were picked up by 530 (never happens) and there were only 12 kids when I got there to begin with. B has been busy this week every night except Wednesday, when the whole Devil U debacle unraveled, and is again tonight so I have kind of a free night with the house to myself. Kohl's is having a huge sale with nightowl specials tonight, and I think I'm going to go up and see if I can bring myself to buy a replacement pair of slip-on dockers that I love with all my life. New shoes make me very happy :) I really should get some shoes for Dining Out, but I have a gift card at Kohl's, and I don't feel like spending that much for shoes. I need a Target gift card.

What are you guys doing for Easter? Both B's sisters' birthday's were this week, so we're going to dinner to celebrate tomorrow night and then to Saturday night Easter service at his church. Definitely going to be the first time in at least 5 years I've set foot in a Catholic church. Ahem. And Sunday night is dinner with my family, which B has decided he's not coming too because his grandma has dinner too (Hey, I'm doing Saturday, it's his turn to do my thing haha) so that'll be fine :)

I'm about to make myself a sammich for dinner, and have some fruit, and spend a few minutes with my pup. I've sneezed 92980 times today, though I'm hoping it doesn't develop further. Of the 21 kids in my room, at least 17 have colds, and one little girl (who is the sweetest thing) has gone home sick every day this week (even though I'm apparently the only one who noticed, since no one checked her temp before I got there at 1pm today and it was 100.8). Poor Katiebug :( Less than a week on the job and I've already caught something? I'd prefer not, thanks!

Christmas Shopping Mania

I spent less than 2 hours Christmas shopping today. Everyone on my list is now done, with the exception of my dad (only because that has to be ordered from the net). All the kids are done (5), all the siblings are done (10 including in-laws), all the Grandmothers (4) are done, and 3 out of 4 parents are done. I got the Baby B the cutest little set of books, I'll try to take a picture of them and show you all--they are darling. I'm so incredibly happy right now! I love to get my Xmas shopping done before Thanksgiving due to the craziness that is Black Friday and onward.



I even stopped at hallmark and got a few cards! Only 4, but I have the generic ones for most people already. I did find the absolutely most perfect card in the world for B, though. It's just a shoebox card so it's all white and has a very little picture on the front and no bells and whistles or anything, but it goes like this: Front: "i don't have any christmas wishes left" inside: "you already came true." The end. Perfect and amazing.

We've decided we're doing Christmas breakfast at my Gram's this year with my family, and have yet to discuss the holiday with his family and what's going on there. Other than that, no plans have been made for the holidays!

May go see STOMP! first week in Decemeber! Has anyone seen the show? I've heard it's amazing, and I'd love to know what you think! It was the Trans Siberian Orchestra last year, so looking for something different!

Working on some things for Creative Writing tonight, and going out with the girls afterwards somewhere so it will be quite a late night. I'll be sad when this class is over, it's a very fun class. Plus the 4 of us don't have one single thing in common other than we're crazy, so chances of us seeing each other beyond this semester are slim! But it's fun while it lasts!

Talk soon!
Via