Christmas

So the past few days (weeks?) have been ultra busy for the husband and myself. As I am sure they were for you too. Christmas is definitely my favorite holiday, but even with all the cheerful festivities and family traditions, it is one of the more stressful times of the year. I hate to admit it, and I am sad Christmas is over, but I am also really, really relieved.

Now my living room *will* be clean again, my spending can go back to being *somewhat* controlled (ahem) and I don't *have* to eat cookies and sweets, like Christmas basically requires.

I thoroughly enjoyed being with my family, both my own and my in-laws. I laughed, I ate and I received many thoughtful presents galore. I am a very lucky lady. :)

Unfortunately, I was also combating one pretty nasty ear/nose/throat thing. Being sick over the holidays is TERRIBLE. I seem to always be sick on either Thanksgiving, Christmas or New Years. Last year was NYE. Hopefully this year I got it all out of my system at Christmas. One year I was sick on all three! Ack.

Anywho, I will post some pictures once I am back in the swing of things. I go back to work tomorrow after a 3-day weekend, and that will ensure I am thrust back into normalcy whether I like it or not.

I hope everyone had a Merry Christmas! Bring on the new year :)

Also, now that Christmas is over, does it still have to be cold outside?

Currently..

Obsessing over:

Joey and I have been watching Psych over and over on Instant Netflix. We watch all the new episodes on USA and it's also definitely a show that I can watch in syndication without getting bored. We started with season 1 last week and just started on season 2 tonight. The cast is fabulous and I laugh at every episode!

Working on: 
I finally got all of our Christmas cards addressed tonight, now we have to go get stamps and mail them tomorrow. It's so exciting... these are our first Christmas cards together! So cute. We are just so damn cute.

Thinking about: 
My momma. The holidays were her favorite time of the year and it's just not the same without her here. This will be our 3rd Christmas without her... and I'm just hoping it's going to be a quiet and simple weekend full of family and friends.

Anticipating: 
New Years! I keep thinking I want to do something fun this year, but I also love just staying in and eating junk food with the hubs. All I know is that I am looking forward to a new year... new resolutions, new opportunities for change. We'll see what happens, I suppose!

Listening to: 
Psych, weren't you listening?! but also Joey clicking on his computer and the loudness of my laptop as it slowly overheats into oblivion.

Drinking: 
I'm not drinking anything, actually. But I did drink a glass of milk about an hour ago.

Wishing:
For a white Christmas ;)

Thanks for the fun survey, Katie!

Clothes for Christmas!

I am really really excited about the dress I found tonight at Kohls. I plan on wearing it on Christmas day when we go to my Dad's house for our extended family gathering. I tried it on tonight with a black belt (totally looks like Santa! ha!), a gray cardigan, black tights and silver shoes. I love how it all came together and it's so totally festive. Yay!

For Christmas eve, I think I am wearing a black floral lace skirt, a red satin shirt and a black cardigan, with black tights and flats. Simple, but refined. Cause I'm sooooooo refined. ;)





So yeah, I am pretty excited for my new finds. All at Kohls, all on sale (of course!)

Is it Christmas yet??

Ornament Party

Last Sunday while the boys watched football, my gal pals Kirstie and Kristin and I had a super exciting, off the wall ornament party. By that I mean we made ornaments while gossiping and eating guacamole taco dip and bagel bites. That is some pretty compelling stuff.

Okay, okay, I am making it sound like it was lame, and I guess to others it might sound lame. But I had a blast and I really love hanging out with those girls. And crafts; I love crafts!

The ornament party in its conception was meant to bring all of the lady friends together to make ornaments for each other. You know, pick an ornament and make one for everyone there. That way we would all leave with an ornament from our friends! We still did that of course, but since only 3 of us were able to make it, it was a lot more low key and we just kind of free balled it. But it was so much fun and I definitely want to keep on the tradition next year!

Unfortunately, I didn't get a good picture of the ornament I made. Basically, I had a clear plastic bauble and filled it with white glitter to emulate snow. Then I placed a miniature pine cone that I 'dusted' with snow and some holly berries on top and glued the ornament closed. It was pretty cute, I have to admit. 

Kristin brought some clear glass baubles and different glitter paints and we all made our own colored ornaments! I made a teal one, of course, and I'm obsessed with it! I want to make more, more, more!

Kirstie got all fancy pants and made each of us a swirled one with our favorite colors. She made Kristin a black and white one, with red/black/white feathers attached to the top. It was stunning! When the paint dried, it kind of feathered inside of the ornament and it totally made it look professional. 

She made me one with green and blue paint, with a little owl pendant. I love it because it kind of turned into a globe, which is great because I have an obsession with globes. And the owl is just perfect. She knows me well!

My pretty new ornaments! Too bad I don't have a tree this year. I decided to rest them in our key holder because I want them to be seen and I love looking at them. :)

Then Kirstie surprised me with a second ornament.... Golden Snitches from Harry Potter!!

I am pretty sure I squealed. SQUEALED.

Look at how amazing these are!

The instructions she found on Pinterest included painting a gold bauble in swirls with golden paint. Kirstie found these premade ornaments in the clearance section, with red and green ones included. How lucky was that? Then she just painted white felt with silver glitter paint and affixed them to wire, creating the wings. Super easy, super cute.... super nerdy but I'm totally okay with that! I put all 3 of them on my little tree. ha!

I love my friends! 

Double Chocolate Peppermint Cookies

Tomorrow is our annual Christmas Party at work! We typically do a luncheon and this year I signed up to bring cookies. I had an idea for red and green cookies and was pretty much set on them until my Everyday with Rachael Ray magazine came in the mail. Flipping through, she had some pretty amazing looking cookies and I was enthralled. I was taken, though, with these chocolate cookies that had York peppermint patties inside.

INSIDE! 

Count me in.

Looks delicious, right?

They are.

Here is the recipe for all your holiday cookie needs! I've also included a link for easy printing...just copy the URL to this specific blog post!




DOUBLE CHOCOLATE COOKIES [WITH A PEPPERMINT SURPRISE]

Makes: 2 dozen
Prep: 30 mins (plus chilling)
Bake: 15 minutes

1 1/2 cup flour
1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1/4 cup light brown sugar
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp baking soda
1 1/2 sticks unsalted butter, slightly softened
1 egg
24 miniature York peppermint patties
6 oz. white chocolate, chopped
Peppermint candy canes, finely chopped 

1. Using an electric mixer, beat the flour, cocoa powder, both sugars, salt and baking soda on low speed. Beat in the butter, then the egg. Turn out the dough onto a large piece of plastic wrap and flatten into a disc; seal. Refrigerate until firm, about 1 hour.


2. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Line 2 large cookie sheets with parchment. Working with 1 tbsp of dough at a time, use your fingers to evenly encase each peppermint patty with dough. place on the prepared pans and smooth the dough with your fingers. Bake, switching the plans halfway through, until just firm to the touch, about 15 minutes. Remove the pans from the oven and let cool slightly. Transfer the cookies on the parchment to a rack to cool completely.


3. Meanwhile in a double boiler or small heatproof bowl set over a small saucepan of simmering water, melt half of the white chocolate, stirring until melted. Remove from the heat and stir in the remaining white chocolate until smooth. Using a large spoon, drizzle the white chocolate over the cookies. Sprinkle immediately with the crushed peppermint candies. Let set completely before serving or storing.

Merry Christmas!

I may have mentioned this before, but our apartment this year is too small for a traditional tree. So we've had to improvise with a small tree on our bookshelf.

This tree has been in my family since I was a little girl. I remember we would have our big tree in the living room, and my mom would always let me and my sister decorate the little tree in the den. It was always one of my favorite parts of Christmas.

Hehe.

Look at my bowl cut. And my purple tights. And the terrible nineties decor.

This year though, I opted out of my mom's ornaments and tree topper and bought some funky colored baubles and garland from Target. It was hard for me to not use the trinkets from my childhood, but I can't help myself when it comes to miniature sized things.

I also kind of like that it looked like our old tree from last year. 

Compromise is the reason for the season! [that's probably not right.... oh well..]

These are facts.

1. Thanksgiving is next week. (whhhaaattt????)

1a. I am making green bean casserole for the first time. Watch me mess this up.

2. That means Christmas is just one measly month away.

3. Christmas lists are hard to make.

3a. #firstworldproblems, anyone?

4. No one will buy me an iPhone, so everyone sucks.

5. I really want a new pair of Toms. These, particularly:

5a. But if I had the lady balls, I would totally get these. OMGlitter!

6. Seriously, though, tell me what I want for Christmas. This is impossible.

7. We don't have room in our apartment this year for a full sized Christmas tree. It makes me so sad!!! But we are borrowing my families old mini-tree to set on our countertop. It won't be the same, but at least we'll have some Christmas cheer in this tiny old apartment.

8. I spend way too much time on MarthaStewart.com lately. They have awesome organizational tips, fun crafts and mostly tasty looking recipes.

9. I think I am going to make this for the Christmas cards we get this year... I sure hope we get a lot!

We are sending our own out this year. We didn't send any out last year, so these will be our first "married couple" cards! I wanted to get ultra-cheesy and send out over the top photo cards, but we'll wait a little for those. We need a kid or something. Or a gerbil. (because apparently, we aren't dog people.)

10. I'm not going to ask again. Tell me what I want for Christmas.

What a week...

This has been such a roller coaster week. I am still really upset about it and can't really think about the decisions we had to make without completely crying. Basically, we adopted a puppy and then found that it was a terrible decision for our life right now. We bonded with him for a week but then had to take him back to the shelter. I feel like a monster, but little Leo deserves a better home than what we could have provided for him. He was a bright light in our lives, but he was also way more work that we ever could have imagined. But I want to end my talking about Leo on a happy note... so here is a cute picture of the fluffy little man that peed all over my carpets. ;)

But here are some other things that happened this week that made me happy:

• Seeing Ben Folds in concert with my lovely friend Kirstie. He performed a show with the St. Louis Symphony last Sunday... it was incredible. Honestly the coolest thing I've seen. He played an entire show by himself on the piano, with his entire set scored to include an orchestra. He played "Gracie" and it was phenomenal. That song seriously makes me tear up for no reason, and hearing it on Sunday was magical. (lame!)
  
  
• Joey wrote me a love note (okay email... but it's 2011 come on!) since I've been so down about the puppy. I'm obviously not going to share the note with you, but I'll just let you know that I love him very, very, very much. On November 23rd we'll have been together 6 years, with 1.5 of those years as a married couple. That is CRAZY! :)

A surprise date in Forest Park: Summer 2006

• Kirstie, as mentioned above, and I are planning a sweet Ornament Party to kick off the holidays! If it turns out a success, I hope it can become a tradition and our Christmas trees will be forever filled with homemade tokens of love from friends. (gag!) Seriously, I'm gagging. But it was cute so I'm keeping it. It's fun since Pinterest is sooooo crazy explosively huge right now. Finding a cute DIY ornament for each of us to make will not be hard. The plan is for everyone to have enough supplies to make everyone at the party an ornament, and we'll all leave with one from everyone there. I think it's an awesome idea and definitely a great way to spend a Sunday while the boys (ahem, men) watch football.
  
  I think I am going to try making the one below, although it might be a little extreme if we have more than 5 people show up ;)
  
  

  

  source // Pinterest

  But I made my Felt Flower Wreath using these flowers and had a TON of fun doing it... and felt is really cheap at Hobby Lobby. I should have pins leftover somewhere from the wedding... maybe... and then yarn is mega cheap too. The most expensive thing I'll buy is probably those foam balls - those are PRICEY!
• This is a little materialistic..... but I'm super excited about my new Bath and Body Works Christmas scented soaps. Fact: Christmas scents are the best.
  
  
  

• Finally.... HARRY POTTER PART 2, YA'LL!
  
  
  
  
  I want to be a total nerd and watch all 8 movies back-to-back(-to-back), but then I stumbled across this little downer.... but... I still think I could do it! ;)

 

Whew! I think that was a pretty lengthy blog post for not having blogged in almost 2 weeks!

Until next time, nerds! <3