Resolutions

It's that time of year again. Time to make some promises to yourself. I know a lot of people don't do New Year's resolutions because they feel like they can't keep them, but I think they're a great idea regardless of whether you keep them or not. Resolutions force you to look at your life and pick an area to improve upon. And let's be honest, we can all improve ourselves.

Last year I resolved to keep a journal. I went to target and bought a spiral notebook, and I did so well for awhile! I wrote in it at least 5 times a week, and sometimes everyday for my entire last semester of college. Well, after I graduated I completely stopped. My last entry is probably a week or so after graduation last May. BUT to be fair, I started this blog in May. So if you count this as a form of journal, then I think I did pretty well on my resolution from last year!

Anyway, I have no ideas for resolutions this year. If you have any, let me know! What are yours?

Daylight

Today it was back to work! I had a terribly short break for Christmas, but it felt sooo long because it's the longest break I've had since summer. I know it's only been a week or two since the winter solstice, but I'm already looking forward to it staying lighter later. Today it was dusky when I left work, but at least it wasn't pitch black. It may be all in my head, but it makes me happy to think we're slowly getting more daylight now. Plus it's been like 60 degrees outside so it feels like Spring.

Merry Christmas!

I've sort of been on a hiatus from blogging during the week. We got to spend lots of time with both of our families just relaxing, watching movies, playing cards, baking, etc. We started at my house for the traditional baking all day long and doing last minute things on Christmas Eve to get ready for Christmas. We roasted chestnuts (I got the idea from Maggie) but they didn't go over too well. No one was really a huge fan of them! We did our homemade pizza dinner, took a walk, and dad read Twas the Night Before Christmas. Of course we did the pyramid picture that we take every year, and this year Chris got to join in!
The next morning we drove over to Chris's house to spend Christmas day. We opened gifts, watched movies, ate a delicious dinner, and got to stay in sweatpants ALL day. It was fantastic.

I didn't take a single picture this whole Christmas, so I hope you enjoy these couple via my mom's camera.

Merry Christmas!! We hope you had a great one!

Thankful Thursdays (#9)

Well I'm sort of on a blog hiatus since it's the holiday time of year. This week I am thankful for Jesus, Christmas, and family, Family, FAMILY. I love hanging out with family and I've gotten a lot of it these past few days. Merry Christmas everyone. I hope you are all having a wonderful holiday!

What are you thankful for?

Christmas spirit

I'm in the Christmas spirit! I'm pretty sure I'm done wrapping presents (with very minor exceptions), and we've been hanging up all our holiday cards as they come in. I love getting cards in the mail! Just one more day of work to go until it's "Christmas break". I guess after you're done with school Christmas break ceases to exist.. such a shame. Anyway, I hope everyone is enjoying the holidays!

Ornaments

We received these wonderful ornaments from Chris's aunt Paula! They're beautiful. Here's a closer look. She took some of our wedding pictures and put them on the ornaments. They're so creative!

See the resemblance?

Last night, Katie was singing along quite loudly to Andy Williams' rendition of 'It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year.' And then she asked aloud, "Don't I sound like Andy Williams?" Katie's mom responded, "No, but you look like him." Hmmm.....

Christmas questions

I got these questions from Heather's blog and decided to do them here! If you enjoy them, do them on your blog, and let me know so I can read them!

1. Wrapping paper or gift bags? Definitely wrapping paper... I suck at gift bags, I can't figure out how to do the tissue paper inside them.

2. Real tree or Artificial? We've done artificial more often than not, but now that I have an apartment, we got a real one this year! I think I'm allergic though.. but I love our real tree!

3. When do you put up the tree? We did it a week or two after Thanksgiving.. I guess whenever we have time to get one!
4. When do you take the tree down? Not sure yet, but I want to leave it up as long as possible! I love having it over in that corner and looking at the ornaments.
5. Do you like eggnog? I think it's pretty good
6. Favorite gift received as a child? I'm going to have to say my iPod. My parents got them for us my freshman year of college and it was awesome.

8. Easiest person to buy for? Lauren or my mom. There are always so many things I can think of to give them!

9. Do You have a nativity scene? My parents do. We don't have one yet, but will get one some day!
10. Mail or email Christmas cards? Definitely mail! I love love love getting your cards! And seeing the pictures!
11. Worst Christmas gift you ever received? One year my brother gave me a CD for Christmas. It was one I had asked for, but what he ended up doing was giving me an O-town CD (anyone remember them??) and hid the real CD that I wanted inside it, just to see me try to react favorably to receiving a really crappy CD. So I really liked the CD I wanted, but I consider the other O-town CD a bonus gift, and it was pretty bad.

12. Favorite Christmas Movie? I really like Elf.. it's hilarious. And Love Actually. All the classics are great, but those two I can watch over and over again.
13. When do you start shopping for Christmas? Umm.. I probably started late October. Definitely did a lot in November. It stresses me out to wait until the last minute.

14. Have you ever recycled a Christmas present? Not sure about a Christmas present, but have definitely recycled gifts. I hate throwing things away, even if I don't want them!

15. Favorite thing to eat at Christmas? Cookies! and homemade pizza on Christmas Eve. My mom's side of the family has always done this as their tradition. I think we've only spent one or two Christmases with them, but we've always done it as our own family, too.

16. Lights on the tree? Does this mean color? We have white lights. I like them :) class, class, class.. right? haha
17. Favorite Christmas song? I'm not sure. I like a lot of Christmas songs. But Chris would definitely say Sleigh Ride by Relient K.

18. Travel for Christmas or stay home? We've always stayed home and done a family thing. I really enjoy it!

19. Can you name all of Santa's reindeers? Yes I definitely can.
20. Angel on the tree top or a star? Actually this year we don't have a tree-topper! It's our first tree... it takes time to acquire these things!

21. Open the presents Christmas Eve or morning? Traditionally we open one on Christmas Eve and then open presents Christmas morning.

22. Most annoying thing about this time of the year? Stores. I really really dislike the parking lots and how crowded it gets.
23. Favorite ornament theme or color? I like red, I'm not sure about the theme thing.
24. Favorite Christmas dinner? Pizza

25. What do you want for Christmas this year? Honestly I can't really think of anything. I just want some family time and good food and cookies.

Thankful Thursdays (#8)

Well, I have had two very long days in a row and I'm exhausted. Mentally, physically, everything. To cap my day off today, it took me 2 hours and 10 minutes to drive the approximately 16-17 miles home from work. Which is completely ridiculous. Anyway, on the bright side of things, this post forces me to think of the good things of my days. So that being said, today I'm thankful for my wonderful husband who made me a delicious dinner tonight and did all the dishes while I sat in traffic. It really did make my day a lot better :)

Let us know what you're thankful for! Leave a comment below...

Relient K is a big deal

And not just because I say so, but because Jay Leno says so. And yes, that's Biff from Back to the Future playing with them, so they're big in Hollywood too. Enjoy.

Pyramid

We got a candle pyramid for Christmas!! I'm so excited. Thanks Grammy and Opa!!

Milk squared

I went to the store after work today and picked up a bunch of things we've been needing around in the way of groceries. Well I got home today and when I went to put the milk in the fridge, I saw this:

I gotta be honest. I don't even drink milk. I'm not very pleased that I did this.

Christmas party

Ashley and Kayla threw a Christmas party at their apartment last night so we all dressed up and headed over. Here are some pictures of the Christmas outfits we came up with:
Unfortunately I didn't take any pictures while I was there so I don't have pictures of everyone else's awesome outfits.
We ended up coming home with a card shuffler and Candy Land after a rousing game of yankee swap ($5 limit), and made some ornaments. If you can't tell, since they were really hard to make, mine is of a Christmas tree and Chris's is a WM with feathers. The whole night was really fun!

Pictures

We now have a few tools around the house (a screwdriver and screws, a hammer and nails.. that's about it!), so we decided to hang some pictures. Chris did all the 'holding of things against the wall', while I did all the 'stepping back to make sure everything looks straight'. We make a pretty good team.

Thankful Thursdays (#7)

Are you guys getting sick of this yet?

This week (and all the weeks until Christmas!), I'm thankful for the holidays and all the festivities that go along with them. I feel like I've had great opportunities to spend time with family and friends, and have lots more coming up in the next couple weeks. We've gone Christmas tree shopping, bought crafts for holiday decorating, baked cookies, and had visitors. Keep all the holiday cheer going!

What are you thankful for this week?

Wrapping paper

Chris is starting to get creative with his gift wrapping...Here he decided to use duct tape instead of your traditional paper.

Guess who's getting this one :)

Painting

Erin created an amazing painting for us as a wedding present. I thought since she has a grand opening this weekend in Vienna, VA at the Soundry where she's displaying a lot of her art work, I would give you all a preview in case you may want to go! If you can't see in my picture, she incorporated the words from our first dance song (Everything, by Michael Bublé) into the painting. It's really very cool and creative and fits in our place perfectly!

The best way to spread Christmas cheer is singing loud for all to hear!

It brings me such great joy to come home to this:
And then to unlock the door to our apartment and smell the evergreen and Christmas spirit!I am going to keep this tree around as long as possible! I love the cheer, the lights, the smell, all of it!

Christmas tree shopping

Today was Christmas tree shopping! We picked out a nice Douglas Fir. I haven't really had a lot of real trees during my life, so as soon as I started stringing the lights I found out I'm definitely allergic to the tree. My arms started itching terribly and turning red. After I washed my hands and stuff we did ornaments. The best part was unwrapping Chris's huge box of ornaments because everyone was new to me and a surprise! We don't have a tree-topper yet, but we'll either make one or find one soon.

Mocs + sandals

We left to head over to a friend's house last night and Chris was a little sad because he wanted to keep wearing his moccasins. His are indoor slippers (meaning the bottoms are the same leather stuff instead of rubber), but he was determined. He made his own outdoor shoes out of them! If you can't tell from the picture, he ended up strapping his sandals on his feet over his mocs so he could walk over there.

Our Christmas Tree!!

I wish...


I walked out of work today and saw this tree about 40 feet tall (okay, I have NO sense of measurement really, so someone else can tell me how tall they think it is. There are cars below for reference's sake). I swear this tree is not in the middle of the field normally. I want to know how they transported that thing over here. It was decked out in lights, a star, and a huge red bow! How's that for some Christmas spirit?

Thankful Thursday (#6)

It's Thursday! Take a minute and think of what you're thankful for this week..

This week I'm thankful for your awesome/hilarious guesses on yesterday's post. Most creative goes to Kayla for guessing a reindeer. I saw it immediately after you said that! Funniest goes to Maggie and Kelly for fat gingerbread man and gingerbread man with its legs bitten off.
Well, most of you were close! It was supposed to be a gingerbread woman. Hence the skirt to the left. We made other cookies that were more recognizable as well: stockings, candy canes, and gingerbread men.
Anyway, thanks for the comments. Now, leave us a comment and let us know what you're thankful for...

**EDIT** Okay, I have to add Lauren in there for favorite guesses now, too. Her guess of puzzle piece with chicken pox was by far the most creative!

Guessing Game

All right, so I made some sugar cookies this past weekend with an array of cookie cutters...anyone have a guess what shape this one is? It may be easy, but I thought it looked a little strange!

mmm... crock pot

We borrowed a 5-ingredient crock pot recipe book from Maggie and decided to try making fajitas today. I cut up all the peppers last night and this morning we threw it all together before work.
When we got home, the apartment smelled delicious! We have lots of room for improvement, because I'm pretty sure we cooked it too long, but it still tasted all right. Anyone have some good crock pot recipes?

December came quickly

It's December. For those of you who didn't know. I can't believe it!





It's snowed at work.
I've baked some Christmas cookies.
I've started shopping.
Thanksgiving was last week.
We're busting out the crock pot.
I've even wrapped some presents.

BUT I still can't believe it's already December. Can you?