Thursday, December 16, 2010

29 - Kelly Moore Bag

Ya know how I got a fancy schmancy new camera as an early Christmas present? And how much I love it? Well, I did and I do. It's awesome and I am so grateful for it. But... it needs a home. A permanent home in a pretty bag. I have LOVED Kelly Moore bags, ummm, well, forever. The first time I saw one, I honestly debated just getting it as a purse! But now that I have a valid reason to buy one, I've been looking again. Just look at this awesomeness.

kellymoorebagpromo

Arent they all fabulous?! I would love any of them, but the one I've really had my eye on is this one...
kellymoorebaggreyhobo2

Can you say lovely? This is just such a beautiful and understated bag! I adore the gray color and the hobo style is my absolute favorite. I also really like the mustard color in this style! 

You should totally hop on over to the Kelly Moore website and check them out for yourself! I will definitely be buying one just as soon as Christmas is over!

Wednesday, December 15, 2010

28 - Christmas Cards!

*** Updated with the back of the card!!***

Today, Faith is having a Christmas Card Carousel and I decided to join along! I have a small stationary business, so I make my own Christmas cards. This is the third year I've done them and I love them. I used pictures from different things we've done throughout the year and they are so fun! I always  want to include our dogs, but couldn't get them to sit still, so they aren't on the card this time around. But they still wish you a Merry Christmas! 

I desperately need to get these in the mail! They are all addressed and stamped, I just need to go to the post office. Which I will be doing tomorrow, because I have about 20 ornaments to mail!

I've kept you waiting long enough...here is our 2010 Christmas Card!

{click to enlarge}

And here's the back! Typical Tyler. It had to be included.

{click to enlarge, again}

Merry Christmas!

Monday, December 13, 2010

27 - Hot Pockets!

I am blogging backwards. But I don't care. Last Thursday we had homegroup game night with the folks at JC. The "theme" was finger foods. I have a cookbook called Any Blonde can Cook (I know, I know) and some of Tyler's favorite recipes come from there. I can cook up a storm and he will still wan the simple food from it. He's such a man. Anyway, something I hadn't made in a long time was homemade hot pockets. They are his favorite! Since it was finger foods, I thought those would be great. And lets talk about an excited man! He tends to make up names for the food I make, instead of calling them hot pockets, he refers to these as "yummy goodness." He's special. Anyway, I wanted to share the recipe because they are SO easy to make and make a whole bunch. I also made a veg option.

Chicken Hot Pockets 

1/2 cup sour cream
16 oz. mozzarella cheese
Rotisserie chicken
green onions - to taste, I used 2 stalks
splash of lemon juice
3 cans of crescent rolls

Preheat oven to 350. Take the chicken off the bone (and if you are a vegetarian and can't stand to do this, you have to make your husband do it) and chop it up. For one batch you will only need 1/2 of this, but feel free to use more. Stir together the sour cream, cheese, chicken and green onions. Add a splash of lemon juice. 

Lay the crescents into triangles and put the mixture in bottom of the triangles, like so...
(these are the spinach ones, but I didn't take pics of the others in process)

Then roll them up and seal the ends well.

I bake mine on parchment so it is easy to remove. Bake for 20-25 minutes until golden brown. Cool on a cooling rack and you're done. 


Spinach and Feta Hot Pockets
(otherwise known as the one I made up and don't have measurements for)

a few handfuls of baby spinach
1 6 oz tub of feta
1/2 cup sour cream
green onions
some mozzarella - I probably used 8 or so ounces.

Follow the exact same directions as above, except the making your husband deal with the chicken. Just mix everything together and wrap it up!

Then you go work it all off with some dancing on the wii.

Funny story... I called my grandmother to see if they still had green onions in their garden, so that I could save a few bucks. She laughed at me and said of course. I got to their house and realized why she found my question funny...
ummmm, yea, I'd say she had just a few to spare. ha!

Tyler has now requested I make some breakfast ones... I think I am going to do ham and cheese first!

26 - Garvan Woodland Gardens

I love Christmas time. I love all of the traditions we have. I love being able to see family and friends. I love celebrating Jesus' birth. I love Christmas songs. I love looking at lights. I love laughing at tacky lights. I love wrapping gifts. I love it all! 

One of the traditions we have started in the last few years is to go to Garvan Gardens in Hot Springs and see the Lights on the Landscape. My grandparents live in Hot Springs Village and the last few years, we have gone to spend the weekend with them and we've all gone together. I have some pretty hysterical grandparents and we have a blast hanging out with them!

Here are some Garvan Gardens photos. I didn't take many of the weekend, just at the garden!

These are gigantic chandeliers hanging from the trees.

The newest addition to the Lights, a train! The wheels look like they are moving and you can get up there and walk through it! So cool.

Entering Kiddie Land.

T is glowing. ha!





I married a five year old. He is trying to poke the toy soldier.



Again, he's five. I walked out of the gingerbread house and he was high fiving a ginger bread man. Special.

Do any of you watch NCIS? Here, he is getting "Gibbsed" by the gingerbread guy. He was apparently jealous of the high five the other guy got.





I love this hummingbird so much!

This might be my favorite part...

The only thing I would change is for them to add Christmas music throughout the park. I think it would add to the experience. 

We had such a good time with the grandparents and can't wait to see them again. I see them a lot throughout the year, but nothing quite seals the "You're our favorite" deal more than spending the weekend with them! And, just for the record, I am absolutely the favorite. You can ask anyone. Except my aunt, she will lie. ;)

25 - Oh Christmas Tree

We just put our Christmas tree up. Well, actually, we had the tree up last Sunday, but got all of the decorations put up Saturday night. I feel so much better with it up! Last year, we had a Christmas Ficus because we didn't own a fake and didn't want to put up the cash for a real like we had always done before. But this year, my wonderful sisters in law blessed us with the gift of their old tree! It is such a pretty tree and I am so thankful! And I just couldn't handle a second year of the Christmas Ficus, I had some serious issues with that! ha!

Here is our beautiful tree with some of the gifts under it.

My favorite ornament from childhood. These were my great grandmothers and I love them.


I just like this wreath, it is a real boxwood wreath.


And my favorite newer ornament.


I have lots of other favorite ornaments, but decided not to photograph every ornament on the tree!

And here are my gifts! I love them. I love giving presents and it makes me happy to see them under the tree!




We really haven't decorated the rest of the house, and probably won't. There isn't much time to Christmas anyway, and we are moving the day we get back from the SUGAR BOWL. Yep, we're going. And I can't wait. I have the most awesome in laws ever!

Sunday, December 5, 2010

24 - No Internet is No Fun

Our cable/internet has been out for 2 weeks. I'm going to scream. I have screamed. At the Comcast people.

The best way to catch up is in list form. It won't be in order, because I'm special like that.

1. Tyler has been going 15 hours a day for the last 7 days. He will be gone 15 hours a day for the next 4. I miss him. And he is working Christmas day. Boo.

2. I went to home group with the lovely folks at JC. I really like them.

3. My Bunko group had our Christmas party Friday night. It was so much fun! My friend Randy brought this cake... and I was sent home with it.

4. Randi's son, Caleb, who I have watched since he was 4 months old and who was the ring bearer in our wedding is turning 7 today. I'm refusing to accept this. Kind of like I refuse to accept that I'm 25. Ew.

5. I'm at Barnes and Noble because of the internet situation. There is a girl who I can only assume is talking to herself and has been for 30 minutes. I don't have headphones with me. Bad idea.

6. I saw this driving home yesterday and pulled into our driveway and immediately went up to the ridge by our house, where we watch the fireworks each year, and took a million pictures. I think it is so beautiful.



7. I got my things back from the Painted Pig. I'm not super happy with the lettering on my chip and dip bowl, but I will live. It ran pretty bad. Oh well.

8. Christmas cards are almost done. Most are in envelopes and labels are on them! Woohoo! Here's a sneakpeek. They will be in the mail this week!

9. A gal on twitter was talking about searching for an ornament to commemorate her pregnancy and about all she could find was odd clay embryos and fetuses. I told her to go to Painted Pig and do her own, she liked the idea and found out I painted and asked if I would paint one for her. I did. She posted on her well read blog. I have sold 10. She's my new favorite. Here is her ornament... its darling isn't it? I love them, now to get painting on the rest of them!

10. I'm currently having a twitter discussion on mustaches and how they creep me out. With a pastor.

11. Have I mentioned Tyler works Christmas Day? Have I also mentioned my mom works Christmas day? This makes me sad.

12. The bowl game announcements are tonight. I can't wait!

13. Please go to this site and vote for couple #1. It's Faith's sister, Grace. I don't know if you read her blog, but you should :)

14. My New Year's resolution is going to be to take one picture a day and post about it for 365 days. I created another blog to do this on so I don't invade your google reader or blogger dashboard. I just decided that since I got this fancy new camera, I need to learn to use it. And because I am the laziest scrapbooker ever (I just printed our wedding photos last week-thats lazy) I needed a way to document like I used to :)

15. The End. See you when our internet comes back, because I can't stand coming back to barnes and noble for fear of this chick being here again.

Wednesday, December 1, 2010

23 - Thanksgiving Weekend

** First of all, our internet has been out for 4 days now, so I am in Barnes and Noble using theirs. This post is a little late! Second of all, this post has A LOT of pictures. Sorry ;) **

I hope Thanksgiving was wonderful for everyone! Tyler had Thursday, Friday and Saturday off, which never happens, so we were so happy to get to spend time together! This was probably the best weekend we've had in quite some time!

On Thursday, we had two Thanksgivings, started at my grandmother's house for lunch and it was yummy! I like eating Holiday meals with my family because they take into account that I don't eat meat and have plenty of veggie options. A lot of other people freak out and just make potatoes. ha! It has always made me laugh! I got to have mashed potatoes and gravy, sweet potatoes, brussels sprouts, green peas, dressing, deviled eggs and pie. Win for me! Ha! Of course everyone else added turkey and giblet gravy to their plates :)

And this little girl, she used to be ours... until my grandparents dognapped her. Funny Story.

After we left my family, we went to Thanksgiving dinner with Tyler's Dad's family. This was our first time to spend a holiday with them and we are so glad we did! They are a fun group of people and I adore hanging out with them!

This is the party I made the pumpkin bread pudding for. Holy Moly. I will post the recipe tomorrow, you have to make it! It was seriously the best dessert I've ever made!!

I thought all of the decorations were SO fun! I adored everything they made!


Tyler and his Daddy

My mother in law and sister in law! love them!

Its such a blessing to be with family this time of year!

On Friday, we did a little of nothing until that afternoon. I went out and kind of looked around, but didn't find any good deals. Tyler worked that night, so I went to hang out with my bff and have a movie marathon. I left her house crazy early in the morning and went to Walmart to try to get the TV Tyler wanted. I got there around 2:30 and the sale wasn't supposed to start until 6. Honestly, I thought I'd be there until then. But the folks at Walmart were in a great mood and sold it to me then! They said they had one pallet of TVs that they would sell before 6! Woohoo! I was so excited to go home and get to sleep before the big game!

We slept in until around 10 and then went to tailgate with the family. I found out late Friday evening that the people I nanny for had 3 extra tickets! I was sooo excited to get them! Considering they were going for upwards of $300 online, we feel pretty blessed! And we got to call my brother in law and tell him we had a ticket! He is a DIEHARD Hog fan, so he was SUPER excited. Here are lots of pictures from Saturday... sorry. :)

Tyler with his cooler from college. That is my sorority, but I wasn't his lady when he got this! ha! He was dating one of my sorority sisters at Winter Formal and we started dating in June. I promise, I didn't steal him. :)

Marsha and Papaw

 Granny and Amanda

 Tony (my father in law) and I

 Amanda and Sarah (sisters in law)

 my love and I

I have a million pictures of T doing this exact post, but none quite this special... check out Sarah in the bg. 

Our Tickets! yay!

 Tailgating

Woo Pig Sooie!! 

I just love this shot. 

I love our stadium!

Hehe. I'm a child and this shot makes me giggle. No Shame.

Calling those hogs!! 

Tyler and our brother in law Mike at the end of the game! If you can't tell, we kicked LSU's tail! Woohoo! Now we are praying that Auburn stomps South Carolina so we can go to the Sugar Bowl! Fingers Crossed!

And... I want you all to go read this post. And help if you can! Its an easy way to be prepared for what can sometimes be an awkward encounter with a homeless person. Be prepared. I always keep granola bars and juice in my car to give out, but I will be making some of these, too! I'm also giving these out with Christmas presents this year to a few people. Also, my friend, Rik, reminded me last night... its cold out there, go clean out your closet and give something warm to someone who needs it way more than you do! 

And last but not least, I have other posts to get up, I just wanted this up! I feel behind...