Valentines 2015

I have no pictures. Failing at that resolution so far!

We kept Valentines pretty low-key this year. It isn't a top holiday for either of us and fighting the crowds for a night of prescribed romance just isn't our cup of tea.

This year the holiday fell on the same weekend as parent/teacher conferences AND President's day. That meant we had a 4 day weekend!!! Whoopee!!

Saturday rolled around and decided to just pal around together. We went out and got Coach some fancy new running shoes. He's training for a half marathon and it was time to buy into the program. Literally, lol. The shoe shop was right down the street from a Kansas City staple- Andre's! So he got fancy running shoes and I got fancy chocolates.

We swung by Macy's to pick up a cast iron pan then headed home for our own gourmet dinner. Coach really knocked it out of the park with delightful bacon-wrapped filets cooked perfectly in the new pan. I pitched in with chedder gratin potatoes and salad :). Then we settled in with some glasses of red wine and our DVR.

Not an exciting holiday by many's standards but it was perfect for us. It's not often we both have time off to just run around time together so it's enjoyable when it happens. One of my favorite things about having found "the One" is just having a partner to ride along with me,

New Years 2014

Still didn't take pictures.....I'm awful I know. It's like our children won't even know we existed this past year. 2015 will be better, I promise!

So we decided to have everyone we knew over to our house for New Years. I'd been feeling a little forgotten since we hadn't had a party after football. I got so used to hosting people every Friday night, that I was kind of missing it (remind me of that next fall I know!!). I literally just invited almost everyone we knew. Of course they didn't all come but we had about 10-14 people over at any given time. I set up a buffet, everyone brought their own drinks, and we just hung out. We even did a little dessert swap so I didn't feel guilty about not having party favors. Perfect evening!

Menu:
Ham and cheese sliders
Parmesan cheese straws
Meatballs
Buffalo dip
Pepper-jack bacon dip (new creation, wildly popular, will post about soon once I get actual measurements figured out)
Cheddar beer fondue dip (new recipe from pinterest, not making the recipe box)
Dunkaroo dip
Frosted brownies (from a box because that's how Betty Crocker rules the world, having the best brownies)

Drinks:
Everyone brought their own thing. We set up the drink tub so you could put what you needed on ice. We also had several mixers available- Coke, Sprite, club soda, that sort of thing. Then I made a virgin punch that our expecting friends could enjoy and everyone else could spice up as they liked. It was an orange sherbet punch I call Sunday School punch. I mixed mine with vodka and club soda, champagne, or chardonnay. Not all at once, just throughout the evening :)

Christmas 2014 Recap

This year was our first Christmas in our own home as a married couple. We talked at length about how to combine our favorite holiday traditions and I really think we nailed it.

Christmas Eve we did some last minute shopping and then went to an open-house hosted by close family friends (his tradition). We then went to our church's Christmas Eve service (something my family always does, his family did when they were younger, and something we both wanted to be a tradition for our family). Then we came home and made some delicious home-made pizza (a food tradition from my side). His parents came by to eat with us and visit (a new tradition). Then we headed to our den for Christmas movie watching. Then came time for stockings. Our families both have strong Santa traditions and just because we don't have kids doesn't mean Santa won't visit our house. The trick was how to do it without seeing each other's stuff. We settled on laying out stockings on the separate sofas and just staring at the floor while you exited the room. It worked well enough and I know eventually keeping our stockings a surprise will be a lesser priority when we have kids.

The next morning our sweet puppies woke us at 7 for their normal morning needs. We got up, fed the dogs, I put a breakfast casserole (made the night before) in the oven, and we took our annual Christmas morning photo on the stairs.

We checked out our stockings, gave the dogs some of their Christmas treats, and headed upstairs. With just the two of us things move pretty quickly. We opened our gifts for each other, congratulated each other on only having 2 exchanges to make, and settled in with breakfast. For the record, my stocking had numerous kitchen utensils I wanted (for some reason I was down to ZERO rubber spatulas), a Columbia pullover, and a couple of gift cards. Coach's stocking had some food treats, a giant Mizzou freezer bag (love our soft-sided coolers in this house), and a Kindle Fire HD7 with case and stylus. Our gifts to each other were mostly clothes. Coach's big surprise was his drill set and mine was a new pair of Uggs.

Another movie and we were ready to head to Coach's parents house. It took some time during the movie to get all the gifts sorted and loaded up.

We headed out early because this year Coach was frying the turkey for Christmas lunch. So we had about an hour and a half to visit with his parents and just hang out (and eat) before the other families arrived. By noon all the kids and grandkids were in the house, we had a delicious turkey dinner, and started the present opening. After getting most of the little kids' gifts opened we took a short break (one needed to go down for a nap). Then it was round 2 for opening the adult gifts. It was a calm, relaxed day and I basked in knowing that I had married into a family that didn't run around to thousands of extended family celebrations on the holidays. I really enjoy just being with our immediate family and doing our thing on the holidays.

One thing I will need to change next year- pictures!!! Normally I'm the girl with the camera out the whole time and I dropped the ball all fall on this one. Time to get back in the swing of documenting every single moment! :)

Thanksgiving 2014 Recap

Since my parents live 6 hours away from Coach and I (or I guess more accurately, I moved 6 hours away from my parents) and Coach's parents live in town with us, it's impossible to see both sets every holiday. So we decided early on to swap the major holidays until we have kids. At that point we'll see what works best for our family and go from there.

This year was Thanksgiving at my parents. We left Tuesday night with the plans to stay in St Louis with friends. I started to feel "out of it" about an hour out of St Louis. By 10:00 I was laying on our friends' sofa, shivering under a blanket, and feeling flat out crappy. By midnight, I woke Coach up with my tossing and turning and he declared I was burning up. I said "yes dear, I know. I have a fever, I want to die, please get me the Tylenol." (I'm not the nicest person when I'm sick).

For the record, I can count on 1 hand the number of times I've had a fever since graduating high school. I just don't get them. I'll be sick as a dog and my temp will never change. In fact, my normal temp- ie go take it right now when I feel great in the middle of the day- is 96.8. Weird, I know.

Well as luck would have it, we didn't pack Tylenol. So Coach waited till our friend was up for an early morning child feeding and asked her for some. I got some in my system about 5 am, got out of bed at about 7 and managed to get dressed and act coherent. We were on the road and at my parents by 10 in the morning where I promptly took more meds, started a round of antibiotic and slept 90% of the day. I rose enough to go out to dinner, then back to bed.

Needless to say, Thanksgiving wasn't a very energetic day for me. Coach was super sweet through it all though. He got me whatever I needed, entertained himself with reading, watching football, or coloring with my niece while I rested. What a trooper! It can't be easy to have a sick wife and be staying at your in-laws for 3 days.

Friday I felt the most normal all week and we braved some shopping. More on that escapade later. Saturday we left southeast Missouri to head home. We stopped at the outlets in St Louis on our way back and scored some good Christmas gifts for each other.

All in all it wasn't my best Thanksgiving but it was still an enjoyable time with family.

Painted Ornaments

I saw this on Pinterest last year and impulsively decided to try it out when Hobby Lobby had the ornaments and paint on sale at the same time. I'll update this post this weekend with more photos and detailed explanations but here's the gist.

I bought plain glass ornaments (got the wrong shape though) and drizzled craft paint inside (plain old craft paint). I did some experimentation to get as close to my desired effect as possible. Combinations of adding water and shaking it like a Polaroid picture were used. At first I was really happy with them, then they dried and I was much less happy. The paint cracked in spots when it dried and I don't like the way it looks. So I will try again and hopefully be more successful.

*Also, the gold paint dried much flatter than desired. This girl wants everything to sparkle!