Sunday, December 16, 2007
Jackson's first Christmas present
Chad & I got Jackson a Christmas gift and since he's only 9 months old he is not very familiar with opening gifts. It took him awhile and some help to get into his gift from us.
Here is Jackson chewing on the wrapping paper while Kelly & I try to help him.
Here is Jackson finally playing with the opened toy aquarium!Christmas party!
We've started a pretty cool Christmas tradition with some of our friends - we all get together at someone's house for a Christmas ornament exchange/party. This year it was at Paul & Kelly's house and we had breakfast food for our dinner. I think this ornament exchange is becoming one of my favorite ways to celebrate Christmas with our friends!
Semi-homemade gift
I really enjoy making homemade gifts for family and friends for Christmas, but I'm starting to get to the point where everyone has enough cross-stitched Christmas items and fleece blankets and scarves. So, for my grandmother I decided to go the semi-homemade route and paint a mug for her at a pottery painting place. I went with some friends to Pottery Place Studios near Concord Mills Mall and painted this mug. So, here are the pictures of the finished gift.
Thursday, December 06, 2007
Pumpkin pie from scratch!
I decided that I wanted to make Chad a pumpkin pie from scratch. When I read Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver it inspired me to see if I could make a pumpkin pie from actual pumpkins, not canned pumpkin. It was actually much easier than I thought it would be. I ended up fighting more with the crust (also from scratch) than with the pumpkins. I don't know if I'll do the whole thing from scratch again, but it's nice to know I can. And Chad said it tastes great!
Sandy's new hiding place
After we finished decorating the Christmas tree I noticed that Sandy was hiding under the tree skirt! Last year she enjoyed hiding among the presents, but I guess since there aren't any presents under the tree yet she found a new place to "hide".
The cats' early Christmas present
We decided to give the cats one of their Christmas gifts early. Recently Roxy has been getting into trouble for scratching our leather chair. They have scratching mats, but they have been needing new ones for awhile. So, we got them a new scratching mat for Christmas and let them have it early. As you'll see from the picture they both love it and Roxy has greatly reduced her scratching of our chair too!
Monday, December 03, 2007
Eat Pray Love
I just finished reading "Eat Pray Love" by Elizabeth Gilbert. Liz writes about her year long journey of self-discovery where she spent 4 months in Italy for "pleasure", 4 months in India at an ashram for "prayer" and 4 months in Indonesia to find "balance" between pleasure and spirituality. Overall the book was very interesting and extremely well-written. My favorite quote is when Liz is talking about when she was married and her husband wanted them to start a family and she just realized that she did not have the desire to have kids. Her sister, who had kids, told her "Having a baby is like getting a tattoo on your face. You really need to be certain it's what you want before you commit.(pg. 10)" So, I told Chad that that's what I'm going to tell people who ask me when/if we're going to have kids - I'm not at the "tattoo-on-your-face" committment level yet.
Monday, November 26, 2007
Sticky Fingers
For Thanksgiving with both sides of our families I baked a Coca-Cola cake. While we were at Chad's parents house for their dinner I heard Chad's sister yelling at Kathryn to leave the desserts alone. I just assumed she was trying to eat too much dessert, which everyone seems to do around the holidays. But, when we got home and I went to cut myself a piece of cake I noticed a suspicious "trail" around the edge of the pan. So, here is Kathryn's "handiwork" on my cake. Nice.
Thanksgiving with Chad's family
We had our Thanksgiving meal with Chad's family on Friday instead of having 2 meals on Thanksgiving day. Our niece Kathryn's birthday is in November, so we gave her her birthday gift at Thanksgiving.
Our First Turkey
This is the first Thanksgiving that Chad & I actually cooked the turkey for our Thanksgiving dinner. We have hosted the meal at our house the last few years, but this is the first year we cooked the turkey too. I must say it turned out very well and we were very pleased!
Planting Flowers in the Dark
I had a Partylite candle party on Nov. 18th and all my spring flowers were dead and gross looking so I wanted to plant some Pansies before the party. We had so much to do the day before the party and since it's getting dark outside at like 5pm we ended up planting the flowers in the dark. Thankfully I have a wonderful husband who is willing to do that with me and he borrowed a light from his parents that helped us actually be able to see the plants.
Unfortunately a few days after we planted the Pansies they got eaten up by slugs (I think), hopefully they'll recover and bloom some more.
Unfortunately a few days after we planted the Pansies they got eaten up by slugs (I think), hopefully they'll recover and bloom some more.
We're a cat family
Chad & I went to Wilmington for the weekend Nov. 9-11 and we saw both of my grandmothers and their cats. My family have always been cat people, so here are some of the other cats in my family.
Roxy's Cadbury Egg
Cadbury Eggs are now available at Christmas time as Cadbury "ornaments", so I love Cadbury Eggs and I bought two - one for me and one for Chad. Well, I come home one day and only see one Egg - I just assume that Chad ate his until I see the missing egg unwrapped on the floor by the stairs! Roxy got the Cadbury Egg off the counter AND unwrapped it and tried to eat and/or play with it. I'm sure you can't see from this picture, but there are teeth and claw marks all over the egg.
Thursday, November 01, 2007
Our pumpkins all lit up
Halloween costumes
Another family visit
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