Christmas Vacation....

Hope you all had a great Christmas with your family and friends...mine was great and the first in my parents' new house, so definitely different. I had to work Christmas Eve but got done early and headed to Topeka to celebrate my sister's 25th birthday. We went to church and then had a little birthday party for Meg. My mom's bro and his family from Denver made the journey across Kansas for the holidays and it was nice to spend time with them. Here are some pics from my time at home:


My sis, parents and me on Christmas Eve...

My uncle, aunt and cousin....

My little sis on her birthday (sorry for the creepy smile, I didn't have any better pictures!)

Meg's feelings during the 23 games of "Blockus" that she got beat in....

Sad after all the losing. :(

The mittens I gave to my family that I made to hold silverware on the table....got it from this idea at Crate and Barrel.

Meg at The National Collegiate Basketball Hame of Fame....making some shots!

Denver relatives (KU fans) with the bird....

My completed quilt that I got to give to my friend Lacey at her baby shower for her baby-to-be Hunter...


Another shot...

Me with Lacey and Hunter at the shower....

My parents' backyard during the snow on the Saturday after Christmas...

Jenn and Meg posing for the camera...My first attempt at making "Molten Chocolate Cake"....I used cocoa instead of chocolate squares and they did NOT "turn out"....so gross!

The correct version of the cake....so good!

Hope everyone has a safe and happy start to '09! I am headed to KC tonight to ring in the new year!! Have a good one! :)

Baking and wrapping and packing, oh my...

It's a busy time of year for everyone most definitely (hence, my lack of blogging), and it's hard to believe that Christmas is almost here! As I get packed up to drive to my parents' house after work tomorrow, I have wrapped a couple final gifts and baked a few treats to share with my family. My aunt, uncle and cousin are driving in to town as we speak, and tomorrow I will be headed to my parents' new house that they moved into last week....I will have to share more about that another time.

I hope everyone has a wonderful Christmas and safe travels. I leave you with a few pictures of the fruits of my labor this evening...

Deck the Halls....

Thanks to the snow we received yesterday and the miserable colder temperatures, I have been hiberating the last couple evenings and have been getting ready for the rapidly-approaching Christmas holiday. Here are a few pictures of what's going on around my place:

My Chrismas shopping is done! Here is my tree all decked out with gifts. Do not be alarmed, they are not huge presents, but it is a little tree. :)

I have been enjoying this glass decorative jar I bought on our girls' trip to Nell Hill's and it's filled with purple and white ornaments for K-S-U....

These stockings are what I have been making last night and tonight and will be gifts for my speech therapy and audiology co-workers at the hospital. They are made out of felt and embroidery thread....hoping to find some hot chocolate or candles to put in them before I give them away.

This one is an "M" for Marilyn...

The rest of the stockings....all hung with care....

**And in very exciting news, two of my friends from college had baby girls this week:

Emma Rose was born Tuesday and Taryn Lynn was born today! Both babies are healthy and moms are doing well. These burp clothes were embroidered by my boss and she added flannel at the bottom and I'll be giving them each a couple, cause what baby doesn't need something cute to spit up on. Looking forward to meeting both future K-Staters! Congrats mamas!!

Just add milk...

If Santa shows up early this year; I am fully prepared to provide him with some cookies! Last week my evenings revolved around the process of making sugar cookies. If you have ever made homemade ones, you know that it's not a 15 minute job. Monday I made the dough and then put it in the freezer, baked them on Wednesday and Thursday a few friends came over to frost and decorate them. All of this early-in-the-season cookie making was for a cookie exchange I went to on Friday night...here are some pics from all the hard work. Not bad if I do say so myself! : )

My decorating elves: Jenna, Robin and Kristin....thanks for all your help girls!

The counter FULL of cookies!

The gooey chocolate cookies that I got at the exchange:

The snickerdoodles and shortbread cookies I also got at the exhange:

The holidays are officially here!!

Hello friends! I have not forgot about the blogging world but haven't had or made the time to blog lately. Hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving. Since I was on call on the holiday and for the weekend, my family came to me to celebrate! It was my first holiday that I have hosted and all in all it went pretty well (according to me). I slightly misread the brocccoli and rice casserole recipe and put a whole bag of rice in instead of the one cup that is recommended. Per my sister- "You ruined Thanksgiving." Mildly dramatic, hmm?? Besides that it was all really good and there was definitely plenty of food!

Our turkey....aka, my "baby sister" Meg

While I worked Friday, my mom and sis fought the crowds for some Black Friday deals (Bob sat that one out)....thankfully my shopping is basically done! Hopefully everyone likes their gifts; if not there will be gift receipts I'm sure...

The weekend was pretty relaxed...went out to dinner at a couple favorite restaurants and saw "Four Christmases" which was pretty cute. The highlight was that my sis and I both got new winter coats as early birthday gifts from our parents....same coat but mine is red and hers is black. Excited to get some use out of it...

This week I will be doing some holiday baking for a cookie exchange and will try to get some pics taken of all the fun that goes along.....for now I am going to go sit on the couch and recover from the lifting class I took at the gym tonight....sore already....not a good sign!

Technical difficulties.....

I have not forgot about my blog but I have tried several times now to upload pictures from my computer and it's NOT working!! If I would have put up pictures, they would have been from the last K-State home game of the season that I went to last weekend with my friend Lindsay and my parents. It was kinda cold but a really fun day!! The day after the game, it was announced that Coach Snyder was returning, which is being met with mixed feelings from the KSU community. We'll see what happens next year!

This week has been all about getting ready for Thanksgiving! My sister gets here tomorrow night and my parents are coming Thursday morning. I am really looking forward to spend some time with them and relax. I have all the ingredients for our traditional T-Day dishes on my counter, so tomorrow night Meg and I will have to kick it in gear and make some stuff so they will be ready for the oven on Thursday. I wish each of you a wonderful holiday. I have so much to be thankful for this year; my sweet family, good friends and a job that I love. Will try to put some pictures up after a great Thanksgiving weekend!

To the quilters!!!

It's been a very productive week in my little sewing world. I got my grandma's machine back from the sewing machine store and it works perfectly! This weekend my mom showed me how to do several things with it that I hadn't really figured out on my own, so that was SUPER helpful! After some lessons I was able to complete my first quilt!! Well, at least the front of it and I'm going to have someone that knows how professional quilt that with the back and batting. It's not been as tough as I thought it might be, although it's probably not perfect.

In other news, I was home this weekend with plans of going to the K-State football game with my parents but we chickened out with the cold weather (I know, pathetic!). We watched our Cats lose (boo!) and watched the Jayhawks lose (hooray!). Last night, my mom and I went to see "The Secret Life of Bees"...it was so good! I practically cried throughout the entire movie....but I would highly recommend it!

And the grand finale of news- my parents sold their house!! They have to be out by Dec. 15th and their new one will be ready Dec. 15th; not exactly perfect timing, but pretty close. It's not definite yet but hopefully will be soon. Yea!!! :)

Girls Weekend 2008...

I wasn't going to put this up tonight, but it is going to be a busy week and I frankly didn't want to wait. This weekend I went to Kansas City to get together with my college roommates, who I am lucky to still be good friends with and see frequently as four of the five of us live in Wichita. We make an effort every year or so to dedicate a weekend with just us and get caught up and think of the memories without the hubbub of daily life and we had such a great time! On a sad note, the fifth component of our 5-some couldn't join us as she is currently in Texas interviewing for a job. :( Next time for sure Linds!

So, without Lindsay.....Kylie, Katie and I hit the road Saturday morning to see Julie who lives in KC. We met up at the Legends and did a bit of shopping and grabbed lunch before heading north to Atchison where we went to Nell Hill's which is a home decorating store. It was SO cold and absolute madness as we waited for probably 15-20 minutes to get inside. Once we got inside, it was PACKED!! It was the opening weekend for the holiday season so tons of people came from all around to check it out. The owner of the store, Mary Carol Garrity also opened up her house for tour and it was pretty cool to see how she has everything done up. Definitely put me in the Christmas spirit!! I was ready to come home and put my tree up but the girls talked me out of it. Maybe in a couple weeks. :)

I did get a jump start on my Christmas shopping and am getting so excited for the upcoming holiday season! My sis and parents are coming to Wichita for Thanksgiving because I have to work so the next couple weeks I will be trying to figure out how to host as it will be my first attempt for a holiday!

Enjoy the pics from a fun-filled weekend! Our "roommates" in life defintely know us better than most people, for the good or the bad and I will always consider all of them an extension of my family. It is always so great to see friends and I look forward to seeing how our lives develop and change before we all meet up again.

Kylie, Katie and Julie waitin outside in the freezing cold!

Mary Carol Garrity's house....130 years old and SO pretty. Definitely worth seeing...

"Howl at the Moon"- a piano bar in the Power and Light District; very fun!!

Today at my favorite mexican restaurant in all the world, "Mi Ranchito"...so good!

Progress!

Ah, what a busy but slow week! Things were DRAGGING at work....apparently there are not very many sick or hurt people lately so the seconds were literally ticking by but it allowed me plenty of time to get excited for the upcoming weekend trip! Tonight I have been watching hours upon hours of DVRed shows from the week as I wasn't home any evenings this week. Not that I'm complaining as I spent the time doing things I enjoy like cooking and seeing friends, but still, it's nice to have an evening to just hang out...

So, as I watch TV and get packed to go to KC tomorow for a girls weekend getaway, I have cut up all the fabric pieces that I sewed together so that I can arrange it according to the pattern and then sew it back together...things are looking up! Here are a few pictures....will let you know how the hard part goes of putting it together!

The before....

The after...

Cooking up something new....

Tonight I got together with the girls I cook with every month or so and we had some great luck with new recipes. Ginny was our gracious host and she picked out a dish with scallops, green peppers, onions, tomatoes and pinnapple served over rice with almond slivers (nice addition!). Very tasty! For dessert, we had "Dream Clouds" which entails mixing vanilla ice cream and sherbert (Becca chose raspberry) and then refreeze it...after you dish it up, add cool whip. It had a very creamy texture and was pretty good as well! Until next time...here are the finished products...

In stiches....

As I watch the election results come in, I thought I should post an update on my newly tackled challenge of learning to sew/quilt. I went to my friend Kylie's last night and she generously donated her time and patience and behold- with the help of her sewing machine, I have officially sewn fabric togeter! It doesn't look too shabby if I do say so myself. I dropped my grandma's machine off yesterday to get "tuned up" since it hasn't been used in awhile and look forward to "firing it up". In the meantime, it feels good to get some progress completed....here ya' go for now!

Fall happenings...

What a great time of year!! Minus the fact that it was pitch black when I left the gym at 6 tonight, I love love love this time of year! I really had a good weekend...spent a chunk of it working but snuck in some fun too. I enjoy all the trees changing color and took some pics of the trees outside my apartments; couldn't resist putting them up! Saturday night I went to a barn dance with my friend Kara and her boyfriend...it was kinda fun to dress up.

Yesterday I made some pumpkin cookies from a Martha Stewart recipe that I had been wanting to try. Took them to work today and they were gone in an hour...tasty! Also had some friends over last night for some stew and cornbread. My friend Kylie brought dessert that was heavenly! Here are some pictures from this weekend that I wanted to share. I am also really excited to vote tomorrow and find out how the election will turn out...get out there and put make your vote count!

Kara and me....yeehaw!
Kara and Curtis....howdy!
A pretty tree...
Yep, taken in Target's parking lot...
Pumpking cookies with icing...
The HUGE pot of stew....LOTS of leftovers!

The so good cake that Kylie made (the one where you poke holes in it and pour in caramel!!)Molly and her baby girl Elena...over a month old now!

Jenny and her sweet little girl Eva....
Linds on bottle duty....

I think this picture shows how we all felt after a very filling meal.....full and drowsy! Nothing cuter than a drunk little baby!!