A White Christmas!

Well, as many bloggers have already stated, Christmas this year was especially magical because of all the snow! I heard we haven't had a white Christmas since 1926!! Truly amazing!

We were visiting Kelly's family in west Texas when we saw the snow. It hit us about 10-12 hours before it hit Dallas. We woke up on Christmas Eve morning to a backyard covered in a white blanket! It was beautiful.

This was Cooper's first time to play in the snow and he absolutely LOVED it! Check out his tongue hanging out!

Kel was smart and captured a video of Cooper "enjoying" all the snow!

Christmas Crayons and Cookies!

A few weeks ago, Kelly and I had the opportunity to babysit Ben again. You might remember when he stayed with us back in June. We always have so much fun when he comes over, and I always try to have something planned to keep him busy. I had seen a blog post on 'Christmas shaped crayons' and I knew this was something that would be right up Ben's alley (and mine too if we're being completely honest!)

LaLa and Chase were heading to a birthday party, so Ben was all ours for the night!

We got to work right away on the crayon project. Ben helped me peel off the crayon labels, and broke them in to pieces small enough to fit in the cookie tin. We let the crayons bake in the oven at 350 degrees for 8 minutes, and this is what they looked like when we pulled them out:

Of course, we had to let them cool....

So we took a few more pictures!

After leaving the crayons in the fridge for a few minutes, we were able to take them out of the cookie tin and see what they looked like...

I bought him a coloring book to use, but he ended up taking it home with him because we were too busy watching Up and unwrapping Reese's Peanut Butter Cups for some cookies I was making for our Christmas celebration with my family the next day (recipe below). After he ate about 6 peanut butter cups, he had this snowman sucker to top him off! Needless to say, when LaLa and Chase picked him up, they had to scrape him off the ceiling!

And as a "thank you" gift for watching Ben, Lauren gave us this cute "O" ornament! Thanks, Lauren! We'll watch Ben anytime!

Recipe for mouth watering Reese's Peanut Butter Cup Peanut Butter Cookies (wow, that's a mouthful!):

1 bag Reese's Peanut Butter Cups

1 roll of Peanut Butter Cookie Dough

Preheat the oven to the temperature on the cookie dough package. Spray a mini cookie sheet with cooking oil, and fill the holes with the cookie dough. Bake for 2 minutes less than directed time on the package. This will keep your cookies from drying out. While the cookies are baking, unwrap all of the peanut butter cups. Once the cookies are finished, take them out and immediately place peanut butter cups in the middle of the cookies. The chocolate will begin to melt, but don't worry, once the cool they'll regain their shape.

They're best if you're able to snatch a few right out of the oven!

Christmas Crafts Part II

Please excuse the picture placement in the last post. I'm becoming more infuriated at blogger with each passing minute!

But I won't let it get me down, because I'm MOST excited about this Christmas Craft!! When Bower Power posted about this amazing Pottery Barn Advent Calendar I nearly fell out of my chair in awe! And with a tutorial on how to make one of my own?! I knew right away this was another craft I had to tackle, except this time I couldn't wait 6 months to finish it. NO.WAY. It had to be mine, and it had to be mine right now! I was over at my parents one afternoon showing them this MARVELOUS, 'whimsical with a touch of nature' Pottery Barn Advent Calendar, when my mom said, "well, we have those old bulletin boards you could use."

What?!

Katie bar the door! I nearly knocked my Mom to the floor as I ran into the hall bedroom to drag them out of their hiding place! With this as my inspiration, I was on my way to making one of my own.

That is, until Smith Snapshots sent me an email about this very project and said she wanted to make one too! Yess! I love a good crafting partner. She had the spray adhesive; I had an extra cork board. So between the two of us, we conquered this project together.

Again, I'm not going to give you step-by-step instructions on how to make one of your own (see Bower Powers post for a tutorial), but I will tell you that this "little project" took two very dedicated crafters almost 10 hours to finish (four hours one night; six hours another).

We did EVERYTHING ourselves.

We used a handsaw.

Then got smart and used a circular saw.

We used a mitre box.

We used wood screws.

We drilled pilot holes.

We used a staple gun.

We used spray adhesive.

We used a paper cutter.

We measured, measured, and measured again.

And when it was all said and done, we were so proud of ourselves!

I spent the next couple of days scrounging around for the perfect ornaments, and she did the same. (I handmade/had on hand several of my ornaments and found the rest at Michaels, Target, Wal-Mart, and Mardel.)

I finally finished putting every last ornament in it's place, and this is what my 'oh-so-perfect' linen board looks like:

That was you falling over with jealousy. Just kidding.

And this is where I have it hanging in my house:

Right in the dining room for all the world to see! I know it's January 3, but I can't bring myself to take it down. Do you think anyone will notice the ornaments if I leave it up all year?

Good thing is, once I finally decide to put the ornaments away, I still have plenty of uses for it.

So, what do you think?

Christmas Crafts Part I

One of the reasons I was so busy over the Christmas Break was because I was feverishly working on two crafts, hoping I could finish them before Christmas, and before we left to visit Kelly's family for five days.

Well, give this girl a deadline and that's all I need to get a project finished!

My first project has been a work in progress for MONTHS. I started working on it back in July--I kid you not. AfterBuzzings of a Queen Bee posted about this advent calendar, I knew I had to make one for myself!!

During the dog days of summer when Hobby Lobby put their scrapbook paper on sale for 50% off I made a mad dash to snatch up some holiday themed paper. I also bought the frame at Hobby Lobby on the "ding" aisle for $6.50! I waited for the little paper boxes to go on sale, too, and then I was in business. However, it took me almost 6 months to find a piece of sheet metal to fit my 12x24 frame. I've learned when bloggers post about a project they've done, and they get to the part where they're husbands have to help them, that the project took a lot longer than what it seems. (This is especially true for my second Christmas Craft.)

So, I waited until the absolute LAST MINUTE to finally find a piece of sheet metal--and in all actuality, I have to thank Smith Snapshots for picking it up for me. She graciously offered to grab it while she was out running errands one afternoon. She also loaned me her chalkboard spray paint so I wouldn't have to buy a whole can of my own. She's a great crafting partner (see second Christmas Craft for more of her generosity!).

Well, I'm not going to post step-by-step instructions on how you can make this calendar for yourself, because Buzzings has already posted a fantastic tutorial, but I will show you my final product.

Are you ready?

You sure?

I still need to add numbers for the dates, but other than that, it's finished.

OK, here it is!

2009 Turkey Trot

As promised, here is my recap of our experience at our First Annual Turkey Trot!

We had a BLAST to say the least! The alarm clock went off pretty early for a holiday, but I was overwhelmed with excitement that I didn't mind one bit. Kelly, Cooper, and I got up and headed to my parents house to meet up with Lauren so we could ride downtown together. Lauren and I were the only ones who ended up running in the Trot, but Cooper and Kelly tagged along for the fun. We made it in plenty of time to stretch and take a few pics, and with the rest of the 35,000+ participants, we anxiously waited for the race to begin.

Then just like that, we were off!

OK, not like off in a dead sprint, but we were off. In fact, it took us 18 minutes to finish the first mile. I know, true athletes here. But we didn't mind. We enjoyed walking so much that we walked the entire second mile! We decided to turn on the burners for the last mile and finished the entire race in less than 50 minutes--I think. But who's counting, right?

The timing was perfect, we were back home by 10:30 a.m., in plenty of time to help Mom prep for the party and have a few snacks before lunch. We had so much fun that Lauren, Kelly, and I convinced our family to join us again next year for a morning full of fun! Here are a few pics...

(OK, so this is my first experience with the technical difficulties of Blogger and uploading photos. Ugh. These pictures are suppose to be in reverse order, but I'm too annoyed to deal with changing them anymore, so you'll have to enjoy them in reverse.)

Lala and I at my parents house after we've freshened up from the race:

Here we are post-race with Cooper contained in the back of my car. He was so excited he could hardly stand it. In fact, we wore him self out from all the excitement and ended up sleeping the next two days straight!

Here we are with our fantastic support group, Kelz and Coop!

See what I mean about excited? We couldn't get him to sit still with all the other people and puppies walking around.

Pre-race!

Can't wait for next year!

A New Year, A New Post!

Can it really be January 3 already?! I was lovingly reminded by my cousin, Lauren, that I hadn't posted since December 14, so I thought I'd try to play a little catch up. In all honesty, I really wanted to have these next few posts already posted, but time seemed to slip by, one busy day at a time. So my first few posts in 2010 will be recapping a few key moments in 2009.

I've had the past two weeks off from work (which would make you think that I've had PLENTY of time to catch up on my postings), and I'm dreading my 4:00 am alarm clock tomorrow morning. I've already packed by gym bag, my sack lunch, and have decided what I'm going to wear--but that won't make my wake up call any easier.

Anyways...back to updating my blog.

I wish I had a list of New Years Resolutions ready to post, but alas, I do not. I've spent time reflecting on my resolutions from 2009 and I had to chuckle at a few of them:

1. Take More Pictures: Well, that didn't happen. We took a TON of pictures and videos of Cooper, but we didn't get that many of us.

2. Slow Down: Hahahahahah! Hahahahah! Seriously? I love the intention behind this resolution, but I can tell you that this DID.NOT.WORK for me in 2009. I attended a training course for work in which I did find out that I am Type A 1 (which by definition says that if I don't in fact slow down, I'll die of a heart attack by 30.) OK, so that's not the real definition, but I did learn that I am Type A 1 and need to learn to slow down (even if it is just a little!)

3. Work Out Regularly: Well, it took me about 11 months to finally find a work out routine that works for me, but I finally found it. Work out in the mornings before work. Before I have time to come up with a million excuses! I started this when we had the time change in the fall and it worked out great! I plan to stick to this workout regimen in 2010!

4. Finish my reading list: I did not read one single book on my list.

5. Stop biting my nails: Again, this took me about 11 months to find a solution, but I've got a system in place now--so hopefully I'll have beautiful, strong, long nails in no time. :)

6. Don't do anything drastic to my hair: SUCCESS! In fact, I've let it grow out the longest it's ever been! I don't know that I can make the same goal for 2010, but I can say that I've learned several new tricks with my long locks.

7. Travel some place amazing: SUCCESS! In April Kelly and I went to San Diego for our two year anniversary...and it was AMAZING. I also visited Chicago, Vegas (three times!), Palm Springs, Baltimore, and Orlando. I'm sure there will be tons of travel in 2010--one destination in particular--Lauren's WEDDING! We also have Shelby's Wedding (in March) and Clay's Wedding (in July) to go to. Yeah for wedding bells in 2010!!