Friend Gifts

This year I thought it would be fun to make coasters to give as friend gifts. At work, I just gave each co-worker a coaster, but I wanted to give a little more to my close friends. So I gave them each 2 coasters and included a Christmas mug and a can of hot cocoa.

Because Jessica made coasters with me, I wanted to find something else for her. I found a pineapple cookie cutter, but then had a hard time figuring out what else to do. I happened to get online to order a Pampered Chef item for someone else and I noticed they had some square snowman plates in their clearance. She had bought a few sets of the round plates so I wasn't sure. I emailed her to let her know about them and she ordered one set of four. I decided to order her one more set so she would have set of 8 total.

I love my close friends so much. I don't need gifts from them to know they love me too, but its so fun to see what they each come up with. I took a picture of all the gifts together. Kim made me the cute snowman hat decoration and two mini rice bags. Randi gave me the Cake Pops Book, some potpourri and some bath salts. Jessica gave me a tin of home made caramels and the picture frame. I LOVE the picture frame.

Also, here is the gifts that my wonderful coworkers gave me.

The kitten formally know as Gaby

Each time we get a new cat, we quickly learn, no cat is the same. Gaby is no exception...by a long shot. She is the CRAZIEST kitten we have ever had. Which says a lot. Zipper was a peculiar kitten. He loved to pack stuff, like rolls of paper towels or potatoes. Ally was wild in her way. She loved to play "jump and see if I stick" in our door frames.

After those two, I didn't think it could get any worse. But Gaby, simply put, she is a terror. Nothing is safe. Nothing is calm. She is constantly in attack mode. Unless she is in stealth mode and sneaking onto the counter tops.

The day after Thanksgiving, she ate the meringue topping off of my lemon meringue pie. A few days later she ate a chunk of pizza while Josh and I were in the front room eating our pizza.  A week later, I had bought bread bowls for dinner. When we went to open them, we found she had chewed a hole through the bag and ate a chunk of the bread bowl. We just about have to put dinner away before we even eat it. Last night I cooked Josh's birthday cake. When it came out of the oven, I put it in the microwave to cool so she wouldn't sample it.

 She won't stay out of the tree. If you try to hold her, she just bites you. While playing Rock Band, each time I did the kick stand on the drums, she would pounce on my foot. We've tried yelling at her. We've tried squirting her with water when she is in trouble. But she just keeps being a terror.

A few weeks ago I renamed her. Her name is now little sh*t, or LS for short. Oh, we still call her Gaby, when she is being good, aka, sleeping.

Yes, she is being good-ish in this picture. Josh was playing with Sage and the laser pointer. But of course she had to jump in because everything is "hers". I just had to take a picture because that is the closest she has ever gotten to Sage.

She is just a ball of fur and love, err, terror.

Tile Coasters

I am so addicted to Pinterest. A while back I saw these cute tile coasters and thought they would be fun to make for Christmas. They were so simple and so cheap. I ended up making about 2 dozen. I gave them to my coworkers and then some other ones went as gifts to family Christmas parties. I still have a few left with people in mind to give them too. I just love how they turned out.

Of course I made one for myself, but at the last minute, I decided I wanted mine to be a different color.

In the mountains

Josh's sister and mom like to get trees from the mountain. We already had our Christmas tree, but we decided to go up the mountain with them for a little bit and look around with them.

Tyler loved having his uncle Josh there to pack him around. They are standing by a tree Barb was considering, but we left before she choose a tree, so I'm not sure what she ended up with.

Melanie & her family in front of their Christmas tree. Preston was so excited to get the chainsaw out and chop it down. 

Josh had me take a picture of this bird on the way home. Its a Swainsons Hawk, its one of the birds he has to look for a lot at work.

Christmas Tree 2011

Last year, I decided to slowly start redoing my tree. I wanted some nice (pricey) stuff, but I only bought 7 of the big red Gerber daises. I had a plan to buy a nice thing a year over the next three or four years.

That plan worked....last year. This year I got carried away and bought several new things, including some more of the red daisies. I LOVE them. I was originally going to do red, black and silver, but I couldn't find any thing in black. I know I could have stuck to my plan and looked again next year, but by the last store, I decided I wanted my tree to be perfect THIS year, so I switched to green, red & silver. Right now it only has one green thing (some more beautiful flowers) so I might try to find one more green thing for next year.

So far, Gaby has stayed out of the tree, for the most part. She has tried to drink the water a few times, but I remembered the asprin we put in the water for the tree, so we've tried to keep her away. I did want a different type of tree, but decided this kind might be harder for her to climb and knock stuff out of.

I also want a tree skirt. I found a few online, but they are all sold out for the season. I thought about settling for a different one, but I'm going to hold out and keep trying to find the one I loved before next year.

Christensen Christmas Party

I think this is the 4th year Josh has played Santa for his family Christmas party. It may also have to be the last, he was recognized by two very smart boys.

I think Preston recognized his voice. Neither boy made a scene so I don't think any of the other kids knew who it was.

I think Tyler would have recognized his voice, but Tyler saw Josh dressed in his Santa pants with just a t-shirt on. So we're not sure which made him recognize Josh. When Santa asked what he wanted, Tyler told him, "A fishing pole, Josh."

Tyler was trying to eat a piece of candy bigger then his mouth.

Josh with his grandpa Paul. I love that Judy is feeding Tyler in the background.

Gingerbread Houses 2011

Last Friday, the ECC's got together at Kim's house to make gingerbread houses. I'm so glad we have made this a tradition.

First Kim made us a delish meal, pizza pinwheels. They were so yummy!

Then we got ready to put our houses together. I'm smiling now, but I wasn't later.

 I don't know what went wrong, but our house just would not set up. I dyed my icing and I don't know if that made it less gluey or what, but my house was major drama, at least for me. After leaving for a few minutes to calm down, I tried again...using Kim's hot glue gun. 

 Our house on the left, Kim's house in the middle, Jessica's on the right.

Our house ended up being a hunting lodge. Everything is stuck on with hot glue, except the peeps. I used the frosting on them. Then I went over the seams of the house with the frosting to hide the hot glue.

I found a box of gingerbread crackers shaped like people. I decided to put us out front. Red hair for me and a cowboy hat for Josh. 

I also found a few different peeps and had to get them. 

Brandon & Kim's house. 

With a side yard for their dog to run around in. Remember to never eat yellow snow.

Andrew & Jessica's House.

I love that she tiled her roof. 

Josh showing off his twirled mustache.

Gaby meets Sage

We have started letting Sage come in at night that its getting colder. Poor dog just wants to be friends but all the cats hate her. Gaby included. She did NOT like meeting Sage for the first time.  The first night Sage slept inside, I heard Gaby his and hit the door of her kennel several times throughout the night.



I think this is the only time she has gotten close to Sage. Now, as soon as she hears her, Gaby runs into the kitchen and hides behind the washer. She can recognize the sound of Sage coming up the stairs to come in and the sound of the kennel being opened so Sage can get out and stretch in the morning before going back outside.

The other morning I was on my exercise bike and Gaby was in the middle of the front room. She heard the kennel open and she SHOT into the kitchen. She was going so fast she couldn't stop in the tile to go around the fridge. She didn't stop until she slid into the wall at the far end of the kitchen. Then she ran back towards the fridge and skidded around it before finally finding safety behind the washer. All before Sage was even out of the bedroom and down the hall.

Thanksgiving

This year we went to Josh's grandparents for Thanksgiving. Which just may be my favorite place to go because they are such wonderful cooks.

There is always too much food, so this year I wasn't going to take anything. But on Monday night, Jessica was telling me about all that she was taking to dinner because she wanted to use what she had learned form our cooking classes. So I decided to take ONE pie, a mixed berry pie like I made in class.

Then on Tuesday I woke up all excited and decided I wanted to show off. (That is so like me!) So I decided to take THREE pies, a veggie tray and a diet type drink for Melanie & myself since we have been working so hard on our diets.

I had to take a veggie tray because I saw the CUTEST turkey shaped veggie tray on Pinterest. Mine turned out so cute and everyone loved it.

Dinner wasn't until 2:00 on Thanksgiving Day, so I decided to make my pies that morning. At one point Heather started to chat with me online. She started with "Good Morning Beautiful" (that's why I love her). To which I responded, "Is it?!" She knew that meant I was in the middle of one of my kitchen disasters.

I really did enjoy my pie baking class. I felt so good afterwards that I could now cook pies. My one complaint was the directions didn't say how long or at what temperature to cook my crust that needed precooked. I follow recipes to the letter, so for me, this was a disaster waiting to happen.

I made a lemon meringue pie for the first time (thanks to Jessica for giving me a great recipe). It turned out pretty good, as long as you didn't mind it only had a crust on the bottom. When the crust cooked, the sides all slid down into the bottom of the pan. Hello my first kitchen fit of the morning.

I was going to make a German Chocolate pie, but after reading through the directions I found a 2nd list of ingredients needed for the topping. Enter kitchen fit #2. Why couldn't that website list ALL of the ingredients together! After panicking for a few minutes, Josh asked if I could just make something else. After I calmed down, I realized I had everything for a Coconut Cream pie, so I made that instead. Once again, my crust collapsed so its mostly only crust on the bottom, except one side seemed to stay up ok.

My Christmas list now included a pie pastry mat. I think part of my problem is I roll my crust out too thin because I want to be sure I have enough to go in the pan and up the sides.

A side note on the Lemon Meringue pie; When we got home that night, we were lazy and didn't put the pies in the fridge. When we got up the next day, there was a pretty good bite out of the coconut cream and ALL of the meringue was eaten off of the lemon pie. ALL. Gaby is having issues with boundaries and where she is and ISN'T allowed. She LOVES to get on the kitchen cupboards. She also apparently loves meringue. And pizza. And just about anything else we leave out for more then 2 seconds.

My 3rd pie was best one. The sides can't collapse when there is stuff in the pie and the bottom crust is pinched to the top crust. ;) I was going to do a mixed berry pie, but in all my excitement of showing off, I found a recipe for a Cranberry-Cherry Nut Pie. Josh loves Cranberries, so I decided to try this pie instead. It was so YUMMY!

I love the holiday punch that is always a part of Thanksgiving (and Christmas) dinner, but I've worked so hard on my diet, I was worried about how much sugar was in the drink. So I decided to bring my own drink this year, but make enough to share. I made Cherry Limeade from Better Than Burgers. I shouldn't brag, but at the end of the night my drink was completely gone.

The feast.

And my diet? I LOST weight that day! I was so proud of my self control. I only took a little bit of each dish I wanted to try and even then, I only had half of the dishes that were offered. Then I went for an hour long walk after dinner.

Later that evening an engagement was announced! Josh's little brother Dallon is getting married in the spring. We love Natalie and are so excited to have her as a permanent member of the family.