ornament exchange!

Annahita at Forever 88 recently hosted an ornament exchange. 

I just have to admit that I am HORRIBLE at picking out cute ornaments for other people's trees.  I mean your tree is personal, amiright?  Hopefully I picked well for Anna at My Aiken Heart!

She picked out the cutest little penguin for my tree!

As it turns out, Anna and I are both getting married in March--she's a week before me!  So we're both going through the last few months of planning together!

Sadly, this year, because I'm slowly packing up my house to move into Lincoln's house, I don't have a tree up :(.  We have a tree at Lincoln's house, but that's about 2 hours away...so little penguin will have to wait a couple of weeks to make it's home on our tree.

friendsgiving

For the past, oh...nine or so years, my group of friends and I have hosted Friendsgiving before the actual Thanksgiving holiday. 

This year was no different, however, we were missing some of our core group!

We go all out, someone (usually me) makes a turkey and everyone else brings all of the side dishes.  We always have waaaaaaaaay too much food and for some dumb reason, we all go home with whatever we brought.  You'd think we'd split up the leftovers so that someone doesn't go home with half of a pan of stuffing or a huge bowl of mashed potatoes...

Nope, we just put a lid on what we brought this year and left! 

We started this tradition in college, mostly because we loved to eat and thought it would be fun to see what kind of food we'd end up with.  One year in particular, the guys that lived across the street from us brought over approximately 20 lbs of mashed potatoes to share with a group of fifteen people.  20 lbs of mashed potatoes is A LOT of mashed potatoes.

Even after college, we've continued this tradition.  While we all see each other throughout the year, friendsgiving is a time when we all get together to eat, drink wine, and relax for an evening.  Usually we end up playing board games, this year, our beloved Wildcats were busy beating Texas so we had to tune in to the big football game!

I hosted the event this year and Lincoln and I made the turkey so I had a decent amount of turkey left from the weekend.  With Thanksgiving being just a day away, I knew I had to get to work on the leftovers....

Lincoln carving the big bird!

Last night I reached out to my favorite lady, Ree Drummond over at The Pioneer Woman for some guidance.

She sent me an email earlier this week with a recipe for this turkey tetrazzini and it turned out to be fabulous.  Seriously.  I wanted to eat the entire pan.


via

 She has some other tasty recipes on her blog for what to do with turkey leftovers and she shares pictures of every step along the way.

What do you do with all of your leftovers?  Can you stand eating the Thanksgiving meal for more than just the day of Thanksgiving? Or do you have to change up how you get rid of all of the leftover food?

Hope you all have a fabulous Thanksgiving!

mutha's day

I know I'm a tiny bit late, but I still had to tell y'all about mutha's day with my mutha (she likes it when I call her that).

Friday afternoon we did some shopping and my mom cleaned up!  She's still making a few purchases here and there for their new house, so since she needed some help spending money, I was right there to lend her a hand.

That evening we went to the Royals game.  They unfortunately lost...but it was buck night!  AND Fireworks Friday!  Which means that all pop, hot dogs, and peanuts are only $1!  Too bad I don't eat hot dogs (ever) or drink pop that often...

Saturday morning we went to one of my favorite breakfast places, Eggtc.  They have these delicious crepes (Crepe Dolce) with strawberries and mangoes that I sometimes dream about.

After a delightful breakfast, my mom, sister, and I headed downtown to the Farmer's Market. 

Once again, my mom went to town and bought a car load of plants and flowers.  My sister and I think my mom needs to work at a farmer's market (or somewhere like it), she knows her stuff!

Also, my sis and I got these beautiful flowers: 

(mind you we had to stand in line forever because this place is so popular, but it gave mom time to look around) 

We did a little more walking around after we had lunch at Blue Grotto so that my sister could find a baby book for her new little boy!

Yep, I'm going to be an aunt!!  I can't wait!

happy cinco de mayo!

Have I told ya'll how much I LOVE Mexican food? 

I do. 

I used to hate it. 

Can you even believe that?! 

I used to make my parents take me through McDonald's for a Happy Meal when they would go out for Mexican food.  That, or I would only eat tortilla's.

Today though, I'm happy to admit that I have overcome my dislike of Mexican food and now will proudly eat it every day of the week if possible.

To celebrate Cinco de Mayo, I decided that we should have a Mexican themed food day at work.

Margarita?  Yes please.  And it's only 10 AM.

Not to worry, I'm not drinking at work, but these taste like the real thing!  Check out the recipe from this book (that a coworker passed along):

Kosher salt

12 oz frozen limeade

6 oz orange juice

10 oz water

2 oz peach juice (or izze)

8 oz ginger ale

1 cup ice

6 lime wedges

Mix all of the above together (except for the lime wedges) and blend until smooth, or serve on the rocks. Garnish with salt and lime wedges.

I made a delicious batch of corn and black bean salsa.  Want to make your own? 

Ok!

Follow this recipe:

2 cans of black beans rinsed

1 can of corn rinsed

3 large tomatoes chopped

1/2 of a red onion chopped

1 lime (juice)

2 avocados chunked

1 jalapeno chopped

1 handful of cilantro (or around 1/2 cup)

Garlic salt

Throw all of this into a bowl and serve with corn chips.  Ole!

easter loot

Happy Easter (a few days late)!

I raked in the candy at our annual Easter Egg hunt over the weekend! 

Yes, even as adults, my cousins and I still have an Easter egg hunt and it's pretty cut-throat.  We compete for eggs and who has the largest bag of candy and money at the end of the day. 

Sadly I didn't win (but I was leaving some eggs behind for the 2 year old participating, duh).

I also ate my way through the entire weekend so I'm thinking that the gym is a MUST every day this week.

How was your Easter?  Did you have an Easter egg hunt??

new years eve, you totally redeemed yourself

I know this is a wee bit late, but I just wanted y'all to know that my NYE didn't suck this year! There wasn't much for New Years 2011 to live up to and I had no expectations for the night, but this year was awesome. 

Not only did I get to visit some of my favorite people in Texas, but we ate good food, heard and saw some good music, and I relaxed like it was my job.

Our night started out at one of the best Mexican restaurants...their food is good, their margaritas are better, and the atmosphere is the bestest.

Joe T's was where our NYE celebrations started off.  We managed to down at least 4 pitchers of margs in about an hour and tore up the chips and salsa like nobodies business. 

And then came the nachos and fajita's.  Nothing like gooey Mexican food!

After dinner we cowboy'd it up and went to Billy Bob's for the Eli Young Band concert. 

After the concert we ventured off to another bar around the stockyards area of Ft. Worth, where I for some reason thought it to be a good idea to challenge one of the guys in our group to a wall-sit competition in the bar. 

As if we hadn't had enough to eat and drink throughout the night, we concluded the night at Whataburger.  It was my first time at such an establishment and it did not disappoint.

Heather's maybe wasn't as special as she wanted it to be though...

Thanks Matt, Jess, and Jamie for letting me invade your house for the weekend!  It was so fun!

new years, shmoo years

So, for I don't know how long, New Years has been one of my least favorite holidays.  EVER.


I have had some good ones mixed in with the bad ones, but for the most part, the night over all has just been one where I would've preferred to stay in my sweats instead of getting all gussied up to go to some bar that I normally wouldn't go to.



So much hype is built up around the holiday and my plans usually end up bombing.



Does this happen to anyone else?


Maybe I'm the only one?


Anywho, this year I decided to pack my bags and leave on a jet plane to visit some friends in the great state of Texas.  You know them.  I've written about them before.  Here and here. 


I am determined to make this the best NYE ever. (If only this stupid cold would disappear...) 


OK, maybe not the best ever, but we are going to have a good time, that's for sure.  With plans already made to visit one of my favorite Mexican places ever (which I will for sure write about later) and a concert later in the night, how could things go wrong? (Seriously I hope I didn't jinx our plans...)


With a new year quickly approaching, it seems only fitting to come up with some goals...except I have no motivation to do that...


I mean sure, I want to lose a little more weight, volunteer more, be a better person, and all that jazz, but I don't feel like there are any ground breaking things that I should put on a list to do this year.   


My gym however, is doing a great promotion where if you sign up for this "Biggest Loser" like challenge you have the chance to win a free year of membership.  How great would that be?!  So if you see me stuffing my face even more than normal in the next few days, just know that I'm trying to pack on a few pounds for the weigh in.  OK?


Since I wasn't able to come up with a riveting list of goals for 2011, I thought you'd all like to see some lists that my old roommate and I made up a couple of years ago. 


We had to revise them a few times so that we'd actually meet the goals, but as you'll see, we took these very seriously.  Only two of the goals weren't reached (after revisions)...we gave it a good try!

Goals for 2009


1. Get Married
Lofty goal? I think not...

2. Win the lottery
One would probably have to buy lottery tickets to win the lottery, right?

3. Invent something
Solid goal, now to just come up with the brilliant idea.

4. Start/Star own TV show
I know we'd have a huge audience watching this.

5. Learn to fly
Umm...I mean why wouldn't we have this as a goal...

6. Compete in Ironman
I think this was the year that a few of our friends were competing in an Ironman and we thought to fit in and talk with them that we should probably try one out ourselves.  Without training.

7. Write a book or movie
This kind of goes with being in our own TV show. It just makes sense.

8. Record an album/win American Idol
We both have beautiful singing voices so why not?  Plus I don't know how many people called to see if I was going to the KC tryouts of AI.  Jus sayin (and in my head I think they were being totally serious).

9. Enter/win a food eating contest
We love food.  And we can put it away.  Plus all of those people that do food eating contests and are good at them are generally pretty small. 

Revisions:

1.  Get Married

I mean, it could still happen...people barely know each other a month and they get married.  We were giving ourselves like 8 months.

2.  Win the lottery Win things

Our chances of winning something is sure to go up with this vague goal.

3.  Invent something Invent something/keep the cilantro plant alive

I mean, inventing something and keeping a plant alive are similar, right? 

4.  Start/star in own TV show
Persistence is key here.  Too bad we didn't know anyone in showbiz; they would've loved us.

5.  Learn to fly Meet a pilot
This should have been easy enough...

6.  Compete in Ironman Compete in a 5K
I think a 5K is a good place to start training for an Ironman, right?

7.  Write a book or movie Read 1 book
Easy peasy. As long as no one is counting pages...

8.  Record an album/win American Idol Record commercial jingle
So maybe the album idea was a little too much...

9.  Enter/win a food eating contest Win food eating contest
So...maybe we should have looked up where food competitions actually take place to achieve this goal.

Re-Revisions

1.  Get Married

Our goal probably should have been: keep a boyfriend for longer than three months.   Oy. 

2.  Win the lottery Win Things

I won a new pair of shoes at my gym!

3.  Invent something Invent something/keep the cilantro plant alive Keep Moxie alive

Moxie is Monica's dog...if we couldn't keep her alive, we were in serious trouble.  I'm notorious for killing plants, so the cilantro plant didn't make it...the cilantro plant was meant to save us big $$ at the grocery store since we bought it every week, but it was waaaaaay harder to grow than we originally thought.

4.  Start/Star in own TV show

Well...this didn't happen either although it probably really should have.  We are really entertaining most of the time.  Or at least we thought so?

5.  Learn to fly Meet a pilot Go on a plane

So the learning to fly thing didn't work out.  And neither did meeting a pilot.  But I did go on a plane a few times back in '09.

6.  Compete in Ironman Compete in a 5K Take Moxie for a walk around the block

To be fair, I'm 99% sure I competed in at least 1 5K that year...but who's counting?  And I definitely took Mox around the block.  She put on some winter weight. 

7.  Write a book or movie Read 1 book

This could have been the year that I joined a book club, so obviously I read more than one book...or maybe I did just read one book and pretended like I read the other books my book club read?  I do this even with my new book club...I mean, who really joins a book club to read?

8.  Record an album/win American Idol Record commercial jingle Play the harmonica at a wedding

Duh. This happened.  And I rocked it.

 

9.  Enter/win a food eating contest Win food eating contest

Bake 40 wedding cakes for a wedding

Monica did this.  For one wedding (they had individual cakes at each of the tables).  She's kind of a badass.  Good thing her culinary schooling is going to good use!

Happy New Year, everyone!  Here's hoping yours goes better than my last few years! See ya in 2011!

it's the mooooost wonderful timmmme of the yearrrrrr

I was trying to make the title sound like I was singing it.  Get it?  


Anyway, Christmas is my most favorite holiday ever.  Mostly though, Christmas Eve is my very favorite. 


Every year for as long as I can remember, my entire dad's side of the family heads to Christmas Eve service at our little tiny church back home (the average congregation age is probably about 75 and on a good Sunday, 20 people show up) and the kids that sometimes show up for church put on a Christmas pagent (or more recently it's turned into "special music"-which means play your favorite instrument or recorder or sing along with a boombox) and sometimes Santa shows up to pass out a bag of candy and oranges! 


Then we head to my Grandpa's house to catch up, open presents, and eat! 

The past few years have been really fun because a few of my cousins have little kiddos that have made opening presents 10 times more exciting.


It used to be just us adults opening up our gift cards, socks, and chapstick, which is all fine and great, but now that the kids are back in the picture, there are tons of toys to put together and play with all night!


We also have a ton of good food: wings, shrimp, crab, cookies, dips as far as the eye can see, and oyster soup. 


I'm not a big fan of the oyster soup, but most of my family is...I just can't chew up the little thingys in the soup.  It grosses me out (sorry Aunt JoAnn!).

I'm really crossing my fingers that the snow holds off this year so that we can all be together without worrying about the weather...you see, last year, we had so much snow that everything was cancelled; my brother in law couldn't come because he had to help clear off the roads, my mom had to go into work the night before because the snow was so bad, and everyone had to leave early because roads were drifting shut. 

Don't get me wrong, I love a white Christmas, but this was a little rediculous...4 feet of snow in the back yard, drifts so high that my dad's truck couldn't get through, and it was non-stop.  Needless to say, we didn't leave the house much that weekend. 

I think by the time we were actually able to leave my parents house to head back to Kansas City that we all had a bit of cabin fever, even the dogs!

I really don't even remember when the snow finally stopped for good.  It seemed to go on for a verrrry long time last year.

So far, the past year has been a good one; I kind of can't believe that it's already Christmas-time! 

With this year quickly coming to a close, I want to thank each and every one of you who reads my blog.  I love all of the comments and emails about my random stories and I hope that I can continue to be as entertaining next year!

With the way my life goes, it shouldn't be a problem!

Merry Christmas (or substitute your favorite holiday here) and Happy New Year!

xo

...these are a few of my favorite things!

Oh, how I wish you could hear me singing right now.  It is glorious.

Since the holidays are upon us, I thought you'd like to know about some of my favorite things.  Kind of like Oprah.  But not really because I'm cheap.

Here It Goes:


Bag balm is seriously some of my favorite stuff EVER.  I know, if you go to their website it sounds and looks like it's only for animals and their utters or something, but it's not!  Trust me. 


I use it as lip gloss; I put it on my chapped knuckles (because that's what boxing does to your hands....).  It is the BEST.  In addition to this giant tub (which I've had for like 3 years and still have over half of it left despite using it multiple times a day) they also have little baby containers that are SO cute.  I just bought one off of amazon because I'm that obsessed.   

Last year I bought this fancy Bulova watch as a Christmas present to myself (don't you worry, I didn't pay full price, I got a sweet deal on it) and I wear it ALL the time.  It can be dressed up or dressed down and it looks good always.  Obviously.

For the longest time, I refused to buy Uggs; everyone had them, they weren't all that cute, and they are expensive.  I had a few other cheaper pairs and the were ok...they didn't keep my feet all that warm and after the winter that we had last year and all of the shovelling and walking the dog outside, the kind of warm boots just didn't cut it for this year.  So, I broke down and bought a pair.  And I love them.  Plus they're kind of cute.  Right?!

 

Because my workout is typically never the same and since I go to the gym at least 4-5 times a week, I have to switch my shoes often because I wear them out.  My latest pair, by Asics have been great.  I even bought inserts like my mom does!  I'm such a grown up!  And they're purple, which just so happens to be one of my favorite colors.

 

Did you know that I am also a Mary Kay Sales Rep?  No?  Oh, that's probably because I don't do much with it besides give myself, my mom, and my sister the hookup.  I mean, I'll give you the hook up too, just check out the website and tell me what ya need.  Chances are, I probably have it to send to you.  I'm just not one of those over acheiver types in the MK business.  I wish I had more time for it, but I just don't right now. 

Anyway, I love their make up and their skin care products.  Growing up, I didn't have the best skin (somehow my sister did, but then again, she has no boobs and mine...well, they aren't so small) and for some reason MK products always seemed to do the trick. 

Now, I have an endless supply of Timewise face wash and lotion.  The Miracle Set is a girls best friend.  Trust me.

Also, the mineral powder, cheeck and eye color are fab.  For real.  You know where to find me if you want to give any of this good stuff a try. :)

I take my digital camera everywhere.  I mean, if I didn't you wouldn't have all of these awesome pictures to gawk at on my blog.  I have some pretty awesome friends and a year or so ago, I helped them plan their wedding.  To thank me, (which was totally unecessary, I might add) they gave me this amazing, Sony Camera. 

It was probably the best gift ever, being that my other camera broke just days before their wedding.

I love coffee.  I used to only be a fan of Starbucks coffee (specifically the Christmas Blend in case anyone is reading and would like to purchase some for me?); possibly because my old roommate used to manage a store and would get free coffee often.

This year just happened to be the first year in about 5 that I've had to make my own coffee purchases.  So I thought I should try to be a little more economical with my coffee choices since Starbucks isn't exactly the cheapest place on the planet to buy coffee.

I was wandering around Costco one afternoon taking in all of the samples and just happened to stumble upon the Ruta Maya coffee guy.  I was hesitant to try a sample because it was straight black coffee and I usually have to put a little something in it...but I gave in and gave it a try because it smelled so good.

It was awesome.  Black.  And I never drink black coffee.  So I ended up walking away with a giant bag of coffee beans.  (PS--if you don't ground your own beans, you're missing out on some serious flavor)

 

 

rockin' around the christmas tree!

My computer and internets have really been sucking lately, so I've been slacking on putting up pictures so don't mind the randomness of this post, just enjoy the pretty. k? thx.



Yay! My tree is up (well, ok, it's been up for a few weeks already...) but my presents are all wrapped and I'm totally ready for the holiday season!



...the stockings are hung by the chimney with care...um, yeah, there are three there.  One is obviously for Laila; one for me...and the other one used to belong to my roommate, but she moved.  The fireplace wouldn't look right with just two, so I left all three up this year!






Laila really likes to sit and stare at the tree; lately I've been finding her laying underneath it licking the ornaments that are closest to the floor.



If you have a crockpot, you have to make this recipe.  It was so easy and soooo good.  I followed some of the suggestions below the recipe on allrecipes.com and added some onion powder, garlic powder, and worcestershire sauce to the rest of the ingredients.  It makes for the perfect meal on a cold night and it's done when you walk in the door from work, how easy is that?!

Yum.  This is the delicious feast at my parents house over Thanksgiving and it could, quite possibly, be the last holiday meal that we have at that house. :( Sad, right?  Well....yes and no.  Yes, because it's the house that we grew up in and no becuase this is the new one that they are very close to finishing:

Isn't she a beaut?  This picture is a month or so old so all of the brick is on the house now.  I'm so excited for my parents!  I think they'll be rather popular when they move into town because even with them not living in the new house yet, they generally have quite a few people stop by to check it out and welcome them to the new neighborhood when they're up there helping!

halloweiner recap. get it? weiner? because i have a weiner dog.

ohmygoodness.  Isn't she so cute?  She sat by the door all night waiting for trick or treater's in her bat costume.

First place, baby.  Richard Simmons sweatin to the oldies! these are my work peeps. Richard (aka jenny) led us in a sweaty workout regime in front of most of our company.  Everyone LOVED it.


So, now that Halloween is over with, it's time to start thinking about when to decorate for Christmas. 


I have been well aware that Christmas is right around the corner because the grocery store has Cranberry Splash Sierra Mist back in stock.  If you haven't tried this stuff, you're seriously missing out.  It screams that the holiday's are right around the corner.



ALSO, a few of the radio stations in town are playing Christmas songs already.  It's still a little too early, even for me (however, I did sing along with Celiene Dion to Oh Holy Night on my way home from work today).


So since Christmas is slowly approaching and it's almost time for me to bust out my ginormous tree, I also need to start figuring out what kinds of cookies I'm going to pass out to the neighbors on their holiday plates (Mon-can you move back to help w/ holiday baking please? thx) and find my Elf dvd so that I can start watching it on a semi-regular basis.