the first christmas presents

We started an ornament exchange with Jeph and Brett last year, so this was the 2nd year. They got us the CUTEST ornament, and also most appropriate. It's hard to see in this picture because I took it after it was already on the tree, but it's Santa with a hammer, nails, and tape measure doing some home improvement on the floor! So appropriate!

Jeph got me a quarter cookie sheet, which is hilarious. I have been looking for one everywhere we go, but can't find one by itself - they always seem to come in packs of 3 or 4 and I don't need more regular sized cookie sheets since I have five. Well when I opened it, I was all excited, telling Jeph I'm so glad I told him that I wanted one, and he was all confused!

Turns out I didn't even ever tell him I was looking for one! The man reads my mind and doesn't even know it! Linus was excited by the presents and paper!

I got this for Jeph so that people can freely partake of drunken, naughty adventures at his legendary halloween parties!

Oh Linus, you are such a show-off!

Jeph also got me other kitchen stuff and I got him an apple cookbook. Now I guess we need to bake stuff for each other using our new goods!

first holiday event - the food

We had Jeph and Brett over for a holiday dinner and trading Christmas presents. I made a turkey (yes for just the four of us) since we Didn't make one over thanksgiving. And I wanted leftovers! So they came over and scoped out our new kitchen...then I put Jeph to work carving the turkey. He did a great job!

Then we sat down for a nice meal, Jeph being a turkey himself.

Andy, my dear lovely husband, is the fastest eater this side of the Mississippi. So he had cleaned his plate...

While the rest of us had over half our plates yet!

Brett wants to set up a timer for pictures and a video to actually time his speedy eating!

The food was awesome - Brett made the mashed potatoes and Andy just loved them...so I'll have to try to replicate those in the future. Jeph made a yule log for dessert:

Isn't it so pretty? And he made meringue mushrooms - aren't they so cute?

Jeph added brandy to it and tried to get us all liquored up...but we refrained from imbibing too much! It was a lot of fun with yummy food and I was so excited by my leftovers!

$10 craigslist dining room addition

When we remodeled everything, we hadn't hung anything back up on the walls until we decided what we wanted. Well I decided I wanted a mirror in the dining room. Luckily my husband is sweet and doesn't really care much about decor. So I scoured craigslist for mirrors, figuring I would wait awhile before finding one I liked that I was willing to pay for. For those of you who haven't bought mirrors, man oh man can they be expensive! Well, I found a mirror that was only $10 and was nice and big (about 30" by 42"). Now I didn't like the frame color so much, but I figured I would paint it. (Because lord knows I paint everything else and we have plenty of paint around!) So here I am mid-painting project:

You can see the mirror was gold, but not the shiny brass gold but just a golden wood color. So Andy suggested white, since that will match the window trim (once we replace the windows in the living room) and the chair rail (once we hang it once the windows are in, blah blah blah.) Here's a closeup of the mirror so you can see it's quite ornate.

By the way, the green tape is NEW painters tape. It's frog tape, and works WONDERS compared to the crappy blue masking tape. Anyone who has used the blue tape knows that the paint gets under it and it's such a pain. But this green tape - worth its weight in gold! (it is about 9 dollars for a big roll)

Then I would like to show you what happens when you leave a mirror out to dry and get into the shower:

Yes, those are kitty paw prints. It was sitting on two five gallon buckets (because I needed to paint the sides of the mirror) and on the dining room table, and yes someone jumped up there and walked on the wet frame then on the mirror. Now, they are considerate because they walked on the mirror to get rid of the paint on their paws before they jumped on the table or floor.

So we hung the mirror today and here it is:

Not bad for $10 on craigslist, no?

And you can see the mirror is beveled in addition to a big thick frame. I would have paid $40-50 for this mirror, but he had it advertised at 10. SCORE for me!

the kittens help

All the presents are wrapped. I know, I'm so ahead of the game compared to most. Then I won't tell you that all Christmas shopping was done in November. I won't let that cat out of the bag.

Speaking of cats, when I was wrapping presents, here is Chuckles' way of helping:

That was Jeph's present and had the present already in it, so Chuckles did his part by holding it down so it didn't float away. I had to kick him out to wrap the present because he was in there for over a half hour!

baked onion rings

They look sad, don't they? Well I tried a recipe for baked onion rings because I was craving onion rings. They are actually VERY tasty but I need to retry them.

I cooked them at a higher temperature because I was cooking tater tots at the same time, so they got a little singed and dried out. So I'm going to try them again. But the TASTE was way good and I can't wait to make them again!

If you want to check out the recipe and make them proper, let me know how they are :) As a warning, the picture on Recipezaar is scary, but they didn't look like that for me at all. So don't let that scare you.

the tree is up!

We put up our tree right after Thanksgiving to enjoy it as much as possible. Last year we just put up the tree with no ornaments or lights to see how kitties would do. This year we put up all the lights and all our non-breakable ornaments:

Charlie Brown was in the tree within 10 minutes. He got a big water squirt and has been much better. Linus likes to bat the low ornaments, which is okay because they are the non breakable ones.

They also like to lay on the tree skirt like they are two furry presents!

rolls rolls everywhere

There were 28 people at the Holderman Thanksgiving. I was in charge of bringing bread/rolls, so I made my sister's recipe that I love so much. I had to make two batches because one batch makes 24. I didn't think 24 would be enough. So I made 48.

I came home with 11 so they were well-liked. I got a few compliments on them...so thanks Denise!

turkey bingo

Thanksgiving was a Holderman event, and we played Turkey bingo as part of the festivities. We had bingo cards and you could punch them out and pick a present from a pile we all bought (from dollar stores). Then after they are all gone, we redo some bingo and then you steal presents. (Andy and I think it would be more fun if you steal open presents, but they were all still unwrapped at this point.)

Anyway, I wanted to show you how sexy my husband is with one of his turkey bingo prizes:

Then he was sweet and shared with em:
Trying to kiss me while wearing these is so not easy.

I know, we're cute :)

cheesy potatoes

A lot of the Holdermans came over on Sunday and brought lots of Thanksgiving leftovers. It was the easiest hostessing I've ever done! All I did was make a cheesy potato dish that I got out of my wedding cookbook.

This made a 9x13 pan and with 12 people it was gone in no time. A few people had seconds but there were others who wanted seconds and didn't get any. So it was well-loved by all and we were sad there were no leftovers!

Cheesy Potatoes (compliments of Marnell my sister-in-law)

1 30-32 oz pkg of shredded hash brown potatoes, thawed
1 can of cream of chicken soup
1 small onion chopped (I sprinkled in some onion flakes instead)
1 16oz container of sour cream
2 cups shredded cheddar cheese (I used sharp)
1 stick of butter melted

Mix all ingredients together and put in a 9 x13 in baking dish.

Top with the following:
1/2 stick of butter melted
1 cup crushed corn flakes

Bake for 1 hour at 350.

living dining and hallway newness

In addition to remodeling our kitchen, we also updated our living room/dining room and hallway. This is a before picture from the day we moved in. We have a SUPER long living room (like 25 foot by 13 foot) so there was that extra space back here that we didn't know what to do with. We had some bookcases back there and moved that chair around but nothing worked great.

With the kitchen remodel we made it a dining room:

We took down the vertical blinds, put up a chandelier, ripped up the carpet and put in the new flooring, and then painted it two colors and WILL have a chair rail. The only reason the chair rail is not up yet is because the window in the picture above behind the table is going to be replaced. When we get a new window, the size/trim inevitably moves so we can't cut the chair rails yet. So right now it's just a wavy paint line.

The picture below is our living room at the other end right after we moved in. It was so soon after we moved in we had no couches or furniture, so we put our bed right in the living room. That was our old tv and bookcases and whatnot.

Again we took down the vertical blinds, and we have a new tv and moved the bookcases to the office. We also put the new flooring in here as well. The walls were painted the same beige color as above the chair rail line in the dining room.

The entirety of the living room and dining room ceilings were painted. We also are going to put up curtains on those windows once I find ones I like! Also...ones that the kittens MIGHT leave alone.

Our hallway leading to the bath and bedrooms was carpeted too. Don't mind the white smudges at the end near Linus...I was painting the ceiling and walls and purposely wiping it on the carpet from my fingers. Hey, if we're throwing away the carpet I can do what I want!

Here is the after....after painted ceilings, painted walls, and new flooring:

So all in all - very exciting! We haven't hung anything back up on the walls because I'd like to decide what to put where and maybe add new things if possible. That will take some time. I did fill and paint over all holes (including the old vertical blind holes that they apparently had to hang twice with mollies so I had 28 mollies to pull out and fill with spackle) so we have a blank slate!