Holiday Hustle and Bustle

I feel a bit guilty about not blogging, but then again, I don't. We've been so busy with the holidays that blogging just hasn't been a priority. I am sure most of you would agree!

Today I found the time and energy to blog because today is my first Michigan snow day! That means I will have 11 days off for Christmas break instead of 10. Soooooooo nice! In Carrollton, snow days were lots of fun because I could sleep in, and by 10 the snow would be nearly melted so I could go shopping and be out and about. Here, it's snowing 1 inch an hour. We have about 5 or 6 now on top of the 5 from the other day, and it just keeps coming!

I'm pretty proud of myself. I resisted the temptation to sleep all afternoon and woke up and made my husband waffles. After he left for work, I did take a 45 minute nap but woke up and played with Moose and gave him a bath. I also took out the trash, cleaned the bathroom, packed up Steve's clothes, and I am in the process of making cookies.

Every snow day I have the urge to bake. Because of this, I always stock up on baking supplies when I know the snow days are coming. Today, I went traditional and made the plain ol' chocolate chip cookies using the recipe from the back of the bag. I figure I will take some to my dad tonight.

We're heading to New Castle for Christmas as soon as Steve gets home from work. Of course, I am not ready, but I have a few hours. Moose is coming with us as well as his giant crate. He's so big he's a bit of a burdon, but he's so sweet and fun I couldn't leave him at home. We're really lucky my parents like him and are ok with having our "bull" in their "china shop."

We're staying 2 nights in New Castle and then going to Betsy and Kyle's to have Christmas with Bets, Kyle, Owen, Kar, and Justin. I'm really excited about the menu betsy e-mailed me! She's awesome. Moose will get to meet Linus as well. It should be interesting! A BIG black dog with a LITTLE white dog. :)

Christmas cards have been sent, packages are wrapped, bracelets and bookmarks have been made, and dog bones are now (white) chocolate covered.

It's time to celebrate the holidays! :) Merry Christmas!

(Here is our Christmas card this year. My talented husband drew it for me.)

1/2 Year Anniversary!

Today is our 1/2 year anniversary! It's hard to believe 6 months ago we were married. Since then, we've moved into an apartment, moved out of an apartment, moved into a new house, started 2 new jobs, bought a dog, and started to celebrate our first holiday season. We're having so much fun!

Friday, Steve and I headed to the tree farm to pick out our Christmas tree. It was 18 degrees outside. We had the tree picked out, shaken, wrapped, and loaded in 10 minutes. Now, we realize maybe we should have looked it over a little better. It's pretty dry and will look like Charlie Brown's tree by Christmas....oh well!

Last night, we went to Steve's company Christmas party. It was a very fancy occasion with great food. It was nice to meet all of the "characters" that are in Steve's work stories.

Over the weekend, it has snowed quite a bit. I had to take a picture of "White Fang" in the snow for Karla. When Justin and Karla came to visit, Kar panicked for a second because she thought the husky in our backyard was a wolf. Since then, he has been referred to as White Fang. Now, in the snow, he looks even more wolflike.

Moose got his first Christmas present this week. I bought him a new collar for Christmas, and I was trying to save it for Christmas morning. I know, I know, dogs don't know it's Christmas, but, anyway, I had to give it to him early. He has grown out of his "medium" collar that he wore as a new puppy. Now, he's wearing a "large." Hopefully, that will last him a while.

Since today is our anniversary, I decided to make Steve his favorite cookies. The recipe is from a cookie cookbook by Betty Crocker (or her people...is Betty alive?) that Betsy got us for a wedding shower gift.

Giant Toffee Chocolate Chip Cookies

1 c packed brown sugar

1/2 c butter or margarine, softened

1/2 c shortening

1/4 c honey

1 egg

2 c flour

1t baking soda

1/2 t baking powder

1/4 t salt

1 package semisweet choc chips

1 package almond brickle chips (Heath)

Heat oven to 350.

Beat brown sugar, butter, shortening, honey and egg in large bowl. Stir in flour, baking soda, baking powder, and salt. Stir in chocolate chips and heath chips.

Bake 12 to 14 minutes. Enjoy! :)

It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas!

We just finished up our fantastic tour of 3 Thanksgivings, but, here, it looks a whole lot more like Christmas. Yesterday, we finally got around to raking our leaves, and, 4 hours later, our yard looked great! Today, mother nature has already dumped a couple of inches of snow on us, and there is more to come.

Yesterday, Moose spent the morning outside with us. We raked while he scoured the "woods" for whatever he could eat. I won't go into the details on what he ate, but I will tell you that he slept the rest of the day (totally not like him). I'm sure he had quite a tummy ache.

I headed to Hobby Lobby to get some cheap stuff to decorate our house. When I got home, I figured Moose would have been ready to get into all of my decorations and stuff, but instead, here was my view from my "ready to decorate" tree.

Poor Moose was feeling too bad to cause trouble! So I did this...

We haven't picked out our "big" tree from the tree farm yet, but I had a couple small fake trees to decorate. This one is in our foyer. I LOVED searching hobby lobby for decorations for this little tree. I may have gone a little overboard. :)

I already had the decorations for this tree. This one is in my kitchen so I used all of my cookie cutters along with some leftover wedding ribbon. :) I figured Steve wouldn't be a fan of the pink, but he didn't mind because it was FREE! :)

I have a place to hang my stockings...just in time!

Last, but not least....a Moose update. He's 60 lbs now, and we have found 2 baby teeth that he has lost. I don't have a picture to show you how much he has grown because as Steve was watching him in Steve's "hunting room" Moose got in trouble. This is where I found him...Puppy Jail!

If you give a Moose a doughnut...

...he'll want to eat the bag.
Here he is! He's almost 4 months old! :)

"Where are we going to hang our stockings?!?!"

When we were buying our house, I woke Steve up in the middle of the night with this question. I fell in love with our fireplace and never really realized that it didn't have a mantle until we were in the process of buying our house. Luckily, I have a VERY handy husband. His answer was, "I'll make some." Yes, he made me mantleS...plural. :)

Here is what it looked like before we moved in.
Here it is now! :) I'm not completely satisfied with the "stuff" on the mantles, but that will be changed for Christmas anyway.

My wife is making me do this.........a big thanks to whoever started this foolishness

7 things about me that you prolly don't know, or you might, but that just means you're special, hahaha:

1. I am walking proof that just because you can still use it, doesn't mean it's not broke. At some point in my childhood I broke one of the bones in my left wrist, but figured, hey I can still use it, so it's fine. Also at some point in my childhood, I broke one of the bones in my right knee, but figured, hey I can still walk, it's all good. Neither time was it all good. Freshman year of high school I had to have surgery on my wrist to straighten it. They took bone out of my hip, cut the bone in my forearm, put the hip bone in, and covered it with a titanium plate(The doctor's name was Ragu Elleru, hahaha). My first year of grad school I had the same surgery done to my leg.

2. I have a mind like a steel trap. I have honestly never studied for a test, other than the 10 minutes before it, in my life, and with a 3.97 in high school, a 3.3 in undergrad, and a 3.8 in grad school, i'd say it all worked out alright. I can still name enough people from my first grade baseball team to fill every position, among other ridiculously abstract facts, just ask megan, it annoys her, hahaha.

3. If I were to ever just snap one day and end up in the looney bin, it would be because of the sounds people make when they eat. If I am also eating, I can handle it, but if I'm not, my whole body tenses up and I just want to flip out from having to listen to people slurp and crunch on food. And if you chew with your mouth open, I want to punch you right in the throat.

4. As you prolly do know, I love to hunt/ just shoot stuff, but I have never killed a deer with my bow, and I have never shot a coyote.

5. I have the balance of a drunken 6 month old baby with one leg. Me and megan have contests to see who can stand on one leg the longest, but they don't last much longer than 5 seconds, seems like she'd let me win one of these days.

6. If I had to do the whole school thing over again, I would be a lawyer. Since I can remember so many obscure facts, I'm pretty skilled at finding loopholes in anything, and it would pay a lot more than this architecture/structural engineering foolishness.

7. Even though I grew up working construction for my dad since I was under 10, heights are not my greatest friend (see #5). I can deal with it, and have never not done anything because I was scared or anything, they just make me a bit uneasy.

.........and that is my contribution to this blog tomfoolery

-WOODZ

Moose's New Crib

Yesterday, Moose's Christmas present from my parents arrived in the mail. We were so excited about it because now we can put him in the basement which is much warmer than the garage.

Somehow, as I was putting the blanket in, my loving husband locked us both in the crate. Although, it is definitely big enough for both of us to sleep in, I prefer our comfy sleepnumber bed.

Thanks again, Mom and Dad! We love it!