2010 Recap

January – off to a great start! Aaron and I was beginning a new chapter in our lives, newly weds in our first home. Busy decorating, using new wedding gifts, having fun buying furniture and planning a honeymoon. Life was good.

On the other hand… good friends of ours found out late December that their baby was diagnosed with PKU. Trying to understand what all that meant for this newborn baby was both heartbreaking and overwhelming to our friends, our hearts were sad as well for what this little baby endured through many doctor visits.

February – One of our best friends Chris was diagnosed with Clear Cell Sarcoma. The news came as a shock. We were trying to understand what was to come for our friend and what we needed to do to support him in his fight.

March – Our first home project was completed!  Painting our bedroom and reconfiguring a closet. Sounds minor but it was a big accomplishment to us.

April – nice enough out to get started on some outdoor projects. This was a huge task at hand for all the changes we wanted to accomplish. Tree removal, trees that needed major trimmings, staining the deck, removing a large bush, seeding the lawn, etc, etc etc!

May -- Honeymooned to San Francisco/Napa Valley! We had a fabulous time and was a much needed get away. I also dealt with chronic shin splints all spring long, those are not only painful but really annoying/frustrating. Aaron was having a somewhat similar sort of pain in his knee too that wouldn’t go away.   Starting to feel like old married people :)

June – Chris gathered friends for a dinner out, which ended up being perfectly timed, because shortly after this he got very sick. That dinner was filled with laughter and happiness and a celebration of Chris’s fight against cancer.

Aaron with the help of others organized a benefit concert to take place in Cedar Falls which turned out to be a huge success in raising funds for Chris’s medical expenses.

July – My Grandpa’s aneurysm burst in the middle of the night. It was a huge scare and a lot of unknowns as to how it would all turn out. Only by a miracle, did my Grandpa survive. Watching him recover from this and grow stronger again really impacted me.  As if we weren’t already on an emotional roller coaster, this thru it into full throttle.

August – we received two letters from the city, one for our tree and one for a broken water service pipe. At this point, it would have been a waste of energy to get really upset over this. Ya, we were far from happy but bit the bullet and had our yard torn up.

September – Our friend Chris Roberts passed away.  With Chris we witnessed him deteriorate for months and he shared his raw emotion with us of what he was feeling and thinking.  Never before have I been an eye witness to that, it was and still is a lot to mentally process.

October – Chris’s funeral, sad and such a surreal day.

In October I paid off my car, which felt good.

My Grandparents moved into an apartment which was a big change for them and my family was very busy helping with this transition. By the end of October, we were wiped out and had barely spent any weekends thus far at home; it had been life at full speed day after day. 

November – Our first wedding anniversary was celebrated. We were enjoying several weekends in a row at home, which felt good.  Began to appreciate the term 'home sweet home'.

Mid November, one of our family members had a miscarriage  :(

Thanksgiving - we spent this day with Aaron's family.  It was a nice visit and luckily we didn't have any issues traveling as an icy storm hit the day before. 

December – we decided to have a slower paced holiday season this year, fewer holiday parties and less travel.  Last year Aaron and I did not spend the holidays together and the joy was taken out of some of the celebrations due to hustle and bustling around so a change of ways felt necessary.

Beginning of December, unexpectedly a coworker of mine passed away. So sad for his family right before the holidays. I worked pretty closely with him on a lot of projects. Again, I was overcome by the fact that life is short and you never know when your time on this earth is over.

Also in December, a lady slide into Aaron’s car, a lot of damage, thankfully no one was hurt.  We are still waiting to get his car back....

At the last minute, we decided to take advantage of an energy credit rebate and had our hot water heater replaced just in time before the credit expired.   That felt like a smart move on our part. 

Christmas was spent with family, relaxing and enjoying each other’s company. Thankful the weather permitted us the opportunity to spend time with our family. Also was glad that both sides of our family were respectful of our desire to only travel to one place for each of the holidays, that really helped us out a lot this year and relived a lot of pressure.


In many ways I feel like we've had more downs than ups this past year.  We try to keep our focus not on what bad happened but what to learn from these situations and to find the good in all that is bad.  Amazingly, I have found there is always a good in every bad – HUGE lesson learned! 


GOOD-BYE 2010!!!

Christmas Highlight Pics!

Christmas Highlights...


First set of pictures are my family, on Christmas Eve we do a White Elephant Exchange.  Whatever useless, halarious, horendous gift that can get the best reaction is the goal! 


Mom and Dad got some awesome santa hats




My sister Heather, a Stewie Snuggie!



My brother Cody, stylin' reindeer ears




Grandma got some old Tupperware




Uncle David got a Men's Underwear Repair Kit




Aaron got some ass kickin' hot salsa!



Cousin Colin got a Hello Kitty watch





Grandpa got some sexy Christmas stockings

Mom couldn't resist trying on the reindeer ears

Silly hats!

I got the snuggie in the end, YES!

 So as you can see, our family's White Elephant exchange is halarious!  Silliness aside now.  Time to open the gifts, Mom and Dad spoil us way too much!  Here are just a few of the gifts...



Grandma got a gift everyone wanted... an Ipad!



Domino!  Okay so he was a Christmas Gift many years ago

New Blazer



Cody gets SOOO many clothes for Christmas!



TOOLS!

North Face Vest

Mom got her Kitchenaid Mixer

Dad has more Bears apparel than any fan I know

 Somehow I missed getting a picture of Heather opening but she got a slew of clothing and new bedding!

Gunther is snoozing

Gunther, the attention lover!

Following Christmas The Hyde's came down to our house for the day.  We had a great day together!

Our Niece Adalyn opening some toys



Aunt Erin and Uncle Aaron couldn't resist getting Addie a new outfit!



Aaron's Dad opening a electronic picture frame



Aaron's mom, Jean got some jewelry



Aaron new Hawkeye Sweatshirt

Aaron's brothers Eric and David came too, we didn't get any good photo ops of them but it was great to see them too!  We had a great Christmas with our families this year!  Sorry but most all of my pictures were of gift opening, otherwise we played a lot of games, watched movies, napped, and of course ate way too much food!!! 

Oreo Balls

I hope you have found a recipe to try from my week of Christmas goodie blog postings.  I'm signing off for a few days now.  Have a Merry Christmas and safe travels!

A friend of mine gave me a goodie plate this year, on them were these wonderful treats that tasted like chocolate truffles! I had to get the recipe as these were a winner.


Oreo Balls and Chocolate Covered Graham Crackers

 1 pkg of Oreos

1 8 oz pkg of cream cheese (room temp)

1 pkg Chocolate almond bark

½ pkg White almond bark

Grind Oreos finely in a food processor. Add Oreos and cream cheese to a mixing bowl and mix. Put in fridge to harden dough. Using a small cookie scoop, make into balls. Put in freezer for awhile. In a double boiler, boil water. Add almond barks. Lower heat and stir until fully melted. Add one oreo ball at a time and turn in chocolate with tongs. Move to wax paper to let them set. Put in fridge to let set up once cooled.

Chocolate Covered Graham Crackers

Last year I was at Caribou Coffee and bought a chocolate covered graham cracker. Wow, these are good! BUT... $2 for one chocolate covered graham cracker is flat out stupidity. Solution: I made my own.

Ingredients:

Graham crackers

1 pkg Chocolate almond bark

½ pkg White almond bark

Break each graham cracker sheet in half. In a double boiler, boil water. Add almond barks. Lower heat and stir until fully melted. Add Graham Cracker and turn in chocolate with tongs. Move to wax paper to let them set.

I personally prefer them in dark chocolate, I think they are much better but it’s your preference. I made all milk chocolate this year for my family.

Optional: This year I decided to spread peanut butter on a graham cracker and make a sandwich with two graham cracker halves. Then dip. Makes them a thicker treat and who doesn’t love a little peanut butter?

Cut Out Sugar Cookies

If you’ve ever made cut out cookies from scratch, you know how much work it is! As most of you have figured out, I’m a lazy cook. Never again will I make sugar cut outs from scratch. I have now found a brilliant short cut! Thanks to Trader Joes. Trader Joes’s is a new grocery store in town that is one hot place. There is a huge Trader Joe craze in Des Moines right now and I’m lovin it too. Trader Joe’s is a national retailer and you may have one close by.

Buy a box of Trader Joe’s Workshop Cookies (may only be available at Christmas time). These cookies are amazing! Taste just like from scratch. Welp, I decided that these could be improved. How? Ditch the frosting that comes with it and make your own frosting from scratch. DELICIOUS!

Cut Out Sugar Cookies

Make a box of Trader Joe’s Workshop Cookies as directed on box, throw away frosting packets.
Frosting recipe came from a gal at work; I LOVE almond extract and altered her recipe a bit to make the frosting less runny (she had way more milk than I would have and I omitted the stick butter she had in her recipe, so here it is…)

Frosting:

1 cup of powdered sugar

3 Tbsp of milk

¼ tsp of vanilla extract

¼ tsp of almond extract

Mix ingredients with a wooden spoon in bowl. Use a spreading knife and frost each cookie. Top each cookie with sprinkles that came in the cookie box mix. Let frosting set up before putting up the cookies.


Talking Oven Mits!

Lookin' Good!



Aaron helped keep me sane by helping out where needed, THANK YOU!

Peanut Butter Cup Cookies

This recipe is always a family request and is easy to eat a bunch of!

Peanut Butter Cup Cookies

Ingredients:

½ cup margarine

½ cup peanut butter

½ cup brown sugar

½ cup sugar

1 egg

1 tsp. vanilla extract

1 ¼ cup flour

¾ tsp. baking soda

½ tsp. salt

Reese’s miniature peanut butter cups

Cream together margarine, peanut butter, brown sugar, white sugar, 1 egg and vanilla. Separately combine flour, soda, & salt. Add to creamed mixture and mix. Using a small cookie scoop, scoop balls into an ungreased miniature muffin pan (one ball per muffin cup). Bake at 375 degrees for 8 minutes. Remove from oven and immediately place a miniature peanut butter cup into the center of each cookie.

Here are my hints for perfection:

• If dough seems to sticky to scoop, add flour or chill for a few minutes

• Cookies will not seem done when pulled out of oven, that is okay, they finish cooking in the pan

• Freeze the Reese’s cups, and have them all unwrapped and ready to go, freezing them helps make them not become a mess when you push into hot cookies

• Once cooled, I always put in fridge for a few minutes to set

• Don’t remove cookies until fully cooled off. I have a cheap pan scraper that is only use for these cookies. The edge of a pan scraper will help assist in the clean removal of each cookie.

Pretzel Hugs

Each day this week I’m going to have a recipe on my blog. Check back daily for a fun recipe to take home to your family this Christmas.

This is a new one for me this year. Went to a friend’s Christmas party who had these and they are addictive if you like a little sweet & salty treat.

Pretzel Hugs

Ingredients:

Mini Square Pretzels (Synder’s brand works well)

Hershey’s Hugs

M&Ms

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Lay as many pretzels out on a cookie sheet. Put a unwrapped hershey’s hug on each pretzel. Bake for ONLY 2 MINUTES. Pull out an immediately place an M&M on each pretzel, lightly squishing each Hug down.

Once cooled enough, put in fridge for a few minutes to set.  So cute and tasty!!!!!

Dinner With The Girls!

Erin, Allison, Amy, Rachel, Emily & Kelsey

Last night my small group got together for a Christmas outing. We are in between studies right now, so it worked out well to plan a Christmas Dinner. We went to Bang Bang and had some yummy food. It was nice to just sit and chat with everyone.

 

We have a really great small group; we’ve been together for 3 years now. This past year we added two more ladies to our group and I think we have a good rounded group. Each one of these ladies brings a special personality and thought provoking perspectives to our group. I always look forward to seeing them every two weeks and staying caught up on what is happening in each other’s lives.

Christmas Brunch a few weeks ago with Rachel & Amy

Christmas Food Court Flash Mob, Hallelujah Chorus - Must See!

After Black Friday where the mob starting singing The Hallelujah Chorus spontenously at Macy's, seems like everywhere it is spawning locally. Des Moines held their own rendition at the downtown food court. Looks like a lot of people joined in, although you could tell it was staged by a handful of people. Even though it is becoming a copy cat thing, it is still pretty cool to get random people belting it out over their lunch hour and filling the skywalks of downtown with such a beautiful song... talk about getting into the Christmas spirit! Enjoy!

Cold Weather = Cookies!

What do I find to keep busy on a Sunday when it is too frigid to be outside?  Get a head start on the holiday baking!  My peanut butter cup cookies freeze great, so got a batch ready for Christmas already, the rest were a trial run as they were new recipes.  All which I will be tweaked just a bit for when I make the actual Christmas batch in hopes that next time will be perfection. 

What's better than having unexpected goodies arrive at your front door on a cold day? 

Our neighbors brought us a plate of goodies last year and I never found time to bake extra last year for them so this year I wanted to be sure to return the favor.  They've brought us produce from their garden, let Aaron borrow some yard tools, and have been friendly folks to us.  A plate for our neighbor next door and one for the family across the street.  The larger plate is for Aaron's small group since they will be over tomorrow.  The rest goes in the freezer. I can't have too much left over for Aaron and I but of course we sampled it all! It was a pretty time intensive project and hope and plan to recreate this all once more when it gets closer to Christmas....without burning the house down!

Black Friday

I’m a seasoned Black Friday shopper, it wouldn’t be right to skip one of the best days of the year. On the other hand, Aaron has never experienced Black Friday and had no desire too. Well that is fine except I really needed his help this year and he was a good sport about agreeing to this. I must say, you would have thought he was a seasoned Black Friday shopper, he handled the day like a trooper.

So 1:30 am the alarms go off. That’s right, time to get up! Got in line at Super Target at 2:30 am. We were probably 100 people back in line at that time. We were prepared for the 1 ½ wait (doors didn’t open till 4 am). I had on leggings and fleece pants, boots, a long sleeve shirt and a sweater, my heavy winter coat, gloves, and a hat. Over that I had a double fleece blanket wrapped around me. Aaron too was bundled up, long underwear and jeans, sweatshirt, hat, etc. We weren’t cold, only our toes were so we wished we would have worn thicker socks.

So the doors open and we took off on a dead sprint thru the store for this TV. I got my hands on one and couldn’t find Aaron. I called Aaron and he had already checked out with the TV. Man, talk about good work! I gave away the TV I had my hands on which was appreciated because they were gone in a matter of minutes. So we loaded up the TV and left Target before the line outside was even all the way in yet. Good start!

From there we went over to Best Buy. Aaron wanted a laptop. We found out they were all gone via tickets given out in line but advised to come back at 9 am to see if any go unclaimed. So we left there and went to Mendards. Mendards was absolutely insane! What a zoo. There we were looking for a shop vac as we needed it as a gift for someone, it was a hot item but we got it. Thanks again to Aaron’s quick work on that one!

From there we went home unloaded, stripped off a layer of clothing and headed to the mall. The mall opened at midnight and since it was 6 am, it was pretty dead as the crowd had already shuffled thru. We got everything on our list at the mall, another success. Left the mall and headed over to Best Buy for the 9 am line. Got an unclaimed laptop!

Most successful Black Friday I’ve ever had! Got 90%+ of our Christmas shopping done and really didn’t have much trouble finding our items. I think our pre-planning, strategizing and team work was the driving component of our successful day. By noon we were wiped out and done, ready to go home and get some sleep. I asked Aaron if he is ready for Black Friday next year and he said it wasn’t as bad as he thought it would be but would rather not participate unless needed again. HA, spoken like a true man.

Turkey Day!

We love Turkey Day.  Gooble Gooble.  We went to the Hyde's for Thanksgiving and had a nice visit.  Saturday I made Aaron and I our own turkey dinner.  I didn't make a whole turkey but do have a desire to give it a try with some expertise help... maybe next year. 

So I roasted a turkey breast, gravy, mash potatoes, corn, macaroni and cheese, green bean casserole, and pumpkin cheesecake.  All gluten-free.  I LOVE turkey day leftovers, makes meal planning for the week pretty simple too!  My question though is why is it my husband eats leftovers for breakfast, lunch and dinner?  Yes, I said breakfast.  He will eat lasagna for breakfast. Gross. It's drives me crazy when I see him eating lunch food for breakfast, my goal is to make those left overs last longer than a few days so I don't have to cook and here he is making a mash potato/macaroni cheese omelet.  Disgusting.  Anything in the fridge goes when it comes to his morning eggs.  This morning he even put hummus in his eggs, really...