Top Two Tuesday

I've never participated in TTT before, but I've seen a lot of my bloggie friends do so and figured why not! Plus, I love today's theme :)


*Favorite Christmas memories*


{1} This is a favorite story in my family. When I was a kid my grandma put whiskey on my gums when I was teething. (Yes, I grew up in the sticks.) Well, I loved the taste so much that it became customary that I ran to the whiskey cabinet EVERY time we went to her house for a little taste. I guess I went a little overboard because one year when we were at Church, Santa stopped in and stole the whiskey. Bad Santa. That was the end of my whiskey days - for awhile at least. (Please don't judge me, my parents or grandma for this!)


{2} Last Christmas! It was mine and J's first Christmas in our new house and we were just so grateful to have a home of our own and start having real holiday traditions! We are fortunate to usually spend Christmas with just the two of us, so we get to sleep in, have breakfast, then open and play with our gifts. We also had J's family over to celebrate the day after last year, and we look forward to continuing that tradition as well!

A question ...

Hi friends!
I'm having a baking day with a friend tomorrow and trying to finish up all my holiday baking so next week I can really soak up the holidays! Although I have a ton of recipes, I'm wondering if I'm missing out on anything.
So .... comment with any ideas you have. Or, you can just shoot me an email!
michellefelter{at}gmail.com. 
Thanks ladies!

What I'm Loving

First and foremost, I'm LOVING that there are only 10 days until Christmas. Tomorrow, it will be single digits!

I'm LOVING how all the wrapped gifts look so pretty under the tree. Yes, wrapping is so much more time consuming, but just better. I love ripping into a wrapped gift :)

Crappy phone quality :(

I'm LOVING that I have today off work. Not only am I going to do some baking, I'm going to finish up the wrapping and holiday decorating, I hope. 

I'm also LOVING that I'm finally going to get to watch The Blind Side today. I bought it when Amazon had it on sale for $3.99 a few weeks ago, so I figure I can do that while decorating cookies or making oreo balls. 

I'm LOVING that a good friend and I are getting together to do even more baking on Saturday!

I'm LOVING that our work girls' Christmas party is tomorrow! I missed last year's because I had kidney stones, so I'm excited to make it this year, especially since it's a bistro I've never been to before. 

And of course, I'm LOVING this guy :) Romantic moment of the week: I saw something I liked when we were in StL a couple months ago and mentioned it would be a good gift. Of course, that store isn't here. After a couple nights of searching and searching on the Web for it, he told me. I pulled it up after a little searching (since I remembered the name) and he just whipped out his debit card and told me to get it. I think I'm a pretty lucky gal :)

Christmas questions

I've seen this on a couple of blogs and decided to fill it out today :)


1. Wrapping paper or gift bags? Definitely wrapping paper. Yes, it's work, but so much more fun to rip into. And, it looks pretty pretty under the tree!

2. Real tree or Artificial? I've never had a real one. I'd like to, some year.

3. When do you put up the tree? Weekend after Thanksgiving-first weekend of December. The sooner, the better for me!

4. When do you take the tree down? Depends. I was raised Catholic, so I argue the Christmas season technically isn't over until Epiphany, which is Jan. 6. I try to get it down by J's birthday, which is Jan. 9.

5. Do you like eggnog? Yup

6. Favorite gift received as a child? My parents were boring and gave us clothes and stuff like that. But I still have a lot of the timeless gifts like board games, etc.

7. Hardest person to buy for? My parents. They are so simple and can afford to buy anything they want.

8. Easiest person to buy for? Jim. I pretty much can just walk into Sears and be safe.

9. Do you have a nativity scene? Yes.

10. Mail or email Christmas cards? Snail mail. But I've decided not to send them out this year.

11. Worst Christmas gift you ever received? A sweater that my sister gave me. The sweater wasn't bad, but she got it off my mom, who bought the shirt while we were shopping together.

12. Favorite Christmas Movie? National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation. Hands down.

13. When do you start shopping for Christmas? I try to do it through the year.

14. Have you ever recycled a Christmas present? Just dirty Santa ones

15. Favorite thing to eat at Christmas? Mashed potatoes with kettle beef and gravy! My grandma made this for every holiday and now my uncle, who does our family Christmas, keeps the tradition going! Oh, and my aunt makes THE BEST sugar cookies!

16. Lights on the tree (colored or clear)? Clear, definitely.

17. Favorite Christmas song? All of them. But I love the Church-y ones, like O Holy Night, Silent Night, etc.

18. Travel at Christmas or stay home? Stay home.

19. Can you name all of Santa's reindeer's? Yes. Dasher, Dancer, Prancer, Vixen, Comet, Cupid, Donner, Blitzen and of course, Rudolph!

20. Angel, star or ribbon on top of tree? Angel :)

21. Open the presents Christmas Eve or morning? Morning. But this year, we're going to start doing Christmas Eve pajamas. 

22. Favorite children's Christmas song? I Want A Hippopotomus For Christmas

23. Most annoying thing about this time of the year? All the scrooges who won't get in the holiday spirit. Blech.

24. Favorite ornament theme or color? Silver and red :) I plan to hit the after-Christmas sales this year and get a small tree and some black and gold ornaments so I can have a Mizzou tree next year, though. 

25. Turkey or ham on Christmas day? Neither. Kettle beef and gravy!

26. What do you want for Christmas this year? To win the lottery :) Haha, just sunglasses

27. Does anyone in your family dress up as Santa? No.

28. Age you discovered who Santa was? I don't really remember.

29. Eggnog, hot chocolate, or apple cider? All of the above

30. Traditional colors (red and green) or other colors? Red, green, silver and gold! Blue can be very pretty too!

31. Do you have any Christmas decorations on your roof? No :(

32. How does Santa get into your house? Chimney or magic key? Since we don't have kids, he meets me to drop off items :)

33. Do you prefer gifts or gift cards? Gifts, unless the cards are to be used toward a larger purchase.

34. Favorite children's Christmas Cartoon? Rudolph/Frosty

Weekend wrap-up

Whew, what a weekend!

{Friday}

I've been wanting to see the movie Tangled, so we bundled up and went to the show. We loved it! Of course, having horses ourselves made it a bit funnier, but it was a great movie, even for a couple of "grown ups" without kids. 

Here we be, ready for the show!

Since I had to work Saturday morning, we headed home early, where J watched TV and I slept on the couch :)

{Saturday}

Went to work, and it was raining cats and dogs by the time I left! I ended up going home to nap and clean up the kitchen, then we went up to Cape. On Cyber Monday, I purchased some gifts for Jimmy from Sears, and one (a floor jack) was delivered when he was home in the original packaging. Well, last weekend when we cleaned out the garage I decided to let him dig into it a month early (it's a birthday present) and we found one part was bent, so we took it to the store for an exchange. While there, we made a couple more purchases, and I think I can finally say I'm done with J's Christmas shopping. From there, we went to Hobby Lobby, aka Heaven on Earth, to pick up a couple other items I needed to buy, and ate at BGs. BEST potato skins, hands down — served with a ton of cheese. I think I gained a pound just thinking of them :) 

{Sunday}

We woke up to SNOW! They were forecasting flurries, but our meteorologists are always wrong, so I thought nothing of it. It was very windy, but beautiful. 

The horses weren't too thrilled though, and were bucking and being silly. I snapped a few pics during the morning feeding.

Doc

Our little snowdog :)

The rest of the day, we just chilled, watching movies and wrapping presents. I made some yummy baked potato soup ...

And I also did some crafting/projects I've needed an extra set of hands for. First up was attaching the ribbon for my niece's hairbow holder :)

And then we finally found a use from the seashells from our beach trip a year and a half ago. I took this old frame I was about to throw away, we used the hot glue gun to attach the shells and some sand and stuck in a picture from the trip. Right now it's in the main bathroom, which is done in a beach-y theme. 

And of course, we wrapped up our Sunday night with The Amazing Race, as usual. I REALLY wanted Jill and Thomas to win, but Nat and Kat (the winners) were my second pick, so I'm cool with that. 

How was your weekend?

Mmmmm, pickles!

Yesterday, I offered to take my friend's little boy home with me for a couple of hours while she got her hair did. P is a very active 2-year-old, so she quickly obliged :)


I say this every time, but he really is at my favorite age now! P loves pickles, especially the ones my mom and I can, so he ate quite a few! I hate that the lighting is so bad in that picture :( We also had M&Ms, green beans, poppyseed chicken and more. 


P is at the age where he LOVES to help, so he went outside with us to feed Doc and "Mama Horse" (and Jax too.) P even carried the bucket and dumped in the feed! 


Since it was pretty cold, I grabbed a hat for P and this was the first one I found. He kept it on all night :) 

And, just for fun, a picture of P and his Auntie Chelle :)

A recipe: Meatloaf

After I posted about our leftover meatloaf yesterday, I had a couple people ask for the recipe. I figured I would just post it here for everyone!


What you'll need:
2 eggs
2/3 c. dried bread crumbs (you can also just tear up bread)
3/4 c. milk
1/4 cup onion (optional)
2 T. parsley
1 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. sage, basil or oregano
1.5 lbs. ground beef


Make it:
Combine all ingredients and shape into a loaf. We like catsup, so I typically squirt some in before I shape or on top of the loaf so it can bake in, but that's your call. Back at 350 degrees for one hour.
Meanwhile, mix 1/4 c. catsup, 2 T. brown sugar and 1 tsp. dry mustard. Spread on top of the loaf and bake an additional 10 minutes. 


Enjoy! This typically lasts two to three meals in our house!