Makes me hoarse just hearing it...

              This is Baby P's new thing. Can't figure out where he got it. The other people in this household are a little more concerned about vocal health and this certainly doesn't sound like any singing I've ever heard.

This is a real catfish...

Over the Christmas holiday, Baby P and W and I went to the lake. It was great and so relaxing! I read tons of books in front of the fire, played with P, drank coffee, ate scones, ate cookies, ate cheese grits...you get the idea. W went fishing everyday and caught some monsters when he started fishing with chicken livers. I know...gross, but effective.

You can't really see how huge they were in the pictures, but you get the idea. Frightening.

Here's what P and I were doing while W fished in the frigid and piercingly cold wind.

Christmas Recovery Period

I'm so sad that Christmas is over this year. It seemed to fly by and I don't think I got in the requisite amounts of Christmas music, movies and fresh pine scent. I'm also feeling nostalgic about the holidays since we'll be moving next summer.

I did, however, experience more than my fair share of a few other things...

9 Batches of Secret Family Recipe Sugar Cookies

Sweet/Salty and delicious. While I did not eat all of these myself, I sampled copiously.

36 Pioneer Woman Truffles

Almond filled, sea salt sprinkled, dark chocolate covered and raspberry filled. Don't get me started, I had to put the rest in a box and send them to a neighbor just to stop the chocolatey madness. 

5 Entire Batches of Pioneer Woman Tiny Vanilla Scones

Apparently I'm all about PW this Christmas. I did share these scones with others, but did not shy away from making sure they were fit to eat. These things are totally addicting and perfect, I mean PERfect, with several cups of morning coffee/half 'n' half.

Many, Many Helpings of Spicy Cheese Grits

Mom and I ate these at a local restaurant and practiced til we got them right. Make them ASAP or you'll regret it forever...after you've tasted them one day and realized what you've been missing out on for so long.

Bring to a boil 5 cups of chicken stock and 2-3 Tablespoons of garlic powder.

Add 1 1/4 cups of uncooked grits. (cook according to package directions)

Stir in 1 cup of shredded Cheddar/Jack or Habanero Cheddar

and 1 cup of shredded Velveeta

Add ground red pepper to taste (start with a dash and go from there).

Pour grits into a 9 x 13 casserole dish, top with diced fresh tomatoes and sprinkle with shredded cheddar. Bake for about 30 min. at 350. 

10 Books: Some Worthless and Some Worthwhile

3 Blue Blood Teen lit books (Absolutely Worthless)

3 books: The Airhead Series by Meg Cabot (Worthwhile and fun)

Julie and Julia by Julie Powell (Worthwhile and loved it)
Pride and Prejudice (Worthwhile and always love a refresher!)
Counterfeit Gods by Tim Keller (Definately worthwhile and I reccommend it!)
The Forgotten Garden by Kate Morton (Not finished with this yet, but it's worthwhile!)


1 Season of Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman
Don't judge. It was a childhood favorite and my Mom gave it to me for Christmas as sort of a joke but W and I watched them, laughed a lot and were completely entertained.

52 Pounds of holiday padding on various parts of my body

I blame all the yummy things that my family and friends (and, ok, myself) baked, fried, bought and smeared with icing. I've got a lot of walking to do...too bad it's too cold out to do that now...actually I need the padding to stay warm, what was I thinking?

Public Apology

         I have been remiss in my blogging of late and it has been brought to my attention by multiple individuals. Please accept this humble apology and my pledge to blog more frequently than at 20 day intervals. Massive update post coming soon to a webpage near you. Please enjoy the pictures and video below while you wait with eager expectation.

W , making sure our Christmas tree is level.

One of my favorite ornaments. I made bunches of these crochet snowflakes two Christmases ago because my grandmother always had them on her tree. Love the old fashioned feel.

W and I had a  Christmas ornament engagement shower  (with Sarah and her fiancee) and this is one of the ornaments we were given-it came from Rachel! Great memories :)

I love this ornament. "Two Peas in a Pod." It's so whimsical and fun!

This one is from last Christmas. It looks like a weird little peanut, but it's Baby P. His first photo!

The Christmas Pickle. It's a German family tradition. You hide the pickle somewhere in the tree on Christmas morning and whoever finds it first gets an extra gift. My mom does it at her house too and it's usually something like movie tickets, John Mayer tickets a couple of years ago, gift cards, etc.... Fun!

This is a completely non Christmas related video, but I just found it on my video camera and could not stop laughing. Enjoy and think of warm weather.

Let it Snow

It's snowing right now, big fat fluffy snowflakes that are hard to see in this picture.

I'm sitting inside with my Christmas flavored coffee in my Christmas mug and lovely smelling Christmas tree,  Christmas shopping on the computer and admiring my Christmas ornaments.

Here's one of my favorites: "Candy Cane Kitten." When we were little, my Mom gave us an ornament every year and she would try to stick with a series. The first ones I remember are these porcelain Hallmark cats. I have three of them, and they were probably made in the late 80's or early 90's. I could not wait to get them out every Christmas and Heaven help my brothers or sister if they laid a paw on these little kittens or tried to hang them on the tree. I still enjoy getting them out and remembering Christmases gone by.

Grown up Christmas To Do List

1) Do the Christmas Shopping for friends and family.

2) Figure out when and where we will celebrate with both sides of the family.

3) Get the youth choir ready to sing Christmas music in two weeks and sew costumes for the children's musical this weekend.

4) Buy Christmas flavored coffee and a Santa hat for Baby P.

5) Select the perfect Christmas tree and decorate it.

Well, at least the really important things are done. 

Scone Schmone...

Last night I thought it would be a nice treat to wake up to fragrant coffee and fresh, homemade scones.

Bah humbug.

This was my first attempt at scones, but I know that they can be finicky and the ingredients have to be added just right so I was really concentrating. The dough looked perfect and smelled so good. I started to roll it out and by some weird fluke I hit the espresso pot with the rolling pin, it shattered and flung slivers of glass all over the kitchen. There is nothing more frightening than seeing a hunk of something edible covered with sharp bits of glass.

"We here at Shards of Glass have determined that there is no safe way to eat a Shards of Glass Scone."

So obviously I threw it out and luckily had just enough ingredients to start a second batch (after cleaning up from the glass disaster). I mixed and rolled and sliced and just as I was putting the little guys in the oven I realized that in my hurry I had left the egg out of the dough. Bleepety bleep bleep bleep!!!

I tried to bake them anyway and they melted out into a flat, hard piece of yuck within minutes. Fail!

I'm going to eat you, Scones, if it's the last thing I do. Since I threw away six cups of flour, a quart of heavy cream and a pound of butter yesterday (among other things) I'm going to need supplies. Troops!