The 12: Part 2

The 12 is a post with 12 random facts and answers to 12 questions. Part 1: Random Facts is here. Then our internet went out for a day and a half so i got delayed, but Part 2 is finally below. Enjoy!

1) What are your favorite things about winter?

Christmas. All things Christmas.

2) What is your favorite winter outfit?

I feel like this is a weird question. Particularly right now as I’m slowly working my way back into having an array of styles available to me. But I would normally say jeans and fleece. I have a faithful North Face and a warmer Patagonia that I live in. Neither really fits right now, but I wear them anyway. If you see me, don’t call out the snug fit, k? But this is what it used to look like. 

Oh and Uggs! I love my Uggs! (Read as "I love my Ducks")

3) What is your favorite winter food?

Any and all baked goods. Does that count as a food? I mean desserts are foods too so I’m going with it. All things pumpkin. Gingerbread cookies are a new found love in the last few years.

As for real entrees, I’m loving the Chicken Noodle Soup and the Roasted Cauliflower and White Cheddar Soups I talked about here.

Oh and roasted veggies that I talked about here. Especially butternut squash. 

And roasted brussel sprouts. I haven’t talked to you about those before so follow the note at the bottom for that.

I hope you meant to ask- what are your favorite foods :-)

4) What is your favorite winter drink?

Gingerbread latte. Although this year I’ve been doing a lot more soy lattes. They are slightly sweet, but not as sweet as a latte with syrup. And if I’m being good-er (not good, just good-er), I will opt for a cup of Starbucks Blonde roast with a little creamer.

PS- My hubs doesn’t like cream in his coffee so he always orders a “tall black blonde” and I can’t even handle it. Cause I’m really mature.

5) How you do like your makeup in the winter?

Ya know, I realized the other day that I stopped wearing eyeshade sometime back, oh ya know, pre-2010 maybe? Not altogether, but just as a general rule I live in my mineral powder, blush, and gloss. Most girls are like “I can’t liiiive without my mascara”, but that’s not me. It should be maybe, but I’ve spent my life fighting terrible skin so foundation and check color are first priority. The only thing I really change for the winter would be my gloss. I put away my go-to MAC Cremesheen in “Richer, Lusher”-  a mango shade- and use Bare Minerals Moxie in “Spark Plug”. My sister would be proud to know that I went out and bought new shadow. Sultry eyes, comin' right up. Too far? K fine. 

6) What are you hoping Santa brings you?

Old news. Pass.

7) What is your favorite winter scent?

Pine! Or more generally, anything that reminds me of nature. The ones that smell sweet and are sold in the “foods” section of Yankee Candle is not for me.

Wait, is this referring to perfume? I don’t wear that.

I’m confused now. Moving on.

8) What is your favorite winter memory?

Oh skiing. I love skiing. The sights from the top of the mountain. Snuggling in next to your life buddy. The burn you feel after hitting a run hard. The feeling of taking off all your ski gear and sitting in front of a fire place. Ohhh I love it. But I haven’t been since January of 2007! Not that I’m counting, but I am.

10) What are the first three things that remind you of winter?

Christmas. Snow. Baking.

11) What is your favorite winter song?

All Christmas music. I can’t choose. In fact, I have so much that each Thanksgiving I have to actually erase a large portion of the music on my phone to make room for my Christmas music. This year because of photos of a certain little peanut that shall remain nameless, storage on my phone was a hot commodity, and I only have 611 minutes worth of Christmas music on there. There’s your 13^th random fact!

12) Finish this sentence: If I could have one Christmas wish, it would be...
Too much pressure. I’ll keep it lighthearted and wish that my little lovebug would sleep well. Not even sleep through the night, but maybe, ya know, wake up just once and go back to sleep J.

Brussel sprouts footnote: 

Cut the stubs of the bottom, cut them in half top to bottom (hot dog, not hamburger style),  and get rid of any leaves that look narsty. Drizzle with olive oil and sprinkle with kosher salt and fresh cracked pepper. If you're not sure about how much to use, go light. You can always add more later. Spread them out in a single layer on a cookie sheet/ jelly roll pan/ whatever you've got, and stick them in the oven at 400 degrees for about 35 minutes. Adding cranberries, bacon, and/or parmesan are all good decisions. 

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Thanksgiving and Beds

Last week was Thanksgiving.

Well obviously. You knew that. 

We made the trip to see hub's fam on Tuesday and the little lady slept almost the whole way. Stopping to feed at a truck stop was fun and classy, but it kept our little one full so that's good. It was a short trip, but we had a great time visiting the inlaws and the two little rascal cousins.

We made the trip back on Thursday to have Thanksgiving with my family and as always enjoyed great food and a mostly lazy day.

My favorite part of thanksgiving: Christmas music. I just luuuuuve Christmas music! I could sing along (or a capella) for hours! Hubs has never been very good at song lyrics, but over the past few years he has picked up on just enough to be dangerous. He was singing to little miss on Friday and messing up a few of the words, but Mary won't have them memorized until she is at least 18 months old so I let him go with it :-) We love sing-a-longs.

What is it about coming home from a trip- even a short one to visit family- that makes your bed that much sweeter? You may not have changed the sheets in a while,
that's not us of course, we change our sheets every 2 days like Oprah, but let's just imagine for a second that we're talking about someone else and it's been a few weeks
The sheets aren't clean, there are piles of things on the dresser that need to be put away, and the dust bunnies on the floor have multiplied like rabbits (ha! get my joke?) but you are still glad to be home in your own bed.

It's kind of like Thanksgiving. Objectively, the stuffing your mom makes is not as good as it would be at a restaurant on the plaza. The cranberry sauce- the kind with no berries that actually comes out like jello- would be scoffed at if you'd never seen it before and your aunt served it to you. Here's the deal- your thanksgiving is the best. Even if it smells a little funny, the glasses have watermarks, and blah blah blah. We are comforted by what we know well.

I don't really have a point. Just an observation.

I'll leave you with a few photos of a baby because that's what blogs are good at when your story has no point.

And for the record, my mom makes good stuffing. And I love cranberry sauce from the can.

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Memorial Day

I know I told you I'd write about baseball, and I full intended to today, but then there was a heated game last night and I got all riled up. So it's best if I let myself take a chill pill and write about that later.

In the mean time, I'll tell you about my weekend.

Friday hubs went left and I went right. Actually, we were only a block apart for a good portion of the night, but who's counting? His bestie is getting married and they had their bachelor party. Do men call their best friends "besties"? Probs not. Let's call him his best "bud". I don't think hubster uses that phrase, but I'm at a loss. Anyway, they had a bachelor party and I went to the associated bachelorette cause the future Mrs. Best Bud is great and we get along well. No photos from the evening, but the boys ended the night at 3am with Taco Bell sooo... just sayin.

Blah blah boring things on Saturday morning and mid-day. Then that afternoon we went my sister move into her new place. It was super duper hot, so no photos there either. Even if they did exist, which they don't, I wouldn't show you.

Then Sunday the pictures began. We went to Celebration at the Station. Ever been? Basically the Symphony has a free concert on the lawn between Union Station and the Liberty Memorial. Did you know the Liberty Memorial is one of very few WWI museums in America? Well we sat on blankets between the two landmarks and listened to the symphony while we enjoyed wine, fruit, bread with oil, and (duh) dessert.

My lovely friend and I made what I like to refer to as the classic grandma style potluck dessert- strawberry jello cheesecake crusty things. That's the technical term. I'll find the recipe and post it here. But the fun of it was the mini-mason jars. Everything is more fun in a jar, doncha know? Long story short, I didn't know how to transport the dessert for more than 10 people in a cooler to the park. Much less, something that could baked in and served from. Solution? My friend mason. Check out these little cutie pies?*

Pardon the photo quality. Not sure what happened here. 

There were also some wonderful designs on Union Station behind the symphony stage. How cool?!

They also shot of cannons. Like real cannons. The really loud ones. I jumped every time. Then they shot off fireworks behind the memorial. A lot of them. Probably the best firework show I've been to in a long time. 

Then Monday came and we had a b-day party for my cuz. Pool party, to be specific. It was the perfect day for it. Mack-attack loves to swim. 

False. He does not love to swim. That picture was staged. Hard to imagine, but true. 

And I baked a cake. Cause that's how I roll. 

Then my sister and I wore matchy-matchy outfits. She called us "twinkles" all day. Not sure what that means... But I do  know that she thought our dresses were green sooo she's clearly a bit coo-coo for cocoa puffs.

That's all folks. 

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Christmas lyrics

Wednesday night I was out shopping with Julie at Barnes & Noble. She turns around and says "is this about to be a flash mob?" Sure enough, there was a crowd gathered that, in my claustrophobia, I had failed to see.

Turns out, they weren't flash mobers. They were just carolers. Except they were uninvited and a little sneaky, so maybe that makes it a flash mob. Anywho, they opened with the Carol of the Bells. A wonderful caroler's tune :-)

I love listening to and thinking about the lyrics of Christmas music...

Silent Night

Silent night! holy night!

Shepherds quake at the sight

glories stream from heaven afar

heavenly hosts sing Hallelujah

Christ the Saviour is born!

Silent night! holy night!

Son of God love's pure light

radiant beams from thy holy face

with the dawn of redeeming grace,

Jesus, Lord at thy birth.

Luke 2:8-19

Angels We Have Heard on High 

Come to Bethlehem and see
Him whose birth the angels sing,

Come on adore on bended knee
Christ, the Lord, our new born King

Joy to the world

Joy to the world, the Lord is come! Let earth receive her King;
let every heart prepare him room,
and heaven and nature sing...
No more let sins and sorrows grow,
nor thorns infest the ground;
he comes to make his blessings flow
far as the curse is found...
He rules the world with truth and grace,
and makes the nations prove
the glories of his righteousness,
and wonders of his love...

Christmas. What a wonderful holiday.  

Merry Christmas Eve, everyone!

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nutella sea salt [wanna-be] fudge

Fudge.

I could take it or leave it.

But when I come home from a weekend of wedding madness

and feel compelled to bring something to my work holiday party the next day

 and don't have any eggs so I give up on baking

and resolve to putting on sweats and reading my favorite blogs

and accidentally stumble on Nutella fudge...

then, my dear friends, then

in that moment fudge sounds good.

So I make it at 11:30pm

Duh.

It was raved about at my company party today

and I had to put the tray away a few hours before the party ended

 cause I knew hubs would want to try it.

Do yourself a favor and make this Nutella and Sea Salt Fudge

from Tasty Kitchen on ThePioneerWoman.com.

Oh and I make substitutions, remember?

Do yourself a favor and follow my lead:

use fat free sweetened condensed milk

1-1/3 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips if that's what you have.

Because who has bittersweet chocolate and who has a scale? Not I.

Don't bother bringing your butter to room temp.

Except really you should cause mine struggled to melt.

And if you don't keep sea salt in your pantry use kosher.

It's not as pretty, but it tastes the same and no one will notice.

Just give them all away after you make them.

Or you'll have an upset stomach from eating too many.



And don't make Fantasy Fudge anymore.

It really doesn't stand a chance against this super simple, decadent recipe.

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oh Christmas tree

My fam an I, we love our Christmas trees. It's kind of a big deal deacorating the tree every year. My bestie says it's "sacred" to us. Not us as in he and I. Him and I. Him and me. Whatever. The "us" is in reference to my ma, and pa, and sister. We love us a good tree. We used to always get real trees, but a few years ago we made the switch to fake. Let's not call it fake, let's call it artificial. Euphemism. 

Anyway, this year, pops surprised us with a new one. A big'un. 

But first let's talk about the littler one at our lovely little home. 

We don't have anywhere to store a fake artificial tree,
so each year hubs and I get a real one.
Our first year we actually went to a tree farm
and my burly man chopped it down. :-)

Yes. I wear short sleeves in December. Cut a girl some slack.

Last year and this year we got our trees from a chain store.
Please forgive us. She's cute though!

The best thing about our tree is that it's covered in ornaments that are special to us.
Each year my parents give my sister and I, and now hubs, ornaments on Christmas Eve.
Then when we got married we had plenty of ornaments to start our tree.
They are all dearly loved.

Por ejemplo:

This bear I've had since the beginning of time. So sweet :-)

This little baker angel. 

She has measuring spoons for hands and is holding a little heart cookie cutter. 

A KU basketball garden gnome ornament.
Reminds me of White Owl. Love him.

This little felt stocking is one of three my mom stitched for me last year. 

It is made with beads from her wedding dress. 

These were the same beads I used as part of my hair pin at my wedding.

Okay now think big people... 

Imagine all of those lovely little ornaments

each with a wonderful little story

on a ginormo tree. 

Insert, my dad's surprise:

It is twelve feet tall and beautiful :-)

Now there is something else to mention here. 

Christmas is beautiful. And joyful. And fun. [And stressful]

 But Christmas is mostly humble. 

It is built on the truth that God humbled himself to save us.  

Glory be to God.

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