Christmas

Happy Holiday

by Jessica on December 27, 2012

in Christmas, Family, Food, Holiday

Hello! I hope you had a wonderful holiday, however you celebrated. Is it just us, or did it go way too fast? I feel like I didn’t do half the stuff I normally like to do and everything just felt so rushed.

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That aside, we had a wonderful holiday with my side of the family this year. We enjoyed back-to-back feasts of authentic Mexican tacos, chile rellenos, cornbread pudding and beans on Christmas Eve, and a more traditional meal of ham, cheesy potatoes and broccoli casserole on Christmas Day.

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The tacos and cornbread pudding are my absolute favorite.

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Christmas Day feast:

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And if there was any chance you had any room after either of those meals, the 6-seat formal dining room table was completely covered in cookies, Chex mix and caramel corn. And our annual puzzle.

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My dad and I are completely obsessed with puzzles, and we’ve found a new partner-in-crime in my brother’s girlfriend Madi. We knocked out over half in one night!

When we weren’t stuffing our faces, we were gaming and watching every holiday movie we could think of. We played nearly eight straight hours of Guild Wars 2, and managed to find the very obscure television Christmas specials of He-Man and She-Ra and The Flinstones. Christmas before Christ’s birth? Why not.

To offset some of our laziness, I hit up CrossFit on Christmas Eve day and we ran a few miles with my brother on the trail near our house. It was frigid, but well worth it.

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We finally opened presents late Christmas Day. There were some hilarious gag gifts, plenty of new reading material and kitchen gadgets, and all-new workout gear. Neil bought me a new Lululemon top and bottom and all-new New Balance Minimus’s (my fav). From me, he received Rogue wrist wraps, workout shirts and a Stick to roll out his sore muscles. I also bought him a sweet new coffee thermos and a bag of amazing coffee (So good you can drink it black!)

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Clive and Matilda also received a few special treats — a bully stick and a few center bones. They were nearly unresponsive with bliss for an hour and the slurps and teeth gnashing could be heard all over the house.

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So a great Christmas, lots of food, laughs and family. Now it’s onto New Year’s! Can you believe 2012 is almost over!?

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Finally Friday

by Jessica on December 7, 2012

in Christmas, Food, Matilda, Meat

I feel like I’ve been in a blender this week. Here, there, and totally turned around in circles with work. I’m totally ready for some down time — if I can just get through a few more hours of this day. Here are a few randoms from this week:

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I managed to get the tree decorated on Wednesday, and now I never want to turn it off. I know it’s just a little tree with mostly hand-me-down ornaments from my parents, but it makes our living room feel so nice. Remember when we just had our little tabletop tree? Well now this tree is full. How does that happen? My favorite new addition…

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Matilda’s first ornament! I strategically put all the pet ornaments in front. Dorky?

Dinner from the other night, bacon-wrapped chicken. So easy to make. Simply marinade or season chicken with flavors of choice, wrap with bacon and secure with a toothpick. Then bake at 250 degrees for 50 minutes or until baked through.

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Now off to CrossFit! We’re doing 1-rep max cleans today, and I’m really hoping for a new PR. My last PR was 95-lbs back in September, so I’d like to see at least 105-lbs today!

Any exciting plans this weekend?

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I can’t believe the Holidays have come and gone! Everything went so fast this year that I feel like we barely had time to get excited or really enjoy it. Seemingly overnight, our house was filled and vacated by both of our families, and now it is quiet again, almost too quiet.

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I was able to do a little baking. These vegan pumpkin cookies (recipe coming soon!) were a hit with family, friends and coworkers, and were so easy to throw together at literally the 11th hour before family started arriving at our house. I think I baked something like 12 dozen cookies in 3 hours?

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We tried a new (to us) breakfast of muffin-sized quiches held together with wonton wrappers. They were so easy! Just spray a little non-stick oil spray into the cups; line with wonton wrappers (I used two for each); beat eggs together with salt, pepper and add whatever else you want in your quiche; pour; and bake at 350 for around 20 minutes. They were a hit!

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Once Neil’s family arrived, things became a blur and taking photos took a major back seat. I’m sad I don’t have many to document our first Christmas in the house, but oh well I guess.

On Christmas Day, my family arrived with tons of Mexican food (the super authentic, legit stuff). They have a kitchen built for entertaining, but were okay with indulging our smaller kitchen so we could have Christmas at our house.

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Things were crazy in the kitchen as we prepped and tried to get everything set up. Like the apron I gave her to wear? It’s from our POM Party last year. So wrong!

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My mother tackled frying the tortillas while I blackened some shrimp for my brother and his girlfriend (pescatarians). I might have eaten a few too…

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After dinner, we sat around our living room and opened presents and watched movies. Austin managed to put together an entire puzzle.

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Felix even ventured out of the bedroom to check out the action (and taunt the dogs—his favorite pastime).

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Felix had an interesting first Christmas with us. Because we were in Minnesota last year, we went a little overboard on the treats and toys for his presents. We left them out on the counter, thinking they were “up” and safe. Well not from Felix. He jumped onto the counter, put his head in the bag (through the handle), got stuck and freaked himself out. He jumped off the counter, dragging the bag with him, which was then found by Clive and ripped apart and eaten. Felix ran off with the bag still attached to his head.

Someone got into Clives Christmas gift...

Felix caught in the act, with a piece of the bag around his neck.

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Clive was left with just a smidgen of his present that Neil was able to grab away, including this rawhide stick. Rawhides are special treats because Clive makes a huge mess of them and likes to bury them in places like the couch or a basket of clean laundry.

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…aaaand he doesn’t fail to disappoint yet again!

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Overall it was a great Christmas. We gave and received nice things and at some point I’ll get around to showing you a few of them because they got pretty creative! I just wish we could have slowed the weekend down, because it came and went so unbelievably fast. This is literally about 90% of the photos Neil and I managed to take, a pretty sad selection. Is it just us, or did it go Way. Too. Fast?

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Oh Missing Christmas Tree, Oh NEW Christmas Tree

December 15, 2011
Thumbnail image for Oh Missing Christmas Tree, Oh NEW Christmas Tree

Yes, all new! We finally dragged our Christmas decorations out from the closets this weekend. After we moved, they ended up scattered all over the house. Somewhere in the process, our beloved little tree got displaced. We don’t quite know when or where it got lost, but we looked everywhere! In a moment of pure [...]

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