Holiday Vacation 2011 Recap-Part One-Christmas and Christmas-ish activities

Wow, so I think this is the longest blog vacation I've ever taken.  It just sort of happened.  Around mid December I was struck with an intense cold that lasted until past Christmas.  Then I was off work for a week and a half so I just decided to let the blog rest for awhile.  But I'm back.  My vacation was officially over at 6AM today when I woke up for work.  But my vacation was awesome so I'd like to hand out some awards to my friends and family for making it so good.

Today we will discuss Fristmas, Christmas and the 1st Annual (yeah I'm going there-it should definitely be yearly) Post-Christmas Extravaganza....

Later I will recap New Years and my husband's birthday.

Best Baking-I'm going to go ahead and call this a tie between B and I.  I was too ill to prepare the Gingerbread dough the night before we made the cookies so B followed my recipe and I coached him through it.  There was a slight mix up between baking soda and baking powder but we worked through it.  Then I used my new cake ball maker to whip up these brownie peppermint cake balls.  They might have been slightly hard but look how cute they are.

Best Holiday Decor in my House-Another tie between B and I.  B for single-handedly bringing in the tree by himself and setting it up on the tree stand.  Me, for acquiring Christmas decor over the years and sitting it around the house.

Best attempt to open/eat his own Christmas presents-Hobie!  Christmas is really about the kids, right.  Hobie really enjoyed opening his presents on Fristmas*.  He wasn't bad at gift giving either.  He managed to get B and I some much needed new salt and pepper shakers.

Most Photogenic-My brother and sister.  My brother gets it for actually agreeing to be in a photo and look at the camera and L-Fab is always great in photos!

 Best Couple-Obviously B and sleeping Hobie win best couple.  Always.

Best Inter-family Mingling-This goes to B's family below and my family (in the next pic).  It was the first time we had members of both our families hang out together on Christmas.  Plus B's family forced me to watch A Christmas Story which is good since I've never actually seen that movie all the way through (Crazy, I know).

Best Feast-My mom wins the Best Feast award for preparing billions of dishes for Christmas eve dinner as well as multiple meats.  She even made a few vegan dishes for my mother-in-law.  My Aunt gets runner up for the December 23rd holiday meal she made us.  Delightful.

Best Post Christmas Gathering goes to me and all my homies who met up on December 27th for some good times.  Special Shout out to the Young's for their guest appearance all the way from Vegas.

I was so excited to fit everyone in our freshly
painted basement!

Special shoutout to me for deciding not to cook a bunch of food and instead just get 3 Stouffers Lasagnas and some wine and beer.

Special shoutout award to Curly J aka the Brayer for suggesting we play Dirty Santa (aka White Elephant) and for bringing this awesome Sweet Talking Ken Doll as one of the prizes.  It was hysterical and fun playing with my closest friends.  (Curly T, you better be able to describe the whole second season of Parks and Rec to me next time I see you).

No special shoutout to Shanzles for bringing this wreath made of plastic bags (although it did come with a Starbucks gift card so not the worst gift ever.)

Best Holiday Craft-Shanzles.  Shannon previously failed at beach craft hour but came back strong with these cute book themed Christmas ornament.  You are officially redeemed!

Overall, it was an amazing break but I'm so happy to be back at work today.  FALSE.  I am not happy to be back at work today (but I am grateful that my University totally shuts down between Christmas and New Year's so I don't have to work).

I will return later this week with part deux of my holiday recap.  You can't wait!

*Fristmas is the made up holiday B and I share where we open up our Christmas presents to each other a few days before real Christmas and then eat some sort of delightful breakfast or dinner together.

Hobie and JM's Crafternoon

I had many crafting projects to catch up on yesterday.  There were wine charm orders, 5K t-shirts, and bridesmaid jewelry to be made.  So I asked Hobie to lend me a paw (I am hilarious).

He was worried about accidentally dyeing his fur (like I dyed my hands) so he didn't really help with the t-shirts but he did come sit outside with me for awhile so I could try to get a little tan while beading some wine charms.  I don't want to be the palest bridesmaid in Curly J's wedding.

After going to the beach for a few days followed by binge eating 2 kinds of ham at my Aunt's house, I spent the rest of my Easter break on crafts and reading.  After much thought, I decided to go ahead and finish out the Hunger Games Trilogy this weekend.  I'm almost done with the third book.  I'm still planning on getting the Tina Fey book soon though.  I have also convinced B to read them, which is kind of hard because they are all downloaded on my iPad and I'm not that good at sharing.  He has to steal it from me when I'm napping and read what he can as fast as possible (but he's a speed reader so that works out for him).

What did you guys do for Easter?

Valentine's Week-A Very Special Valentine's Day for Hobie...

Guess who got the most expensive Valentine's Day present in my family?
I will give you a hint.  His favorite past time is chasing squirrels in the back yard.

No, not B.
It's Hobie.

For Valentine's Day, Hobie got his teeth cleaned.  The vet office pretty much guilt tripped us in to doing this for Hobie by saying things like "well I mean he won't die, but it will just be harder for him to eat when he doesn't have any teeth left cause they all rot out".  You know stuff like that.  They have been suggesting it for like a year so we finally bit the bullet and signed him up.  It just happened to be scheduled for Valentine's Day.

He was totally out of it when he came home.  He ran into the living room where he normally engages in an intense game of rope bone but when we got in the room he was just lying passed out on the carpet.  Sweet little buddy bear.  Anywho, his teeth look great (well at least in the before and after pics they printed out for us).

In other Hobie news, my favorite Valentine's Day moment involved Hobie.  We gave Hobie a new bone on Saturday when we were celebrating Valentine's Day.  He quickly become obsessed with it.  It stayed in his mouth for about 2 hours straight. 

Then he finally decided to take it outside.  I'm pretty sure he was trying to hide it from us because he thought we'd steal it.  He kept glancing back at the house while he was burying it under a bush.  When he came back inside, he looked like this...

"Why are you guys staring at me like that?  Do I have something on my face?" 

OK, so that's it for Valentine's week. 

Should I turn this in to a pet mommy blog since my Hobie stories are always so fascinating?
Have you ever had your dog's teeth cleaned?
Is it important or were we conned?
Did you get your pet a Valentine?

Craft Room Renovations Part 2 aka Why I Baked B 2.5 Birthday Cakes...

I might have jumped the gun a bit the other day on my craft room renovations post by starting with the curtains.  I actually started with the floor.  Or should I say, Hobie and B started with the floor.

Our house has wood floors under the carpeted area.  When we moved in, we (well some people who knew what they were doing) took out the carpet and refinished the floors in our bedroom.  This time I decided we could totally do it on our own.  And by we, I meant Hobie and B.  I supervised.

I did remove all the stuff from the room (well except the bed, I'm weak).  So we had this......

Then B and Hobie got to work on pulling up the carpet.  At one point I was going to help B carry all the old carpet downstairs to throw away.  When he realized just how little arm strength I have, he decided that dropping the old carpet out the window would be easier.

So then we had a carpet less room with some beat up old hard woods underneath.  B did a bunch of stuff that involved pulling out staples, sanding, using this big machine and painting it with something.  I went and bought him lunch.  Hobie did very little to help at this point.

So that was over Thanksgiving.  The floor was looking pretty good.  One day when we are super rich we may get the whole thing redone to match the newer hardwoods in the hall and den but for now these DIY refinished hardwoods are pretty good.

By Christmas break I had moved all the furniture back in and then found my curtain fabric and decided that I hated the light green walls.  So I headed to my favorite place (psike) Lowe's and bought some paint samples.  I brought them back and painted them on the wall and hated them all.  So I went back to Lowe's and bought some more.  I finally found one I liked (it's the far right one by the way).

Then we bought the rest of the paint supplies and painted.  If I had known that I was going to paint the walls I would not have moved all the furniture back in.  Oh well.  I actually helped with the painting.  Hobie just watched (can you say lazzzzy?).  Painting the trim was not my favorite thing ever.  But I did it and there's only a few highly noticeable things for me to touch up.

So that was our Christmas break.  At one point I was all "yeah, B I'm going to paint this room by myself over Christmas break."  Then a day later I realized I didn't actually even know what supplies I needed to paint a room by myself.  So B helped me (a lot) and that's the story of why I baked him 2.5 cakes for his birthday. 

Have you ever painted a room on your own or pulled up carpet to find some decent hardwoods?

Who wants to come help me paint the basement?

Snow Day.....

Sometimes working for a University sucks.....budget cuts, no raises, hiring freezes, robberies (yeah we have had like 2 in the past couple years).  Sometimes it's awesome, like today when we get a SNOW DAY (you can't expect all those college kids to make it to class in the snow/ice).  While my other friends are trying to figure out how to get to work, I'm just chillaxing at home with Hobie and B (whose work trip to Atlanta has been postponed due to the cancellation of all his co-workers' flights). 

Plus I get to wear my favorite snow outfit (which I wore 75% of Christmas Break)...old jeans, Uggs, a Hoodie, and a handmade scarf.

So now I'm going to go ahead and get the slow cooker back out and make some Eazy Peazy BBQ chicken.  If you are snowed in, I recommend that you do the same.

What's your favorite thing to do on a snow day?
What's your favorite cold weather meal to make?

I Really Want Some Leftovers...by Hobie

I really want those turkey sandwich crumbs in the middle of the coffee table.

I will just go over this foot that's blocking it....

 Hmm didn't work, maybe under the foot.....

 Other side?....

 Nope, maybe from this side....

I don't think my parents will notice if I just jump on the table....

Hope everyone had a nice Thanksgiving....I did!

Hobie Birthday To You!

Ok, so we don't know Hobie's real birthday because we adopted him.  He came from the hard cold streets of Tennessee.  We adopted him when he was estimated to be somewhere between 2 and 3 years old.  We do know the date that he came to live with us last September.  So we are considering that his new "birthday". 

Because we adopted him from a dog foster program we had to answer a bunch of surveys and questions to make sure we'd give him a good home.  One of the questions was...
What kind of personality traits are you looking for in a dog?
I responded...
"We are not looking for a super hyper dog. We want one that we can play with and walk but that is also ok laying around watching tv with us."
(I think most of that answer stems from my laziness and love of TV)

That is pretty much exactly what we got as you can see from Hobie's time with us.


Watching his favorite Soap, The Bold and the Beautiful



The day he got his first rope bone



Maybe it's time for a new rope bone



Family Portrait

 

BFFs



Foot belly rub per his request



 

So anyway we will be celebrating Hobie's "birthday" this week.  Maybe with some Dog Fro-Yo from Feeney's (yeah they actually have that).  And sorry if you hate dogs or hearing about people's dogs or looking a bunch of pictures of dogs.  I used to think it was weird too before I had my own dog.

How to Keep Cool at the Beach....by special guest blogger, Hobie

Option 1-Lay on the AC vent...

Option 2-Get in your Water Bowl...