1.7.11

I started my Master's degree in September.  I have 15 and a half more months to go.  I just keep reminding myself...convincing myself, that time goes by really fast.

1.6.11

Our refrigerator gets just a little crowded around the holidays.

1.5.11

I got this little stick reindeer on clearance at Pottery Barn.  My only after Christmas clearance item of the year...if you don't count the fact that I went to Target the day after Christmas as soon as they opened to get wrapping paper.  Yes.  Truth.

1.4.11

This house is on my way home from work and I must give them props for their impressive light display!  I'm not sure if this picture even captures how much was going on at this house.  There were even more lighted deer on the left side of the house, and the entire backyard was lit up also.  And! When I pulled over to take this picture, I rolled down my window and realized it also played music!  Great job to whoever these people are.

Great job.

1.3.11

These are the cookies I made for the Fabulous New Year's Eve Baby Shower.  They are actually my favorite Christmas cookie recipe, but I just glammed them up with some silver sprinkles for the occasion.  I will admit to eating these for breakfast pretty much the entire month of December.  I know I am not the only one that thinks that Christmas cookies are an acceptable breakfast food....right???

Here is the recipe:

1 C butter
1/2 C powdered sugar
1 t vanilla
1 C corn starch
1 C flour
Baker's Chocolate

Mix butter and powdered sugar well.  Add vanilla and mix until blended.  Add cornstarch and flour, mixing well.  Chill dough for 2 hours

Shape chilled dough into balls.  Back at 375 degrees for 15-20 mins.

Heat Baker's Chocolate.  Dip cookie into chocolate and decorate.

1.2.11

(Woops, I misdated my posts and skipped this one)  Here is the up close version of the baby pool that was mentioned in my NYE post.  Like I said, definitely not a new idea, but a good one for a co-ed shower.  I split the days in 2 (am and pm) and sold each square for $2...and actually reduced the rate to $1 later in the night in an attempt to sell all the squares.  I was the keeper of the squares also, so there was no funny business or cheating and everyone had to see me to make a purchase.  We ended up with a $75 pot at the end.  Not bad!

1.1.11

Happy New Year!  This year I....

- would like to set aside time to unplug.  disconnect.  shut off the laptop.  I'm thinking 10pm every night sounds reasonable.
- will turn 30.  oy.
- am going to see Kenny Chesney at Lambeau. hey-o!
- would like to make myself eat ALL of the Chex Mix.  Not just the chex and breadsticks.  It's such a waste...but the pretzels just aren't that good.
- would like to watch the Man Men DVDs we've had for the past 6 months.
- am going to wear more dresses.  I'm a total pants person.
- want to get a pair of those lululemon yoga pants everyone (oprah) raves about.
- want to do more yoga
- need to be better about drinking a lot of water
- am going to keep up with this blog better than I did in 2010.

12.31.10

It's the end of the year, so might as well do a photo dump post instead of just one picture.  This one deserves lots of images anyway.  So here goes...

Lindsey, Nancy and I hosted what we dubbed a "Fabulous New Year's Eve Baby Shower" for Tim and El.  (Here we are!)



And I must say, it was quite fab. Let me take you around for a tour of some of the highlights of what we had to offer. Most fab I think was the crostini bar. We got this idea from the gals over at Haute Apple Pie. What a fantastic idea it is - you can spend a lot or a little, takes very little preparation, and looks really impressive. I think the tags in front of each item adds to the fabulosity

and check out this tiny little play on grilled cheese and tomato soup!  They were as delicious as they are adorable too...courtesy of the always reliable, Ina Garten and Ree Drummond.  Here is the recipe for the roasted tomato soup (which I have always had available in the freezer since I made it first a couple months ago.  so good.), and here is the cheese puff recipe...but we (Nancy) sort of made them cheese toasts instead of puffs.



And then to not let the baby shower theme get lost among the new year's revelry, I froze some plastic babies in ice, which everyone had fun with once they thawed out.





We also had a baby pool.  Not a completely new idea, but I think it was a good one for a co-ed shower.  We split the days in 2 (am and pm) and sold each spot for $2.  And now we all just wait to collect our winnings!



Here are the guests of honor with some headwear we bought for them at the party store.  There was a plethora of tiny hats available at the party store. It was odd.



And I think this picture pretty much sums up the good times that were had this new year's eve!  On our end, this is the first year in many many years that we actually did something.  We have spent at least the last 3 years with each other, going to dinner and catching a movie.  We always had a great time doing that, but I think this was the most fun new year's eve I have had in a long time...possibly ever.

(as a side, this is the second year in a row that there has been a "fabulous" party thrown by members of our group. Last year, Nancy had a "Fabulous Holiday Party". We are hoping to make this a tradition and have different fabulous parties every year.)

12.25.10

On Christmas, we do a $5 gift/white elephant exchange. My cousin pictured in this photo, brought that beautiful cactus as her gift. My other cousin's husband received it, but before they went home, he sneakily left it in their bathroom. Tee hee hee.

12.19.10

Sunday we spent a few last hours at the waterpark in our building before going our separate ways. We're hoping to make this a tradition - we had such a good time!

12.18.10

Our Saturday at the Wilderness started off with a morning at the waterpark. The Wilderness has 3 separate waterparks and we successfully made it to all of them. We went along the lazy river a bunch of times and hung out by the wave pool most of the time. Jon and I also went down The Hurricane, which actually made me scream really loud.

Later in the day, we went on a carriage ride and to the Tanger outlets for a bit. We finished off the night with a homecooked meal (by Jon and I) and playing Scene It. A full and fun day with the fam.

12.17.10

My family opted to forgo lots of presents for Christmas this year and instead spent a weekend together at the Wilderness Resort in the Dells. It was so nice celebrating Christmas together without having to run all over the state to make it to all of our families' Christmas parties. We all got to the resort at around 6pm on Friday night. We had pizza, exchanged presents and pretty much relaxed for most of the night.

11.26.10

We have another year of Black Friday shopping under our belts! Here we are in line at Menards waiting to buy a Cricut at about 5:45 am. We ended up getting a lot of good stuff there - besides getting 2 Cricuts, we got a ShopVac, some pillows and other doodads. This was right after Todd got injured, by the way. He walked into a cement pole that was about 2 feet high while we were waiting in line around the building in the pitch dark and hit his shin pretty hard. Darn shopping injuries.

11.24.10

I had the night off from class, so I tagged along with Jon to watch his soccer game. I used to play on this team until I got injured earlier this year, leaving my soccer days in the past probably for good. waaaaaaa!

They won this game by a lot...they tend to win every week by a lot. They should probably be in a more competitive league. I think it has a lot to do with Jon's intimidating goalie skills. ;)

11.14.10

Here is the big 1 year old! Here he is at only 1 week old.

Gina and Todd had a frog themed party, complete with a bouncy set up in their garage. Besides the man (boy? baby?) of honor, the other focus of the party was the amazing cake! Gina's friend, who is not a pastry chef, made this awesomeness:

11.13.10

We headed up to Green Bay in the beginning of Nov. for Fisher's 1st birthday party! We got up there Saturday night and got some pizza and made cookies for the party. Cooper put on my boots and attemped to walk around in them also - but mostly just fell every 3 steps.

11.7.10

A little Sunday morning project. He is a robot!

11.6.10

Gina, the boys and my mom and dad came to visit last month. We decided to go to Chuck.E. Cheese for dinner at around 5pm, which was probably a mistake. It was so crowded! It was also a very interesting observation in parenting. Gina pawned her children off on my parents and parked herself at the skee ball for about 15 minutes. Cooper has a nerf dart gun to show for her efforts!

Gina and I had to school my mom on the art of tearing off tickets at Chuck.E.Cheese though. She was just tearing off the amount that had come out of the machine after the game was over...psh! Everyone knows you grip the ticket closest to the machine and pull to get more tickets!

10.31.10

Confession: for the past 5ish years, Halloween was not my favorite holiday. Actually, it was probably my least favorite holiday. I used to work at a place that planned for Halloween celebrations and activities for children for about two months, culminated by a 4 day event. We were also required to work all 4 long days, while dressed in costume. Needless to say, I was pretty much "over" halloween by the time October 25th rolled around.

Finally this year, I turned a corner and decided to embrace the holiday. I even crafted our gnome costumes from top to bottom! Here are a few of my other faves from the party:

and the winner of the costume contest, Ghandi.

10.16.10

Back on Oct. 16th, Wisconsin beat the then, No. 1 Ohio State!!! It was amazing! Jon and his pals were downtown all day long, but I opted to meet up with them right before game time at around 6pm. It was an epic day and night for Badger fans!

Fun fact: I saw a drunken Ohio State fan with blood all over his face from falling (saw that happen too) get arrested as I was waiting in line to get into the Big Ten Pub. Probably put a damper on his trip to Madison for the big game, hey?