A few final Christmas Pictures...and then I'll stop, I promise

I know, I know...It's over...Christmas has come and gone, but before I let it go completely, I need to share a few more pictures.

Here is the tree again with some presents. Last time it was looking a little sad.

Duke was ready to get to those bones that were just out of his reach for the past week.

Ryan surprised me with a new mixer...I've been cursing my hand-held mixer for far too long...oh the fun that awaits me! ;)

Here we are Christmas morning...sometime between opening presents and heading out the door to join the family for breakfast at Kim's house.

Christmas night...self portrait.

Reece with his new wink ;).

Clara...aka...Little Miss Christmas '09. We should've made her a sash and put a tiara in that pretty head of hair!

Family of four...see link to their site to the right.

Now...prepare yourself...you are about to see the MOST photogenic couple EVER..

Blink #1:

Blink #2

Third time is a charm!

Well if you don't count the 3 or 4 attempts before these 3 when my stupid camera quit flashing and made the pictures super dark so you couldn't even see us...but that wasn't our fault...right? anyone? hello?

Oh well we're not tryin' to be supermodels anyway...just needed a photo to add to our yearly Christmas pictures.

I hope everyone enjoys the rest of their Christmas weekend!

Love,

Happy Puppies

The dogs had a great Christmas. They're probably wondering what they did to deserve all the toys they can imagine. They had two stockings full of stuffed toys, squeakers, and balls, so we let them have the contents of one on Christmas Eve.

Duke slept with his Christmas tree-shaped stuffed toy...do you think sugar-plums were dancing in his head?

They each got a huge bone and huge rope toy from Ryan's parents. That was enough to keep them quiet for a couple hours ;).

They sure needed a break from all the stresses of being house pets...you know, lounging on the couch, drinking from toilets, and digging holes in the back yard gets pretty tiring.

To top it all off we ended the day with a trip to the farm...their favorite place because of all the room to run, PLUS they get to see Papa and Buddy. All you have to do is say "farm," "Buddy," and/or "Papa" and they high-tail it to the door, and then spin in circles barking until the door magically opens...I think Aspen really thinks spinning in circles actually opens the door, just like Duke really thinks scratching the bottom corner of the door is the trick to opening it...Anyway they are already sleeping like logs.

I'm Dreaming of a...wait...we kinda had a white Christmas!

We woke up to a little snow this morning...not enough to stick around for long, but just enough to make Christmas a little bit white...at least for half of the day...

A Tradition is Born

We decided to have breakfast for dinner tonight. It seemed like the perfect comfort food on a cold, rainy (hopefully soon-to-be-snowy) Christmas Eve.

Here is what will soon be blueberry waffles..


Hashbrowns...before they turned brown...more just the hash, I guess.

Thick-sliced peppered bacon...it makes my mouth water a bit just thinking about it again.

Cook 1

Cook 2 with a third lower limb...funny how it always shows up while I'm cooking, just waiting for crumbs to drop!

And just because it was Christmas Eve and because I was feeling the Christmas spirit of sharing...we mixed up a special dinner for the fur balls. Eggs + Bacon + Cheese + Dog Food =...

the happiest two puppies in the world!

Meanwhile...back to people food...Here is the end result of the blueberry waffle dough from above.

And a full breakfast spread for Christmas Eve dinner!

We've decided to do it every year!

Full and oh-so-content,

Cookies for Santa!

Ok, so we don't have any kiddos in the house begging to bake cookies for Santa, but what is Christmas Eve without some cookie baking for the big man? So here, in rapid-fire succession are the steps for the yummy White Chocolate-Kissed Gingerbread cookies...a great recipe from McCormick.

Make dough...refrigerate dough for 4 hours...roll dough into balls...roll balls in sugar...bake!



Then, press a white chocolate candy into the cookie while it's still hot!

MmmMmmm....Santa will be happy tonight! Or at least maybe the family will enjoy them tomorrow after Christmas dinner...

Hugs,

Christmas is almost here!

Christmas is upon us...I beat the crowds by heading into town at about 8:00 this morning to finish my Christmas shopping. I was done by 9:30. By 10:30, I was back at home after a 3-mile post-shopping jog. The presents are now wrapped and under the tree....speaking of the tree...I had a request to post a picture of our tree.

We bought our tree at Walmart...yes it is real...and it is absolutely as full and pretty as it can be!

We are so excited to be able to give some gifts this year. As you may recall, last year
we were unable to participate in the usual shopping and gift-giving festivities of Christmas which gave me time to sit back and watch the craziness that is Christmas shopping. This year we were able to participate (while avoiding most of the craziness) and really enjoyed picking out gifts that will hopefully bring out a few smiles on Christmas day.

Geocaching

I'm finally going back to finish posting some of the events of the past few weeks. When Ryan's family was is town, his sister, Sarah Beth, wanted to find a Geocache site that was just down the road from our house. What is Geocaching? I had never heard of it either, but it is a world-wide GPS-guided treasure hunt. The website gives you the GPS coordinates for the "treasures" in the zip code you search and you follow the GPS directions and have the help of one clue. The geocache is in a 60-foot radius of the GPS coordinates.

The clue for this one was something about getting "to the root." So once we ended up in the woods with the GPS, the search was on, following only the clue. This tree looked like a perfect hiding place...


And there is was! Right under the root. Everyone signed the paper in the box...that box had been there for 7 years! Who knew?!? And there were pages and pages of signatures from all over the U.S.

Schooner was there too...

Very fun...if you have a GPS, you should try it...you may get hooked!

Mountain Home Marathon

Last weekend, Ryan's family came for a visit. One of the first events of the weekend was the Mountain Home Marathon. This year was the 6th Annual race that benefits a village in Kenya. The race has raised funds over the past 6 years to build fresh water wells a world away. Ryan, his dad, and I jogged/walked the 5K. Bobby finished the 1st out of the 3 of us and Ryan and I crossed the finish-line together. It was a great morning for a great cause.

Duke's New 'Do

Well, it's not really a new hairdo, but the last time Duke got his hair cut, we took the opportunity to take a few pictures while dinner was on the stove. Notice...Duke is somehow perfectly posed in all of the pictures, while Aspen is a little less cooperative...

They put a new scarf on Duke after every haircut...for some reason this one had Tinkerbell on it...We tried not to laugh, but he was a bit embarrassed.