Christmas decorations! (plus the Thanksgiving table)

Here's what the dining room table looked like for Thanksgiving dinner: My friend Katie came over today and helped me decorate the house for Christmas, and it was awesome! She's so good at this kind of thing - check out what she did to the table!

Isn't this centerpiece she came up with just awesome?

I love my chargers. I have red and green ones, so where there is a green charger, we used a red votive, and vice versa.

Mistletoe! And check out that bannister...

We did an ornament decoration thing in the bowl in the window next to the front door. It turned out cool!

The bannister really turned out great - we did garland, lights, snowflakes, ornaments and bows. It sounds like a lot, but it looks good.

This is a closeup of the bannister trimmings.

The tree! I did most of the tree myself - Travis hung a few ornaments on it with me last night, and I did the rest this morning. The lights are multicolored, but they do all sorts of cool things, and in this pic, only the yellow lights are on. Rest assured, there are more colors, and more lights than this picture shows!

I had to move the clock table to the other side of the living room so that I could put the tree up. I decided to put my Advent wreath on that table.

My Notre Dame snowman snow globe makes it annual appearance, and this year, it made some other snowman friends!

We also did lights and garland on the outside door - the house looks really nice from the street, because we have the door decorated, then you can see the Christmas tree in the front window, and the bannister in the background.

Thanks so much to Katie for helping me - it was really fun, and I am really happy with how the house turned out. Now I just need to go vacuum up the little green needles, and get a big wreath, and we should be all set!

-SKH

Um...does Facebook know something I don't?

Check out this ad I got on Facebook...what the heck? Is it trying to tell me that my biological clock is ticking or something?

-SKH

New cooking goal - monthly menus!

I won't bother making excuses for my hiatus from blogging. I just didn't do it. Suffice to say, I am alive and we are doing just fine.

I've decided that I'm going to combat the "What should I make for dinner?" battle I have every day. I hate stopping at the grocery store on the way home, with no idea of what to get. I've decided that my goal for November is to create a monthly dinner calendar, so I always know what I am making for dinner!

I sat down and made the menu this weekend. I tried out the larger QFC in Covington (about 10 miles from our house), and they were having a big meat sale, so I picked up most of the meat for the month already! My freezer is pretty full right now, but with this dinner menu, I should remember either the night before or in the morning that I need to defrost something. Wahoo!

Travis has reviewed the menu, and is also excited to try out this monthly dinner menu planning - when he was reading it last night, he said it made him hungry, which I thought was a good sign.

Here's the daily menu (we'll be flexible if we decide we want to go out to dinner, or if we have lots of leftovers we need to eat):

Week One:

• Sunday - T-bone steaks and roasted onion-coated potatoes
• Monday - Mango-jalapeno sausage jambalaya
• Tuesday - Leftovers
• Wednesday - Chili and cornbread
• Thursday - French bread pizza
• Friday - Kebabs
• Saturday - Chicken wild rice soup (my book club is here too, so I will make a lot)

Week Two:

• Sunday - Lasagna
• Monday - Chicken stir fry
• Tuesday - Travis closes
• Wednesday - Flank steak (I'll be getting a Bobby Flay recipe for this night)
• Thursday - Pork chops sauteed in cream of mushroom soup
• Friday - Ham steaks with pasta
• Saturday - Smoky beef tacos

Week Three:

• Sunday - Tuna casserole or spaghetti
• Monday - Pork tenderloin (Luna suggested this works as a weeknight meal, I am trusting her!)
• Tuesday - Travis closes
• Wednesday - Enchiladas
• Thursday - Stovetop lasagna
• Friday/Saturday - Samantha in NJ visiting Stacy/Cory/Charlie so Travis will be eating leftovers!

Week Four:

• Sunday/Monday - Samantha is still in NJ
• Tuesday - Travis closes
• Wednesday - Cheeseburgers and french fries
• Thursday - Thanksgiving! Turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes and gravy
• Friday - Leftovers or grilled cheese and ravioli
• Saturday - Carnitas

Week Five:

• Sunday - Turkey noodle soup
• Monday - Pork chops and pasta

So that is the plan for November! I hope it goes really well - keep your fingers crossed :)

-SKH

Happy 4th of July!

I've been a terrible blogger of late, but I haven't had much of a chance to take a breath lately.

I was lucky enough to have today (Friday) off of work for the celebration of our great nation's birth, so was looking forward to relaxing. And that's what we are doing! Travis decided to take the day off as well, so we are both just chilling on a beautiful Friday. Maybe we'll take the boat on Lake Washington. Maybe we'll just do nothing. Who knows???

Anyways, rest assured, I am alive. Busy, but alive. Amanda and Blair were here (awesome time), I had some really crazy weeks at work (productive), Clint visited (fun) and I was just in California for work (successful trip). That pretty much recaps the last month or so.

Looking forward to being in MN for some big events in two weeks - we're throwing Lisa and Beth a wedding shower, I have my 10 year high school reunion, my cousin will be in town, all sorts of fun times will be had! Oh, and I am working from MN for a week as well.

That's all I have for now...

-SKH

Got cookies?

I do!

I decided today that I wanted to bake some cookies after work. When I got home, I turned on the oven and popped in the Twilight DVD so that I could fully engage in self-indulgence...baking on a weeknight and watching a cheesy romantic vampire movie.

It was wonderful.

I made two different kinds of cookies: chocolate chip-walnut (these always seem to get snatched up at parties, and they are one of Dad's favorites) and oatmeal-raisin (Travis loves these) Did you know that a batch of chocolate chip-walnut dough makes six dozen cookies? That's SEVENTY TWO cookies, people. I made the oatmeal-raisin dough while I was transferring the chocolate chip-walnut batches in and out of the oven, then refrigerated it for a while. The oatmeal-raisin dough made five dozen cookies...for you math majors out there, this means that I have a total of 132 cookies at my house. Well, 130. I ate one of each. :)

Hope Travis likes them!

-SKH