Merry Christmas!

Just wanted to say Merry Christmas and show the picture from our Christmas card this year!

Hope everyone has a wonderful holiday full of food, family, and friends!

Weekend Stuff

Over the weekend, I managed to get snag TWO of the $10 Target gift cards I previously posted about. I guess it helps that Target is less than five minutes away. And I use the term "helps" loosely.

Yesterday, I spent the day baking with my friend, Amanda. Please excuse the poor cell phone pics, and take a look at what we made:

1. Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Bread

We actually made two loaves of this. Amanda took half of this loaf home with her. I have no idea why she didn't want the whole loaf, because it is amazing!

2. Peppermint Bark (while really just following this recipe for Halloween Candy Bark)

This one is delicious, but would probably have been prettier done on white chocolate instead. And if you follow the link above for the peppermint bark, you'll see a variation using green mint chips. We looked for those when shopping for our ingredients because I loved how festive the green was, but sadly, we couldn't find any.

3. Cookie Dough Bites

Not a very pretty picture there, but I had to text pictures of everything we made to my mom. These are simply balls of cookie dough, but they are made without eggs, so they are safe for eating. And they are yummy!

4. Chocolate Chip Turtle Cookies

We have no pics of these because they turned out terribly! And we have no idea why! Into the trash they went.

5. Chocolate Dipped Marshmallows - seen here


These were soooo easy to do (and also delicious), and they were a perfect way to use up the rest of the marshmallows I had after making these melted snowman cookies last weekend:


The hubs helped decorate these little guys and gals. They were so much fun to make, and reeeeeally yummy, but I don't think they turned out half as cute as the ones I found online!

Most of the recipes we used (and more!) can be found through my Pinterest board here. Oh how I love that website! And I suppose my coworkers will be enjoying some goodies this week.

After we finished baking, Amanda went with me to Target to buy stocking stuffers for Jake. That's how I was able to get my 2nd gift card.

That's about it for me. Today was the usual... laundry, groceries, etc.

What did you do this weekend? Any baking? Any Target shopping?

Who Says Engineers Aren't Creative?

So, I'm a CPA who currently works in a finance position, but most of the people I work with are engineers. Civil engineers to be specific. And this week at work, three of them decorated the end of our "hall" with this Christmas tree made from a string of blue Christmas lights. Then, we all decorated it with whatever we could find at our cubicles. Being in a civil engineering organization means we found things like a foam dumptruck, a foam hardhat, an "Engineer Working" roadsign, and the orange cone at the top hiding behind the star.

It has actually acquired a few other "ornaments" since I took this photo yesterday, but I forgot to take an updated pic. And see the actual ornaments on it? The red and gold Christmas balls? Yeah, those are actually leftover from last year's office Christmas decor which have been hanging on each of our nameplates since then. Oh yeah, and the orange cone at the top has since been moved to the bottom to serve as the tree's stump.

This wasn't the only thing they adorned our cubicle walls with either. They spelled out their team name in those same blue Christmas lights in another section of wall, too.

Anyway, it looks pretty good if you ask me. It's definitely festive. Anyone else's office getting a holiday makeover?

Things We're Thankful For

So, this is obviously late, but at least it's still November.

One day last week, I emailed Jake and asked for 10 things he is thankful for. Here is the list I got back:

1. You
2. Your Love
3. M&M’s
4. Computers
5. PC games
6. Working out
7. Overall general healthiness
8. Toilet paper
9. Vehicles
10. Air

So, then of course, he asked me for mine as well. This is what I came up with:

1. My sweet hubby, Jake
2. My mother for always being my best friend
3. My dad for teaching me valuable lessons and for fixing my car
4. My brother, Max
5. Blogs
6. Friends
7. KITTIES!
8. DVR
9. Smart phones
10. My job & awesome boss

11. Taylor Swift!

We had a great Thanksgiving celebrating with my side of the family on Thanksgiving and Jake's parents on Saturday and eating the most delicious food. Hope everyone else had a great holiday, too! Now, on to Christmas!

*Sigh*

My favorite time of year is here! HOLIDAY SEASON! Too bad I am still stuck studying every free minute for that pesky CPA exam. Hoping to finish by the end of February. Anyway, I am feeling bummed in this moment because apparently, for the wedding they did right after ours, my wedding photographers started doing videos, too. For not only a wedding, but also for engagement sessions. And they are so cool. You can check them out here and here. HOW MUCH WOULD I HAVE LOVED ONE OF THEIR VIDEOS? A lot. That's how much. And I, too, love editing videos together like they are doing, so I could do the same thing myself. If I had the video footage. Of course, I can't film myself. So, I am sad about that.

The other reason being, of course, that I am busy studying. :( I cannot wait to be done with this stupid exam forever! I feel the need to create. Or decorate - but that is for another post. I want a cool, fancy camera so I can take really awesome photos, and I want to learn to use Photoshop, so I can edit them. And, I want to take movies and edit them into videos like Landon Jacob Productions is now doing.

And how Taylor Swift has been doing for a long time. :)

And, since I can't film myself, I'd need some willing subjects, too. I tend to think they are hard to come by. I feel like a lot of people hate being filmed or having their picture made. I love it, and I've always loved it. And I don't understand people that don't. At least Jake loves it, too. But, I can't just film him and take his picture all the time.

Anyway, back to the books.

Baby Will Player has arrived!

On Labor Day, since I was off from work, I made a trip up to Clover to see my friend, Jenny, and her new baby, Will! He was born on Friday, August 28th, shortly after 6 pm. He was 6 pounds, 8 ounces, and 20 3/4 inches long. And, HE IS ABSOLUTELY PRECIOUS.

Congratulations, Jenny! Will is beautiful, and I love you both so much!

Halloween is Fast Approaching!

Alright everyone...

what should I be for Halloween this year?? Last year, I was a Rubik's cube (that I made myself), and it was a big hit! I won Best Costume at one party, and Most Original Costume at another! So, I need to try to top that!
This is Dusty with me at the Hampton Forest neighborhood Halloween party last year.

I am taking costume suggestions for just me, or for both Jake and me to go as a couple. What are your ideas?!?!

A Capitol Fourth!

Well, our trip to Washington D.C. was a great success! We left Columbia just before 8 am on Thursday morning, and we were on our way.

We arrived at Lark's apartment in Arlington just before 5 pm, and after resting for a little while, went out for dinner at Ragtime, which was a delicious restaurant and bar just up the street from Lark's. I had clam bisque and crabcakes with onion rings. Soooo yummy! We left there and went for a walk around Arlington where we saw the Iwo Jima Memorial and Arlington cemetary.

Lark and I ran to hug this tree.

This is the view of D.C. from Arlington.

Goofy times with Lark!

Friday morning, we got up and headed into the city to check out the White House first. We then went by and saw the Washington monument before heading to the Smithsonian Museum of American History. This was one of my favorite stops because we got to see the original Star Spangled Banner that our national anthem was written about. I remembered seeing it as a kid, but back then, they had it displayed hanging, and now it is laid out flat. Unfortunately, you aren't allowed to take pictures of it... but I think it is one of the neatest things to see. It amazes me that they actually still have the original flag intact and on display for everyone to see. We left that museum and went to get some lunch on the National Mall - hotdogs of course! After our we satisfied our hunger, we checked out the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History. It was a pretty good time. At some point, Jake and I were able to buy a couple of $4 souvenir t-shirts.

I loved this building with all the flags hanging on its windows!

Here, Lark and Thomas Edison shared a special moment!

Nilly, this picture was taken with you in mind.

After that, we headed on down to the Capitol building, where they were busy setting up and rehearsing for Saturday's concert. We climbed all 75 of the Capitol steps and rested for a while. This was probably one of my favorite parts of the whole weekend.

After that, we headed over to the Sculpture Garden for some jazz and Sangria! Then, we headed back to Arlington, and we were exhausted, but we went up and sat on top of Lark's building where we enjoyed seeing some early fireworks from all different directions!

Here is the view from the top of Lark's building.

Saturday morning, we got up and headed back into D.C. for a reading of the Declaration of Independence in front of the National Archives and the parade. We ended up skipping out on the reading and grabbed ourselves a prime spot for the parade. Jake did go over and get some pics for us of the front of the National Archives, and more hotdogs were consumed while we waited for the parade to begin.

Jake wanted his picture made in front of the IRS building.

Waiting on the parade

The National Archives - reading of the Declaration of Independence

The parade came down Constitution Avenue.

Saturday afternoon, we ate lunch back in Arlington, where I tried some of Lark's falafel (yummy!), then Jake and I ventured out on our own on the metro back into D.C. to visit the International Spy Museum and then to the Mall for the fireworks that night. Cameras were not allowed in the Spy Museum, so no pictures from there, but here we are waiting on the fireworks.

None of my fireworks pics came out very good, so I won't post any on here, but it should be noted that they were AMAZING! Sooooo beautiful - exploding right behind the Washington Monument. Best in the nation. The metro was PACKED leaving the mall after the fireworks, but we managed to get back to Lark's with no trouble and in less than an hour. We took a total of 429 pictures and videos over the course of our 4 day weekend, so I have really just posted the highlights here. One video is of me trying to do a cartwheel on the National Mall. haha

Anyway, we had a FANTASTIC 4th of July holiday weekend in the D.C. area, and we want to give a HUGE thanks to Lark for letting us come stay with her! We do hope she'll let us come back again sometime, and Lark - come visit us in Columbia! Hope everyone's 4th was as great as ours!

Happy Birthday, America!