True Love

This, my friends, is the picture of true love.
I love the flowers and chocolate and romance that Valentine's Day brings (dinner by candlelight, make me swoon), but earlier this week Jacob showed me real love.

I squish the toothpaste from the middle. Always.
I came into the bathroom the other night to find my toothpaste like this, squeezed all to the top.

He truly does love me.

NYE

New Year's Eve day was wonderfully relaxing.
And best described in pictures.

I grilled the most perfect grilled cheese sandwich of 2011.

Made delicious cookie cutter pancakes.
Thank you again, Pinterest. All of my good ideas come from you.

A moose pancake, anyone?
(Make you look like a girl moose that makes the boy moose go "hwaaaaa!" Name the movie and we shall be eternal friends.)

Or how about a squirrel?
Cookie cutters via Ikea.
Don't tease. Our only metal cookie cutters are in the shape of woodland creatures.

(One note: spray the inside of your metal cookie cutters to avoid sticking. We lost a few animal legs figuring that out.)


For the Eve we partied at John and Caroline's.

The night began with rip-stick lessons in the house.

We ate copious amounts of ice cream and toppings.

Disney Scene It was the game of choice, with constantly changing house rules. (I kept forgetting which rules we made up and which ones were the real ones.)
The longer we played, the louder it got.
Can you not yell when playing this game? I submit you cannot.

Chris and Jilleena later joined us for a rousing game of Wits and Wagers, a game that involves numbers and betting which are two things I am beyond horrible at. It was, nonetheless, still a lot of fun.

We all hoped Jilleena would go into labor that night and have the first baby of the new year.
Sadly, still no baby to the day. (Come on, baby!!! We're ready to meet you!)

The newlyweds, as Neal would call us.
I'm starting to look a tad harried in this picture.
My attentiveness declines rapidly after 10 p.m.
Thankfully this photo is before my "eyes-glazed-over" phase.

The gracious hosts.

My only NYE-worthy attire was my sparkly shoes.
Which I have worn almost every day since I got them on Christmas.
(Hey, we still don't have snow so I am taking advantage of wearing my flats!)


I am again thankful for the legalization of the good fireworks.
NYE becomes that much more exciting.
Even better? A wedding reception at the nearby church ended at midnight and launched a killer firework show. What a great way to start off the year.


Happy 2012!
I'm nervous, excited, terrified, prepared, anxious, unprepared and ready as I'll ever be.
Come and get it.

Christmas is in the details

I feel a bit ripped off from this Christmas season.
It came in so quickly and left even more swiftly.
I barely had a chance to register that it was the holidays.
And for that I feel bummed.
The lack of holiday-ness is more my fault.
I didn't slow down and really take advantage of the beautiful season.

I blame the lack of snow. (I'm talking to you, Utah weather! Snow already!)

However, the Christmas spirit was still found in the details.

Right before Christmas we bought a 5 pound bag of clementines....
which resulted in a very, very happy Jacob.

Then his parents gave us another 3 pounds.
We have been eating clementines with every meal.

My favorite Christmas decor is the smokers at my parent's house.
Smokers are like nutcrackers, but you put a little incense in them and they smoke. (notice the smoke above his hat)
I think they are German (?) and my family has been collecting them for years.
The one above is my favorite.
I picked him out when my G-ma and I were in Germany in 2005.
I hope to inherit it one day. (hint, hint Padre.)
We were given a nutcracker to start our own Benson collection.

In the midst of holiday mayhem, I got my Martha Stewart on by making a pine cone elf.
Pinterest for the win!
(I found my pinecone at the church parking lot. And I took it. Am I going to hell?)

One of my favorite holiday tradition is our advent calendars from my grammy (the German one, melissa).
One chocolate a day is the best way to count down Christmas.
(Does it seem like all of my Christmas traditions are German? I feel like Christmas is just German.)

Glitter took over our house.
I experimented with some glitter, clothespins and mod podge to create some magnets for some gifts.

Swoon.
Glitter is an instant mood booster.


Now I want to glitter everything.....

51 & 52: The end

51: Ginger-soy Pork Tenderloin

From Our Best Bites Cookbook

1-1/2 pounds pork tenderloin
3 tablespoons soy sauce
2 tablespoons brown sugar
2 cloves of garlic, minced (love to use from a jar)
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger or 1/2 tablespoon fresh minced ginger
1 teaspoon fresh lemon juice

1. Whisk together all of the ingredients (except the pork).
2. Place the tenderloin in a Ziplock bag (at least gallon size) and pour soy sauce mixture over it. Marinate for 4-10 hours.
3. When you are ready to eat: preheat oven to 400 degrees. Take pork out of the bag and place on a tinfoil-lined baking dish. Spoon the rest of the marinade over the pork.
4. Place in oven and bake about 20-25 minutes. If you use a meat thermometer, roast until the middle is 160 degrees.

Rating: 4 for Jacob. 3 for me. Jacob loved it. I realized that I don't love pork, so it's not the recipe's fault. Aaaaand I didn't pull the pork out of the freezer early enough so it took a bit longer to cook.

52: Oh, snap! Gingersnap Cookies

From my sister's foods class at BYU

Makes: 2 1/2 dozen

3/4 cup oil
1 cup brown sugar
1 egg
1/4 cup molasses
2 1/4 cups flour
2 tsp. baking soad
1/4 tsp. salt
2 tsp. cinnamon
1 tsp. ground cloves
2 tsp. ginger

1. Cream oil and sugar; beat in egg, then add molasses.
2. Add dry ingredients to oil mixture and mix well.
3. Place on un-greased cookie sheet. Bake 350 degres for 8-10 minutes. (ok if it still looks a little raw)
4. Cool slightly before putting cookies on a cooling rack.

Rating: 4. Pretty tasty if you love gingersnaps. However, I would bake for just 8 minutes. My cookies are a tad too crunchy. But the cookies made my house smell delicious. I wish it could smell this good all of the time. Also, I'd probably add a bit less of the cloves. It was a little strong.

Christmas-time

We had a wonderful Christmas Eve.
While I was still in denial that it was already Christmas, we spent the morning relaxing, took a spin at the gym (a preemptive act knowing we would eat plenty over the weekend) and a last minute stop to Target to tie up loose ends.

Christmas Eve at my home is all about traditions.
It is very special to me and I long for the comfort that it brings.

Christmas Eve is spent eating in candlelight. (Those little votives are from our wedding!)
We eat Chicken Royale, a chicken dish with ham, stuffing and a mushroom cream sauce. Korianne provided Christmas Jell-o which is a a three-layer gelatin in Christmas colors. Yum.

Cute Stacie wearing her Christmas sweater.

After dinner we reenact the nativity.
Bath robes and scarfs are the costumes for almost every character.

Reagan is always the most tender Mary. She gazes lovingly at her Baby Jesus and holds him close, even after the pageant is over.

Jacob the scared shepherd.

Jacob and his sheep.

Sisters: Korianne/narrator/angel, Malorie, me and Stacie as the wisemen.

The whole cast.
Minus dad who was behind the camera this year.
And who also incidentally missed his entire scene as the donkey.

 After the pageant I got to snuggle with one of my favorite little people.

Malorie and Stacie entertained us with a rousing rendition of Feliz Navidad.
(Does "Let's get together" come to anyone else's mind?)

If only Charlie's Angels used guitars and tambourines as weapons of choice.

The family band entertained the rest of us with some Christmas songs.

Santa knew we didn't need anymore jammies for Christmas Eve so he surprised everyone with subscriptions to our favorite magazines. (How did he know?!) Kiki and I got twinner gifts.

We were blessed to have Christmas on a Sunday.
I could not think of a better way to celebrate our Savior's birth.
Luckily, it was my mom's choir Christmas program and I loved celebrating Christmas with music.
Since church was at 9 a.m., and we didn't have any kids at the house, we postponed the usual festivities until after church was over.

We came home, switched back into our jammies, and ate breakfast, my favorite meal of the entire year.
Then we called video-chated my aunt in Greece.
And then we were finally sequestered back upstairs while we waited for mom and dad to put out the presents.

So in all actuality, present opening did not start until after noon.

Here we are so sleepy because we stayed up late the night before doing a puzzle.
Balla's.

 Super-duper excited for Christmas morning.

 Mom, the present czar, sitting in a pile of presents.

 Moo wearing the cute ear warmer I made for her stocking.

Mom crying when she opened a gift from my dad: Neil Diamond tickets.
She claims Neil was her first love.
(Next time I need a warning, Dad! I would have videotaped the reaction)

 Mom and Stacie.

The day moved by so quickly, as the best days usually do.
After winding down from the day we watched "A Christmas Story" on TBS (where else?).
That movie makes me laugh so hard I want to cry.

We had just enough time to run home, shower and heat up our soup for dinner with the Bensons.

 Two of our cutie nieces. Piper (the blonde) showcasing the sparkly clothespin magnets I made her. (We had her family for the Christmas exchange.)

 Aunt RoseAnn with the newest Benson addition, Ivy Rose.

Jacob teaching the kids to play a game.

In addition to a real gift we gave the Bensons, we included a little treat: stick-on mustaches of course.
And everyone got in on the fun. 

Excuse me. I mustache you a question.

I'd love to stay and chat, but I really mustache.


Merry Christmas!

49 and 50: Ok and worse

New recipes are cyclical in our family.
Every other one turns out fabulously, and the others... well.
Not so much.
This week brought a bit of both.

Week 49 brought out Wild Rice with Chicken and Grapes.
The flavor was bland and neither of us really liked eating warm grapes.
A bit of a dinner fail.
Rating: 2. Not disgusting but the leftovers sit in our fridge over a week later.

Week 50 was a spin at artisan bread.

My mom makes delicious artisan bread. She has had a lifetime to hone her breadmaking skills, so it is discouraging when mine didn't turn out perfectly on the first go.

Mine was a bit dense because I didn't raise it long enough. If you want to get into artisan bread, go for the book Artisan Bread in 5 Minutes a Day. The recipe I got was from a blog that adapted the recipe from that book and her adaptations were for the worse. (No offense.)

Rating: 3.5 for the recipe I tried, but I know that artisan bread can be well over a 5. I did, however, love the crunchy crust. And I just got a pizza stone for Christmas so I can perfect this recipe. (And I will! That is my personal challenge!)

From Autumn into Winter

The insanity that has been December has prevented me from documenting our last few months.
Here is a little snippet of the latest haps...

I convinced my sisters to skip out on school (such a good example) to go to the store opening of H & M, the first one of its kind in Utah.

Someone asked if we were twins.
For the record, I got dressed first.

The line behind us.
We almost were in the first 500 but our dreams were thwarted.
The people in line with us were great and even bought us hot chocolate.
Sadly for them, they thought the store opened two hours before it actually did.
They were in for a loooooooooong wait.

An H&M opening is usually a pretty big deal. Fire code with hit early on, so the line continued to grow as shoppers filtered out. There was a line to get in all weekend.

We made up for the wait by shopping our little hearts out.
This is just my bag for trying things on.
My wallet's only relief is that the store is not close by.

Our annual Young Women in Excellence featured a cooking theme, hence the aprons.

I am currently working on my Personal Progress award (I was a delinquent youth and never earned mine).
For my first project I stitched two dresses, one of them entirely on my own! (If you don't look too close, you won't find any mistakes.)


And on to the hour we had a kitten....

We found this adorable little kitten outside of our church one night.
She would meow and peek her little head against the glass door.
Jacob said if she was still out there when we came out we could think about taking her home.
And would you believe it? He let me take her home!
At least until we found her a home.

We had her for a whole hour before we found a neighbor who would take her. 
But in the short hour we had her our lives were halted.
We ridiculously followed her as she explored the house.
And in that short hour she already knew the personalities of the house. She would snuggle with me and play with Jacob.
Nothing got done. Is this how parents feel?

Note: I'm glad she was able to find a good home. Within the first 2 minutes she had eaten a Cheerio off our floor. I don't think we are ready to be cat parents.

 The real kick off for Christmas was visiting Temple Square for the lights with Young Men/Women.

My car full of girls was hilarious.
I kind of wish we could ride together every time.

Jacob and I drove up to the Pioneer Theater for "Annie," our annual holiday show.
Thanks JoEllen for picking us up the tickets! (We are accepting applications for U of U students who will pick up tickets for us when JoEllen graduates. Any takers?)
The show was as wonderful as always, and continues to be one of my favorite ways to get in the holiday spirit. Previous holiday shows at the Pioneer Theater have included "White Christmas" and "A Christmas Story."

We spent a few Monday nights at Thanksgiving Point for ice sculpting.

 Each week the sculptor hauls out a 300-pound chunk of ice and starts pounding away to the delight of the crowd.

Two weeks worth of sculptures.
I'm kind of dying over the intricacies of the sculptures.
What a really cool talent.
"Hello, I'm a professional ice sculptor."
Now that's a conversation starter.

And the Christmas spirit was kicked up a notch with reindeer.
That just laid there amid the shrieks of children begging them to fly.
(Really. The kids loved them.)

Once inside the Thanksgiving Point store Jacob found an elf hat.

Thanks to Loralee and DJ for coming with us!

We finally attended our ward Christmas party. The Young Women were in charge of the decorations.
(See the little paper snowflakes hanging from the ceiling?)
The food was good and the entertainment hilarious, provided by the Primary children.

We've started a new family Christmas tradition.
When given an ornament that doesn't fit on our tree theme (red and gold) or is unsavory, we secretly stick it on the trees of our friends and families.
Without them knowing. A reverse stealing, if you will.

Beware if you invite us over during the holiday season.

No tree is safe.


* The photo above is of an ornament we left on my sister-in-law's designer tree. Read: fancy tree with all alike ornaments. We stuck this right in the middle before we left, sticking out like a sore thumb. And somehow no one has accused us yet. And no, I don't think she reads this blog.