Tradition! Tradition!

It has been tradition in my family for many years to have a pizza picnic by the Christmas tree. It all started one fateful evening before Christmas when my mom was exhausted from shopping, baking and wrapping presents and did not feel like cooking dinner. So we ordered pizza and decided to eat it by the Christmas tree and of course since we all were little at the time, we had to put blankets down so we didn't spill or get crumbs all over the carpet. And if you have blankets spread out that you are eating on, it automatically becomes a picnic. Hence the tradition of a pizza picnic party by the Christmas tree. Since that first year we have always had friends over to share in the joy and grease.

It is also tradition to play Christmas songs on the metal chimes. We have been doing this for YEARS! So long that I think all my siblings and I have the songs memorized, but tradition is tradition.

Dad leading the group with mom the music stand

 

After a few more games and a lot more laughing... the night ends with the traditional watching of the Polar Express on the big screen. The train sounds are awesome coming though our theater room sound system. All in all a wonderful Christmas night. Good food, good games and good friends.

More lights!

Went driving around Provo to look at some lights the other night, even though Doug was missing the BYU football game. What a good husband to take his bored wife out to look at lights. But don't worry, we made it back in time for 4th quarter. We found the jackpot up towards the temple. One house had a really great set up! They had the whole manger scene.

In case you weren't aware, BYU won! The fourth quarter was the most exciting part of the game, so good thing we were at least home to watch that part.

Holiday Cheer

Yay! So much fun being home for the holidays! Last weekend I did my sister's hair and make-up again for her winter formal dance. I think I did a mighty fine job. She did look pretty hot.

The back had a pretty inside-out french braid.

Pretty looking couple.

So this is winter break huh?

Ok I know it is so exciting to be on a break from school and work. But I am BORED! It was cool for a week yes, but now I am running out of things to do. Doug takes our car pretty much everyday to work form 8 to 5 which means I am left in our small apartment stranded. My day usually consists of: working out, eating, tv, reading, eating, cleaning (maybe), and more tv and more reading. Super exciting. Oh yeah and we bake a lot, which is not doing my figure any favors.

I cannot wait until Friday when we are going to start staying at my parents house for the weekend/Christmas. Yay! Something to do! Please people, if you have any ideas on what I can do to entertain myself at home, with no car, let me know. Yes, I have painted my nails already. Twice in fact. And yes, I have tried new hair-dos on myself. I even played dress-up in my closet. Told you I was running out of things to do.

Do you want to see some (unflattering) pictures of us baking? Okay sure, why not.

Dipping peanut butter balls

 

Making "white chip orange dream cookies" in sweats

Oh so attractive.

 

Ah my cute boy.

 

Well this blog post managed to keep me entertained for a whole 20 minutes. I think I am going to have to convince Doug to let me borrow the car soon so that I can go to the fabric store. I should be able to find a project to entertain me for a little while there.

I will say though, in the evenings when Doug is home with me, Christmas break is awesome! We eat way too many treats, watch movies, cuddle under a blanket and sip hot cocoa. It is the best. I love being married and always having a  best friend to hang out with.

Dinner success! Picture fail...

Alright, go ahead and say it: I am a failure. I forgot again to take pictures of our life. So I apologize both to you and myself, because it would have been really fun to have pictures of what we did last night!

Doug and I hosted a holiday dinner party at my parent's house yesterday evening. We set the table all fancy and lit candles and everything. We invited 3 other couples to join us and it was super fun. On the menu was pork burritos with all the works. Cafe Rio style of course complete with cilantro dressing, rice, beans and pico de gallo. For dessert we had delicious turtle cheesecake. Lets just say the food was a hit.

Then we played some funny games and we were all laughing ourselves to tears by the end.
One of Doug and I's favorite games to play with friends is The game of things. It is a similar idea to Balderdash, kinda. The game has cards that say things like "Things you shouldn't say to your doctor" or "Things you shouldn't do in the shower." Everybody writes down an answer to the card and one person reads all the responses, you then go around the table and try to guess who wrote which answer. As I am sure you can imagine, it certainly makes for an entertaining evening.

Doug and I were so proud of ourselves for hosting a successful first dinner party. And it was super great having it at my parent's house! All we had to do was load the dishwasher after. No prep cleaning or anything. I keep kicking myself in the shin for not taking one measly picture. Not even a picture of the beautiful table! Gosh I am horrible. I even brought my camera all the way there and set it on the kitchen counter so I would remember to pull it out throughout the evening. Sigh. Oh well. Nothing to be done now.

Let it Snow

Decorating for Christmas on a budget can be... non existent.  Beyond our Christmas tree, and two small nativity sets I have, we don't have a lot to spruce up our place. But yay for me, I have been done with school since Monday and needed something to fill my time with, so I decided to do the classic-- make snowflakes. But I didn't want just a bunch of 2nd-grader looking ones. I wanted legit ones. I found some pretty good templates online and I am very pleased with my paper snow. might be the best ones I have ever made ever.

With a string of lights for sparkly effect, our apartment looks much more wintry.

My personal favorite. Looks like little flowers.

 

Winter Wonderland

Here are some links to the templates I used. Also, apparently how you fold it matters a lot, so google that, or use one of these websites that explains it.

Snowflake 1

Snowflake 2

Snowflake 3

Snowflake 4

Snowflake 5

Now go make beautiful snowflakes and let me know if you find some other good patterns because now I am addicted to the beautiful fake snow.

A polar bear and a penguin

Yes! I finally finished our Christmas stockings!
I bought the finishing touches last night and glued the last pieces on.
Tah-Dah!

My poor penguin is about to get pegged with a snowball by Doug's manly polar bear. But good thing my penguin is prepared.

In case you were so curious, I made them out of felt. I kind of just made up the shape of the stocking. Felt is pretty inexpensive and I just used fabric glue to glue on the pieces. The snowflakes are little sparkly foam stickers I found at the craft store. They stick better than I expected to the felt. 

I am proud of my work here.

Cake and Cocoa

Guess what??!! Today I finished my last test ever of my college career! No more finals and no more classes. So weird to be done. But so great at the same time. All I got coming up is my fancy internship starting in January. Christmas is on its way! I have been lazy about finishing my Christmas projects. I get to the very last thing and then decide to take a break and it sits on my table for 3 weeks... like our stockings. I have been too lazy to go to the craft store and pick up that last piece of ribbon I need. Guess I better get on that. Got no more excuses now that I am done with school.

On Saturday I made a beautiful coffee cake! I even pulled out my fancy Kitchen Aid mixer out of the closet, which is usually too bulky to keep on my teeny counter.
The name of the cake is Sour Cream Coffee Cake, which I admit, sounds weird. Sour cream in cake? But it makes it so moist and doesn't taste anything like sour cream in the end.

Sour Cream Coffee Cake
Cake:
1/2 c. butter
1/2 c. margarine
2 c. sugar
2 eggs
1 c. sour cream
1 tsp. vanilla
1/2 tsp. salt
1 tsp. baking powder

Filling:
1/2 c. chopped nuts (walnuts or pecans are delish)
2 tsp cinnamon
1/4 c. brown sugar

Mix in mixer butter, margarine, sugar, eggs, sour cream, vanilla, salt baking powder and flour.
Pour 1.2 the batter in well greased bundt pan. Mix filling ingredients. Sprinkle 3/4 of filling onto batter. Add remaining batter, and top with remaining filling. Bake at 350 for one hour. Let it cool in the pan.  If needed loosen edges with butter knife and invert onto plate.

Pouring half the batter in the pan

Chop the nuts pretty small. But don't turn it into dust.

The beaut when it comes out of the oven

When you invert it on the plate.

I should have taken a picture of what it looks on the inside. It has this ribbon of the filling throughout it and it is really fancy looking.
Anyways, it is really good and so Christmasy with the yummy smells of cinnamon baking.

Also, BIG thank you to whoever gave Doug and I this hot cocoa maker for our wedding. Sorry for not remembering who you are exactly. It was so perfect after walking home in the snow after my finals! A good investment for sure. Perfect temperature and frothiness. 

Lights lights lights

Classes are over! Now all that is left ahead of me in my undergraduate career is 2 finals! Woohoo!
So we thought we would celebrate a little and take a break from the stress by going to see some pretty lights. In Spanish Fork they have the Festival of Lights. Its a pretty cool set-up they have over there.
They may or may not have been really dumb about a coupon I had... that they said wasn't a real coupon... but somehow managed to be in a coupon calendar... whatever. I'm over it (mostly). Its $7 a car to drive through. So not too bad. And its just so joyful with Christmas music playing. Super cool. Check it out.

Tuesday

The end of school is near! Final projects, papers and tests are all upon us. Major stress.
Everybody has their de-stressing techniques. Doug went to play basketball for a couple hours. I studied for a bit and then decided I needed to bake. Baking is both a stress-reliever for me and also helps with the boredom.
So I made some plain old sugar cookies thinking I would roll them out and use my cute Christmas cookie cutters. The dough was wayyyy too sticky to roll out. It got stuck to the rolling pin and the counter. So, the cookies ended up being in circles. Then I realized I had no frosting. Never fear! I came up with something better. Just melt a few chocolate chips and drizzle on top! Yumm!!!

Don't judge these ones too much though... I gave the most prettiest ones to my pretty friend who lives about 20 yards away. Keeping cookies in the house is dangerous. 

So Douglas comes home from basketball. Showers, starts doing homework. Says he's hungry. I point at the heaping plate of cookies and tell him to help himself. He responds with, "No, Natalie. I'm hungry!".... Oh!!! You're hungry. Silly me to suggest cookies at 9:45 pm at night.

So he pulls out chicken from the freezer, proceeds to defrost it and cook it up. Alright. Guess you're not hungry anymore. Love me a good plate of chicken at 10:15 pm.........

Funny lovable boy. If he wants chicken he will get chicken. I guess we all need to indulge a little during finals.

 {Love you, Sweetie}

O Christmas Tree

Here is a picture of our little tree now that it is all decorated. We are proud of our skimpy little tree. Couldn't be any  more perfect for our first Christmas together.

Dang, its harder than I thought to get a good picture of a Christmas tree with the lights on.

I am almost done making our stockings. They are pretty cute if I do say so myself... Doug's has a polar bear on it, and mine has a penguin.

This past week has been crazy. Its like I am running a race on a treadmill. No matter how fast I run, I am not moving towards the finish line. Doug and I have been sick all week and it was pretty much the worst week to get sick. The hugest project of my undergraduate degree was due on Friday and boy am I glad its over! Of course we has a panic the night before it was due, because we had printing issues. I only spent all semester working on it. Talk about stress. But luckily our group got it all figured out. Plus finals are coming up. I already have 2 this upcoming week. Not to mention a 10 page paper due, and teaching a review session. Hopefully this sickness goes away by then. But Christmas is on the horizon and I am trying to keep my sights set on that. HoHoHo.

On a  more cheerful note, today is Doug and I's semi-anniversary, as we are calling it. Six months of marriage baby! The best six months ever, even if we have to be sick today. I love that boy so much!

Rad Dinner

Today Doug and I bought our very first Christmas tree!!! I am so excited about it. Its a cheap one, but a it is just perfect for us. Sorry, no pictures yet until its completely decorated. So that way you can have the full effect.

I made a pretty rad dinner tonight, but forgot to take picture of it for your viewing pleasure. Man I really need to bet better at this picture thing. But you are just going to have to use your imagination on this one. It was so so so so yummy. No joke.

The first thing I made was Boneless BBQ Ribs. They are seriously so tender and so delicious. We struggle to ration ourselves so we can have it for 2 meals. Here is the recipe:

5 lbs boneless ribs (I like to use pork)
1 c. brown sugar
1 c. ketchup
4 T. Worcestershire sauce
2 T. vinegar

Cut up meat into desired sizes, and remove excess fat. Boil 1-2 hours until soft and tender. Place in a 9 x 13 pan. In separate bowl mix sugar, ketchup, Worcestershire and vinegar. Place sauce over meat and bake at 350 for 30 minutes.

Easy enough right?? And so so so good. You should try it! Yeah it takes a little bit of time to make since you have to boil it. I have always boiled mine for just an hour and it usually tastes really good. But do not skip the boiling step, because that is what makes the meat so tender. The recipe is easily halved if you do less meat, which is what I usually do, because 5 pounds is a lot for 2 people.

The second yummy component we had for our dinner was mock Red Lobster biscuits. And I know there are a lot of recipes out there for these. Mine is super quick and tastes splendid.

2 c. Bisquick pancake mix
2/3 c. milk
1/2 c. shredded cheese
1 tsp parsley

Combine all this in a bowl. Batter will be really thick. Drop large spoonfuls (or small handfulls) on a greased cookie sheet. Bake at 350 for 8-10 minutes or until done in the middle. Might have to do longer if you make bigger biscuits.
When the are done, brush them with a mixture of 1/4 c. melted butter that has 1 tsp garlic salt added to it. Give is that nice buttery flavor. Voila!

Again, I apologize for the lack of visuals. I could take a picture of the dirty dishes to show you how much we liked it? Just promise me you will try one of the recipes at least. If no other reason then at least to make me feel better about my recipes that I think are amazing. I take total blame if you don't like them.

Home again home again

Well I am back in chilly Provo again. Arizona was so much fun! And so warm! The saddest part was, I took my camera all the way there, and all the way back and didn't take a single picture. Hopefully my mother-in-law will send me some that she took.

Here is the brief run-down of the trip:
Sunday: The 12 hour drive down to Arizona. My first time ever seeing Las Vegas. We took a little detour to go down the strip. The only thing I did take a picture of. We went through during the day, so no lights... But Doug said we could come back sometime so I will see it lit up eventually.

Monday: A little bit of shopping in the morning for the accessories in our family pictures. Then we made lunch, and lounged until time to primp for pictures. Trying to get 16 people, including a rambunctious 2-year-old to all smile at the same time is no easy feat.

Tuesday: The hardest hike of my life! Straight up a cliff basically. Like climbing on your hands and knees on the way up and sliding down on your bum on the way down hard. Whew! Saw some good looking cacti and worked up a good sweat. That evening, us girls went to see Breaking Dawn Part II. It was good. I liked how they made the movie more interesting than the end of the book. The movie felt short though and almost rushed. But not horrible. 

This was only from halfway up!

Wednesday: Made 3 chocolate chip pies in the morning. If you have not been introduced to chocolate chip pies, you are missing out. especially if you are a fan of chocolate chip cookies. I always find my recipe just on the Nestle Toll House website. Yummy! Shopped in the afternoon. More girl bonding time. Then mini golfing with everybody. I even beat Doug 53-57**. Then boys took off for the Suns' game and us girls headed to Texas Roadhouse for way too much food and  watched a chick flick.

Thursdays: TURKEY!!! Cooked and ate and hung out with the fam. My day ended not so ideally. Got a stomach ache... and I know you are thinking, "It's Thanksgiving, everybody gets a stomach ache." But this was not a "I ate too much and now my tummy hurts" problem. It was a weird something else. SO I went to bed at 9:00 and slept great all night!

Friday: The longggggg drive home where we had 13 seats and 13 people. Talk about getting to know the in-laws! Cozy 12 hour drive will do the trick.

Made it back home all in one piece, with one sore tush and probably at least 5 pounds heavier. Hitting the gym first thing tomorrow for some bonding time with the treadmill. Happy Thanksgiving!!

** since posting the above, I have been corrected. Doug's 1's apparently look like 7's. So that means I lost in golf 51-53.... oops.

Ready for a break

This is what my notes looked like today in class...

I had to white out the sketch I messed up on... sorry.
I may or may not have spelled "pilgrims" wrong on my sketch, but that is okay right?

Yeah you could say I am super ready for Thanksgiving break.   Hooray for no classes on Fridays! Hooray for Arizona on Sunday! Hooray for spontaneous lunch dates with my favorite man! Today has been a great day to kick of the festivities with. It is going to be hard to focus once school starts again. Yuck. Let's not even think about it.

The Notebook + Forties Fashion

So I am 21, and I just watched the Notebook for the very first time on Saturday. Shocking?? Yeah I guess I am a little behind. Here is my review of the movie: it was good. It was cute. I liked the story. It came together pretty quickly at the end and it left me wishing they had showed more of Noah and Allie's life together after she came back to him. No I did not cry, but yes I got a little teary eyed. All in all I did like the movie. Is it the greatest chick flick of all time? Nah, I don't think so. But I would watch it again. My favorite part was the fashion. I love forties fashion. It is so classy looking and fun. I wish people still dressed like that and still did their hair like that. So lovely.

Beautiful am I right? So tasteful. 

Maybe I was born in the wrong decade fashion wise. 

But actually, I like being able to wear jeans whenever I want, so maybe not.