Christmas 2009 in Raleigh, NC

Traditionally, Steve and I go to Raleigh, NC for Christmas.  We usually spend a few days there and come back for work the next week depending on what day Christmas falls.  This year, Christmas was on a Friday (score!) so I could take only 2 days off of work, be down in Raleigh for Chris' birthday (the 23rd) and come home on Saturday and still have a day of "recovery" before going back to work on Monday. 

We got down to Raleigh at about 12ish and met for our new traditional happy hour at McCormick and Schmick's before we headed over to my mom's new house to check it out and then over to Kim's to get ready for Chris' friend's party. 

Christmas Eve is the night that we open all of the "adults" presents and then Carliegh and Olivia open their's on Christmas morning after Santa comes.  It was a good time, I'll let the pictures explain the rest...WARNING: It's kind of picture over load. 

Poor Taylor is getting so old.  She apparently didn't want her picture taken and stuck her tongue out at me.

Calreigh and Olivia being goofy

I demanded Carliegh let me take a good one...or, I just caught her when she wasn't paying attention.

Kim doing dishes.  Carleigh took this one actually.  She became obsessed with my camera.  She has good taste.

Taylor and I chilling before we left for the party.

I love this picture.  We don't get a lot of sibling pictures taken and I think this is a good one...even though my roots are screaming out for attention.  I'm getting that taken care of soon.  Just not soon enough.

A view of part of the spread at the party.  They had Chick-Fil-A chicken tenders.  Sooooo yum!

A good one of Steve and Kim.

Chris and all the guys

And, Chris and the girls

Chris' birthday cake.  My favorite part of this picture is that they used a tea light for the candle.  Minor details..

The next day Chris and I cooked Christmas dinner. 

There was a crazy elf that made an appearance after a few glasses of wine.

So, we finally sat down to a nice big family Christmas Dinner...only a certain 5 year old had Rice Krispies.

And, to prove Doug was there...

After dinner, some people cleaned and those who wanted to get out of cleaning....danced!

And, danced...

After cleaning, the kids were put to bed, we grabbed the wine and headed to the sitting room area to open presents

Steve got these AWESOME glasses.

They say "Dennis" and have the Redskins logo engraved.  Very cool.

We got my mom a gift card tree with all kinds of gift cards so she can use them to buy stuff for her new house.

What are the odds of two people getting someone a toaster oven?  And, how high are the odds taht it would be the EXACT same toaster oven?  Pretty high apparently.

The next morning, Santa had come and gone.

We spent the night before until the wee hours putting this salon together.  At least Olivia could have clean and blow dried hair finally.

We made Carleigh play us a tune on the violin.  It's the smallest violin I've ever seen.

We baked cookies in their Easy Bake Oven

And, finally, we brought my mom her tv to her house.  This actually happened on Christmas Eve Day but it's being posted last.  We loaded it up in the Tahoe and headed over.

She was quite surprised I think.

No where to put it quite yet but I think she was happy with it.

Meanwhile. I taught the little munchkins how to do googly eyes.  One of them kind of got it...

The other, not so much.  Haha!

And, I was a jungle gym almost the whole weekend.  And, loved it.

It was a great weekend and I figured it was about time I posted about it.   More to come on New Years soon!  Merry Christmas 2009!

Putting Lights Up

So, the day I got my camera Steve put up lights around our deck.  He did a fantastic job and I got to test out night pictures with my new camera!  I am new at this camera so these pictures aren't quite up to par with what the camera is capable of but I will hopefully get better with time.

Decorating the Charlie Brown Tree & My PRESENT!

When I was in Fredericksburg this weekend, Kim and I went to Costco and I came across these non-breakable ornaments. They are AWESOME! And, so pretty in person.

So, in order for me to open my present from Steve, I told him that we needed to at least put up the shabby looking Christmas tree that we have used for the past three or four years. This tree came from when Steve was a "bachelor" and I have not wanted to buy a nicer tree until we are in a more permanent place.

You put it together in sections and through the years, more and more "needles" have fallen off and it looks shabbier and shabbier by the year...

It's our Charlie Brown Christmas Tree...


Lights are always a challenge but I don't mind doing them. I can't wrap my head around why we ran out of white lights but we had THOUSANDS of colored lights??? I don't even like colored lights!

Our finished product! Not too bad! (Notice my presents under the tree!!)

Onyx had to pose with the tree also. We make her EVERY year.

Shaking it!

So excited!!! Finally!

I LOVE IT!!!


Now, stay tuned for some better quality pictures.

Our Thanksgiving Feast!

**All pictures in this post were taken with my completely out-dated point and shoot camera. Had they been taken with my new Canon Rebel T1i, they would be of MUCH better quality!**

Thanksgiving morning marked the first time that I was "hosting" the Thanksgiving feast at our house. I like to call it a "semi-homemade" feast. We ordered an already cooked turkey from Giant and some sides for pretty cheap. I have to say that I wouldn't do it that way again because I made a lot of extra sides that were much better and the only thing that I thought turned out really well that came from Giant was the turkey. The stuffing looked so gross that we didn't even cook it and just threw it in the trash and I made Stove Top instead which is always a hit.

We started preparing the night before. Steve added the leaves to the dining room table to make it longer and we brought down a table to do it buffet style. I thought it would be best doing it that way with all the people.


And, as I mentioned previously...we got to use our new CHINA! And, I realized that I'm really glad that I registered for it and that I picked the pattern that I did. It looks really nice.


This was the buffet section that we set up the night before also. I couldn't believe that I had that many serving dishes!


And, this is what the whole area looked like...


Each place setting looked like this. I even had chargers! What??! Am I 50?? I don't care, I still thought it looked great...


I have to give myself props for cooking/reheating the whole feast in a teeny tiny kitchen too. It was NOT easy. Steve's one chore the whole day was to take the bird out of the oven...


And, even though it was pre-cooked, we still had to heat it up in the oven for two hours. AND, I put a rub that I made up in my head on the turkey and it turned out pretty good!


Here's some of the food, keeping warm, almost ready to go on the buffet...


Oh, and did I mention that we had QUITE the appetizer spread for our guests before dinner was served?? I loved that part too. Who doesn't love appetizers??


Onyx kept watch over the appetizers to make sure none fell...
(Note: It's hard to see in the picture but you'll notice the maroon skirt on the table that matches our place mats, table runner and curtain? Yes...that's a bed skirt that I used since we didn't have enough table cloths! No one ever even guessed and it looked fantastic!)


The final spread all ready for people to dig in...


The ONLY picture I got of the whole table WITH people. I was too busy sweating and getting everything on the table.


The one part of the day that sucked? Cleaning. I can't tell you how much longer it took than I thought it would. Tiffany was a GREAT help though. I don't think I could have done it without her.

So, it was a great day and I'd love to do it again. I feel like I learned a lot about some things to change for next time! Like, needing a much bigger kitchen!