Married Christmas

Christmas was not so much fun this year. As you get older and poorer, Christmas loses some of its luster in regards to excitement and surprise. DH and I didn't even really buy each other presents. He got me the crock pot cookbook I will mention later on, but we were at the bookstore together so it was more like just buying something than being a present. My parents gave us a TV which is awesome (a 52 inch LCD is nothing to snore about), but it wasn't a surprise and we got it a couple of months ago because there was a sale and my sister's TV went out and of course my sister and I got the same one at the same time. Besides that we got mostly money which is great, but again lack luster.

The meaning of Christmas is always there though, that never loses its luster - which I add being a religious person.

In our style, we were late for pretty much everything. We had to drive from one bank to other multiple times and were fussy with each other all day. I think we need to change our Christmas Day schedule yet again for next year. I can't wait until we have kids so we can say, we can't go anywhere!

Christmas Eve finally seems to be down. The plan works. If only we could get ready on time lol. I got to wear a shirt I bought last year that I will likely be able to wear for a long time to come. It made me look very shapely so I was happy about that. Since we were late, I didn't get to put on make-up. Now that may sound really odd to some ladies, but I'm not a girl that wears make-up every day. I've just never gotten used to it and make up is hard work lol. All of Jonathan's teeny-bopper cousins however were dressed in extremely short skirts and crazy high, random colored heels. I couldn't imagine that they would go to Midnight mass like that, but I guess that is how high-schoolers dress these days! The picture below is of DH and I (on the right) with his little sister and her boyfriend (on the left). I like that I still look small next to DH, but I don't like that I look crazily short next to his family lol. (his little sister is almost 6 ft tall and I'm like 5ft)


We were late for Christmas Eve festivities because we decided last minute to make Puppy Chow. Puppy Chow is this delicious snack that my sister's students made for her as a present a few years ago. It is technically Chex Muddy Buddies, but they called it Puppy Chow and I thought that was the most precious name for it. Well the recipe on the Chex website sucks!! There is definitely not enough chocolate/liquidy stuff to cover all the chex sufficiently. So Jonathan wound up adding extra stuff to the mixture so our second batch will be better. I must say it was delicious and a big hit - everyone on both sides of the family loved it.

Jonathan made fun of me because I originally wanted to get wheat chex so it would be "healthier" - he found it quite amusing since we were adding mixture of peanut butter, chocolate chips and butter to it. I guess it is funny.

I never did Wii Fit last week, but we got Wii Fit plus for Christmas from DH's parents so hopefully I will start that this week. I need to according to this picture below MIL took of us on Christmas Day. I'm guessing the all one color sweater didn't help. My sister did say my boobs looked big in it, but you can't tell in this pic! I just look huge!

OH...and see those huge things of Ferrero Rocher (the box of gold things on the step above)...DH has already eaten all of his. He gets so frustrated that his mom keeps buying those for him, yet complains about how he is big. I highly doubt his momma realizes how quickly he eats that huge thing of chocolates!

I have decided to start crock pot cooking. I was inspired by the Crockpot Lady Stephanie O'Dea and her year of crock potting blog. My present from DH was her book Make It Fast, Cook it Slow. I mentioned this crock potting to the In-Laws and they also gave us a crock pot cook book for Christmas. I haven't looked thru it too much, but it has pictures which makes me excited lol.

I decided to start with Red Beans since I'm from the NOLA area and its a staple in our diet and something that I didn't think could get messed up in the crock pot. Well I sorted and soaked the beans over night then this morning I woke up and cut up the spices (onions & garlic) and put them in with the beans. I cooked the beans on low for 8 hours. The beans were a great texture, but DH and I were worried that we had over seasoned the beans overnight so I didn't add as much Tony's as I would have so they needed a little more spice, but I was able to eat them without adding any more spice. DH added pepper.

I went to the grocery store after church last night and bought the ingredients for a beef bourginon, 20-40 clove garlic chicken, java roast and stuffed portabello mushrooms. I was looking at meat and the grocery guy asked me if I needed help. I told him I was attempting to cook - he said it was so easy to get the hang of. I don't know about that! Stay tuned to find out how this endeavor turns out.

Oh and my mother joined facebook - so weird!