Thursday, December 24, 2009

Our Christmas

Our Christmas:

Our little home decked out:

(I did not allow the Grinch and leg lamp from a Christmas Story to be placed in the center window of our home, but it somehow ended up there! I wonder, hmmm)

Our mantel with stockings galore:

(all the stockings include the animals, roommate and Baby Colton)

Our dining room:


(notice the pretty girly colors)

Our DUKE tree:





(told you we were serious about Duke basketball in this house)

Our main tree:



(next year we will have a bigger tree and this one will probably go in our bedroom. Yah, bedroom! We LOVE Christmas that much).

This Christmas was good to us. It was weird being our first Christmas not traveling to see family however we made the best of it. Santa was super nice to my hubby and got him an IPOD Touch, Blue Ray movies, video games, drum accessories, Duke shirt and Redskins hat. I was blessed with new pearl earrings and necklace, gift cards for clothes when I can wear normal sizes again, new CDs, the new Harry Potter movie, the new Mario Bros for the Wii (yah I'm a video game girl), new lamps for master bedroom, pjs, and perfume.

We had a lovely meal Christmas Eve and then went to church service at the Duke Chapel. It was gorgeous. Stunning!

Christmas Day we opened presents and had a delicious meal!

It was a great holiday but it would have been better if Colton was here. Fingers crossed; any day now!

FOOD!!!!!

This is the first year Jason and I have spent the holidays just the two of us (well really we have our dog, two cats and roomate with us). No family this year. With the baby due any day our families will come and visit us upon his arrival. Jason's family came last weekend and we had a great time with them.

I wanted to make this year special since it is the last year of just the two of us. I am making Christmas Eve dinner and Christmas Day dinner for all of us. Tonight's dinner will become our "family" tradition for Christmas Eve. We will be having steak, twice baked potatoes and salad. This is a fav meal in our house so it is neat that we are going to have it every Christmas Eve we are home. For Christmas day I could not decide between a turkey and a ham so I am making both. YUMO! My ham is a recipe I have developed over the years that involves coca-cola and burbon. It is delicious! I will also be making corn casorole, mashed potatoes, gravy, cranberry sauce (the can kind because that is my fav and I do not care how childish it is; it is delicious), prosciutto wrapped asparagus, veggie tray, shrimp and cocktail sauce, rolls, peach cobbler and pumpkin pie. I am so excited for this food (you think I was nine months pregnant or something, geez!). I will be sure to try and take pics of tomorrows meal since it will be the first time we will actually eat in our formal dining room. I also will be using the wedding china which has not been used since we moved to our new home.

Recipe for corn dish (I do not know where I got this and honestly do not use the recipe anymore because I have pretty much made it a million times that it has become my own dish; but this is the jist of the dish)

8 bacon slices, chopped
4 cups fresh sweet corn kernels (about 8 ears)
1 medium-size white onion, chopped
1/3 cup chopped red bell pepper
1/3 cup chopped green bell pepper
1 (8-ounce) package cream cheese, cubed
1/2 cup half-and-half
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon pepper

Directions
Cook chopped bacon in a large skillet until crisp; remove bacon, and drain on paper towels, reserving 2 tablespoons drippings in skillet.
Set bacon aside.
Sauté corn, onion, and bell peppers in hot drippings in skillet over medium-high heat 6 minutes or until tender.
Add cream cheese and half-and-half, stirring until cream cheese melts.
Stir in salt, and pepper.
Top with bacon.

Prosciutto wrapped asparagus (allrecipes.com)

1 tablespoon olive oil 16 spears fresh asparagus, trimmed 16 slices prosciutto

Directions
Preheat the oven to 450 degrees F (220 degrees C). Line a baking sheet with aluminum foil, and coat with olive oil.
Wrap one slice of prosciutto around each asparagus spear, starting at the bottom, and spiraling up to the tip. Place the wrapped spears on the prepared baking sheet.
Bake for 5 minutes in the preheated oven. Remove, and shake the pan back and forth to roll the spears over. Return to the oven for another 5 minutes, or until asparagus is tender, and prosciutto is crisp. Serve immediately


Now I need to get to cooking!!!!


Wednesday, December 16, 2009

The room that my son will come home to

He may not remember...

(This is his crib and yes, that is a Duke Blue Devil mobile. We take Duke Basketball serious in this house)


He may not understand...

(These are just onsies, over 75 to be exact! More clothes than me.)

He might not pay attention...



He won't know how many clothes he has...


He might not care when he is older...








But this is the room that my son will come home from the hospital to.

Any day now I will become a mom. WOW!


My Early Christmas Present

I wish I could say it was a baby, but sadly not yet :( Soon enough he will be here.

My hubby did get me an early present though. The new Droid cell phone.


I am in love with this phone. It is basically a mini laptop. So cool! I have always been the one with the dorky, cheap, freebie phone so this is definitely a step up. I like it a lot better than the Iphone. I highly recommend it.
I am now officially on maternity leave and super excited. I am almost done with getting the house ready and will post pics soon of all things baby.




Wednesday, December 2, 2009

Thanksgiving

This year we spent Thanksgiving with my family in VA Beach. My family rented a large beach house so we all could enjoy the holiday together. The group included: Me, Jason, my mom, dad, aunt, uncle, cousin and his wife with their two children, other cousin, little sister, other sister, fiance and nephew, grandmother, other grandmother, grandfather and uncle. Woo, there was a lot of us. We spent the holidays eating, enjoying time together, eating, getting facials, manicures, pedicures from my sister in beauty school, shopping, eating and more eating. I seriously don't think I could have held down anymore food even if I was pregnant with triplets. It was a great long weekend.

My sisters


Sister Meghan, Charles and Jackson


Jason and I


Jackson


The boys


Family