Sunday, December 27, 2009

Christmas at "Pop Bill's"

It is tradition to go to Trey's dad's house on Christmas day to enjoy time there. He raises longhorns and Kaila always likes to go feed them. We discovered that they like their nuggets much better than carrots. She was so excited to get going and laughing at Trey and Oscar being silly with the carrots.



This is my favorite cow. She's beautiful.

This is Fernando, one of the steers. His horns are frikkin huge. Oscar experienced how they feel first hand. Fernando did NOT want the carrot.

Francis. The only bull.

Spook. The only one of her kind.

I FINALLY figured out how to halfway ride Oscar's RipStick. (yes, be proud) On my best run at it, Butterball (Bill's lab mix whom you can see at the bottom of the picture), decided that she wanted to ride WITH me. I was unaware of this until it set me off balance and sent me straight to my butt.

Christmas at Mom & Dad's

We enjoyed our Christmas with my side of the family on 12/22. It was a great time with everyone and watching the excitement Aubrey showed in "opening" her gifts. She LOVED the rocking chair that has been passed down again and again. It was PawPaw's to begin with and of course it has been re-finised at least once, because guaranteed, he was NOT into Strawberry Shortcake!

Mom knows how much I LOVE goofy hats and found this one for me. Looks kinda like a Jamaican deal. In addition, she was given this bamboo nativity set. The camel (what we think is the camel anyway), we joked, looked like a crack pipe. Went perfect with my hat! And notice that Mom's plant in the background happens to look like pot! BAAAHAHAHAHaahha

Saturday, December 26, 2009

Finished Product...

So the cinnamon candy that Danielle was SUPPOSED to help me with (due to my anxiety of never making it before and being scared to death I would severely injure myself) actually worked for me. And the only thing that occurred was a runny nose and watery eyes! (due to the strength of the cinnamon oil!)

This is the tray of goodies I took to work for all to enjoy my hard work (there were actually 2 trays).

Friday, December 18, 2009

Christmas Goodies...

I started nbaking last Sunday. I have made thus far chocolate chewy, chocolate chip, spritz, and peanut butter cookies; as well as mint thins, peanut butter "patties", and "puppy chow". This weekend when Narnie gets here (Yay!), I...I mean WE will make cinnamon candy. I am petrified of making it myself and causing a disaster. It has me stressed out. :D
Here are some photos of my venture.




I don't think it actually produced as many cookies as it should have...you see, my lunch was cookie dough! :D

TAAAA-DAAAAAA!

Rudolph, the red-nosed....

TAHOE! Yes. I jumped on the car costume bandwagon. Only for Christmas. I swear!
The pictures really don't need commentary as they speak for themselves :D

However, at the end is a lovely picture of our Christmas lights!





Friday, December 11, 2009

Let the parties begin...

Our Mann Eye Christmas party was supposed to be last Friday. Us wussy Texas folk apparently can't handle a TEEEENY bit of snow so it was rescheduled to this evening. It was a lovely time. I did NOT win a door prize, yet again *big surprise*, there was a girl fight (over what? I really don't know), drinking, dancing, and being merry. My carpool and I chose not to stay the whole time (things were getting a little crazy*Lisa being out of control crying drunk*haha, you know I love you)...but here are a few pictures of our grand ol' time.

me and my friend Jani

Cheers!! (Dina, Lisa, Christy, & me)

me and Dr. Baumohl

Silly girls

Me, Lindsey and Dina

Friday, December 4, 2009

my creation...

I decided I didn't like any of the wreaths I'd seen last year. I made this one last year for the inside of the back door (french doors from the living room). I also decided that the one on my front door was cheesy and not worthy of being hung for all to see, so in the garbage it went. I made another "ball" wreath. Opposite colors this time, for the front door. I am much happier to show off our ugly front door with this one. :)
Of course Danielle wanted one too, so she has one anxiously awaiting its new owner.

PRRETTTTTTY!

O' Tannenbaum, O'Tannenbaum...

Oh. My. Gosh. Our tree. It's ENORMOUS!
Here goes the story of the Crawford Christmas tree.
Our friend, Steve, has a Christmas tree farm. Neat. We get a free tree. The weekend we had planned to up and pick one out, cut it down (do all the fun things involved in a real tree), Steve tells us "Oh, you can't come up this weekend, it's family weekend and I didn't know that when I told you it was a good weekend." We ask if he can bring one back for us (first mistake).
Steve: "Suuuuure! What size would you like?"
Trey: "Eh, 6 foot, MAYBE 7 foot."
Steve: "Sure, no problem."
Steve gets back from the "farm" with our beloved tree.
Steve: "Well we had a big storm up there this year, so all the trees were leaning on each other which made for a bad side."
Courtney: "Perfect! That would be great to put in the corner!"
Steve: "Well, I dug around through them all and found the one that looked the best, which happened to be on the end, so it's NICE!"
We unload it from his truck, put it in ours, get home and put it in the stand on the driveway (second mistake).
Courtney: "Wow, we're going to have to trim this thing a lot!"
Trey: "I told him 6-7 feet tall...not TEN!" (No lie, the thing was the size of my Tahoe...Steve will NOT be picking our tree out next year!)
So we trimmed it up and decided that it should stay on the driveway overnight until the next evening to put it in the house so that all the sap could kinda "dry up". (3rd mistake) GUESS WHAT! It rained the next day. And not only did it rain, but it effing poured! So it stayed out another night. We drug it in the house the NEXT day. Sap, pine needles, leaves, you name it...EVERYWHERE. You ask, "do vacuum cleaners like sappy pine needles?" NO! THEY DO NOT! That was another disaster in itself. Being the size that it was, in comparison to our fake one last year, I have like 1/3 the ornaments the sucker needs. Ya know how every year there's some ornaments that just don't make the cut? Well, even those made it this year. And no, a tree topper does not fit. Here is a photo of our lovely tree.

Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow!

Welp, Houston has set another weather record this December. Our first, and possibly only, snowfall was today, 12/4/09. Last year our first (and only if I remember correctly) was on 12/10/08. I'd have to say that this years' "blizzard" was a bit worse than last year's. Here are a few pictures...

This is what I drove home in. (and the light had JUST turned green...I was NOT being dangerous!)

This is the house looking from the street.

This is the backyard standing at the back door.

Here I am "covered" in snow!

This little guy had the dogs all riled up on our walk tonight. The neighbors down the street built him. Isn't he cute?!

Saturday, November 28, 2009

Black Friday

Those of you who were crazy enough to get out and do this "black Friday" crap...more power to you. I don't even get in the car on black Friday....of course this year was an exception. Me, Trey, Leslie, Amy, and Kaila all went to the Renaissance Festival (and thank goodness I was not the driver). It was the last weekend so it was rather crowded, though not much more than usual. Trey was still able to get all of his foods on a stick...because "everything tastes better on a stick"...except pickles in his case.
I wish I would have had my camera plastered to my eyeball at all times because OMG you would not believe the stuff we saw. Sadly, the few pictures I did get did the costumes NO justice whatsoever, therefore, I'm not going to post any right now. I got a couple cute ones of Kaila on her rides, but I'm just not feelin' the photo posting today. I really just wanted to let ya'll know what I did on "black Friday". Because I know you were just DYING to know :) Plus, I just felt the need to tell you that my shoulder is killing me from playing "drench a wench". Trey and I EACH got a huge bucket of bean bags, and would you know it, neither one of us knocked that wench in the water!

Uhm, seriously?

Thanksgiving..

So we had 2 Thanksgivings this year...as is every year. It just depends on who they are with. One is ALWAYS with Aunt Marie. For the past 3 years now we have said "wellll..it might be the last one"...she's 99! So really, this might have been the last year. Since she was forcibly moved to Houston, she has been really depressed and it's too bad because she has such a feisty personality.

The second Thanksgiving this year was with my family. It was same ol'. Nothing big..just spending time with family and watching the UT vs. A&M game. Even I will admit that it was a good one.

Sadly, I have no photos of these events this year. Oh well.

Friday, November 20, 2009

Dad's turn!

I love it!
It's finally Dad's turn. He sent this photo from his Blackberry this morning. (I know, Dad has finally upgraded to a camera phone!) Danielle will be the last of the family to get hers...on Dec. 21st! Can't wait for all of us to be free of contacts and glasses :)

The Spazmatics

My friend and co-worker, Lisa convinced me to go to a bar downtown called "Sammy's Place". I was not originally fond of the idea since it was a "school night", but it was 80's night. I thought that it could be fun. So I agreed to go. Oh boy am I glad I did. I had a blast. The cover band that plays every Thursday night for 80's night was called "The Spazmatics." When I saw them, they were definitely not the picture I had in my head of an 80's cover band. They were so freakin' hilarious. Here are some photos.


The Spazmatics.

Me, Lisa and Geoffrey of the Spazmatics.

Me and Lisa

Trey and I enjoying the performance :)

Sunday, November 1, 2009

So for Halloween, Trey and I thought it would be fun to go to Audra's (a girl I work with) Halloween party as mexicans. He was "Guillermo" (which he hates-the name that is) and I was "Lolita".




Here is our next door neighbor, Adrian. He's a clown, though missing some of his costume. Isn't he precious?!






And this is the neighbor's (The Rightmeyer's) dog, Teddy. Hilarious!

Tuesday, October 27, 2009

Seriously?....

This is a prototype for a street-legal flying car. Seriously? When driving, the wings fold up! And it's supposedly only going to be like $60K when it's fully completed. Seriously?


http://news.cnet.com/terrafugias-flying-car-makes-maiden-voyage/

older kittens...

Ok, the kittens are ABOUT 4 weeks old I believe. This one here is the one we call Spot. I think she's the runt; her eyes aren't quite right and her ears are a little more on the side of her head rather than the top. Poor thing. She cries like crazy all the time...regardless of whether she's being held or not.



Mau feels the need to SIT, ON my back any time I bend over or sit down. She will sit there insisting I pet her by pawing at me (in the same fashion a dog would). As I pet her, over my head mind you; she kneads her paws, claws out, into my HEAD!






Are they not just adorable? Chicken is on the left, Spot in the middle and Boy on the right.




Holy Hundy!

So, I find these huge worms curled up in a sort of spiral circle, kinda like a lollipop. They are ginormous centipedes and I have NEVER seen one alive. Today, I go into my laundry room to get some water out of the sink to give Mau, and if there isn't one crawling around in the sink! It was sooooo gross!



Monday, October 26, 2009

First kill...

Trey went hunting on Friday morning and shot what he thought was a doe, but ended up being a 2.5 year old button buck. Weird. Sunday we went together and I shot a spike. He was at roughly 14 yards, I was up 30 feet in a tree stand and I double-lunged him with my bow. Trey videoed it, but it saved to my iTunes somehow and I can't figure out how to upload it on here.




Zoe

Trey and I were watching TV tonight and Zoe started repeatedly humping her pillow. It's quite comical and we happened to get a video of it...Enjoy!


LASIK

Ok, so now that I have finally been at Mann Eye Institute for a full year, Trey and I were able to get our Lasik for a great price :) We had the surgery on October 19, 2009 and both are doing great. It's incredible to be able to get up in the middle of the night and SEE the clock without putting it in my face! And even better, we don't have to wear the silly shields to sleep in anymore!

Dr. Stern, our new MD did both mine and Trey's surgery, it took about 15 mins each for the actual surgery. The testing and prepping took more time than the surgery!

Here are some Lasik pictures...


This was at the very end after the surgery...Dr. Stern was checking to make sure everything went smoothly and the flaps are back in the right place and "sticking".
I can't figure out how to get these in the right order, but this is after my flaps were created and I'm heading to the laser for the correction.
Here we are getting prepped; Trey went first. Don't we look silly?