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?!