Valentine's Recap

We didn't do much for Valentine's Day, but the one thing I did want to do was to wake up and make pancakes for breakfast. They just always seem so warm and delicious and holiday-icious. Yes, I just made up a new word. So Jason got to work making cinnamon-pecan pancakes while I supervised. I shoved him aside to make an attempt at one special Valentine-ish pancake. Isn't it cute?

 

And let me tell you this: this adorable little pancake was even better smothered in maple syrup and washed down with some hot tea!

 

Mmmmmmm..............delicious! I had dreams of making a nice dinner, but we were too full from breakfast to want anything substantial for dinner. We decided to snack and snuggle for the rest of the day. :)

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New Year's Eve Celebration

Jason & I were invited to a "Classy New Year's Eve" party at a friend's house. Now if you know some of my friends, then you know that classy could either be:

1. Classy
or
2. Klassy

On New Year's eve, Jason & I both weren't feeling well. The mountain cedar pollen had made itself known in San Antonio and my sinuses were (and still are) well aware. They couldn't stop crying and I was tired of mopping up their tears. Jason just had a headache, but I think it was out of sympathy. Somehow we unstuck ourselves from the chairs and turned off the tv long enough to get dressed. At this point, it's cold and I'm not about to put on a dress and freeze my arse off all night. Plus, I already explained the dilemma above.

So we donned our best jeans, trying to make ourselves look somewhat dressed up and presentable. We arrived at the party a typical hour late because we're cool like that and no one ever expects the M family to be on time. Much to my surprise, it was indeed a CLASSY New Year's party and my lovely husband and I were far outclassed. We became the klassy folks of the party. Well, someone had to take that role. We made klassy look good!

Soon after arriving, Jason downed a few beers. He was a man with a mission and that mission was to kiss the toilet seat later. I am happy to report that his lips stayed toilet seat free, but we did have a good scare. In case you were wondering, no I did not drink with such fortitude. Instead, I had two small 29 degree beers early on and some champagne at midnight. This picture was taken after Jason had about 3 beers:

I have no idea what in the heck he was doing. Because he has a pumpkin head, the New Year's hat didn't fit him at all. He found a great way to supplement it. Poor Mendy just didn't even know what happened here.

 

Here's a picture of our host, Haby. See, I told you it was CLASSY. He brought out the tux for the occasion. I'm pretty sure he remembers nothing of this moment.

 Here's a few more party goers: Deseere, Mendy & Paul.

Somehow through my husband's rip-roaring debacle we managed to take a decent picture together.

Here's Mendy (again with the hat! Ha!), Jason, myself and Kristi:

The real story was of the second Jason. We shall call him Buzz for several reasons, none of which shall be listed here. At midnight, he busted open his bottle of champagne and proceeded to drink from it the klassy way. (If you'll notice, he wore jeans, too. I told you some of us were klassy people.)

Shortly after this, he decided that the champagne was only good for picture-taking and would be way more fun to spray on the lawn!

But the story's not over yet. So that a perfectly good bottle wouldn't be wasted, he filled that bottle up with margaritas! The King of Klassiness!

A little later in the night, this picture was taken. If you look closely, you'll see the Ginger trying to hide like a ninja. This is me, Paul, Nik, the ninja Jenn & another Stephanie. People, there were three freaking Stephanies at the party. Seriously, WTH?

The ninja felt the need to prove her worth so she challenged her fellow Ginger to a headbutting contest!

The night went on until I worried that Jason might keel over at any moment spurring someone to yell "Timber!" in the distance. I may exaggerate how much he drank, but I kid you not about the tree part. At 6'8", you do not want to see him fall. I would've had to have left him there because there's no dragging any man around of that size. We took the backroads home and finally got in bed for the night.

The next morning, after sleeping very late, I made my dear husband make me pancakes. I figured that was a good enough payment for driving him home. However, my dreams of morning mimosas were turned down. I kept telling Jason, "hair of the dog! Hair of the dog!" but it didn't work. Oh well. I guess I can save that champagne bottle for this weekend a special occasion. Hope everyone else's celebration was just as fun!

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2009 - A Year in Pictures

2009 started off well....except that I was sick. We partied at a friend's house. you can see Jason on the far right partaking in a tequila shot:

January also marked my 30th birthday:

February brought my first-ever ski trip! I can't wait to go back again!

March was Jason's birthday and our group wine tasting trip:

April brought Easter (here's Jason with our niece, Hannah):

May was a busy month! First we had Cornyval where everyone involved ate/drank too much!

Then I did my first race, Muddy Buddy:

And then we went to a toga party:

May was also the month we said goodbye to my brother, Houston, as he left for his first tour in Afghanistan.

June was slow for us. It brought our first harvest from our garden. Little did we know that this would be the ONLY harvest this year.

July brought our first wedding anniversary and our trip to Maryland. Can be viewed here, here & here)

August was my friend Sylvia's 30th birthday, complete with a customized T-shirt.

September was another slow month because I can't find any pictures for it!

October was another fun month! First, was my 3rd fishing trip....and I broke the curse!

Then I made my debut as a Scream Girl!

November brought one awesome bachelorette party!

Two weddings.....Jenn's

and Becca's

And most importantly, my brother's 2-week leave.

And finally, December wrapped up the year with my filling my stomach with more cookies than any human should ever consume.

Whew! Are you still with me? Anyone? Anyone?

2009 is officially over! Here's hoping that 2010 brings much happiness, love and prosperity to each of you!

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Merry Christmas!

Wishing everyone a safe and happy Christmas! Please remember those who cannot be with us and thank your soldiers! :)

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Thanksgiving

We had a great second Thanksgiving held at our house. You may remember the first one mentioned here. Jason & I had each of our parents over for dinner. It started out kind of funny. My mom brought over some red wine because all I had was white. We read somewhere that white wine goes with turkey the best, so we decided to pop open a bottle. All three bottles that I have were given to me. I found a bottle in the fridge that had been left at my house from a previous get-together. Jason tried to open it with our bottle-opener-from-hell. And when I say it's from hell, I mean it's the worst bottle opener I've ever seen. I need to go to the grocery store and buy a $2 one...it would probably make things much smoother. Anyway, as Jason tries to pull the cork out, it it breaks. The top half of the cork just decided to crumble. He tries to get the other half out, but no luck. So, being the redneck family that we are sometimes, he pushed the cork INTO the bottle using a sharpie. Both the cork and the sharpie lid fell in the bottle. My dad then gets the great idea to decant the bottle into another container and to use a coffee filter to catch the leftover cork crumbles. The plan worked pretty well and a couple of us braved the tainted wine and poured ourselves a glass.

That wine was so good! I really don't care for Chardonnays, but this one was wonderful! It was a little oakey, ever so slightly sweet and had almost a brandyish taste to it. It was worth the trouble! Ha ha!

Dinner consisted of turkey, cornbread stuffing, sweet potatoes, salad, and cranberry sauce. My father-in-law made the stuffing which was so, so good! There was hardly anything left over. My friend Shana surprised me by coming over and bringing a carrot cake. Add that to the pumpkin pie that I made, the trifle and the lemon meringue pie that my mother-in-law brought and we have ourselves 4 desserts between 6 people! I will be the first to admit that I had a piece of each that day.

After Jason's parents left, I helped my mom shop the Black Friday ads. There were some things she wanted to order online so we had to wait until midnight. I lasted until about 1 o'clock before I hit the hay. Mom was the last one to bed because she caught a second wind and couldn't get tired.

I was the first one up the next morning. By 8:30, no one was still up, so I decided to get dressed and go to the gym. I figured everyone would be up by the time I got back. I showed up at 10:30 and my parents were barely up and Jason was still in bed. I celebrated Black Friday with a piece of carrot cake and took it easy the rest of the day.

My parents left that afternoon, leaving behind the turkey carcass they were going to give to their dogs and their reusable grocery bags. Thanks! That night, Jason & I met up with his parents, brother and his brother's new girlfriend at Outback. I think most of the Black Friday crowd had long gone to bed by 7:30 because the restaurant was a ghost town by then. Jason & I were able to convince everyone to come back to our house. (We had already concocted our evil plan beforehand to shove all the leftover desserts their way.) Our victims, I mean guests, didn't succumb to our sweets....they passed them up! So now we're left with 4 desserts in our fridge and we still have a THIRD Thanksgiving to go to today.

Bring on the bulge!

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Catching up, part 4

Jason & I finally made it to the hometown and we spent the evening doing what else?

Eating and drinking.

What can I say? We're a little predictable at times. :)

Anyway, the next morning was my friend Katlyn's baby shower. It was held just one town over from me......I had to trek all of 10 miles from my parent's house. Here's Katlyn with her mum that I helped Stacy put together. I had never heard of making mums for baby showers, but I think it turned out cute.


Her cake was made by Lucy's in San Antonio.


Stacy, myself and our friend Misty got together to make a diaper cake. None of us had made one before and I think it turned out cute as well.


While Kat opened her presents,


This little cutie, Cymber, stole the show:


Cymber decided that she needed to help unwrap gifts. She was so cute walking around with leftover tissue paper and bows!

After the shower, I headed home to celebrate Thanksgiving early with my brother. I forgot to get the camera out for it, but we had turkey, cranberry sauce (my fave!), yummy stuffing, veggies, pecan pie and pumpkin pie. Let's put it this way........we were stuffed!

Later that night, my brother started a fire and we all brought out lawn chairs.


Jason decided he needed to add his special touch to the fire as well. Notice the beer in hand? Anyone catching a theme here?


We sat out for a long time talking, petting the family dogs and just watching the flames.


It was a perfect end to a great night.

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Halloween recap in one picture

Theme was the '50s. We were "Scream Girls" rather than Dream Girls. I'm in the purple wig. Pure awesomeness in a photo.

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Easter Catch-Up

Jason & I went to my parent's for Easter this year. My sister was planning a party with a few of her friends, so we decided to join in. On Sunday, we headed out to Aransas to her friend Jennifer's house. There, we were greeted by TONS of children and several people we didn't know. We weren't worried about this in the least because we brought beer and brisket.

The kids entertained themselves by running around, playing video games and just plain acting crazy. My nieces love to pick flowers, so that's what they chose to do. Here's my oldest niece, Hailey, giving me a smug smile. I was sitting down when I snapped this picture, so it's at a weird angle. She's a little camera shy, so there's not too many pictures of her.

At some point, my brother stole my camera and this is what I found in it:

You should be thanking me for sparing you the rest. I think there's about 10 of his self-portraits. He also took the only picture of me that I have from the party, but I'm not posting that sucker. It's HORRIBLE. I wasn't ready and it's a BAD angle. We'll just leave it at that.

This, however, is a picture I love! This is Jason with my other niece, Hannah, showing her true colors. She is one silly girl who loves to pose for the camera.

Someone decided to bring dozens and dozens of cascarones (confetti eggs for you northerners!) and all craziness ensued.

I even have a few small cuts on the top of my forehead from someone being a little overzealous with a cascarone. I blame my sister. I'm pretty sure she enjoyed smashing one on me. I felt the most sorry for this cute little girl. That confetti may never come out of her hair!

Jason & I got to play Easter Bunny this year. I've never actually gotten to do that before, so we had a lot of fun. Unfortunately, there weren't a lot of places to hide eggs in Jennifer's back yard, so we hid a lot of eggs in the grass mounds. We then called the kids to the back yard and lined them up:

And they're off!

That's my sis, Carrie, trying to take pictures in the middle of this photo:

Somehow Hannah talked this poor fellow into giving her a piggyback ride all through the yard. She kicked her shoes off earlier because they were hurting her feet.

Luckily, my mom was able to relieve him of his duty.

After the hunt was over, we ate lots of food while the kids stuffed themselves full of sugar and eggs. Speaking of eggs, have you ever wondered what kids do with hard-boiled eggs?

Well, if you guessed "try and crack them open, then put them in the seat of the tricycle" you were right! I laughed so hard because this kid was so intent on his work!

But the real joy was seeing all the kids stuff themselves silly with sugar, then leaving them there. Just kidding. I hope everyone had a safe and happy Easter!

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