Holiday dinner

So John and I hosted a holiday dinner for his research group on Friday. It went really well!

We invited everyone over at 6:30. John and I made a spiral sliced ham (with an awesome glaze John made), cheese potato casserole, green bean casserole, rolls, and salad. We also made AMAZING bacon and shrimp for appetizers. We had everything done and plenty of time to shower and get ready for our guests before they got here! I was so proud of us, and everyone else seemed to have a good time and enjoy the food.

Now the house is pretty much clean and ready for Christmas Eve with John's family.

Candied Bacon recipe: (You have to try this!)

Thick sliced bacon
Brown sugar
chopped walnuts

Line a cookie sheet with tinfoil and preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Cut the bacon in half so it is about 3-4 inches long. Lay the bacon on the cookie sheet so it is touching, but not overlapping.

Sprinkle brown sugar evenly over the bacon (if you have difficulty, spread the brown sugar out with a spoon) sprinkle the walnuts over the bacon (more or less to taste).

Bake for 20-30 minutes (or until bacon looks fully cooked). Remove bacon slices to a cooling rack and allow to fully cool before serving.

*Be sure to take the tinfoil off the cookie sheet before the bacon grease and brown sugar cools, otherwise it is very difficult to remove*

Playing in the snow!

It snowed last night! A lot more came down then what we were expecting. So this morning John, the dogs and I went over to the park to play, but the snowdrifts were so high that Esse kept falling into them! We came back to the house and just played in the yard. I took some pretty cool photos, they are below.... Today is definitely going to be a hot chocolate kind of day!

Esse was really cold! Even with his coat on...

The snow was really bright, so I'm all squinty.

Awesome photo of Lady!

I like this one a lot too! She's got a little beard going on.

She found the football.

And was NOT giving it back.

Family photo! (Esse is shivering and Lady is trying to get her football back)

Snow!

So I went out this morning to go for a quick walk to wake me up and IT'S SNOWING! That was 8 this morning, here it is almost 11 and it's still snowing! Nothing's sticking though, ground is too warm :( I'm hoping soon it will actually start accumulating. I love playing in the snow, and so does Lady....

Cleaning

So Thanksgiving is over. Now it's time to get my house back under control, I feel like I'm finally doing better with keeping my house clean though. When I consider everything "messy" now only takes a few hours to clean up, as opposed to the few days it used to take! I'm not quite sure if we are cleaning up after ourselves better or if my standards just got higher?

FlyLady (link) has helped me so much!! Today we had a challenge to "put out the fires" in our living room. (Fires are just those spots that always seem to attract clutter) I tackled my desk! I haven't seen the top of the desk in at least a month, I remember now (after cleaning) that it's reddish wood!! I went through 3 months of bills, receipts, junk mail and magazines and got everything organized. My living room is company ready now too!

On a much more fun note I have almost all my Christmas shopping done. I can't wait for Christmas. I'm really excited about plans this year. We are going to have Christmas Eve with John's parents and the day after Christmas with my parents. John and I are spending Christmas day together and having Prime Rib for dinner! Yum! Our lights are up, the tree is ready, and the house is decorated... is it time yet?

A clean living room!

Our makeshift mantle... we can't exactly eat at the table, but it's pretty....

I love this wreath! I made it myself, then John found this awesome sparkly G to put in the middle. Perfect!

Oh and I found a couple of cute halloween photos! Here they are too...

I was a fairy, Lady (on the left) got a cape like her daddy, and Esse (on the right) was a cute pumpkin!

John in a scary mask and Lady!

Hello World

Hi, I'm Heather.

I recently got married, and I have 2 dogs. I enjoy cooking and reading. I also have a degree in English (you'd think I'd bee able to give a better description).

I just started blogging, mostly because I was bored. Maybe someone will find my ramblings interesting....

We had Thanksgiving today (with my family) it was awesome! So now I'm sitting in a semi comatose state watching the Missouri-kansas game. I am a Tiger Fan! M-I-Z! So close to a shut-out....

Lately my husband has been teaching me how to program in C++. It's kind of interesting, I want to make a cook book program, once I understand programing a bit better. If anyone has any awesome recipes I would love to trying them out!