Christmas Has Finally Arrived...

After several weeks of craziness and procrastination, we finally put up our Christmas tree on Wednesday... and then we spent yesterday morning decorating! Kevin made us some hot cocoa and we turned on the Christmas music and enjoyed celebrating being on vacation! Here are some pictures of our cute condo now that it is ready for Christmas!



I love our stockings and stocking hangers- mine is a little Bakery building. It is so cute! I also love our garland that sits on the mantle. It lights up and makes the room look so festive!


Here are the fabulous snowmen decorations that I got last Christmas and the darling Christmas tree candle that Miranda gave me a few years back. I love opening up my Christmas box each year because by the time the next year rolls around I've forgotten about all of the things we already own.


On the top shelf of our little hutch is one of my favorite presents from last year- a beautiful Spode Christmas platter. Some day I plan to have the Spode Christmas dishes and silverware so that we can eat Christmas dinner on them.


For Christmas Eve when I was little we'd always read "The Polar Express." My parents gave Kevin and I a copy of the book the first Christmas after we got married. They also gave us one of each type of ornament that they have on their Christmas tree. I love the ornaments because even though we're not always together on Christmas, it feels like a little piece of my family is with me.


Lastly, here is the great advent calendar we got from the Buskirks last year. Isn't it beautiful?! Only two more days till Christmas!

Holiday Traditions

Most of my favorite family traditions revolve around chocolate (surprise, surprise!). Every year since I can remember, my mom has always carried on the tradition of baking for weeks before Christmas and then putting together intricate and delicious cookie plates/containers and delivering them to a few of her hundred closest friends. Each of us were always responsible for a particular cookie- I was in charge of the Snowmen, Elise was in charge of the Santa cookies, and Jessie and her friends were in charge of the stars and Christmas tree sugar cookies. My mom made the rest of cookies and bars and we were lucky if we could snag a bite!


After a week or so of baking, we'd help put together the cookie plates and then we'd all jump into the car and spend several evenings dropping off cookies. My favorite year involved Scotter wearing a Santa mask and all of us girls wearing Santa hats. As we left the cookies at the houses we'd be asked again and again to sing some Christmas songs, so we'd quickly walk back to the car singing "We Wish You a Merry Christmas." Very few years went by without some sort of argument about who would deliver the cookies to the doors (since many of the people were my mom's friends... and they'd only heard about us from her). Our favorite visits were when we'd arrive at a home to drop off cookies and receive a plate of cookies in return- they were usually quickly devoured in the car. After several hours of driving, we'd stop at Friendly's for some dinner or ice cream and enjoy their typical SLOW service.


Kevin and I decided to continue this tradition of cookie baking and delivering in our little family. This year was our 2nd attempt and although the cookies didn't taste as good as my mom's and weren't as plentiful, we had a lot of fun! Kevin was a whiz at making the peanut butter blossom cookies (pb hersheys kiss cookies) and even tried a new variation using Reeses PB cup bells instead of Hersheys kisses. They were delicious! He also proved to be a great plate wrapper.


I think between work friends, church friends, and family, we delivered 45-50 plates! Last night and yesterday afternoon we did the official cookie delivering. I drove the car while Kevin searched in the dark to find names on the plates... and fortunately no one got the wrong plate (although there were a few close calls) and we only got lost once or twice.


Now we're just hoping to be able to get our condo decorated and Christmas tree up before Christmas day! (P.S.- If you're already gone on vacation and we missed giving you treats... we'll be stopping by in January with some New Years goodies. Merry Christmas!)

Gingerbread House Competition

We were invited over to our friends Lindsey and Tyler's house on Monday night for a Family Home Evening Gingerbread House Competition. Here are some pics. It was a great night! Especially when the little torch came out and Tyler started lighting marshmallows on fire.

Here we are with our little house. We were especially proud that the roof stayed up.


Here are Steve and Alie with their beautiful house before Steve torched it. They were intimidating competition since Steve is an engineer and is currently building his own house. :-)

Space Time 2007

On Saturday night we went to Google's holiday party. We would have to say it was the most incredible party we've ever been to. We arrived fashionably late (about 40 min) along with about several thousand other people. Here is the line of cars trying to get into the parking lot. We had to park so far away from the main event that we boarded a party bus in the parking lot to drive us to the entrance.

The first room was florescent orange and pink with all sorts of appetizers and desserts and a DJ. It was about the length of a football field and completely packed with people.


The best desserts in the room were the chocolate mousse cups and the little lemon tarts. They also had a Spanish Tapas bar and Italian Tuscan bar.

After we explored the first room, we ventured down the dark hallway to the Space Lounge.

The Space Lounge was a lot quieter and all sorts of crazy old space movies were being showed on big screens all over the place. They also had some virtual reality machines you could try out. The food in this room was more like comfort food- Kristina's favorite thing was the mashed potato bar! They also had pigs in a blanket, gourmet grilled cheese, and blue cheese bites. We were in heaven... until we walked up the stairs and found the crepe bar! They had amazing berry and chocolate crepes... so the eating continued! :-) Basically the entire event consisted of wandering around and eating - it was fabulous!


The last room was the craziest/loudest room where the live band was playing. Baby Buskirk didn't enjoy the loud music too much, so we didn't stay long in there... but we did stay long enough to try the creme puff bar. They had several different types of creme puffs and then would smother the creme puffs with either hot fudge or hot caramel. Mmmm!


In the live band room they also had some vintage arcade games for people to play.


At the end of the evening we waited in line to get our picture taken to document the event and then we jumped on the Google party bus to head back to our car. It was a great way to start off our holiday party season!

Cookie Extravaganza

Every year my friend Kaari throws an awesome Christmas Cookie Swap party. I feel so lucky to make the invite list since I get to come home with a HUGE amount of cookies made by other people AND Kaari buys each of us the most darling holiday plates that we get to bring our cookies home on.


Here are some pictures of my contributions to the cookie swap. Last year I made chocolate chip cookies, so this year I thought I'd try something different and make an ooey gooey chocolatey brownie bar thing. The recipe came from one of my favorite treat cookbooks called The Favorite Brand Name Bake Sale Cookbook. I included the recipe below just in case you feel like trying them out- they have peanut butter, chocolate, rice krispies, and brownies in them... so they're very rich and good!



Once we arrive at the cookie swap, we have to put three of our treats on a special plate to give to the judges. Then we all eat a delicious dinner prepared by Kaari and then we start loading our cute plates with cookies. When the judges are done taste testing the treats, they announce the winners and prizes are given out. After my plate is heaped high with treats, I always go home and share the goodies with Kevin. We usually make ourselves sick from all the sugar. It's a great tradition :-)

Marshmallow Krispie Bars

1 package Duncan Hines Chewy fudge brownie mix

1 package miniature marshmallows

1 ½ cups semi-sweet chocolate chips

1 cup JIF Creamy peanut butter

1 tablespoon butter or margarine

1 ½ cups crisp rice cereal

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease bottom of 13X9-inch pan
2. Prepare and bake brownies following package directions for basic recipe. Remove from oven. Sprinkle marshmallows on hot brownies. Return to oven. Bake for 3 minutes longer.
3. Place chocolate chips, peanut butter and butter in medium saucepan. Cook over low heat, stirring constantly, until chips are melted. Add rice cereal; mix well. Spread mixture over marshmallow layer. Refrigerate until chilled. Cut into bars.

Make about 2 dozen bars

Tip: For special presentation, cut cookies into diamond shapes.

Birthday Breakfast

Here's a quick picture of what Kevin cooked up for me last Saturday for my belated birthday breakfast- Williams Sonoma chocolate chocolate chip waffles. They were delicious! Basically it was like eating chocolate cake with whipped cream for breakfast. I would definitely recommend trying these!