Monday, January 7, 2013

Home for the Holidays

There is nothing more special than the holiday season with family.  
Here's a jumbled look at the end of December.

(The IT Department at work serenaded us with holiday jingles for 2 hours during lunch.  
What great guys:))

(I made and canned 36 pints of salsa for Christmas presents.  All from scratch.  
I hope Martha is proud!)

(After a 12 hour midnight drive down to Arkansas I greeted by my lovely parents, a comfy bed, yummy mexican food, and the best home cook meal I had had in awhile.  
Wild rice with roasted duck and cheesy kale casserole, all made by my wonderful cook of a father!)

(Visiting the Haines Family in Mt. Ida for gift exchange!)

   
(My mother's awesome Christmas decorations, I love our house at Christmas.)

(Me and my lovely seester going trendy with our Oxblood pedicures.)

If any of yall are familiar with my family, you know that we have no such thing as a "traditional Christmas Eve dinner".  In recent years we've had Cajun Christmas with crawfish etoufee and blackened catfish, Surf n' Turf with generous steaks, crab legs, and crab cakes, and Italian.  This year we went with a South of the Border theme and had fajitas. 

(My contribution: Guacamole.  Secret ingredient: Cream Cheese.
Recipe curtsey of the Haines Family.)

(I headed to Arkansas for the Holiday's expecting a warm winter; well, warm compared to my new Wisconsin standards anyways.  This is what met our doorstep on Christmas.  Not to mention a pretty much state wide power outage. Nothing like playing pioneer on Christmas!)

(When it's freezing cold at night and everyone else has their honey bunny to snuggle with except you, you adjust.  I invited Scout to sleep with me, thinking he would keep me warm.  He wasn't the best bed partner but as my dad said "you can't blame him, it was his first time!" 
Oh. Dad.)

(Despite the crummy weather we got to mark a huge task of the wedding agenda for my sister.  
She said yes to the dress!
She found her wedding dress at the same dress shop in 
Brinkley, AR that my mother found her dress at 35 years earlier.)

(Not only is my father a great cook, but my sister is too!)

(So obviously my family is obsessed with food.  Which is totally okay with me.  In addition to 6 new cookbooks I also got a KITCHEN AID STAND MIXER!  If you can't tell I'm really excited:))

(One of the longstanding traditions of family get togethers on my mother's side is to play Michigan Rummy.  It's one of my most favorite things to do when we all get together!)

(I miss all the odd interesting things that go on at my house.  
My dad's mussel collection; A Pig's Toe, Deer Toe, and Cow's Toe.  We're not nerdy or anything.)

(Celebrating my Papaw's 80th birthday!!!)

(Me and my dad made a honey baked ham!)

(Scout being a good bird dog and watching the sky for ducks!)

(My new Tory Burch lunch box!  I feel so fetch:))

(If yall didn't know, I have the best boyfriend ever.)

(Further proof that Wes is the best boyfriend ever.)

More pictures and posts later!

Until next time...




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