shop shop shopping!

my family goes christmas shopping every year.

it's a big deal to my mother.

you can read more about it here,

but this year was fun because i got to hang out with this little girl.

which makes my parents extra happy.

and my mom and dad have an excuse to ride the rides at the mall.

while the cool kids watch with our extra cool barbie cart.

haters gonna hate.

what i wore, you ask?

my new cardigan that i asked for my birthday.

charcoal gray [over the] knee socks from target.

brown old navy cotten dress

my steve madden boots.

but it was a bad move on my part because my feet were killing me by the end of the day.  next year? it's sweatpants and tennis shoes all the way.

hope you got your shopping done too!

diet be damned

it's our annual family christmas cookie exchange day.

we like to go for the long titles.

one of my aunts made over 1,200 cookies.

it's my family's version of extreme sports.

but when the day comes everyone already has their cookies baked and ready for the exchange.

so we spend most of the day making the candies.

dipped peppermint.

divinity

a lunch break

brownies

and dipped pretzels

don't mess with cookie day.

weather report

we interrupt our regularly scheduled blog report

for this severe weather update.

it snowed.

barely.

i'm not sure if this should even count as our first snow.

it's nothing like last year.

but none the less, it took people hours to get to work

so i think that makes it official.

check it out.

even though it's exciting to see the snow coming down,

it was a real bummer to wake up to 20 degree weather.

it's freaking freezing here.

oh holy night lights

it's christmas here at the cox residence.

i put up my decorations last monday.

somehow ronnie got out of most of the process.

he's happy about that

and i'm just glad it's up.

christmas lights make me happy.

they are one of my favorite things.

i used to have them up year-round.

but now i only get them for about four weeks in december and on my deck in the summer.

so i make sure and turn them on as soon as i get home and they stay on until my head hits the pillow.

hope. peace. love.

merry [early] christmas!

the season of parties - part 3

last monday i shared a favorite appetizer of my coworkers.

this week is ronnie's fave pre-meal dish.

bacon-wrapped jalapenos.

i hate spicy, so i never try the things,

but he l.o.v.e.s them.

here's what you'll need:

25 fresh jalapeno peppers

14 -16 ounces cream cheese

2 cups shredded cheese

2 (16 ounce) packages bacon

cut stems off of peppers and cut them all in half (longways).

then remove the seeds.  (ronnie likes it if i leave a couple for an extra kick, but that adds to the hotness, so it would depend on who you're making these for.)

mix the soften cream cheese with the shredded cheese.

fill each pepper with cream cheese/shredded cheese to the top.

wrap 1/2 slice of bacon around each pepper half.

bake at 450 degrees for 10 to 15 minutes or until bacon is fully cooked.

served when cooled.

ps- you can do something very similar if you use sausage instead of bacon.  then mix the sausage with the cream cheese, fill the peppers and sprinkle the shredded cheese on top.  those are great too.

lazy days

we were lazy.

no-shave no-vember is finally over.

thank heavens.

it's not even something ronnie meant to do,

but we got [lazy] and never got around to cutting his hair.

so after four weeks, he ended up looking like this:

a hobo.

but a happy hobo.

so we cut off the shag and the messy beard,

and went back to normal.

it doesn't even look like the same person.

then we had a power outage, which ended up being really nice...

and when the power came back on - we ended the night lazily laying in bed watching eclipse in preperation to see breaking dawn... which i have still not seen.

and it's killing me.

sometimes it's nice to be lazy.

a day like today

after a day like today,
i had to force myself to continue my work.

i had to meet linds for lunch to plan.

i had to call ronnie to vent.
i had to come home and eat a spoon full of peanut butter.

all because

i had to meet with my boss and

explain

defend

and

then i cried.

after a day like today,

i feel exhausted.

but hopefully one day in the future

i can have another meeting in my boss's office

to leave.