High 5 for Friday: Pre-Christmas Edition

I hope you have all of your shopping done (or most of it at least) because you're down to 6 days before Ho-Ho Man -as my brother used to call him- comes to town!  Since this is the last Friday before Christmas I'm going to do this High Five for Friday Christmas style, which means it will be mostly about food. =)

#1

As of today I have all but one Christmas gift in my possession.  It's funny because I had said gift in my hands last week, but thanks to some canine residents at our house last week (we are still not 100% sure who the instigator was) said gift now has several holes in it, hence the reason I had to reorder the gift.  Thankfully (for the dogs) I was able to reorder and have it here by Christmas.

#2

As I was wrapping gifts last weekend I came across an old gift box.  How did I know it was old? Because it had Christmas 1997 colored on the back of it.  Every year my family takes a Christmas picture in front of the tree with the year written on something so we know what year it was, and apparently that year I markered it onto a gift box. I clearly wanted to use the majority blue on the sign since it's always been my favorite color, but it looks to me like I realized it was not Christmas colors at all when I finished, hence the red/green/silver tri-colored "C" that covers up the "hr." My 12 year old self had clearly been working on my bubble letters and numbers because the bubble letter/number work is spot on. This gift box means 3 things: 1) They don't makes gift boxes like they used to because this one is going on it's 18 Christmas wrapped up under the tree; 2) I don't thrown anything away ever, if it weren't for Eric I would probably be a candidate for Hoarders; 3) I come by it honestly because I was not officially living somewhere other than my parents' house until 2007ish, meaning that my mother saved and reused this gift box for at least 10 years before it ended up in my possession.

#3

Don't be fooled by the pictures, that baby was at least an inch and a half thick!

We had a surprise on our door step when we got home last night in the form of a large white Styrofoam box.  Of course I was intrigued, because anytime there's a large box at the house I get excited...BTW I owe our mailman BIG TIME for all of the online orders he has had to deliver to our house this year.  I know he's tired of having to drive up in our drive way and finding creative ways to stuff packages in our mailbox.  Anywho, back to the box. Naturally I opened that bad boy up because it said perishable on the side and I was greeted by a glorious site.... 2 deep dish Chicago Style Pizzas from Gino's East from my aunt and uncle and cousins in Chicago.  And if you think I was excited, you should have heard Eric's reaction.  I texted him a picture, and I'm pretty sure he came home from his fishing trip a little early because of it.  He even had the oven preheated and the oven racks adjusted by the time I got home from the dance studio.  Trust me folks, Eric cooking anything that isn't on a grill, a fryer, or eggs in the skillet is a big deal. We both went to bed with happy and full belles last night.

#4

I have officially removed all of the Christmas Crack Crunch from our house as of last night. I ended up making 2 batches of it this year, which is substantially less than the quintuple batch I made a few years ago.  I may have to up it to 3 batches next year.  It seriously blows my mind how much people love this stuff.  Eric says it's the white chocolate sweetness mixed with the salty flavors that people just aren't used to that makes it so good.  I start getting requests at work for it in November and I even got a call from someone last night asking me not to make it anymore because their waistline couldn't handle it.  I'll take that as a compliment.  Since we are out of it I plan on trying out a new recipe from Mom that involves peanuts, almond bark, chocolate chips, and peanut butter chips this coming weekend.  No worries, I'll have a full report on it on Monday.  I have a feeling it's going to be good though!

#5

I tried a new snack recipe last night that is totally worth trying out if you're a fan of somewhat spicy things.  I am not a huge fan of spicy but this recipe also involves ranch dressing mix which makes any and everything delicious (you can adjust the spiciness to your liking). I've decided I am a fan.  They're called Spicy Ranch Crackers and they're the easiest things to make.  I actually had everything on hand already: Saltine Crackers, Ranch Dressing Mix, Cayenne Pepper, and Canola oil.  They are seriously addicting.

I hope you have a fun, happy, stress-free last weekend before Christmas!

Our Halls are Decked!

My favorite view of the Christmas Tree of course!

I'm most definitely a traditionalist when it comes to our Christmas decorations.  While I love seeing the new different colored and themed trees, I prefer my real Christmas Tree with all of our ornaments that we've collected over the years on it. We have a silver star that's sat on top of our tree since I was in college but I've wanted something that stands out a little more for years.  This year I decided to add a big bow on top of the tree (in addition to the star of course because the start HAS to go on top). I attempted to wrap the tree with ribbon, but it looked ridiculous so I scrapped that idea.  I guess I did it wrong....who knows.  Other than that our Christmas decorations were pretty standard for us.

I did pull out all of my nutcrackers again this year.  I've posted about it before, but I have a ridonkulous collection of nutcrackers.  I think I counted over 40 one time, but who knows.  It's always a challenge every year to figure out where to put them so they are visible but out of the reach of a certain chocolate lab's super destructive tail that always wags when there is something to be knocked over. Who am I kidding that tail is always going which is the reason there are only coasters and magazines on our coffee table.

Our pretty front door

Another addition I made this year was sewing our names to our stockings. "Wait, didn't you already have your names on your stockings?" Why yes I cross stitched our names for our stockings the year we got engaged, however for the past 5 Christmases our names were pinned to said stockings. As an avid crafter, I am completely ashamed to admit it, but it's true.  I folded the fabric up and pinned them on, with safety pins no less. When my parents were here over Thanksgiving helping me decorate, Mom mentioned it so I decided it was time to make our names on our stockings permanent and stitch those bad boys on.  I got about halfway done with Eric's stocking and remembered why after stitching our names, I put my needle and thread up for 5 years....it might be one of the most tedious things I have ever done in my life.  I'm not even doing intricate patterns this time around, just sewing a big square around our names to attach them to the stockings. I started the weekend after Thanksgiving, and nearly 3 weeks later I'm about 80% done. I am hoping that maybe by Christmas they'll both be complete. We'll see.

Yes I am aware that our stocking are in fact mittens and not socks, but I found them several years ago and I thought they were the cutest things I had ever seen, plus there's no toe part for stuffers to get stuck in.

No worries the tree has been Peanut approved for hiding gingerbread man dog treats!

Life Update

To say that the past couple of weeks have been chaotic would be a total understatement around these parts.  I know time flies when you're having fun, but it also flies when your totally completely 100% out of your normal routine.

The day after I last posted my SIL and BIL came into town for a couple of days, unfortunately I had to travel for work and the day afterward I had not only a nail in a tire, but in the time between I realized had a tire problem (Friday morning) and when I could get to the tire place (Friday afternoon) I had a tire blowout (of another tire) on the interstate near my office.  It was awesome.  Luckily some of my wonderful coworkers helped me change it while I kicked myself for not paying closer attention when my Dad tried to teach me when I was 16...sorry Dad!  However after watching one of my tires be changed for the second time in a month, I think I could do it (with supervision of course).

Friday night Eric and I went to see his Dad in the hospital because he had a staph infection on his stump and thought he had pulled a muscle in his back, or so we thought.  He was doing alright, just waiting for test results to come back. We headed back home hoping that he just had a kidney stone or something along those lines.  We were completely wrong and things deteriorated rapidly.  They ended up moving to ICU so he could be watched closer the next evening, and on Sunday morning they called Eric to tell him he had a staph infection in his blood and to tell the family they needed to come right then.  It was beyond scary to hear the nurses say that, and it was the beginning of our marathon Sunday at the hospital. Within 2 hours most of the family was there and his condition improved.  Come to find out when they called us his heart rate was up around 150 and he was taking 30+ breaths per minute, which most people cannot sustain for any period of time.  By the time we got there, they'd put an oxygen mask on him and his heart rate was down in the 105-110 range and he was taking 18-20 breaths per minute and remained there all day.  By the time we left the hospital that night he was still very critical but stable.  We arrived home to a houseful again, as Eric's brother and his wife and baby who had just left our house on Friday came back to stay with us so they could be closer to their Dad. I will say that the one upside to this week has been getting to see our nephew, among other family we don't see nearly enough. I just wish it was under happier circumstances. The rest of the week we tried to return to as normal as we could with the boys taking daily trips to the hospital to see their Dad.

In the meantime, we found out last week that Eric's Dad's sister who we saw that Sunday and thought had a bad double ear infection that was causing vertigo, in fact has a brain tumor.  They admitted her to the hospital (not the same one his Dad is in) on Monday and she had surgery on Thursday.  Unfortunately the outlook for her is not great, but we are hoping and praying that chemo will shrink it!

Like I said life has been quite chaotic. So please please please keep Eric's Dad, his aunt, and his entire family in your prayers. They really need it right now.

The good news is that this morning they were able to take his Dad off the ventilator!!!! This is huge because they tried yesterday and he couldn't handle it.  From what I understand it's a difficult process for the patient so I was ecstatic to hear that they was successful this morning!

I am hoping to be present here a little more than I have been before the holidays, at least that is my intention.  This being one such a wonderful time of year I have lots of pictures and stories I really want to share soon!

Thanksgiving Weekend Recap

I think it's safe to say that Thanksgiving 2014 was a success!  Thanksgiving is always one of my favorite holidays. Think about it, the day focuses on food and being thankful for the giant plate of delicious goodies that you get to consume and no one judges you for getting your second or third plate because they've already refilled their plates as well. Then you get to spend the remainder of the day watching football and planning out your Black Friday shopping strategy and of course, eat leftovers!  It's a total win-win!

Mom and Dad came down to spend Thanksgiving with us this year.  We ended up having a smaller crowd than we did last year, but it was still a great Thanksgiving and don't worry, we had plenty to eat.  It's totally normal to have 3 turkeys, a turkey breast, and 2 hams for 6 people, right?  In my defense I only planned on having 2 turkeys (I buy small ones for frying so we can have one to eat that day and plenty of leftovers) and one ham.  I did not know the other meat was coming until the day of. Long story short, we're doing our best but we still have a ton of leftovers in the fridge. I am going to attempt to grind up some of the turkey meat to make meatloaf this week.  I'll let you know how it goes.

Back to Turkey Day...Since we only had 6 for our Thanksgiving meal, I made the executive decision to pull out our wedding china and have a nice sit-down meal. I am pretty sure that's the first time we've ever used more than 2 of the dinner plates at one time...in 4.5 years.  It's not that we don't entertain (obviously), but we tend to not entertain on a fancy scale like ever.

Planning his Black Friday Strategy

Mom and I continued our Gray Thursday boycott, but were up bright and early on Friday to hit the sales.  We left the house at 6AM and didn't pull back into the driveway until 3PM.  We decided that although we don't participate in Gray Thursday, we like it because the early AM store crowds on Black Friday were non-existent.  It didn't really pick up until after about 10AM.  We only had a few major items on our list and were able to find all of those things and then some. We really did score some great deals and knock out a lot of Christmas shopping.  I think I have 95% of mine done as of today, which is a first for me.  Of course the year I am not coaching is the year I get everything done early....go figure.

They absolutely LOVE their costumes, don't they?!

Saturday morning Mom and I headed back to Montgomery for round 2 (sort of), while Dad headed to the golf course....Eric left Friday afternoon for a duck hunting excursion. The purpose of our trip back to town was for a Christmas Tree!  Being a live Christmas Tree aficionado my entire life, this is serious business.  We've gotten a Costco Christmas Tree the past 4 years and they are beautiful (and you can't beat the price!) The only kicker is that you have to get them Thanksgiving weekend or you are SOL because they usually only get one truck.  We snagged one and after meeting Dad for lunch (we were a bit turkeyed out after 4 straight meals of Thanksgiving food), we headed home to decorate. A few hours later the house was starting to look like a winter wonderland!  We barely made it through the Iron Bowl Saturday night...I think I slept through most of the 3rd quarter, but woke up in time to see the Tide pull out an uncharacteristically high scoring game.

It's officially Christmas Time at the Cagle household!

Mom and Dad had to hit the road on Sunday morning so I spent the rest of the day finishing up decorating and trying to psyche myself up for the week.  Five whole workdays where I have to dress in proper business attire for most of them is going to be tough, but I do have a couple of Christmas parties to look forward to so that should be a nice distraction.  Eric got home that night and we continued to power through the leftovers only with the addition of duck meat which I actually ate this time.

Happy December!