Updated Patio

We're real adults now! Last weekend (and the weekend before) we made improvements to our patio. We want to spend more time outside (especially now that the humidity has lessened) so we needed improvements. We bought a new grill - a real, full-sized, grown-up BBQ. We had some trouble with it at first, but we finally got it going. Our first meal to initiate the new grill was brats and grilled stuffed mushrooms...so delicious! Thanks for the great food Bill!

And what Patio+BBQ would be complete without a table and some chairs to enjoy it with. So, we bought a new table (and chairs)! We thought about buying cheap, plastic ones - because that would have been good enough...but, we wanted to get something a little nicer. So, we bought the nice glass table, with 6 chairs, with an umbrella and a cover! It's great - I absolutely love it! It's a good table and the chairs are awesome so it should last us a while. Thanks for assembling the table, Bill!

Tuna Noodle Casserole

Its been pretty busy lately. We've been celebrating the New Year and enjoying lots of tasty food and fun adventures. Its also been great to have Peter here with us for the last few weeks (he left today and we are sad). Even though the holiday season demands its own special food, we were able to try a few recipes from the cookbook while Peter was here. The most recent one was Tuna Noodle Casserole. I have to admit that I make a pretty good Tuna Noodle Casserole, but the point of cooking through an entire cookbook is to cook all the recipes as they are written. So, I made the meal according to the recipe. The final verdict was: mine is better!

the recipe

I don't normally use green peppers, but I had to follow the recipe
a creamy, tasty tuna sauce

you have to have noodles

the topping was the best part: butter, bread crumbs, and cheese!

looks pretty good...(mine is better!)

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year!! Hopefully you had a safe and enjoyable evening last night. We spent the night at home eating all manner of appetizers and counting down to a new decade. I hope that everyone is looking forward to a wonderful and exciting 2010!

enjoying our appetizing dinner

Ubi was not very excited about the new year
watching the Ball drop and enjoying our Sparkling Cider

Ubi had a lot more fun once we gave him some Sparkling Cider

we went outside and watched the neighborhood fireworks (they were close & loud)

Ubi did NOT like being outside with the loud fireworks...he was very nervous!

HAPPY NEW YEAR - have a blessed 2010!

Flavor of the Month - Cookies

Christmas means lots of good cookies! So it's fortunate that the Flavor of the Month for December is cookies. I look forward to Christmas time each year because it means baking and eating all my favorite Christmas cookies. My favorite cookie changes from year to year but this year it was Spritz. They look so festive with their fun shapes and colorful sprinkles. I didn't make as many varieties of cookies this year (I'm still learning how to bake in this humidity) but I made enough to keep us full! Here are a few of the delicious treats we enjoyed this Christmas.

lots of Spritz!

Spritz in a tin
gooey bars in a tin
fudge in a tin (I know it's not a cookie, but it's good)

this is all that's left of the cookies!

To read more about all kinds of Christmas cookies, check out the other Flavor of the Month entries.

Christmas Cards

#4 on my list of Things to Do was completed earlier this month. In fact, we started last month so we wouldn’t be late. I wanted to do something different for Christmas cards this year so I decided we should make them…with our hands! I'm not sure Bill was quite as excited about the idea, but he helped. I think they turned out nice – they probably look like they were made by a 2nd grader, but it’s the thought that counts. And, there was a lot more effort put in to these cards than most so I hope that they were appreciated for that instead of their lacking artistic value. We also included a picture – just so friends and family won’t forget what we look like (and I must say that printing a regular picture is a lot cheaper than getting a photo Christmas card printed!).

we traced cute shapes onto festive wrapping paper

we cut out all the shapes we glued the shapes onto construction paper we included our holiday greeting (we cheated and used large labels instead of writing them all) we signed each card (Bill even signed his own name on all of them)

we included a picture in each card

we labeled and stamped the envelopes

And then we mailed them off with our happy holiday wishes for everyone.

MERRY CHRISTMAS TO ALL!!!

Christmas Scenes

I've been busy baking Christmas cookies and shopping for gifts and attending Christmas parties and wrapping presents and basically just enjoying the Christmas season. I hope everyone is having a very happy holiday time! Here are a few more images from our Christmas!

my kitchen is full of special holiday stuff

the table is ready for Christmas too!

so pretty!

Even Gandhi is excited about Christmas Santa's Marching Band (I love it!)

the countdown calendar and our cute snowman sign

"the stockings are hung by the stairs with care..."

our Christmas card tree is ready for cards

Christmas Time

We put up our decorations last weekend so its beginning to look a lot like Christmas in our house. Our tree is beautiful, as always. We even decorated outside, since we have a house now and people can drive by and see our lights. Its modest, but very cute (and Bill did it all without a ladder)!

Ubi got a Christmas present today...we bought him a new bed. He doesn't know when Christmas is, so we gave it to him early. We'll make sure he lays on it Christmas morning while we're opening our gifts.

I hope everyone is enjoying the festive season as much as I am!

our tree

Ubi's new bed - its the same color he is and so soft!
our outside lights

Ubi is tired of all the pictures!