December Recap

Since I am playing catch up and wasn't able to post most of the month, here are the highlights from December so far.  The first weekend of the month, we had a reunion couples retreat through the ministry we did our premarital education through.  Gary Thomas was the speaker that weekend and focused on marriage being something that was designed to give us the opportunity to deepen spiritually and not just to make us happy.

 

They hold this retreat at a really neat conference center just outside of Salado on a lot of land.  It's so serene and was nice to get away.   We enjoyed exploring the property in our free time.

 

 It was beautiful.

Megan, Kaleigh, and me

We also enjoyed getting to spend time with friends.  Rich and Megan, who we first met in our premarital education class and are now some of our best friends got to come too.  I didn't take any pictures, but Saturday night we went into Salado for their Christmas Stroll.  They have vendors that set up all along main street downtown.  Two words... kettle popcorn.  Yum!  We had a great time walking through town seeing all of the lights and the live nativity scene as well.

December 7th was my mom's birthday.  JW and I went over to my parents' house to hang out with Claire and Hunter while my dad took mom out to dinner.  We decided to bake her a cake while they were gone.  Unfortunately, due to a goofy silicone bundt pan, the cake didn't turn out so well.  It tasted pretty good, but was pretty much a disaster.  Oh well!  It's the thought that counts, right? :)

Beautiful momma; not so beautiful cake...

And, last weekend we drove up to Dallas for our annual family Christmas celebration with my mom's family at G-Ma's house.

Sibling picture.  They are lots of fun.  It's always a good time when we all get together.  Highlights this year were that the girls actually had some "steals" in our white-elephant gift exchange, and we played a fierce game of Spoons.  Typically the girls are polite and don't steal each other's gifts while the boys max out their number of steals on several gifts.  This year we got a little feisty.

Aunt Millie came to the party sporting a couple of band-aids on her fingers from Spoons injuries she got the night before.  She also came with a deck of cards in her purse, so we played after dinner.  It was intense and a bunch of fun.

Me and Grandpa

We stayed with Shay and Adam while we were in Dallas that weekend.  The pups came too and had a great time with Rye.  They wore each other out and were good buddies by the end of the weekend.

Pretty sad that I have a picture of all our dogs, but not one of all of us humans together.  

Shay took our Christmas card picture for us Saturday morning.  It turned out well and we are so thankful she helped us get it done!  We had such a good time and kept trying to talk them into moving to Houston one day. :)  We'll see.

 

Today is Hunter's birthday!  He is 10 years old.  

 Me and Hunter

We got to go to his party this afternoon at a place full of trampolines called Sky Zone.  Dodge ball, basketball dunking, jumping into a foam pit... every boy's dream!  My big kid of a hubs had a great time too.

It's starting to look like Christmas at our house.  We are getting all of our last minute shopping done and preparing to have Christmas dinner with my dad's family at our house on Sunday.  I am looking forward to having everyone over!  JW and I are both not working next week, so it will be a nice break. 

Don't you just love Christmas?  It's definitely my favorite time of the year!

Better Late Than Never

It's been almost a month since my last post!  Where has the time gone?  I've had this predicament with my google memory being full, so Blogger wouldn't let me upload any pictures.  Thus, until I had time to work on a solution, I haven't wanted to post.  I was able to open a Photobucket account to upload pictures to, and think I've got it figured out for now.  Whew!

So, I have a lot to catch up on.  First stop... our Thanksgiving holiday!  I was able to take the whole week off of work which was really nice.  Shay was in town at the beginning of the week, so I got to spend some time with her which was fun.  I also got a lot of things done around the house and marked off of our perpetual to-do list.  It was a nice break! 

Thanksgiving morning I woke up and made this yummy Pumpkin French Toast (recipe below), and we watched the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade. 

Then, we spent the day at Momma Hance's house. She hosted her family for a big Thanksgiving meal.

Three generations of women



Sarah and Hoffman came with their sweet baby Cason.  He was definitely the star of the show.  So cute!



I was making fun of JW for wearing shorts and flip flops on Thanksgiving and he was giving me grief about wearing boots and a sweater with it being 70 degrees outside.  Houston weather!  You just can't win.



The family



Momma Hance gave Max the ham bone and it didn't even last 20 minutes.  Poor Calamity just followed him around licking up the scraps.



Then, on Friday we drove up to Dallas to celebrate with my mom's family.  It was fun to have everyone all together.  We don't get to do it very often since we live in different cities.  We had dinner as a family on Friday night and then played Apples to Apples.  It was quite fun!

Never a dull moment with this crew... back scratching train!



Saturday was the Baylor vs. Tech game at Cowboy's stadium.  We have a family divided with Taylor and our cousin, Matt, at Texas Tech and me and my cousin, Erica, as Baylor Bears.  My mom wore both schools since she loves us both equally. :)



Sibling rivalry

One big happy (yet divided) family!

It was a fun day.  The Bears pulled out a win in overtime so it was definitely exciting, and I sure didn't mind throwing a bear claw in Taylor's face at the end of the game. :)

We drove back to Houston on Sunday and stopped to see Joey's dad's family for lunch on the way back.  It was a great Thanksgiving filled with time with the ones we love. 

Pumpkin French Toast

Author: Minimalist Baker

Prep time: 10 hours 10 mins

Cook time: 40 mins

Total time: 10 hours 50 mins

Serves: 10

 Sweet and spicy pumpkin french toast is made the night before for an easy, early-morning preparation.

Ingredients

• 3 1/2 - 4 1/2 cups 1-inch bread cubes (depending on type of bread)
• 7 large eggs
• 2 cups milk (any kind)*
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 1 1/2 tsp pumpkin pie spice
• 1/4 cup pumpkin BUTTER (or 1/2 cup pumpkin puree)*
• 3-4 tablespoons brown sugar for topping
• nuts, like pecan or walnuts (optional)

Instructions

1. Cut any kind of bread into 1-inch cubes - I recommend a crusty, whole grain variety, but sandwich bread will work, too. Just use enough slice to fill a lightly greased 9x13 baking dish quite full.
2. In a large bowl, whisk together eggs, milk, vanilla, pumpkin butter and pie spice until well combined. Pour over bread and push down with a spoon or your hands until it's all soaked and mostly covered. Cover with saran wrap or lid and refrigerate overnight.
3. In the morning, preheat oven to 350 degrees, uncover and top with brown sugar, additional pumpkin pie spice and nuts (optional). Bake for 35-45 minutes or golden brown and no longer wet.
4. Serve immediately with maple syrup, honey or agave nectar. Store leftovers in the refrigerator covered for up to a couple days.

Note:

* If using pumpkin puree instead of pumpkin butter, it's important to compensate the flavor by adding a bit more puree, pumpkin pie spice, and a little agave nectar, brown sugar or maple syrup to the batter. Otherwise, it will lack that delicious fall, pumpkin flavor you're going for.