Welcome 2012!!

I can't believe it's been a month since my last post! I feel kind of bad about that... but I've been so hectic lately that I find it also reasonable. When we last left each other, I was talking about getting ready for Christmas and holiday baking was in full swing. I have much to catch up on, so let's start from the beginning, shall we?

The baking of what seemed like hundreds of sweet treats went fabulously. The first were Buckeyes. Weeks ago one of my best friends in the world, H, had declared jokingly that all she wanted for Christmas were Buckeyes. I had no idea what they were, so I turned to Google, who taught me that Buckeyes are confections made to resemble the state nut of Ohio. I didn't even know Ohio had a state nut! Of all the random pieces of information...
Anyway... I was determined to deliver on this request, however random it may have been... I located a recipe and got started! They turned out beautifully. They're most definitely not diet friendly, as they're made from peanut butter, powdered sugar and melted chocolate, but I pretended not to realize that as I "taste tested" half a dozen... What??? It's the holidays!! Everyone knows that diets fly south for the winter during the holidays... it's common knowledge. Back to the Buckeyes... here they are:

After combining the peanut butter and powdered sugar and forming into balls, you let them chill and then dip them in melted chocolate. For this, I poked a toothpick into each one to make the chocolate-dipping easier. Simply fabulous. H was so excited to open a box full of these little babies! Next came fudge for my dad! This recipe is something that I can't share. It's been in the family for generations and I have yet to find a fudge recipe that I enjoy more... My dad loves this fudge and I immediately knew that it needed to be a part of his gifts because he wasn't able to visit family for the holidays... so I figured I'd send some family tradition to him! 

Ooey gooey chocolate-y goodness abounds... my mouth waters to think of it!! It was my first time making the fudge without my mom's assistance and I was thrilled when it came out exactly like it was supposed to!! I'll get the hang of this cooking thing, I swear!! My final piece of holiday baking was a batch of cookies...but not just any cookies. Peanut butter button cookies. That's right... also known as edible adorableness. They were SO SIMPLE!! All it took was a package of peanut butter cookie mix, prepared as directed but not baked, straws cut into pieces and the lid of a Coke bottle - washed (20 ounce, 1 liter or 2 liter will be fine)...

Roll the peanut butter dough into 1-inch balls and bake as directed, but do not flatten with the tines of a fork, as you would normally. Simply bake. Once they're out of the oven, use the bottle cap to make a shallow impression in the cookie, so that they look like this: 

Finally, use the pieces of straws to poke four holes in the impression you made, and they come out looking like this....

See?? Adorable!! They were such a hit with friends that received them as a gift. I'll definitely be repeating these next year. 

My final Christmas project did not involve baking, but it was most definitely jolly. I decided to make candy-cane flavored vodka. Seems like it would be sweet and minty, just like the candy, right? Not so much. It was not sweet, but it was still good. It was what I later referred to as "put-hair-on-your-a**" strong. However, I was later told by one of the five recipients that it was delicious when mixed with Dr. Pepper. It couldn't have been simpler to make. I bought pint canning jars 50% off at Hobby Lobby, so they ended up costing me about $.50 each. Then I purchased some inexpensive vodka and hit up the dollar store for old fashioned peppermint sticks. I chopped up the peppermint sticks into 1/2 inch to 1 inch lengths and put about 1 cup of these in each jar. Then I filled each jar with vodka and let them stew for a couple of days. The vodka turned stop-light red, which I thought was a fantastic touch. I designed custom labels and printed them, and then matted the printed paper on two styles of scrapbooking paper. I tied the jars into Christmas-themed cellophane candy bags from the dollar store with dollar store curling ribbon. I tied a couple of mini candy canes on along with the tag, and voila!! You have "Reindeer Fuel"!! 

Before we knew it, Christmas was here...we managed to get our tree up and completely decorated close to the last minute (we seem to procrastinate at this Christmas-tree thing...) but the tree looked great. We bought a new one this year, 7.5 feet and pre-lit with multi-colored lights. Last year we had one that was 6.5 feet and pre-lit with white lights. It was pretty, but it just didn't have that normal Christmas-y feel, as we were both raised with multi-colored lights. I didn't think that something like that could make that big of a different in the festivity of the house, but it really can...

We also managed to get the front of the house decorated for Christmas... Icicle lights hung from the gutters, white lights were in the windows, light-up snowmen were in the yard, along with 3-foot high candy canes...

However, as you can see, we didn't have any snow. In fact, we didn't have any snow until this week... but we'll get to that later.

Our next fun holiday activity was to go to Winter Garden-A-Glow at the Boise Botanical Gardens. Every year, the Botanical Gardens take advantage of the barren branches by decorating with Christmas lights. While this may sound like a simple concept, people come from miles around - literally - to see this display. They have a Santa and an actual reindeer. They also have, as I discovered this year, the best hot chocolate in Boise... well, the best hot chocolate that I've ever had. It was especially beautiful this year because the gardens were using new lights that were LED....stunning.

See? I told you so.

Next came Christmas. We spent Christmas Eve with J's mom, stepdad and brother. It was very low key, but very nice. J, unfortunately, had to go back to the night shift on Christmas Day, so I found my way into Eagle to visit a bridesmaid and her family. Luckily, I have an extensive support system here. I was honestly concerned about spending Christmas alone, because it's such a big deal in my family, but I made it through just fine. :) I'm lucky to be blessed with such great friends. It was nice to be able to relax on a holiday that is usually very stressful and busy... while J was at work, the rest of our family headed to bed at a very reasonable time, even the cat...

To wrap up the holidays, we drove to Idaho Falls to see my mom for New Years to celebrate our Christmas with her late. It was so great to spend a whole weekend lounging around her comfy home, watching friends and visiting. No matter what I do, I never leave her place feeling like I got enough time with her. I wish that we lived closer together. We finished out the weekend by driving home through Arco, stopping in to see my grandparents on our way through. I was so happy that we got to spend time with so much family in one week!!!

The weekend following New Years was the weekend of The Boise Wedding Show. I went with my friend and coordinator, Q, and a friend of hers. We had a blast!! I signed up for every possible raffle, and visited more vendors than I can remember. It was a great way to jump-start myself back into wedding planning for the year now that the holidays are finally over. I even came away from the day with some winnings!! One of my favorite vendors at the show was a stationery company called Dear Ampersand. They were handing out coupons for 20% off of a wedding stationery purchase by February, and were also advertising a giveaway they were doing on their Facebook page. I entered the Facebook contest and won an additional $50 off of my purchase! It made deciding who was going to do our wedding invitations a piece of cake!! :) One less thing to research!! I also came away from that day with 10% off of wedding flowers from J. Michaels Florist! My next step to utilizing that discount will be scheduling a consultation within the next couple of weeks. I'm admittedly clueless when it comes to flowers. I don't know the names and I don't know what I want, so hopefully the consultation will provide me with a bit of clarity.

The past couple of weeks have not been any calmer than the holidays were, unfortunately. We've been going full-steam ahead on wedding planning. Our Save-the-Dates will be finished this weekend and in the mail next week - I'll be sure to post pictures!! We began researching DJs and made a visit to the event rental company we'll be getting the rest of our tables, chairs and linens from. Last weekend, I returned to Arco to meet with my mom, grandma, brother, grandpa and great-grandma to celebrate my great-grandma's 89th birthday!! She's had such a fascinating life, and I think that I'll write a blog on her next... she's one of my heroes. I came back to Boise early Sunday afternoon to meet with three of my bridesmaids as they were being sized for their dresses. Here are the girls that had their dresses sized, obviously not at a dress fitting here, they're sipping margaritas a couple of days prior... 

They looked so beautiful in the dress styles and I can't wait to see them all matching and looking gorgeous on J and I's wedding day!!! Afterwards, I had four of my bridesmaids over for appetizers, wine and wedding-chatting as we watched Bridesmaids - such a hilarious movie!!!

And finally, we got snow!!!

It should be noted about the photo above that I am not taking a picture while driving in that weather. I was stopped at that light behind that car, and the light turned green precisely when I took the photo... what timing I have!!! Everyone who has seen that picture has said "You probably shouldn't have been playing with your camera while driving in weather like that!!!" You don't say!! What an idea. :) Living in Idaho Falls taught me better than that. The most dangerous part about driving in weather like this in Boise is the other drivers. In Boise, on the day of the first big snow dump, everyone realizes that they've forgotten how to drive in the snow and everything slows to 15mph. People run stop signs, intersections and red lights left and right because they're terrified of the brake pedal. But once they're stopped, they spin out of control because they can't get their foot out of the gas. Idaho residents like to pride themselves on their involvement in the great outdoors, but in my opinion, you can't consider yourself a true Idaho driver until you can drive safely and courteously in the snow.

Unfortunately for the snow-lovers like myself, it rained for over 24 hours straight after the snow stopped. Almost all of the snow is gone, and what's left has a dirty tint to it, hinting at the slush it will shortly become. My work week is coming to an end tonight, and I spent the evening with my wonderful bridesmaid, H, having dinner at Red Robin. After dinner, amongst our chatter, H decided that my engagement ring looked like a crown and determined that the best way to exemplify this was to make a little person out of her thumb to wear said crown...

Every day brings something new, in my world. That's one of the things that makes it so wonderful! :)

It's getting late now, so I'll be adding more soon. Hope you all had as magical of a holiday season as we enjoyed, and are enjoying the beginning of this new, beautiful year. 

<3