Sunday, December 30, 2012

It Snowed!

We have snow! Lots and lots of snow! Thanks to winter storm Euclid (Since when do they name them, anyways?), we have about 17 inches of snow on the ground right now. We left early on Christmas night so that we had plenty of time to pick up groceries and get settled before the storm hit on Wednesday afternoon/evening. The majority of the snow fell on Wednesday night, so Amit saw it before he went into work on Thursday morning.
Amit thinks that Emma gets too cold when she's outside,
so we bought her a jacket.
Wednesday's Snow
Thursday's Snow
She likes the jacket, but wasn't a fan of the deep snow.
Trying to escape the snow.
The mountain of snow from plowing.
From time to time, she would sink into the snow.
She hated that part.
When Amit came home from work, we shoveled the driveway again.
And he climbed the mountain.
The best part of her jacket is that it is reflective!
Emma also tried to figure out the snow from the inside.
She also started to lean over the snowbanks to sniff things.
Crazy dog.
Maybe there's something down there?
Time to go home!

What do we do when there's over a foot and a half of snow on the ground? Well, it's the perfect excuse to clean the house, try out some new Christmas presents, and eat some guacamole. Oh yeah, and we get to use our SKIS! We've used them twice already and it isn't even January yet. It's looking like New York will be a great state to live in, even in the winter!

Our Cousin Adoption Ceremony

The real highlight of this year's Christmas Eve party was the Cousin Adoption Ceremony that we decided to hold in the basement. Even though we aren't cousins by blood, we've all gotten to be close and we think of each other as family. True to our crazy selves, we decided that at some point we needed to have an official ceremony so that we could legitimately call one another cousins. After discussing many crazy and intricate aspects of the ceremony, we stuck with our bags of dirt and goblet. Unfortunately, some of the "going-to-be adopted" cousins couldn't be there, so we're planning the planting portion (and possibly other crazy additions) of the ceremony during warmer weather.
Bags of dirt ready to be poured into our vase.
We gathered around our dirt,
then someone started singing?
Krissy was the official master of ceremonies.
Mostly due to her love of Harry Potter and ability to sound all "churchy".
She asked us a ton of questions. She's hilarious!
There was conveniently a candle on the counter that we proceeded to light so we could dim the lights.
It is very difficult to take pictures while laughing with very little light.
Each family added their dirt to the vase.
Krissy then "blessed" each of us on the top of the head, with the fly swatter,
and we all drank from the goblet.
We added the leftover contents of the goblet to the dirt.
COUSINS!!!!!
(I hope Gina got a better photo of us! It was supposed to be adult-free, but she snuck down with her camera while we were setting the timer.)

This was seriously the best ceremony that I have ever been a part of! I can't even really remember everything that Krissy said, but it was great! Even though everyone else will probably think we're crazy, the ceremony was awesome and now we can officially say we're cousins!

Saturday, December 29, 2012

Let's Party like its Christmas Eve

I love, love, LOVE celebrating Christmas. The decorations, the music, the snow (some years), singing Christmas carols at church, and of course, spending time with family and friends. We have lots of Christmas traditions and want to start new ones, but one of the craziest and most fun is always the big Christmas Eve party at Bruce and Tricia's. Thankfully, the camera is always out and I can capture just some of those crazy memories.

Cousin Photo!
(This year it is OFFICIAL!)
Random photos...
Our tenth Christmas together!

Memaw needed some Eli time!
With the volleyball celebrity, Lauren!
What is this?
Love it!
This is what happens when Nate takes the camera.
Puppy kisses!
At some point, Nate stole Eli.
And would NOT give him up!

Then, the (Second Annual) Dance Party began!
 

Keeping with tradition, Bruce gave his usual Christmas Eve gifts. We didn't think he could top last year's beautiful Christmas frame. But he did. 
Before this Christmas, it was just a home.
Now, it's a Love Shack!
Best gift ever!

It was another fantastic Christmas Eve... a fantastic Christmas altogether! There's nothing quite like an awesome party to celebrate family and Christmas! 

Friday, December 28, 2012

Nine

Nine years?! Even though it feels like we've been together for ever, it is a little crazy to think that we have been a couple for nine years already. Where does the time go? In the past nine years, we've moved multiple times within three states. We've graduated from high school, college, and graduate/dental school. No wonder time has gone by so quickly, we've been busy! Since we've spent this past semester apart and haven't really had time to celebrate an anniversary with anything more than dinner for a while, we thought we'd take a day just for ourselves.

We were actually home for our anniversary this year, but since everyone was still in school, it gave us time to go downtown for a real date. (What are those?) We spent the morning at the Shedd Aquarium and then had lunch at Rick Bayless' Frontera Grill. His food always looks delicious and I love his television shows. We never went there while we lived in Chicago, so Amit didn't really have a choice about this anniversary dinner.

Watching the Beluga check-ups and feeding.
See the little one off to the left?
That's the baby beluga!

Watching all that sea life made us hungry.
The guacamole was fantastic.
We ordered margaritas.
Mine was blood orange. Delicious!
Amit's dish was the mole trio.
I ordered the mahi-mahi in apricot mole.
The food was amazing!

The other highlight of our anniversary in Chicago? Spending our evening with these guys, right back where it all began. I wonder how we'll top this for our tenth?

Thursday, December 27, 2012

Cousin Craft Day

Most of the crafts that I've done back home were done only with Mom, but Lauren has been begging for a craft day ever since I started posting my latest projects (which also happen to be my most fun). Since most of the girls were either still in school or had plans, we kept the project simple. I had done the floor shine ornaments before, so we brought all of our supplies to Tricia's and got crafting!

Some of our glittered ornaments.

Then we started to get creative.
I had seen painted ornaments, created by pouring paint into and draining it out of the ornament.
Major fail.
Instead, we started to mix random things with the floor shine. 
Paint + Floor shine = Success!
Clear Tacky Glue + Floor shine + Beads = Awesomeness!
We also mixed different colors of glitter.
The same girls who were bad at crafts were suddenly super creative!

Of course I can't forget the other reason we had craft day.
We had to meet Eli, the newest four-legged addition to the family.
I love him!

Our cousin craft day was a huge success! I'm so glad the girls were up for it! I had such a great time hanging out (as always) and I cannot wait to plan our next one. I'm thinking something HUGE for our summer project. Time to start brainstorming!

Wednesday, December 19, 2012

Christmas in NY

We're back home for the holidays! Since we're going to be super busy this week seeing family and friends, I figured I should post my current Christmas decorations for you to enjoy! Here's what we've been enjoying in NY:

The tree is up and decorated!
(Except for a tree skirt, which I still need to create.)

My nativity scene is safely displayed and nearly complete!
(Max likes to eat baby Jesus and the shepherds, 
so I'm not risking that with Emma.)
All of my snowmen and Christmas decorations are on display.
Emma was very excited for our newest snowman.
Our favorite new decorations are up in our entryway.
(Emma is clearly not impressed.)
Amit put our little tree in the hallway.
I love our sparkly teeth ornaments!
This makes me laugh...
Amit's mini-me has his own mini tree!
And the official pictures of my latest creations.
I LOVE how the pine cones look in my Crate and Barrel bowl!
My cookie cutter wreath looks great!
I'm just praying it doesn't fall apart (again).
So those are the highlights of this year's Christmas decor. I love having enough space to display all of my creations! Maybe we'll have enough time during this visit to make a few more?