Oh, Christmas Tree!

One of my very favorite holiday traditions is picking out the Christmas tree. My parents have always done fresh trees (except for the year they got a live in-the-planter tree) and it's a tradition I intend to keep as long as possible. I know they're pricey and messy, but to me, it's just not negotiable. Dan and I have only ever had a small tabletop-sized tree, but now that we're in the house, this was the first year we got to pick out a full size stunner.

On Saturday, we started a fun new tradition. We went out for dinner at PF Chang's with our friend and her two kids and then went to the lot to pick out our trees. It was really fun to make it a special night out. Dan and I just adore the kids, and their mom and I have gotten closer over the last 6 months, so it was really fun to have that time making memories with them. After we picked out our trees - both of which were strapped to the top of her Honda Pilot - we got to work decorating ours (she's waiting until Wednesday when her husband returns from a civilian assignment in Afghanistan to decorate theirs). I hit the jackpot at Kohl's on some very inexpensive ornaments, and used our old red and white balls to make a candy cane inspired tree that matches our mantle and also goes with mine and Dan's stockings.


No tree of mine would be complete without a Pinterest project, so I used the tutorial found here to make a fun linen-white and red ruffled tree skirt. Even though it was super easy (and made with my favorite method of attachment, the glue gun) I almost instantly regretted signing up for this. It didn't take that long, but it was kind of a pain. The cutting and the ruffling and the gluing just took it's toll on my psyche about 90 minutes in. But I just love how it came out. Once again, pardon my crappy photography. Maybe someday I'll use a real camera :)




So, I'm ready! Bring on Christmas!

Good-bye, Christmas

Well, it's over. Another wonderful Christmas in the books. Dan and I had a great Christmas with my family. We spent Christmas Eve by ourselves, just like last year. We quite like our little tradition. We made a steak dinner, drank wine, opened gifts to each other, played Yahtzee and X-Box. We made spiked Serendipity Frrrozen Hot Chocolate, which I won in a blog giveaway. It was all fabulous. Then, we woke up at home Christmas morning. We snuggled, wished each other Merry Christmas, gave our girls Christmas cuddles, and packed up for Tucson.

Now when I was young, I wanted to open my gifts now. My sister liked to savor hers. She'd practically open hers slower just to cause me to panic. It drove me nuts. This year would have been Young Megan's perfect Christmas. We started our breakfast casseroles before gift opening. We had our traditional Christmas beer - it's usually Guinness, but we had something new this year instead. Another something new this year was my soon-to-be brother-in-law, Daniel, joining us. It was our first Christmas as a family of six, and it was fabulous to look around at so many happy Christmas faces. We took turns opening gifts, around and around in circles. After about an hour, the casseroles were done and we weren't, so we took a break to eat breakfast, then got back to it. Dan and I got an XBox Kinect from Daniel and Megan, gift cards to Chipotle, and clothes. My mom got Dan a red Rudolph nose. I got baking stuff, and a chocolate cook book. We also got something that 20-year-old me would have been pissed about: a Spot Bot. It's really awesome, trust me.

We spent the rest of Christmas day hanging out, preparing for dinner. My in-laws came down from Phoenix and it was great to see them for the holiday. We had a delicious taco bar for our Christmas dinner, and we were joined by more family. My grandparents, who usually spend Christmas with my very unjolly psychotic aunt, were able to join us for dessert. We built a fire pit in the back yard and spent the late evening talking and enjoying our company. It was a perfect Christmas Day.

The last couple of days were a blur of activity. Dan left Tucson for Phoenix Sunday afternoon after football. Between yesterday and today, Megan and Daniel ring shopped, florist shopped, phone, shoe, and cake shopped (with me, of course). We nailed down cupcake flavors, bouquets, and debated Megan's choice of two small wedding bands or one bigger band. She had a very productive week in Tucson in terms of the wedding, and they'll have only a few things to take care of on their next visit.

Now I'm home, enjoying some quiet that won't last long. The dogs are exhausted from 4 days in Tucson, and Dan's on his way home. Dan's brother, David, and his fiance, Alex, will be here in a few short days. We've got New Year's Eve plans with friends to figure out. They get married January 7th, so I'm sure they'll hit the ground running with last minute plans and arrangements, not to mention the family time with the Kingstons who will be arriving late next week. In the midst of it all is year-end close at work. I'm just hoping that on January 8th, I'm still alive and sane.

So good-bye, Christmas. You were so good to us all in 2010. Here's to a wonderful, prosperous and love-filled (Dan and I have 3 weddings to stand up in this year) New Year!

Rebuilt - UPDATED

So after the great Hurricane of 2010, I rebuilt my cubicle on Tuesday. my coworker reinforced it with buttresses and it's held up really well, and I added the finishing touches. Here is the outside. The lights blink, but just my luck, none of the 8 shots I got happened to catch them on. Oooof course.


I got my pink flamingos on Amazon (after perusing craigslist ads asking $50 for a "vintage" pair). Mrs. ESPN devised the ingenious method of putting them in styrofoam cups to make them stand. I bought little creepy singing puppies at Walgreen's and stole their hats. The puppies were given up for adoption to Mrs. ESPN's daughters.


I picked up poinsettias and KFC buckets after work last night. I think they add a nice festive touch to my "porch." Plus, I think the admins will enjoy them when I gift them later today.


The judging is today - not Friday like I said last week - so hopefully I win. There's also a potluck, but I won't be participating. South Beach trumps potlucks. I've done really well on it, with just a cheat here and there (gotta stay a little sane, people). We had a cookie exchange here at work, and I sent all my loot to work with Dan. Ironically, my mint meringues didn't work out and I had to bring store bought cookies. The shame. Seriously. They are so good when they come out - they're my favorite cookie that my mom makes, and I was so sad to not be able to share them. But if there's one thing people don't appreciate around the holidays, it's salmonella poisoning.

Anyway, I have my appointment with my doctor tomorrow to check my blood pressure. My blood work revealed a vitamin D deficiency, and I'm wondering if that could be contributing to the blood pressure and weight gain. Please send good thoughts - I know my blood pressure hasn't gone down over the last month, but hopefully a solution for the vitamin D will pull some double duty and help with the ticker.

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UPDATE: I came in 2nd in the cube decorating contest. Bummer. The general concensus (from everyone but the winners, obvs) was that I was robbed. But it's okay. The cube that beat me was very nicely done in a much more traditional style. And it was fun. I'm already cooking up next year's design...

Don't worry. Toto is okay.

Last year for our cubicle decorating contest, I turned my cubicle into Brooke's Cocoa Bar with the creative help of Salt. I had fresh cocoa and all the fun stuff to put in or on it, decorated sugar cookies, chocolate chip cookies, and tried to turn my cube into a festive little wonderland. I came in second. Not bad considering I'm alone in my cube and the winners had two minds to put together and decorate.

This year, I decided to go in a different direction. Redneck Christmas. With the help of Dan's skills and my coworker's extra pair of hands, I turned my cubicle into an iconic Airstream trailer. I covered in in silver paper, then added an Airstream logo, wheels and windows and strung it with lights. Dan made me that doormat that says "Git R Done." I had a tree put up and used bobbers as ornaments, and hung little stockings for my little rednecks all named Bobby (including a Justin Bobby, R.I.P. The Hills). A coworker brought in some rickety old lawn chairs and I have plans for poinsettias in KFC buckets and my pink flamingo lawn ornaments are on their way. It was on the road to White Trashville.




But this morning, I came in to find this...


My coworker with a hilarious sense of humor left the tornado on the wall when she came in and saw the trailer has collapsed. Don't worry, Toto is okay, and with the help of FEMA, we'll be rebuilding in time to take the gold medal at judging on Friday. It'll be even awesomer.

Christmas Remix

Our giiiiiingaaaaabreeeeead house decorating contest was fun, although I'm not sure we got the icing consistency right (story of my life). When we were done, we put the photos of each house on facebook and tallied the votes. Mr. K was the big winner. And by big winner, I mean he gets bragging rights.


And here's my little losing house...

I think a lot of people thought that Mr. K would use a ton of frosting since he almost literally survives on an IV drip of straight sugar, but I was the messy one. Thanks to the difficult icing and structural issues, I was over the whole thing in about 20 minutes, he decorated for almost an hour.

Also on Christmas Eve night, we hung out at Wal-Mart (shocker) getting stocking stuffers, ate lasagna, drank wine and opened gifts. Mr. K got me Scratchers lottery tickets, perfume, the new Postsecret book (he got me all four of the others last year, the 5th came out in October), and sweet new boots for walking the dogs. He got some work clothes, candy, a tattoo coffee table book, a hat, and a gift card for his favorite thing: shoes. He also gave me the best gift ever, something we've both wanted for quite some time. As of January 1, Mr. K will only have one job!! It's been about 6 years since he only had one job, and we're both looking forward to the extra time together as well as some time for him to pursue his interests.

We headed to Tucson in the morning and had a fun drive. We were both excited. We had a great breakfast with my family and then opened gifts. We got a lot of good stuff, including gift cards to shop. We love to shop. My mom and dad got us all these cute little snowmen on rocking horses we'd seen at Cracker Barrel in November. Funny, both our moms bought us a Crockpot, and the same one, no less. We spent the afternoon relaxing and eventually brought out the Wii to play. My mom's rule was that anyone playing had to wear holiday head gear. Here's me and my dad in the middle of Tiger Woods Golf:

After dinner, Mr. K and I went to Winterhaven to see Christmas lights with Mija and Bing. It was pretty cold, but we bundled up and got ourselves some cocoa and peppermint Schnapp's to stay warm. This is the second year in a row we've gone on Christmas day, and I think it's a fun tradition. Plus, it was fun to spend time with my sister.

On Saturday, we avoided the stores (until later) and slept in and hung out. We had lunch at El Guero Canelo (the Cinnamon Blonde) restaurant, which was featured on the Tucson episode of Man vs. Food. Adam, the host, visited El Guero Canelo for its Sonoran style hot dogs: beef dogs wrapped in bacon, served in a homemade bun, and topped with beans, lettuce, tomato, mayo, and mustard. They were absolutely amazing - I could have eaten ten of them. Bing's mom and sister met us there, and it was very nice to meet them. After lunch, Mr. K and I went to Target to get some Starbucks and walk around. Back at my parents' house, we vegged out for a while before dinner. Mr. K wasn't feeling very well and the bed we were sleeping in was uncomfortable, so we decided to head home to get a comfy rest rather than stay the night.

Mija and Bing flew back to Seattle yesterday morning, and my parents began their road trip to visit them. Mr. K and I hope that we'll be able to visit soon, as well. All in all, we had a really fun, relaxing Christmas with my family. It was nice to have my grandmother and aunt here from New York. Our first Christmas as Mr. and Mrs. Kingston was all we could have hoped for, and we're thankful for our generous families. Now on to 2010!

Merry Christmas Eve!!

And a very Merry one it is! The Apple Streusel Cheesecake bars were fantastic. I took them to a coworker's potluck on Tuesday as well as to the in-laws' place last night. Mmm mmm mmm, are they good! And really quite easy. I highly recommend them.

Mr. K has to work today (boo, but he'll hopefully be home early), so I'm home with the pups. I've got some baking and cookie decorating to do and I need to run a couple of errands. We've decided to have a 1st Annual Gingerbread Challenge. Inspired by $7.99 gingerbread houses at Michael's, Food Network's Challenge and Iron Chef we're going to each decorate a gingerbread house and see who does the most fabulous job. Mr. K keeps saying "and now for the secret ingredient... giiiingaaaaabreeeeead!" like the Chairman on Iron Chef. The smack talk (which I royally suck at) is heating up on Facebook, and I'm getting excited. I'll post pictures some time this weekend. We'll also cook dinner together and watch movies and just hang out before heading to Tucson tomorrow morning.

Clover gave me a wonderful Christmas gift and slept until 6:45 this morning!! She sure tired herself out playing with my in-law's Shepherd mix, Jager, last night. It was wonderful to get a full night's sleep and to wake up to an alarm. And of course, she's still tired, as she's currently sleeping soundly next to me with Paisley.


Enjoy your Christmas Eve!!

Christmas Week

Happy Monday! I can't believe Christmas week is here. Only 4 days to go - it blows my mind how quickly time is passing. All year I waited and waited and waited until October and it took what felt like forever, and now it's almost the end of December. Craziness.

This weekend was fun. I was off on Friday and pretty much hung out. I had lunch with my friend Kristi and then took a much needed nap. I was invited to another department's Christmas party - they were gracious enough to include me, since I'm just a poor tax girl with a tiny department that doesn't do a lot of fun stuff. We had yummy apps, a white elephant exchange, played games, and then went to the dog track for the closing weekend. We had a drink and hung out with my coworkers a bit before heading home to watch Christmas Vacation.

Saturday, I went to Mrs. ESPN's to decorate cookies. It was very nice meeting some of her friends and chatting and drinking wine. After decorating, I met Mr. K at our friends' house for pizza and gifts. They have a new baby, so we picked out 1st Christmas PJs for her and a cute Rockstar set for her older brother. Their kids are just wonderful and sweet, and I hadn't seen them in a while so it was fun to hang out. And as a bonus, our friend M put pencil to tracing paper and worked on my tattoo design. It's beautiful and I can't wait to see the color version later this week.

Yesterday was fun as well, though I honestly woke up (at 4:30, thanks to some pups) on the wrong side of the bed. We were lazy in the morning and then went Christmas shopping. I'm finally finished!! And I'm done wrapping, too. We even found our first Christmas ornament and got some delicious chicken wings. It ended up being a nice day.

This will be an exciting week. Work will be a breeze, just a few things to wrap up and prepare for my return in January. My aunt flies in from New York today, and Mija will be here late tomorrow night. We have a potluck tomorrow for dinner at a coworker's house. Wednesday I'm off and will take time to just chill, then celebrate Christmas with Mr. K's parents.

We're debating when to head to Tucson. I think it'd be nice to wake up in our home on our first Christmas, but I also love being at my parents' house early in the morning. But Mr. K has to work Christmas Eve and won't be home until probably 6:30, so I think we'll end up just making a special dinner and staying at home. Then we'll head to Tucson Christmas day and be there until Sunday with my family. I'm really looking forward to Christmas with them and my husband.

For now, I'm off to take Paisley to the vet. Again. For an ear infection. I swear she's in a competition for the most expensive Puggle of 2009.

I hope everyone has safe travels, a wonderful Christmas, and a Happy New Year!

Merry SITSmas

Cheers and Merry SITSmas, Y'all!

Check out my sweet MS Paint skills. Awwww yeeeeeah :) That'd be my requisite SITSmas card. It's rad. Another wonderful thing about my buddy Salt is that she's found a ton of cool blogs that I now like to read. She also found SITS, or The Secret Is In The Sauce, a great blog network for woman bloggers. After seeing the info on her blog, I decided to join and today is SITSmas. So welcome to any new readers out there, and thanks for visiting!!

Another Sneak Peek

I'm just too excited to keep all my Cocoa Bar plans under wraps. Last night I decorated my 5 dozen mitten and snowflake cookies. The blue came out way more electric blue than ice blue, but Mr. Kingston still thought they were pretty awesome.

The snowflakes are all the same but most of the mittens are unqiue. I had fun doing them and I'm very thankful to Mr. Kingston for keep the dogs busy while I finished up the details when he got home.

I'm wondering if my obsession with my Cocoa Bar is an indication I'm going through wedding withdrawal...

Sneak Peek: Cocoa Bar

Salt finished my sign for me, and it's so awesome! Check it out:

Didn't it come out super cute? I'm for sure going to win, now. The "Candy Cane Girls" in the corner of the office used red and white all over their cubicle and hung candy canes (hence their new office nickname) from the ceiling. They've got an advantage being where they are - you have to deliberately walk out of the way to get a peek at their decoration. I'm not scared though.

So far, I've got tinsel garland, blue snowflakes, a few of my snowmen, and I'm going toput snowman wrapping paper on the walls. It's going to be awesome!

A Getting Ready for Christmas Weekend

I lied. I don't have a Show Us Your Life post. Kelly's Korner was featuring Christmas trees (she has four!). Since we don't have ours yet, I'll have to miss out. We do have other decorations though. When I got up in the morning I straightened up and put out some of my snow men:

These guys greet us from the wall cut-outs between the hallway and the dining/living rooms.

These are some of my favorite little snowmen. The upside down guy is one of my absolute favorites - you can stand him any way you want. I made the little guy wearing the blue and purple hat and mittens when I worked for a paint-your-own pottery store.

After we went to a funeral yesterday (Mr. Kingston's high school friend's father passed away) we had a late lunch and then went shopping together. He got his Christmas gift from me - a Blackberry - and we got just a little gift shopping done for a couple other people. Then we went shopping for decorations. We got new stockings, lights and ornaments for our future tree, and lights for the balcony. It looks awesome, and I'll have to take a picture of it tonight.

I got us cheap dollar store stockings last year but thought that new nice ones were in order for our first married Christmas. At some point in our browsing, Mr. Kingston made a comment that we could choose another style in a few years, and when I told him that my parents still use their stockings from 30 years ago (and mine at my parents' house is from my first Christmas) he got serious about picking the perfect ones. We chose these:


His is the red one at the top, then mine, then Paisley's (purple) and Clover's. I had visions of getting The Girls huge stockings and stuffing them full of toys, but since Paisley got sick we agreed on no more plush toys, just in case. That eliminates about 90% of dog toys, so they'll mostly be getting little treats.

When we got home, we decorated, drank our Starbucks peppermint mochas, and then played Yahtzee together. This morning, I baked 5 dozen cookies for my cocoa bar at work. I decided on ice blue and red mittens and blue and white snowflakes. We're going to go visit friends in a bit and introduce them to Clover, so I haven't started, but they'll make a nice project either later this afternoon or tomorrow evening when Mr. K is working.

Last year we went to Zoo Lights and we decided that we'll go to Glendale Glitters this year instead. I'm hoping for next weekend - we drove through Old Towne Glendale and everything was so festive and pretty, so I can't wait! We'll hopefully also get our tree next weekend, so then I can post pictures of that. It's really beginning to look a lot like Christmas.

Oh! I have pictures from one of the traditions I blogged about last week, the family search for our Christmas tree. Here's how it goes:

Mija points

...Dad taps

...and shakes

Mom shakes her contender...


and a winner is chosen. He looks awfully smug.

I don't have photos of it lit up, but I thought I got some pretty good shots of the typical Choosing of The Tree.

Wintery weekend

I took my final for my class today, which means I'm done with school for about 6 weeks! I hope it went well. I think I focused my notes a bit too much on old material and didn't quite have all the judicial support I needed, but I went into it with a solid A and I'm hopeful. I'm looking forward to an evening of wine, The Office, and spending time with my husband. I've also got a festive weekend ahead.

I've been planning something that I'm super excited about. I've mostly kept it a secret at the office so my idea doesn't get snatched. We're having a cubicle decorating contest - yeah, I know, something lame to make life in a box less lame - and I plan to turn my cubicle into... drumroll please... a cocoa bar!! I'm so excited about it. There's a potluck that day, and my contribution will be the cocoa and cookies. I'm going to have toppings like marshmallows, crushed candy canes, chocolate shavings, and cinnamon. My lovely buddy, Salt, is a graphic designer, and she's agreed to design my sign. I can't wait to see it. I'll decorate with everything wintery I can find - snow flakes, some of my snowmen, wintery wrapping paper on the inside walls. I'm serious about winning this contest.

There will hopefully be decorating going on in the apartment this weekend too. I got bit by the bug when I was home for Thanksgiving and we decorated my parents' house, and I told myself I wouldn't do anything until after my final. But now I'm excited to turn our home into cozy Christmas goodness. I don't know if we'll get a tree just yet because we don't want it to get try and start losing needles, but I'm looking forward to getting the snowmen and our stockings out and putting up some lights. What will make me thrilled more than anything is if Mr. Kingston gets excited about it too. A tradition that I forgot to mention is the advent calendar - mine arrived from my mom in the mail yesterday. She got me the kind with chocolate, so I'm pretty sure I can getthe husband on board with this stuff.

Tangent: it's not that Mr. Kingston doesn't like Christmas or isn't excited. We had a great time getting ready for the holidays last year. We went shopping and to Zoo Lights and did other fun festive things. But his family doesn't seem to make a big deal of Christmas, and the memories I have of decorating together with my family isn't something he has experience with.

I'll hopefully get started on some Christmas shopping this weekend, as well. I've got some good ideas, and I'm anxious to get started with the buying. Mr. Kingston wants a Blackberry for Christmas and I told him we could pick it up this weekend if he'd like - I know he's anxious. I want to also sign up for the cake decorating class Mrs. ESPN got me for a shower gift. Of course, if I'm going to have a winter wonderland cocoa bar happening in my cubicle in 12 days, I also need to get started with some baking. And there's more little stuff, as always. It should make for a busy weekend, hopefully making memories of our first Christmas season together.

What are your weekend plans?