..from our new iPad!!
so now you know what we got for Christmas:)

lots of my favorite things are old things. and there are certain old things that connect me to christmases past... like when i saw mom's aluminum cookie cutters on sheena's blog. ohhh. part of my childhood is nestled inside that star-shaped one with the tiny handle on top.

i definitely got some sentimental genes from somewhere. i live for christmas nostalgia! that's why i'm so glad we still have a couple ornaments from grandma and grandpa's christmas tree in the 50s- the kind that could break any minute. the glass is so fine you could crush it in your palm! these are my favorite ornaments on the whole tree.



the other piece of nostalgia i'm really excited about this year is the jingle bells grandma gave me last month at thanksgiving. my great-grandma would always hang bells on her back door knob every year at christmastime, and it gives me goosebumps to think that i'm carrying on the tradition! these are no wimpy tinkling things, either. grandma got me real-life sleigh bells. they sound so pretty every time we open the door. (not tired of them ringing, either. they're still just as merry as ever.)

when i open a carton of egg nog, i smell christmas. 
but as much as i love the scent, i can't drink a whole tumbler of the stuff. (unless diluted with milk and ice, which i'm not sure counts.) it actually weirds me out to think too much about eggs being in something i drink, but nevertheless, i love it. and here's how i love it:


on my french toast!! the best tasting french toast in the world is made with egg nog, i believe. and it just so happens that i posted the recipe for my egg nog french toast on the smithfield blog today! (if you don't see it yet, it will be up shortly. or you can email me and i'll send the recipe straight to you!) try it, please! and be sure to use stale bread- i've learned my lesson with fresh bread.


in an egg nog latte!! from starbucks. have you ever tried one of these!? best thing on their menu. forget the peppermint mocha. forget gingerbread anything. they know how to make a mean nog. and this is a form i can drink straight. no ice necessary.


in instant flavored beads!! wow. totally just kidding. this is so gross! i just had to show you guys. i'll take the real stuff, please.

how about you guys? do you egg nog?  

get ready for a big fat pot of wonderful food.

have you ever eaten sunday dinner at a farmhouse in the countryside? i actually get to do this on a regular basis. for real. my in-laws have a great big table with a long bench (where i usually sit) and judy makes incredible, hearty food and there's always family to eat it. it is true sunday dinner.

that's what this dish is to me. 

i never used to crave the chicken-carrots-potatoes package meal, but now i totally do. i never used to care for cooked carrots, but now i do. i never used to think lemon and meat should go together. now i do. i used to be afraid of browning chicken.. don't ask me why. it's so easy! but, now i'm not.

this recipe has changed me.
it's my absolute favorite for traditional sunday dinner. (or any day of the week, any time of year.)
it's filling and has amazing flavor. it's the square meal every girl should have up her sleeve.



honey lemon chicken
from my sister in law (thank you, heidi!)


6-8 boneless chicken breasts or thighs
6 regular sized potatoes
6 regular sized carrots
1/2 cup chopped onion
olive oil
s & p, to taste


sauce:
1/4 cup honey
2 T. lemon juice (about 1/2 a lemon)
2 cloves minced garlic
2 tsp. italian seasoning (i usually do just oregano and a bit of basil, or rosemary)
1/2 tsp. salt
1/4 tsp. pepper


1. peel vegetables. cut potatoes in half lengthwise, place flat side down in crockpot or baking dish
2. cut carrots into big bite size pieces and place around potatoes. 
3. heat 2 T. olive oil in a skillet. brown the chicken on both sides, add onions and s & p
4. place chicken on top of veggies. whisk sauce ingredients and drizzle over chicken.
5. cook in a crock pot on high for 3-4 hours or on low for 6 hours, or bake (covered) in the oven at 350 for 1 1/2 hours. it's fun to bake it in a cast iron skillet (covered with foil) too!

stick it in before you go to church and your lunch will be ready when you get home and your house will smell like happiness.

ever since we bought this house, grant's been talking about flooding the backyard. i couldn't ever tell if he was serious or not. but now we know.

in case you missed my little tutorial on making pretty vintage cake pedestals, you can see it today on the smithfield blog! 


ps. so glad you guys are as jazzed about the ice rink as we are. i'll tell you the whole story soon. right now i've got a christmas program to recover from and basketball games to cheer at. oh, and i'm officially on christmas break!! 

grant made an ice rink.
he loves it.
more on this later.

let's be serious.
-pajama pants
-a scarf
-zip-up hoodie
-2 pairs of socks
-and my heinous slippers 


but when i actually have to leave my house, (when i was in 6th grade, pajama pants in public was cool. or at least we thought it was. those were strange times.) here are some things i love to throw on. usually in layers, because i live in minnesota. every girl needs some good, solid, "everyday" shirts. these are mine. 


the racerback tank. perfect for layering and one of my most durable pieces. i wear a white one under everything. ev-ry-thing. i live in it. grant calls it my wife beater. needless to say, it gets washed a lot. i usually just let it air dry to prevent extra wear and tear, but it keeps it's shape amazingly well regardless of what you do to it. (and at this price, you can afford to buy another one- or three- if it ever wears out.) i also have one in black and pink, for fun.



the boyfriend tee. i was at disneyland a couple years ago, enjoying a pineapple whip near the jungle cruise, when suddenly i looked up and nearly every girl i saw was sporting a nondescript v-neck tee and looking so adorable. funny how a simple cotton shirt (that's super soft and comfy and the perfect length) can take the world by storm. now it's a girl's best friend. so when i saw them at target, i stocked up. and i've gotten so much wear out of them. isn't target the best? $7 shirts ($4 on clearance) that look like you shop at american apparel? i can dig. 



the tissue tee. another layering piece. nice and thin so it fits easily under things, but still has a sleeve, which goes a long way in the wintertime. i'm a fan of the snug fit, soft cotton, small price tag, and i love a shirt that's long enough. i got one of these this fall and it's been good to me. do you have any CR faves? i know my little sister (with a long torso) is devoted to their seamless cami. and i like their sale rack.

christmas is my favorite time to be in my favorite place. every room feels transformed. merry. i think it's all the lights grant lets me string. put me in front of a strand of miniature lightbulbs and somehow i'm a different girl.

i'm sure there will be a few more around the house photos to come before christmas is out... 


meanwhile, i have a pound of green beans and a head of cauliflower that i'm dreaming up possibilities for. gotta go. 

as rumored, it came. it whipped. it howled. it white-out'd. it sent us down to 40 below 0. 
and it rocked.(because we had a warm house that we didn't have to leave and working electricity, that is.)

{one of our snow-plastered window sills. like my paper chain?}

{frosted window pane + view from my bedroom window}

{real life snowglobe}


and this is how we spent our weekend: 
sleep in, read library book, watch harry potter, wrap christmas gifts, do homework assignment, eat cheesy scrambled eggs, hunker down on the couch with blankets, more harry potter. repeat. 


and did you see what happened to our stadium this morning? needless to say, our vikes couldn't play there today. 

snow rumors, pepperminty pretzels, the christmas song, and other nice things..

the snow rumors: i love when this happens. this morning grant emailed me from work to say that his team's tournament tomorrow has been postponed.. hooray for having my husband home this weekend!! apparently there is some kind of blizzard brewing. i hope it's a big one! my favorite thing about living in minnesota is that just when you feel like you could use a break, the snow comes storming in and gives you a day at home. and who doesn't love staying home?!


the pepperminty pretzels: why would i bother to talk about some store-bought snack during christmastime? i really don't know. i must be crazy. but anyway, i tried these sweets at mom and dad's house over thanksgiving and ate more than my fair share. they're sooo addictive! not normally a peppermint girl, i was surprised how much i liked them. i think it was the salty-ness that did me in. regardless, they're my newest trader joe's testimony.




the christmas song: don't you love this one? it's my favorite song of all time. (yes, i really mean it!) we used to listen to it on a record at mom and dad's house. in fact, that's how i first figured out who nat king cole was, and found out that i was his biggest 10-year-old fan.

who else is watching this? i really want someone to gush with me about how great it is. grant and i LOVE it! i actually, truly laugh out loud at this show. and grant laughs too, which is why i like it so much. we both get super giddy about it before it comes on. let's just say if you were a fan of arrested development (our favorite show of all time), you might appreciate the awesome characters on this "tv show that knows it's a tv show." i know we do!

joel mchale and chevy chase are, of course, hilarious. and each episode is brilliantly constructed. i love that humor is the clever kind and includes bits of pop culture and public consciousness.. which makes it totally okay to do an episode about a blanket fort, a paintball fight, or a chicken tender shortage in the lunch line. but this also makes me hesitant to tell my mom and dad that they would love it. they might not. but my twin sister totally would.

now these two, plus the last two minutes of the show are the best part of the whole thing. i love troy and abed! their morning show is great, as well as the "biblioteca" rap. and oh christmas troy.

the only bad part about this show is that you really have to start from the beginning and stick with it to appreciate it.

..
every family has them, and i think they are so cool.
you can read a few of mine over here today!


so, what's your favorite holiday tradition? 

just keeping up to speed..

-we have lots of snow! and today all the tree branches are iced over.. my favorite look for them.

-still fighting the under-the-weather, which explains the big snot-covered handkerchief sitting in my lap, but today i can stand up without too much of a headache... maybe i'll even take a shower.

-the house is christmased out. i keep the twinkle lights on all day long. (more photos coming soon)

-i've watched a few christmas movies and looked through a couple christmasy magazines.. but i'm still making myself wait a bit longer before i get to break out my wrapping supplies. i love that part.

-made a red and green paper chain while i was camped on the couch yesterday. memory lane, bigtime.

-last weekend grant and i went on a date.. we did some shopping, ate at a little mexican restaurant with spicy salsa, and went to the first high school basketball game of the season. it was snowing. it was perfect.

-decided i have one more christmas present to buy, and it means checking ebay a lot.

-only two more classes and grant will have a month break from being a student! yay!

-who likes mannheim steamroller christmas albums from the 90s? me, me!!

-we saw "oklahoma!" performed at the local high school on saturday night. i really love high school musicals. and oklahoma is one of my very favorites! i sneezed really loud during a couple quiet parts.. that was embarrassing. and i had no tissues so i used my scarf to wipe my nose. nasty.

-i can't seem to eat enough clementines.

-i have something cool to show you in our backyard.

-i think grant is hiding my christmas gifts in the crawl-space behind his closet... but, don't worry, i'm not going to peek. once my sister haley and i peeked at our presents for each other, and found out it wasn't fun at all.

-don't forget to watch/record it's a wonderful life on nbc this saturday night! it's on my calendar. 

all my little favorites, lined up in a list. i love to keep up with them, to skim, scroll, and admire, and how i wish i could actually read all of them. (but we all know there's just not time to do that!) we have to master the art of sailing through our readers, don't we? pick your priorities and read those for the day, that kind of thing. anyway. some of these spots i love for the writing.. some for the recipes.. some for the awesome giveaways and photos of a basset hound named charlie (i won't lie).. some for the pretty pretty pictures.. all for having lessons in being a creative girl and skilled homemaker. truly, this blog world is like enrolling in free education. 

martawrites
the nourishing gourmet
the little red house
keeper of the home
joy the baker
darling dexter
passionate homemaking
bliss
for me, for you
heart of light
housewifery
smitten kitchen
honey & jam
simplesong
roost blog
the chic line
a little sussy
101 cookbooks
design sponge
the nourished kitchen
a cup of jo
everybody likes sandwiches
living the swell life
what katie ate
you are my fave
elm street life
gnowfglins
the pioneer woman
little green notebook


(of course there are loads of others that pop up now and then, some who post more infrequently which always makes a pleasant surprise, and so many that i haven't even found yet, but these are some that i find myself scrolling through, going back to reference, etc. on a regular basis.) i do hope you're able to check out a few of these lovely spots. the authors are so talented. which reminds me to say: thank you to all you wonderful bloggers, for fueling my creativity! i've learned so much. 

found it! my alternative to jeans. it's target's converse lexington twill legging. i love these! the trim and slim fit and the charcoal-bluish color.. they call them "zodiac black" but really, they're not very black and would look awesome with some caramel-y brown boots. i love that they're comfy and stretchy without looking like they're sewn onto you. and i love the plain pockets! i've realized that a good plain pocket is a hard thing to find in this world. i just really love them.
i found mine on the clearance rack on black friday (how would i be clothed without the target clearance rack?), so hurry over to your target and see if there's some left! isn't it exciting to buy pants-that-aren't-jeans once in a blue moon?

.. am posting this from the couch, where i am camped out with a glass of water and the tissues mounding next to me. if you have to come down with something, might as well do it between holidays, right?

she turns 18 today.

eighteen!!
i remember when she was running around the house with a pacifier in her mouth, bare feet, a nightie, and very little hair. and getting a play kitchen for her birthday- which haley and i were just as excited about as she was.

happy birthday to the best baby sister.
love you, chels!

  grant and i are over the moon. michael lives on! have you heard this new single? it's catchy. and it's currently my favorite thing to youtube. i can't stop listening to it. it's awesome to hear that voice again! 


  the new album michael is expected to release december 14th and you can pre-order it now on itunes! the perfect christmas gift for a guy i know... (if we get any itunes cards this christmas, we know how to use them.) 


  and happy friday guys! this morning i'm enjoying snow, snow, and more snow. it's coming down hard and fast like in the movies, and it's on a mission: to make us stay put all weekend long. yay. so i'll be singing along with one of my favorite movie-songs. (be careful not to watch the video too much, it looks like they really filmed it on a moving train.. but you can listen!)