Country Roads, Take Me Home....

We're off to Idaho tomorrow to spend the Christmas holiday with my family. We're pretty excited about it...although we would like the Walker family to know that we're sorry we can't spend Christmas with them too. No comments about how crazy I am to be traveling in a car for 10 hours at 34 weeks pregnant...I've already heard it from my clients. You'll be happy to hear that we're breaking it up into two days, stopping every hour or two so I can stretch my legs, and plus my doctor said it was okay.



Merry Christmas everybody! Watch your in-boxes this week as Nate and I have decided that we're grown up enough to send out Christmas newsletters. I bet you can hardly wait.
That did not happen.

Christmas Cookie Goodness

Last weekend Nate and I decorated Christmas cookies with our friends Ben and Rachel. The artistic juices were flowing and there's a possibility that we decorated more than we ate while sitting there.

I figured it out you guys...

For three years now I've been trying to make my mother's sugar cookies. If you've never had my mother's sugar cookies then first of all, you're missing out...but second of all, you should know that they're not only made with her huge cookie cutters, but they're also 3/4 of on inch thick making them nice a cakey. They usually make a pretty good breakfast.

Anyway as I said, three years trying to make them and for 3 years I've been getting thin, crunchy, stupid (though edible) cookies. Not what I wanted. Furthermore, sometimes they're burnt, and sometimes they're doughy because the recipe I have says "bake at 350 degrees." No baking time. Lovely.

Well I am proud to say that this year I have figured it out. IT'S IN THE ROLLING. If you want your sugar cookies to bake up thick, you have to roll them out thick. I'm not sure why my mom never mentioned this to me when I would call and talk to her about making them. When I called her this time to tell her I had finally figured it out she just said, "oh yeah you cut them pretty thick." Maybe she was giving more baking know-how credit than she should have. You really shouldn't give me much baking-know-how credit. I mean, I'm sure all of you reading this thought to yourself "hmm...thick cookies, thick rolling." Well now you can all be proud of me because I've figured it out too. Hooray for me. Come over and have some sugar cookies because mom's recipe makes approximately a billion.

Note the differences in done-ness in my cookies. ha ha.

So Where Will Little Spike Sleep?

You might remember a previous post that I wrote about Little Spike's room....well, it is infinitely closer to being able to house a baby now so I thought I would share its progress with you. First we had to strip the wallpaper and put up a couple of coats of primer. I could do most of the wallpaper stripping because there weren't any fumes and strenuous exercise involved. Nate pretty much did the rest.


We also had to move everything out of the nursery and into the living room including all of the baby swag from my showers and the more-comfy-than-our-futon blue couch. This was great incentive to get the room painted quickly.



Then we had to agonize over the decision of whether or not to strip and refinish my grandmother's vanity so that it would match the crib. When we finally decided to do it, Nate got to add a new power tool to his collection; a random orbital sander.

The vanity is still a work in progress. In fact, Nate spent most of yesterday working on it. This is a before picture of it...minus the drawers of course.

I am so in love with the beautiful green color that we used for the walls. It looks great with almost any other color (especially pink) so I can add a lot to it.


And now...it is still a bit of a mess. But at least it is a mess of cute clothes and fabric, which is much better in my opinion. I thought about not posting pictures until we were all done...but there is always the chance that won't happen until 3 months after Little Spike comes... so here you go.


At this time I would like to give a shout out to my wonderful husband for putting up with my irrational need for him to paint and do things in the nursery that were at the most inconvenient times possible for him. Ben, thanks for helping us get the primer on the walls in record time. Also, thanks Liza for hooking us up with the sweet swing.

More About Thanksgiving

As Nate mentioned in a previous post, we went to Oceanside, OR for Thanksgiving, and it was FANTASTIC. We rented a beautiful vacation home overlooking the coast, took walks on the beach, and ate clam chowder as well as a delicious turkey dinner.
The house in the middle is the one we rented.

In case the pictures don't make it obvious, I should mention that "we" included the following: me and Nate (duh), Ken & Nina (my parents), Spencer (my brother), Connie (my aunt), Keith (my grandpa), Bill & Gail (Nate's parents), Kevan (Nate's brother). Of course Lorne & Laurel (Nate's brother and sister-in-law) were there in our thoughts. Nate and I always talk about how blessed we are to both get along with our in-laws so well, and that they enjoy spending time with each other too! And now, a few more pictures that Nate's dad took that didn't get included in the web album.

It's a dog's life

Not even Izzy likes to get up in the morning.

See?

Here's a closeup so you can really get a feel for the eyes.


Again, note the eyes.


Since Miranda is the one that took the picture (I was probably still in bed) I'll let her add any sort of back story she would like here.

Miranda here. Yes, in fact Nate was still asleep when I took these pictures. I typically get up before him in the morning to get ready for work. If we think it is going to be really cold at night (or if the news tells us to) we let Izzy sleep inside. The above pictures are a perfect example of what she looks like in the morning when I try to put her outside.

I find it difficult to wake up in the morning and look at my comfortably sleeping husband, and then try not to disturb my comfortably sleeping dog. The jealousy is consuming. Sometimes it looks like Izzy might want to go outside...or I've been woken up by the sound of her paws digging around on her bed. So I say something like "are you ready to go outside?"...and she looks at me as if saying "are you kidding me? I'm not the poor sap that has to go to work." And I try not to push her off her bed as I step over her to get to the bathroom.

Thanksgiving

We went to Oceanside on the Oregon coast for Thanksgiving. Maybe Miranda will blog about it sometime but until then here is a photo album of the pictures I took while we were there. I didn't pick and choose the good ones so you might have to do some wading to get to the good stuff.

Thanksgiving in Oregon