christmas day!

As far as Christmases go, our Christmas Day this year was amazing! We spent Christmas Eve's at mumsie's (meaning lots of snackies and adult beverages of choice) and opened all our prezzies there on the big fat morning. Meghan cleaned up decently this year, with lots of new archery equipment (that target looked so impressive all wrapped up!), hair dye, and an iPhone among other things. Richard got his obligatory toy (so help me, that's always stressful to pick out--and I forgot batteries!) and I just got spoiled to put it simply. :)

Afterwards, the 4 of us went to the hill to hang out with the family. After the Secret Santa rounds and sugar cookie decorations, a few of us went outside to play in the backyard. Turns out Stephen is a certified archery instructor, so we had to get him and Meghan together! 

After a few instructions, Stephen upped the ante by taping a $5 bill to the target. "If you can hit it, you can keep it!" And then Meghan gave Lincoln a tracheotomy. Pretty epic, if you ask me. ;P And then Uncle Danny got in there... I just love discovering all the secret talents of our family!

Then we played with the potato launcher. A potato launcher. That Stephen made. HE MADE IT. I was freaking out, it was just the coolest thing ever! I couldn't get any pictures of it in action because I was so "!!!" the entire time.  Son-in-law of the year? Yes. 

After a very hard farewell (why isn't Christmas day 72 hours long? that would help so much!), we went over to Darrah's for Christmas dinner. We had such a lovely time there--D made the most beautiful decorations and we watched stupid teenager comedies while the cooks were making our wonderful meal (steaks and salmon!). She got us the most thoughtful gifts (a Keurig for Richard and a reusable Keurig cup for me... girl's got smarts) and looked so beautiful. I'm just sad I wore out by the time we got there (thanks, retail job!) or I would have taken more pictures. But that's what this here blog's for, right? I can do words and stuff, too! 

Like I said, super amazing Christmas Day. We're so fortunate to have the most precious of families who are so fun and silly and crazy and warm and inviting and fun and silly. They totally make all the driving and early mornings throughout December worth while (and then some!).

grandpa jim's 90th (!) birthday party

Our sweet, adorable, amazing Grandpa Jim turns 90 this year! Fortunately, most of our family was in town for the holidays so we all got together for dinner and cake and presents and hugs and laughs. :) Note: the table-cloth was very festive and red, so I found black/white pictures to be most appealing to the eye.

The birthday boy sporting kisses from me and mumsie on each cheek!

The feast! (And my vegan soup in the bottom-right corner. ;P)

After cake (carrot annnd red-velvet, thankyouverymuch), we brought out the presents, which included a Jim-sized magnifying glass and a laser-projected keyboard that can be connected to your computer and phone!

Probably the greatest picture of the night!

Looking at his phone while Kenzie types on the keyboard on the other side of the table (miraculous!).

Kenzie, helping Grandpa Jim practice on his new keyboard (which you can't really see in this photo, but it's there!).

hilary's graduation party

My bestie-soulmate, Hilary, had a party this weekend to celebrate getting her BA! While Meggie and Nick played Babysitter, went to her home town (Fort Worth) and got to hang out with all of her family and friends who are, quite matter-of-factly, The Most Precious People Ever. After a super savory meal at Taverna, the kiddos (us) went around to a few bars in downtown Fort Worth, including one that reeeally reminded me of The Snakehole Lounge. ;P It was such a wonderful time! It's always so lovely to see Hilary's family (the family all families should aspire to) and it was great to finally meet her friends from College Station/Houston that I had heard about for so long. Plus, Hilary and I so rarely get to dress-up together, so it was definitely fun to show off our ensembles as a team. ;)

Fun side-story: At dinner, Richard asked the waiter to serve a glass of whiskey to Hilary's dad, James, only the waiter mis-read R's directions and gave the drink to Hilary's so-not-legal younger sister. Whoops! After clarification, it was simultaneously hilarious, legendary, and awkward. ;P

And to inadvertently solidify Richard's standing in Hilary's Family Lore, he told all the kiddos after dinner that he'd buy us all a drink if we saw a total of "10 slutty Santas" while at the bars. (We only saw 5! Ugh!) I'd always knew all of them would get along so well. ;)

Sorry I'm not sorry for a million different photos of two of my favorite people together. ;)

And sorry I'm not sorry for this picture after the "read more" jump, mom.

the ice-pocalypse!

I can't believe the weekend we had recently! On Thursday, there was a pretty solid prediction that an ice storm was coming, and lawd what a storm! Inches of ice seemed to blanket everything... the roads, the trees, everyone's windsheilds... it was crazy! You would have thought the sky was falling on Thursday--grocery stores were obliterated. Come 5am Friday, we were one of the 230,000 (!) people who lost power in the morning, which is the last thing you want when it's 20-degrees outside. Richard still went to work (of course!), but he told me I was not allowed to drive, thank goodness. And thank goodness for wireless router batteries and Facebook, because I at least was able to learn that my work was closed anyway since they didn't have power either. Meggie and I were stuck at home trying to figure out what to do with ourselves!

Fortunately, we heard that Patsy-poo still had power, and since she only lives a few blocks away from us we decided it was totally worth the cold fingies and red noses to trek over to her place. It's one thing to not have power, but it's another thing to not have power and learn your friends still have power! 

Ice on everything! It was so beautiful (and crazy dangerous to drive in).

Patsy's pretty much the ideal person to still have power during this situation because you're greeted with warm hugs, a puppy dog named Daisy, hot tea and the biggest marshmallows you've ever seen in your life (I mean, really, isn't that marshmallow hysterical?). We're so lucky to have such a sweet friend so close by. :)

Checking Facebook constantly and straightening my hair (yes, I brought my straightener--priorities, ya'll) could only pass so much time, so Meggie and I went to the game room to play on the AMAZING old-school pinball machine Patsy has. It was so much fun! I want one! Oh, and PS, I managed to get the highest score during our play time. ;)

Then we played 9-Ball (we're girls). It was pretty much a suck-fest (we're girls), but it turned into a giggle-fest real quick. I just love goofing around with my Meggie. :)

By the time Richard got off work, he was determined to knock out our Christmas shopping. Why? Because power outages and icey roads equals the perfect time to beat the crowds! I have to admit, I was kinda skeptical ("Can't we just sit and eat Cheetos and worry about the power coming back on?!"), but it was so nice! I swear, between 2pm-8pm we had knocked out 90% of our Christmas shopping for this year. I think that's a record! Plus, our power was finally back on by the time we came back from our last run, which I'm pretty sure was divine guidance. 

On Saturday, anything that slushed up on the roads re-froze in the worst kinda way, which equaled another day off for me! I tried my best to enjoy it (ie, Cheetos), but I'm always super manic when I call out of work (ie, the worst). Regardless, we all took lots of naps, watched lots of movies (can you believe it was a Free HBO weekend? What are the odds!), made lots of fires, and just thanked our lucky stars for the power being back on. 

Sunday finally started slushing up again, and the 3 of us had cabin fever pretty bad so Richard drove us to the mall to walk around. Even Nordy's still was without power, but that didn't stop them from being open! So if you're really into buying Louboutins in the dark, Nordy's on Sunday was the place to be. The rest of Northpark was at capacity, and it was great because there was no "mall pressure" since we had gotten so much Christmas shopping done; so we just leisurely looked around, smelled perfumes, look at Tom Ford suits, and bought a few additional gifts here and there. All with my favorite people. :)

Whew! I told you it was a crazy weekend, right?! I'm just so grateful I get to spend crazy weekends with my loves who are so helpful and hilarious (two very important qualities) and who know how not to feed my manic anxiety over power outages and call-out shifts (another very important quality). At dinner on Friday, I was really freaking out about the power possibly being off all night (the food! the fish tank!), and Meggie would just casually say things like, "Well, you can show me those pictures on the computer when we get home and the power is back on." Um, thanks, girl. I really appreciated it. I was actually really grateful to be back at work on Monday (predictability! normalcy!), but I hope I never forget all the special little moments that happened this weekend... like snuggling in bed with Meggie watching "What Not To Wear," reading Vogue by the fireplace, and being so smitten that R watched "Bring It On" with his girls because he likes it, too. :) Blessings!

happy list

(Because it's been a while!)

1. Long, relaxing baths that are hotter than the dickens.

2. My new boots and Kate Spade necklace.

3. Orchestrating an outfit for Hilary's graduation party.

4. Getting a new iPod nano for car-rides and buying lots of music for it.

5. Keeping the house tidy (we're doing pretty well for some reason!).

6. Getting into the groove at work.

7. Wearing R's plaid pajama bottoms.

8. Not looking at my iPhone so much.

9. Jimi Hendrick's singing voice (I mean, really).

10. All the gorgeous, stunning, breath-taking visuals in "The Tree of Life."

11. Sunday mornings with family. :)

12. This Twitter sequence.

13. My Lady Gaga Pandora station to get me through obnoxious chores.

14. Jessica Chastain in Vogue.

15. Calculating the most perfect time-saving route home from work, however sinuous.

mike & ron

If you've read this blog or my Twitter for more than 2 seconds, it's pretty obvious that R and I are super into "Parks and Rec" and "Breaking Bad." Rightfully so! I mean, I consider myself more of a movie gal, but TV's kinda killing it these days!

I love both these shows for oceans of reasons, but entertainment takes on a special value when favorite things remind you of people you love, and admittedly I get really insufferably happy that two of my favorite characters remind me of my honey. So, if you've never watched those shows, Mike and Ron are like Richard. And if you've never met Richard, he's like Mike and Ron. Ron has die-hard proclivities towards red meat, scotch, and simplicity, and Mike's a "cleaner/fixer" who looks super adorable playing games with a 10-year-old girl. IT'S SO AWESOME.

Honestly, R is like a surreal hyper-conglomeration of lots of boys that I mildly obsess over (Bogie! Jay-Z! Rhett Butler! Rex Harrison! Atticus Finch!), so it's pretty safe to say we're not breaking up any time soon.

a few photos from thanksgiving

This year we had our Thanksgiving celebration at Darrah's. Food was plentiful, the littles were with us, and the Cowboys won---can't ask for more than that! 

Darrah had these little turkey crafts waiting for the kittens ("YOLO" means Ryan got in there, too. ;P)

Meggie and her DIY headdress. :)

Ryan and Sadie.

Em and R3 playing chess.

 We tried to get a good singular photo of all the kittens, and, well, between these two I think we got it. ;P

last thursday

Last Thursday was one for the record books. I had a multiple huge orders at work and was on the clock from 5am-4pm. And for some miraculous reason, when I got home I was not only conscious enough to consider a margarita, but flat-out demand one. After what felt like the most glorious shower of my life, Richard, Meggie, and I went to this great little place around the corner that we love (Enchilada's!), and lemme tell you, that margarita tasted goooood!

Meggie, who loves barbeque so much she tries it at a Mexican restaurant. (I'm so glad she did, because the fries were delicious!)

Afterwards, we went to Wal*Mart for a few randos, and thaaat's when the 11-hour shift + margarita hit me! So, the logical step was the get in the cart, have Meggie to push me around, and giggle/text all my friends about what an awesome step-mom I am. I'm so glad my family doesn't mind being a spectacle!

It was such a fun way to end a crazy fucking Thursday! Meggie was in such a cute Meggie Mood, and part of the reason she's always so much fun because she totally gets how much I have to (have to) love on her dad (I had to go to bed so early on Wednesday I had lost time to make up for!). Plus, she's one of the few people than can decipher my deliriously tired speech and then girlfriend made cookies while we were watching the new "Parks and Rec" episodes. She's kinda killing it at being my step-daughter. ;)

"you're crazy, sadie!"

On Saturday, we took the family to Debbie and Aaron's because Ashlee and Will were in town. (This was a California-peeps weekend, I tell ya!) As per usual, we had a smashing time. My only regret was that I wasn't able to get more pictures... I dusted off my fancy camera for the first time in a whiiile, and, ahem, I was very rusty with the fancy settings. Ugh!

But! I do have two darling videos of Sadie entertaining the grown-ups (fair warning: I have a really lame "supportive & proud step-mom" yell). And lemme tell you, this girl is quite the hoola-hooper! (Remember the end of this post? Well, she hasn't stopped.) She started out with two...

"I make it look easy, but it's not really easy!" (at 0:45)

And then girlfriend threw down THREE hoola-hoops! She's crazy!

Just sayin', I've watched these videos like 10 times today. I can't get over how well she recovers the hoops when they go hay-wire. Physics a la Sadie!

an evening with nikka!

This week, our sweet/amazing/adorable/hilarious Nikka came to Dallas! Nikka is just further proof that I really have the best stock of cousins in the world. I hadn't seen her in about 4 years, but you would think it had just been 4 days. We always just pick-up right were were left off, and words can hardly express how happy I am that I was able to see her! I even called her earlier in the week just to say, "Uh, I'MSOEXCITEDTOSEEYOU, DEEEE!" (I'm that person. A text will not suffice.) Mumsie picked her up on Friday, and they came over to our apartment so she could meet my sweet Moores for the first time, and it's pretty safe to say they all hit it off! We were only able to hang out for the night, but the littles have been asking all weekend, "Where's Nikka? Is she coming back?" (Ugh, my heart. :))

After a good ole Pizza Hut dinner with the fam, Nikka and I went off by ourselves to the Pearl Jam concert at the AAC. It was actually our second Pearl Jam concert together--she took me a few years ago when they played in LA, and I fell pretty hard for them thanks to that show. :)

In typically Nikka-fashion, she got us really killer seats (oh, you know, like on the FLOOR). I mean, the only thing better than hearing Eddie Vedder live is being in arms' length of him while he's singing live. It had been 10 years since the band had been in Dallas (to which Nikka would reply, "And I was at that last show, too!"), so they seemed to have made a point to give everyone an especially kick-ass concert. 

Really, it was just a wonderful, wonderful evening. I didn't get to bed until 2am, and thennn I had to work at 9am the next morning (whew!) but I would do it all over again. Ugh, can't wait to see that girl again. :)

feeling tipsy and fresh--!

On top of the list of things I most look forward to is a date with CJ. We haven't been able to hang out in a few months (thanks, life!), so I was over-the-moon when we were able to schedule a Monday-night champy date to catch-up and be silly. I was so excited that I dirtied everything in the kitchen, ahem, I mean made homemade lemon bars from scratch (twerkin' that fresh lemon zest!) because nothing feels more lovely than treating my friends and family like the celebrities they are. Plus, Ceej always has the champy, ya girl has to show up with something.

(Sometimes we accidentally get a little heavy handed with the berries in the champagne... homemade champagne cobbler!)

After cocktails and dessert, we went with Jim to a little Japanese place around the corner, and I allowed myself to have udon noodles for the first time in years. (Ugh, how I missed your starchy goodness, udon!) We were even served tempura pumpkin?! I didn't know that was a thing, but it sure was delicious. Basically, I could really get used to these opulent Mondays! It was one helluva way to kick-start a week. :)

drunken mushrooms, space, and burgundy

This week was R and I's first week back at work, and boy was there work waiting for us! I'll just say I had so much overtime throughout the week that I only had to work 2 hours one day to even everything out. Phew!

However, it was my sweet angel's birthday on Thursday, and since he had a long-awaited tattoo appointment on his birthday we waited for Saturday to have a fun, little birthday date. We even got all gussied up and bought new clothes for the occasion! #opulence

We started by having an amazing dinner at the amazing Sundown at Granada! One of our darling chef friends told us that we specifically have to go there because they have a great mix of omnivorous plates and vegetarian/vegan offerings. And we were completely sold after seeing how many times the menu used "with drunken mushrooms" to described a dish. I honestly haven't felt so "ugh?!" on what to select from a menu in a very long time, so needless to say we plan on going back a few more times to try everything.

(The most wonderful flat-bread... with drunken mushrooms!)

Then, we went to see Gravity in 3D, which was one of the most stressful film experiences of my life. I sure am glad AMC has a bar, because I was nursing my whiskey the whole movie trying to deal with the suspense! Don't get me wrong--the film was GORGEOUS and amazing on every level, and the birthday boy thought it was kick-ass (which was the whole point), but involving me in any gripping "suspense/thriller" movie basically means getting me tipsy so I don't pass-out from the stress.

(Yes, R and I matched for the evening. We're freaks. HAPPY FREAKS IN LOVE.)

Overall, this weekend has been really lovely. Meggie and I went on a long-overdue Meggie Date (buying Clinique mascara and my new birthday date sweater!), while Richard and I watched the new Aziz Ansari special, and cleaned out the closet a little bit. We even bought the original "Wizard of Oz" on Blu-ray, which makes my heart so happy! Things are coming back together piece by piece, even if it's hard and full of suck, but we have so many friends and family members giving us all they got and it never escapes us how lucky we are. And if this week was any indictation, we're totally going to kick November's ass. ;)

halloween, etc.

Alrighty, one more "bits and pieces" post, and then I'm jumping on the wagon. :)

The littles on Halloween. :)

Meggie and her friends on Halloween. :) 

Peanut butter Totoro cookies! (recipe)

My bouffant and Emily's subsequent interpretation on our bathroom mirror.