Holiday cookie exchange

Have you ever seen.....

That many delicious cookies in one place?!??!

To kick off the weekends in the holiday month of December, a friend at work was gracious enough to host a holiday cookie exchange at her condo downtown! I had never been to a cookie exchange, so I was very interested in what exactly it entailed. And I have to say the host, Lindsay, did a GREAT job of keeping everyone informed and up to speed on what we had to bring. It went a little like this:

• You say you will attend!
• You wait to see how many other people say they are coming
• You decide what kind of cookies you are going to make
• The host sends you the total count (we did 1/2 dozen for each person)
• You send the host your recipe and then you make the cookies!
• Bring your cookies to the party
• Use the treat sacks/bags provided by the host to collect all your cookies- 6 each of everyone's
• Play a fun game (if your host is awesome like ours was)
• Pick up your recipe cards with everyone's cookie recipe
• Take your cookies home and enjoy them :)

Here was our spread with all the different bags and containers that Lindsay had for us to use. Depending on the cookie size, there were some really cute bags...but some of the cookies (like my FAVORITE- the chocolate marshmallow brownie cookie...YUM) were too big to fit in the small bags!

Overall, the cookie exchange was a great idea and so much fun! I made cream cheese spritz cookies with my cookie spritzer fun tool and they were delicious!

But I did want to showcase what a good and cute job Lindsay did of decorating for the holiday cookie exchange. She hosted it in her condo building downtown's party room. It was so cute and had all the drinks, snacks and cute little holiday designs you want! Check out these super cute holiday spirits!!

And I finally got to meet her sweet English bulldog named Diesel. He was so cute and I'm glad he got to make a showcase since I have heard all about him!!

One final shot for you of everyone collecting their yummy cookies. What a GREAT holiday idea and a way to get friends together to share recipes and holiday cheer. A big thanks to Lindsay for hosting a bunch of Hallmarkers for this great new holiday tradition! I can't wait to (maybe) try to host my own next year!!

P.S. If you are interested in making spritz cookies, here is the recipe that I used!!

Cream Cheese Spritz Cookies:

1 cup butter, softened (don't use margarine!)
1 (8 oz) package of cream cheese, softened
2/3 cup sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 tsp almond extract
2 cups all-purpose flour
Dash of salt

Cream together butter and cream cheese in a large mixing bowl. Gradually add sugar, beating until light and fluffy. Add in vanilla and almond extract. Combine flour and salt together; gradually add to reamed mixture, beating well until blended.

Shape dough into a ball and chill thoroughly (if desired, split dough into desired portions and use food coloring to dye it).

Press dough from a cookie press 2 inches apart onto an ungreased cookie sheets, using desired shaping disks. If desired, sprinkle with sugar crystals, etc. to decorate.

Bake at 400 degrees for 8-10 min or until very lightly browned on bottom. Remove to cool. Makes about 4 dozen cookies.

Personalized Gift Idea!

THIS article from USA Today sums up why I think this post is so relevant! Customized gifts seem to be the popular trend this holiday season-- so if you are looking for a good idea to personalize and give to family and friends- keep reading!

In addition to that, I realized last week there was something from my wedding I never shared on my blog. After the wedding, the thank you notes, getting the pictures and wedding DVD back....the next step is the albums/keepsakes for the pictures. We decided not to go through our photographer to get an album since we had all the rights to the images ourselves, so it was off to find my final DIY item for our big day. I researched and researched photo websites trying to find the one I liked best and landed on Picaboo. It is easy to use, gives you some great tips and examples and is a great price- and best yet they always have a discount/deal going on.

So right after our wedding, I let my mother in law and mom pick out their favorite pictures from our wedding and made them into a book for each of them. It was really because I knew they both wanted to go to work and show them all the pictures of their son/daughter's wedding and that just made it easy and quick and it was a good quality book. It was also kind of as a "thank you" to both of them for all the time, effort, and money they put into making our wedding day truly perfect!! I quickly got myself up to speed, loaded in their favorite pictures (very fast) and assembled them into a personal book. The deal that was going on when I ordered my mom's (which is below) was buy on get one free of the same book- so I got a copy too. And since 8 months later (AH- 8 months today, happy 8 month Jimmy!)...I still haven't finished the fancy wedding book, this is the best I have so far.

There was a deal going on in November to get 40% off a Classic book (which is the style I have pictures of below), so I made and ordered one documenting our honeymoon adventures. I love it too! It is just such a fun and personal way to get the photos that live in the digital world on your computer to be something tangible for people visiting your house to pick up off of the coffee table and look through. AND you can keep these books forever and I'm guessing some day our future kids will look through them and think "wow! what happened to our parents that made them turn so un-cool" haha.

Take a look at the 2 books I have made below and be thinking if there is anyone out there you'd like to give a personalized photo book (or calendar) too for the holidays! They have a great special going on right now-- save 30% on all Classic Book or Calendar Orders through 12/30, use code HOLIDAY30 when checking out.

Here is a summary of the 2 books I have....one of some wedding pictures and another of our honeymoon. The front covers:

First page...you can pick any background you want that they have, but as you can see from my honeymoon album, I took full advantage of all my "scenery" shots and made those the background!

Wedding: getting ready; Honeymoon: our arrival

Wedding: Before and the ceremony; Honeymoon: our jungle adventure

Wedding: Group pics/individuals; Honeymooon: our random photo shoot and circus show

Wedding: Portraits; Honeymoon: Mexican food night

Wedding: Trolley and reception; Honeymoon: arrival back to KC

Back of the books!

So there you have it. Hopefully you can see the quality of the pictures and the book. I am more than satisfied and for a great price :) Maybe there are some personalized books you will be giving this holiday!!

Change is here!

Can you tell something different when you checked my blog today? That's right....I have a new design that I love! Brea from Utterly Chaotic Designs put this together for me and I love it! I love the colors, I love the font, I love the coffee mug at the top (right up my alley...)! I pretty much love it all. She did a GREAT job for a GREAT price and so fast. I found her through a blog friend, Laura, who I met in the blog world when I was planning our wedding. I went to check out her wedding blog to see if she was still keeping it up after she got married and discovered she started a new life blog with an awesome design...and you guessed right, Brea designed it! She is awesome to work with and I couldn't say more wonderful things about her. And she has two adorable little boys :)

Thanks Brea! It's a great reflection of me and my blog! I couldn't have asked for anything better. If you are interested, she has the prices of her services available on her website, so check her out!!!

Merry Christmas Cards!

So now that you have had a tour of our house in full Christmas swing, wanted to wish those of you on the blog world a very merry Christmas and holiday season :) Now that all of our Christmas cards have reached their final destinations, I can share our 2010 card with the blog world!!

Front and back...


Now to give a shameless plug to Hallmark which is where I ordered these from. I cannot even tell you how in love I am with this website; in particular, the personalized greeting cards and the great service they offer by mailing them for you. It was SOOOO easy to send our Christmas cards this year and it was all over with in about 15 minutes total...yep, designed, ordered AND sent out. After I had picked out my design, the pictures and added some modifications to the already nice wording, click...click...and done. I actually made them the first week in November, right after we got back from Baltimore/DC and just set them to ship the first week of December. Plus I ordered a few extra for myself because I knew I didn't have all my addresses loaded into the website!

There you have it...my simple holiday card solution that turned out great (if I may say so myself) with minimal effort thanks to the luxuries of the Internet! However, I will note that when I log onto my hallmark online account now and try to preview my card, for some reason the image below comes up, which means 2 of the pictures will not load and somehow someone's child randomly ended up on our card. We know it's not ours with that blond hair and blue eyes, but he's pretty darn cute. However, it's kind of freaking me out......

We have already gotten a few super cute holiday cards with some pictures of our nieces and nephews and are loving them- I have a great place to display them, so hopefully they will keep hitting our mail box! With that said, wishing you and your family a very happy holiday season!!!!

Oh the memories

Question: What do these two things have in common?

1. Black file cabinet

2. Random shoe box

Answer: Actually more than you probably think. When Jimmy moved all of his stuff in to our house after we got married, one of the things that he brought with him was a big shoe box. He put it right in the closet in the office and I didn't think twice about it. Until about 2 weeks ago when I happened to ask him about it. He got it out and started talking about how he has everything that I have given him/we have done from the very start of our relationship. I honestly didn't believe him because that's something that only girls do right? I mean I have a file in the file cabinet that says "Jimmy stuff" with all kind of tickets, cards, little notes that came with flowers, etc from these past 5 years. So he got it out. I pulled out my folder. And we started looking through all of our "stuff". All the tickets from Royals games, Chiefs games, airline tickets from vacations we went on together, concerts, even movies we went to together. One of my favorites in his box was his "shot book" that I made him after we had been dating for 21 months. Since he is way older than me and was already 21 when we met, he missed out on a shot book. And I think everyone knows how important a shot book is- haha, JK. So for his birthday I made him a book of our first 21 months. It was awesome. Even today I still love looking through it!!

However, I'm not sure if anything will top his birthday present for his 22nd birthday. For those of you who don't know what that present was...I made him a life size cut out of myself. Haha, yes it's rather odd...but so "us". I should have known if that didn't scare him away after only 6 months of dating that he was a keeper. But apparently it didn't last, so it did not make it through his move after his senior year of college. Bummer. It would have been cool to have at our wedding. Oh wait...we still had life size cut outs there :) Love them!

Anyways...keeping with the theme of the post, it was so funny when we were going through our individual keepsakes when we found one of each. For example, we each had our own movie ticket from a movie we saw in September of 2006. It's hilarious and sweet to me that we both felt the need to keep them. Not sure why we did, but it makes me smile.

Here was what I gave him for our first Valentine's Day. Pretty sure it was one of those "oh crap, it's v-day already?" gifts because I didn't think in advance what I should get him, but really it just gave us different names and told the story of how we met and our "future" that I was predicting just months in. He should have known after this that a life size cut out was next in line for a present...

And here is probably the one (and ONLY) planner Jimmy has ever had. In that sense, we are complete opposites because I'm obsessed with my planner. Actually, my favorite time of year is getting to go to the Vera Bradley store to buy my new planner and transferring all the birthdays, anniversaries, etc. Its sick and weird, but I love it. Anyways, in college he didn't have a planner and would show up in Manhattan saying things like "I think I have a test on Monday, not sure. Maybe it's a quiz?". It drove me NUTS. So I bought him a cheap planner and decorated it for him. He used it. Funny because we just got in a huge fight yesterday because he STILL doesn't understand the concepts of the 17 planners/calendars I have for us. Guess some things never change, right? But he liked it enough to keep this one...

And WOW----can you believe I found THESE in the box? These are from my 20th birthday party. Cannot believe he still has those! 2010...

And from 2005....we look like little kids! So funny!

So here it all is. Our memories. Our relationship in a box and a file cabinet. I had no idea that Jimmy kept all these things....I guess that means he really likes me :) Which is good because I really like him too!

One hilarious thing about all the cards I read that I had given to him over the years was that almost EVERY single card- no matter what it was for, birthday, anniversary, just because, congrats, thank you- had some mention of these hypothetical wiener dogs we were going to have someday named Tina and Tony. I'm not even kidding. I'm a FREAK! I cannot believe this guy married me :) But I guess I have a knack for predicting the future...while their names are not Tina and Tony (yes, I do tend to call them that), he does have to deal with 2 cute wiener dogs, Milly and Willy.

What a fun night it was sitting there looking over our life together and all the ups and downs, good times and bad. Once all the memorabilia went back into it's respective place, all I could do was sit there and stare at my husband looking forward to all the memories we are going to make in the next 50+ years...

It's beginning look a lot like

...Christmas at the Carter house!!! Take a tour via blog pictures...welcome to our home!

Jimmy did a GREAT job with his best Clark Griswald impression with his addition of the "candy cane" around the tree!

And the front door, with my little pretty wreath. I still have my eye on a bigger one, but am probably going to wait until after the season and they go on sale!

The upstairs tree--the one you can see from the street!

Next stop- the dining room. Changed the stuff in the vase! Added a centerpiece thing from my grandma's house.

And new plates- duh. Gotta fill the plate rack based on the season. Oh and those candles? Just took some red ribbon and taped it on the candle to make it look like a candy cane. Yes, free again.

And my favorite. The china cabinet. I love it. Best yet, all free because I just used leftover ornaments!

Then we go downstairs to the family room. Tree #2. This was from my condo, but it fits nice here! And then some lighted garland.

Finally- the fireplace. I love it. And really cannot believe how different it looks from a year and a half ago...and really even last Christmas! I'm still working on a plan for how to make us new stockings that are awesome.

And here are the dogs- just so happy for holiday time!

Ok actually, Willy hates his antlers, but still, how cute are they? :)

With that said- happy holidays from the Carter family!! Wishing you lots of happiness and fun during this happy time of the year!

An ode to my Kindle...

For my 25th birthday, that was back in August, Jimmy and my parents got me a Kindle. It was one of those things that I really thought I would like, but wasn't 100% sure I'd be in love. But you know, something you might not buy for yourself, but would love as a gift.

So I tried it. I stopped using the library and putting my name on waiting lists, making numerous trips to get my books on hold; the only downside, those were free...I stopped buying books at the store; which those were a bit more expensive. And I started downloading my books. So 21st century :)

Well my friends, here I am, four months later and I'm madly in love. It's crazy how hard I've fallen for an electronic device. I will share with you the reasons this has occurred:

Convenience: this one really takes the cake on all the reasons why I love this. For example, say it's 7AM in the morning before I'm heading towards the bus...and wait...I finished my book last night--oh no! But never fear, as I'm standing my kitchen and pouring my coffee...I can search and even see Kindle's recommendations for books I would like, find it and DONE. It downloads super fast and I run out the door. No need to carry extra books, build drive time into my schedule...because I have a book.

Size: I carry this with me almost everywhere. Why? Because I'm impatient and it drives me crazy when I'm not doing something "efficient" or productive at all times. Oh, my hair stylist needs me to sit around with hair dye while she cuts someone else's hair...no need to catch up on gossip magazines, I will just pull my Kindle out and get right back into my book. Oh, the doctor/dentist is running late again and I'm stuck in the waiting room, no problem or need to read the silly magazines they provide- I'll just ready my book---why? Because I can easily just whip it out of my purse :)

Efficient: I think I covered that when I described no need for trips to the library, stalking the waiting list or heading to the book store. Done in my PJs, on the bus, in my bed, in the car--wherever you can get wireless internet. Awesome. I love efficiency.

Ok, so there you have it. The reasons I'm in love. It's just so perfect. And better yet, most all the books (even NY times best sellers) are way cheaper than an actual book because, well, you don't have the actual book- just the words. And I have also found some decent books for free!

Now there is one downside- it costs $$ every time you get a book (shocker...I know...haha...but they have to make $$ someway, right?). However, here's what I realized that is completely relevant to me and maybe not anyone else. Not leaving my house and running another errand that leads me to a Target or CostCo actually has saved us money! Because I just don't go there...so there are less unnecessary expenses from buying stuff along the way to get a book. Even Jimmy said "I'd rather see Amazon charges than Target, CostCo, Wal-Mart, CVS....etc". So there you have it.....my husband loves it too!

With that said, do you have a Kindle and love it? I know my friend Jennie does because we have already talked about our obsession :) If not, is it on your Christmas list???

PS Thanks to Jimmy and my mom for a GREAT present!!