Merry Christmas Weekend!

I hope everyone had a happy Christmas Weekend!! We enjoyed a lovely, quiet, and cozy 4 day weekend here in Chicago. Friday we both took the day off of work and headed downtown for a little Christkindling and holiday shopping in the Windy City. We were hoping that the Christkindle Market wouldn't be crazy crowded like last year, but alas, we were wrong. We were also disappointed to learn that they ran out of their famous "boot mugs" about a week earlier. So we had to enjoy our Glühwein from styrofoam cups. We still had a good time and enjoyed some yummy German brats.
We wandered down to Macy's and did a little spontaneous shopping. Tom got two...wait for it....black hoodies and I bought a couple long sweaters and a shirt for work. On the walk home from the train, we decided to carry on the German theme of the day and stopped in at Mirabell, a local bar that we've passed a million times but have never been to. We loved it! It was cozy and Christmasy and everything in it was very German. We drank some Zwick'l and enjoyed the holiday spirit.
Speaking of Christmas Spirit, I had volunteered to work on Saturday (Christmas Eve) for my friend/coworker who is 8 months pregnant (but who has been having contractions on and off for the past 2 weeks). I was dreading going into work, but I knew if I were in her situation, I would be dying for someone to volunteer to work for me. Everything actually worked out perfect, because another therapist was asigned to work as well, and she said she could really use the money (and there was only one kiddo who needed to be seen - everyone does their best to get as many kids out of the hospital at Christmastime as possible), so long story short, I didn't have to work! Saturday we got caught up on some stuff around the house and went for our 2nd Annual Christmas Eve Walk to the park with Bailey. Unfortunately it wasn't covered in snow like last year, but we still had a good time. (I love that our shadows make us look like giants ;) Christmas Eve we enjoyed eggnog and a cheesy ABC Family Christmas movie (LOVE LOVE LOVE cheesy Christmas movies!!!). We were dying to open up some presents, and it just so happened that a package arrived from my parents while we were on our walk, so we opened a few presents while sipping our eggnog. My favorite? Beer and wine soap!!
On Christmas Day we enjoyed some yummy coffee (DD and Starbucks were on super sale during the weeks leading up to Christmas) while we opened presents. Bailey had a blast opening her presents. Her favorites were her racoon (see below) and the bone she got from Jackie and John Thomas. We thoroughly enjoyed our Christmas day, and topped off the holiday by watching Christmas Vacation (which was finally on tv Christmas night!)

Monday I did some post-Christmas shopping and scored some good deals! I finally found some Christmas stockings that I like, and just our luck they had an "A" and a "T" embroidered on the front of them. I also got some new clothes for work, a Christmas wreath, some completely teeny-bopper slipper boots (that I love!), and some clearance Yankee candles.

Bake Fest 2011

So last Sunday I spent the entire afternoon baking tons and tons of goodies for Tom's lab. I'm most excited about my chocolate dipped pretzel rods with candy cane sprinkles! I was pretty sure I was going to mess it up, so I googled a few different recipes and followed the instructions from good ol' ehow.

Other goodies included:

• Best Big Fat Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookies
  


• My Grandma Borys's sugar cookies
  


• Carnation Famous Fudge
  


• Peanut Butter Fudge (same recipe except I used 1 cup of PB and omitted the chocolate chips)
  


• Mom's no-bake cookies

I had thought I would try to plan ahead and whip up a batch of the sugar cookie dough and chocolate chip cookie dough a week in advance, freeze it, and then just bake it on Sunday.
Well, the sugar cookie dough made it through the week, but the chocolate chip cookie dough somehow disappeared a little bit each day from the freezer....oops. I didn't even care about the risk of salmonella from the raw eggs. It was so good it was worth it!!

So a few hours and 10 pounds later, I officially declared Bakefest 2011 a success :)

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas......

We've had a busy/fun/holiday filled past few days. Last Thursday night we went to Glascott's, a bar near work because they were having a huge Toys for Tots drive (with free drinks if you brought a $20 toy). Everyone from work goes every year because my co-worker's husband has always been in charge of organizing it, but this year was extra special because it doubled as a Going Away party for our co-worker Neal, who is leaving Children's (sad). It was packed to the brim, so much that I began to have claustrophobia and I wondered how on earth I ever liked to go out when places were so packed. Regardless of my personal space issues, it was a good time, complete with a little person who dressed up as an elf and threw candy to everyone from atop the bar.
Saturday night our friend Jess had a Tree Decorating party at her house. She said she got "inspiration" from my holiday party. Whatever, she took my "idea" of labeling things and, as Tom said, made it a million times better! (I had 2 things labeled "Wine" and "Beer is outside.") Jess even had little drink recipes printed out and placed on the bar!! Too cute! We had a great time and enjoyed hanging out with people we've met through Jess.
Here is our attempt at a "family photo," except Miss Bailey seemed to be more interested in sniffing my boots than smiling for the camera.
Today I spent the afternoon baking for Tom's lab (more on that later) and filling out Christmas cards. Next year we are definitely just snapping a photo and stuffing it in the envelope...way easier!

Happy 3rd "Birthday" to Bailey!

Well, she's technically 3 and a halfish but 3 years ago today we adopted Bailey from the shelter! She got to celebrate by spending the entire day on the couch yesterday because Someone forgot to put the pillows down. Oops!

The cutest tights in the world

Last weekend I went to a baby shower for a friend from work. It's fun hanging out with the work crew outside of work, and there is never a dull moment. It was at a country club in one of the suburbs so it was all decorated for Christmas and was so cozy. The food was really good and Jen got a lot of great gifts. My favorite part, however, was when my coworker's baby, Liv, decided to pee through her diaper and ruin her Christmas dress. Why was that my favorite part?


Because she got to wear her back-up Santa tights!


Look at that belt!!!! Hhahahahaha. Too adorable. Also, Bailey now thinks that anytime there is a wrapped present around, it's for her. I guess that's what we get for letting her open her own Christmas presents every year ;)

Happy (Belated) Holiday Weekend

The first weekend is December is traditionally our Holiday Weekend and kicks off our holiday season. This year we had a small Holiday Party at our place and invited a few friends from work, our neighbors, and the few friends we have in Chicago (which is about to shrink as one of my friends from college is getting ready to move to California with her husband).


Anyways, we started the day by getting our Christmas tree, because what would a holiday party be without a Christmas tree?! I decorated it while Tom went to meet our friend Brian and his crew for a few drinks (they were in Chi-town for the day for Brian's 30th birthday). Although it was a small gathering, we had a really good time and Bailey LOVED all of the attention. I'm looking forward to the rest of the holiday festivities this year!!

Wordless Wednesday: She stole my slipper

Happy Thanksgiving Vacation Everyone!!

I hope everyone had a restful and filling Thanksgiving break. I know that I absolutely needed a break, and it couldn't have come at a better time.

Thursday I woke up and immediately went to CVS to score a ton of stuff for practically free...you can read all about that here. After my crazy calmed down, I got back from CVS, we enjoyed coffee and a favorite breakfast casserole that I had thrown together the night before. I cooked our turkey and whipped up a few delicious Thanksgiving staples in between watching football and relaxing on the couch.

Thanksgiving night we had a massive Pre-Black Friday FAIL all because of a stupid tiny baby food processor. A few years ago I bought one from Walmart on Black Friday and it quickly became one of my favorite kitchen appliances. It died a month or so back, so I figured I would wait until Black Friday to see if Walmart would have it on sale again. They did, and so we trekked out to what turned out to be not really the best neighborhood in Chicago Thursday at 10 pm to try to get the food processor. We severely underestimated the insanity of Walmart in Chicago on Black Friday. We couldn't even get into the parking lot, so Tom dropped me off and waited a few blocks away. I can't even begin to describe the chaos that was happening in the store, but somehow I managed to circle the whole store twice (in 40 minutes) and couldn't find a single baby food processor :( So we went home empty handed.

After that debacle, I was a little weary of going to Home Depot Friday morning to get some $0.99 white pointsettas that I had my eye on, but was pleasantly suprised to find it pretty quiet at 8 am. I was excited with my Christmas decor purchase and love our decorated mantle.

Friday afternoon we relaxed, watched more football, and I made some of our all time favorite meals (and extras to freeze) with our leftovers. Curious what they are? Pioneer Woman's Chicken Turkey Pot Pie and Paige's Best Ever Chicken Turkey Noodle Soup. Also, it turns out that Friday night is an excellent time to go to Dominicks and Costco, in case you're in the Chicago area next Thanksgiving weekend :)

Saturday we woke up early and went to Ikea to pick up a new rug for our office. It's the same one we have in our bedroom, just a different color. We love it so much, but I think Bailey loves it the most, especially when the sun shines through the office window (since she thinks she's a cat).

The rest of Saturday night and all day Sunday were spent watching even more football, organizing some out of control areas, cleaning up my giant cooking messes (thanks Tom!!) and enjoying being home and able to relax. Hope everyone had a great break!!

It turns out, we've been busy

Sorry I haven't updated with anything exciting lately! We've actually branched out a little bit (never mind the fact that we've been here an entire year) and have been hanging out with some friends on weekends. A few Thursdays ago we went over to a coworker's house for dinner and drinks. Another one of my coworkers came too, with her twins (who technically weren't even supposed to be born yet at that point) and her husband. We grilled out (yes, 40 degrees is still grilling weather in Chicago) and drank entirely too much wine. It turned out Tom and I were the only ones who had to work on Friday (boooooo) but it was still a lot of fun.

Last weekend another coworker had a surprise birthday party (although I'm still not sure throwing a Surprise party for a 29 week pregnant woman is the best idea in the world). Thankfully no one went into preterm labor and we had a good time hanging out with the people I work with outside of work.

Tonight (today, rather) we went over to one of Tom's coworkers house for LOTS of food and some football. I should mention that his coworker is Italian (and his name is Luigi=awesome) so we literally had a feast and I don't think I have to eat again until Thanksgiving Dinner! They had plenty of appetizers (chips and salsa, fruit and dip, etc) out to snack on when we arrived. Almost immediately they served two large pizzas. I was getting kind of full when they brought out the cannelloni, but I sucked it up because how can you pass up such yummy italian food? Next came the lasagna. Next? Homemade pasta with sauce straight from Italy. I'm not even kidding, I thought I was going to explode. And for dessert? No less than 3 pies, 1 pumpkin roll (courtesy of me), and homemade tiramisu. A little bit later came some espresso, complete with a dash of Punch Abruzzo (a very strong, but very "cozy" liquor from the part of Italy that Luigi is from). Seriously, just looking at the picture on the label makes me want to cozy up by a fireplace and watch the snow come down for hours! And for a nightcap and to celebrate a Bears win? Of course, some Limoncello. Now if you'll excuse me, I need to go to bed :)

Happy 10 Year Anniversary!

Ten years ago tonight, Tom and I had our first date :) He came over to our apartment in H Alley, we watched Dumb & Dumber and drank Labatt Blue. What can I say? We're classy like that, and the rest was history ;)

Wordless Wednesday: Sorry guys, I'm obsessed with this tree :)

Trick or Treat!!

Last Monday night we put on our "costumes" and headed downstairs to celebrate Halloween. Our neighbors joined us, and we had a good time:

• handing out candy


• eating candy


• seeing all of the cute kiddos in their costumes


• reminiscing when the teenagers showed up with their pillowcases


• reluctantly giving candy to the 2 hispanic women who were definitely over 30, not even dressed up, and were using plastic bags to collect their candy


• enjoying hot chocolate


• learning that I should buy some stock in Thundershirt because it really does work, or maybe not since the $0.74 banana peel costume served the same function

Happy Halloween!!

I really hope some of my patients come dressed up today when they come see me :) Tom and I plan on handing out some candy tonight with some of the neighbors. Here are some Halloween pics of the neighborhood!

The first picture of this tree was taken last Monday (one week ago) and the second was taken on Saturday...the leaves are changing fast!

One of our neighbors put a barfing pumpkin out front :)

Penn State takes Chicago!

We've been looking forward to the Penn State/Northwestern game ever since last year. Mom and Dad were going to drive out with a few other family members/friends and we were going to spend the day tailgating and enjoying that it wasn't 100 degrees outside.


Enter our family and our HORRIBLY designed backs. Dad hurt his back and thought it would get better, but unfortunately it kept getting worse. It was so bad in fact, that they couldn't make it out :( He's doing better but still in a lot of pain....I hate that I can say "I know how you feel" and really mean it! We were looking forward to seeing everyone (and Tom was looking forward to having someone to converse with regarding the mess that is Penn State Football).


So instead Dad overnighted the game tickets and we bought tickets for the 5th Never Annual Zombie Penn State Chicago Tailgate. We went with a few of our friends from Penn State that now live in Chicago and had a blast. The weather was unbelievably perfect...who would have thought you would be hot wearing a T-shirt and jeans in October in Chicago?!




We had pretty good seats at the game too (Thanks Dad!) right in the heart of the Penn State section. Ryan field was small, but it was actually nice because it seemed like everyone had a good seat. We were excited to cheer on the winning Nittany Lions!!

Our Weekend: In pictures

Friday was beautiful and I couldn't think of a better way to kick off the weekend than to take a walk by the lake.

Saturday night we enjoyed the pretty fall colors in our apartment :)

Sunday afternoon we took a drive up to the Mars Cheese Castle in Kenosha, WI to pick up some yummy treats for the tailgate this weekend.

Tom was in heaven with all of the mustards!!!

We also stopped at the Apple Holler to pick up some fresh apples!! They're Honey Crisp apples...and I haven't decided yet if we're just going to eat them as-is or if I'm going to try to make something out of them.