That Holiday Feeling

Well, the holidays are almost over, so we thought we'd write a quick few lines to tell everyone how it went. It was a busy season - like everyone's - but enjoyable.

I think we set the bar with getting our Christmas cards out as early as possible. Amanda thought it would be a great idea to showcase a couple of our engagement pictures my Dad took. We have to admit, the cards caused quite the stir!

Next, we went to go get our Christmas tree at Eaton Creek Farm. This was our second year to partake in selecting and chopping down the "perfect" tree. I was more selective than Amanda in this part-I think she was just ready to go because in true Washington fashion, it started to rain.

We celebrated with our 3rd annual tradition of seeing the Nutcracker. We'd hoped to attend the top class production in Seattle, but apparently the tickets were made out of solid gleaming platinum, for that is the only way I can possibly describe the price. Instead we opted for the Tacoma Ballet, which was charming and pleasant, and also featured the smallest theatre seats known to the history of man. It was an opera hall built for a race of ballet-enthused leprechauns. Really, if I have trouble fitting in a seat, you know you have a problem. Anatomically, I don't even have hips. We buy a Nutcracker ornament every year to add to our tree.

As if we hadn't done enough for Christmas sake, Amanda decided we should make our first ever  gingerbread house starting from scratch. It was fun for the first five hours. We managed to get all mixed together, rolled out, cut, baked, and constructed. We didn't have the energy to decorate it. Besides, I was eating the candy while working. The gingerbread turned out nicely and afterwards we appreciated all our hard work.

Amanda was kind enough to stay in Washington for Christmas, in spite of a shocking lack of warmth and vitamin D. She's doing all right, but I'm going to have to fly her out to some sort of island, soon. The wet, Washington winter is not kind to Southerners.

Christmas was wonderful. Like most of you, our family gets a bit more numerous each year. There are nieces and step nephews and parents and friends to visit, so it's tough to get everyone under one roof. We chose to solve this problem by celebrating for a solid three days. There's no problem with scheduling that making Christmas longer can't solve.

So we spent Thursday the 23rd with my sister Becky and family, Christmas Eve with my mother and her best friend Vicky, and Christmas day having brunch at my Dad's. Then back to my mother's. I'm sure she was at least a little tired of us at this point. Wine helped.

As you've heard, Amanda got a rather nice Mishe bag (if I do say so myself) and I got a set of sterling silver collar stays. If you've never thought of buying collar stays, then trust me. You should. Mine have nice things inscribed on them, like "You have a big heart," and the wonderfully inaccurate, "You share your dessert."

We hope you enjoyed your holiday season as much as we did! ~S.

Amanda + Scott

Miche Bag

Have you ever heard of a Miche Bag? It might just be the greatest invention in purse history!

It's a basic purse but then it has all of the different "shells" which are the outside of the purse. The shells  magnetize to the base purse. It's great because now when you change purses you don't have to dump everything out and re-organize it again. You simply, just take the shell off and then add a new shell. It's really as easy as the 1-2-3 macaroni and cheese!

I got one for Christmas, thanks to Scott! : ) I absolutely love and adore it.





My first Miche Bag-Wendi

 
I have been wanting one for a long time now but they only had a small purse available, but now have expanded and have a large purse. If you know me, you know I love large purses. You have to have enough room for everything you may need, right?!?!

The shells even have names to them which I think is a good marketing tactic. When I worked at David's Bridal, I thought the coolest thing about the shoe department was that they all had women names. And nope, they didn't have an Amanda when I was there. They had it a few years back but currently don't make it anymore : ( Apparently, having a shoe named Amanda isn't a top saler. lol

I am already picking out my next shell I plan to get-Lauren! Besides being the name of my fabulous niece, it's a great looking purse!




Isn't it adorable?

Things like this always make me excited to be a woman! : ) There are some perks to being female for sure. ~A.
Amanda + Scott

All's Fair in Love and War....

Every year, Scott's family has an annual pictionary Thanksgiving game. It's a big deal. There's even a trophy involved!

I got to partake in the festivities last year (2009) and was adopted onto Mark, Becky, and Scott's team. We usually have 3 to 4 teams and most of the people are there every year making the competition pretty heightened. I will have to admit between me and Becky, we define the word competitive. : )

We took the championship in 2009, making my first name mark on the grand trophy. That would be hard to beat but after another intense, but not even close 2010 game-we were deemed the Champions again. Sadly, Mark made the mistake of switching teams. : ( He won't be let back on again next year, we've already decided!! haha

Champions 2010

 Here's a picture of our victorious win! And the word we won on this year was "war" : )

~A.

Amanda + Scott

And Then There Were Two

As anyone who's been trapped in conversation with me for longer than two and a half minutes knows, I like skiing. Some people might even call it a private obsession, but I disagree. There's nothing obsessive about sleeping in ski boots or wearing your thermal wear in the shower.

So I always knew that I wanted to teach Amanda to ski. I was, though, a bit nervous. I've never actually taught anyone to ski, not really, so I was a bit worried I wouldn't be up to snuff. Luckily, I had my old friend James, a ski instructor out in Las Vegas, who helpful provided these words of wisdom when I called:

"Don't do it, man," James said, helpfully. "For the love of God save yourself."

See, the first day of skiing isn't the most relaxing thing in the world. It involves a lot of flopping around on your back in the snow and wondering why your knees hurt so much. It can be difficult to master, endlessly frustrating, and really rather cold. Amanda does not deal well with the cold. She is not well-insulated.

But she's a good sport, so three weeks back we took a nice drive out to White Pass, conveniently located just outside Time And Space Itself. And I taught Amanda how to ski.

She was brilliant. She was patient, eager to learn, and only once was I fairly convinced she was about to hit me in the face. She's breezed into wedge christie turns on the second day, mastered every run on the lower mountain, and even failed to complain when the wind chill dropped to a pretty brutal ten degrees.

Starting our day!

After six hours!

Day one complete!

And, to make it even better, she watches FIS World Cup races with me. Now I know I have to marry this woman. S.

Sneak Peak: Engagement Pictures

Scott and I took our engagement pictures on November 14th. It turned out to be a nice day for the most part. Below are 2 of the shots we both really liked:

If you have received our holiday card, these pictures look familiar to you! More details and pictures to come soon! ~A.

Amanda + Scott

S'more Cupcakes, please?!?!

So I have decided I love making cupcakes. It's time consuming but it's fun. I made some cupcakes for Scott's birthday a couple of weeks ago and tried something new. Filling the cupcakes. It didn't turn out too terrible considering all of them were ate. Of course, that's not saying much because Scott will eat ANYTHING! : )

We were asked to bring a dessert for Thanksgiving and I had no intention of making cupcakes until I found a S'more cupcake recipe by Ray Rachel. It's not so much the taste that caught my eye as it was the presentation. They had graham crackers, chocolate chips, and marshmellows on the top. Who could resist such a cute little cupcake that is screaming, "Eat me!"

On Thanksgiving, we set out to make our cupcakes and had all of the needed items. However, during breakfast I told Scott I just got an idea to make the cupcakes better. Seriously, these are Cupcake War worthy. I am prepping to go on the show! JK Check out our final cupcakes below:

They were decorated with graham crackers, chocolate chips, and marshmellows.
YUMMY!



I love how they turned out!

The idea: I have a ton of crafting stuff from left over projects. I just recently made customized wooden hangers for our wedding day that has our names stamped on them. When I purchased the alphabet stamps, I also got these fall theme ones only because I wanted the maple leaf (crazy, I know). I hadn't used the fall stamps at all and wanted to be able to do so. Light bulb went off and decided we needed to make Thanksgiving flags and add them to the cupcakes. It was fun to make them!

How to make them:

• Take card stock and and stamp them. I used yellow, brown, and creme card stock and the stamps that I already had.
• Cut the words out with the theme designed scissors.
• Use toothpicks and tape the words on to them.

Everyone seemed to enjoy them! : ) Don't forget to look for me on Cupcake Wars.....
~A.

Amanda + Scott