Christmas 2008
December 31, 2008
Click here for the full Christmas photo gallery!
Since my family is in Florida and Jacquie’s is up here, we alternate between going down to Florida and having my family up here. The schedule worked out quite well this year because there was no way I was putting Jacquie on a plane as pregnant as she is. I’ve seen the movies and I’m not having a baby at 35,000 feet. This year, my dad, mom, and brother flew up to visit us in New York.
On Christams Eve I gave notice to my dad that he would be assembling the baby’s crib with me. I’m sure he was thrilled to help, but I didn’t really give him the option of saying no…
And so it begins…
Still sorting…
You can see that my dad is hamming it up (we of course had to then lift the crib off of him because he wasn’t going to jump the railings)…
And mom-too-be watches the Men at Work…
Lance got creative. I’m sure we can find tons of “implied meanings” here if we wanted…
And here’s where we are so far…
The next morning I woke up pretty early, which is standard for me since Christmas is probably my favorite day of the year. Right away Jacquie and I went to work waking up the rest of the family. Or in Lance’s case, stacked pillows on him while others made coffee.
My favorite part of Christmas, hands down, is watching other people open gifts. As we all know, not every gift is one that makes the person who received it “glow.” Sometimes you hit a homerun (like when Jacquie got Coconut Pocky for my dad) and sometimes it’s a miss (not gonna give examples here 
). However, the excitement of opening a surprise is always visible on the person’s face just before he or she knows what it is, and that’s my favorite part. Maybe the simple fact of getting a gift makes the person happy but I think it’s more of the anticipation of seeing what the gift giver thought to get specifically for him/her. Who knows. Anyway, here are some pics of us opening gifts that don’t have anything to do with my point:
Finally, to end the night properly, a super indulgent meal was had. We didn’t take tons of pics like we did with Thanksgiving, but here’s a summary:
(1) Salad (Field greens, frisee, peppers, fennel, candied walnuts and a balsamic vinaigrette)
(2) Steamed Haricot Verts
(3) Brussel Sprout Hash
(4) Triple P Potato Skins (but made with bacon)
(5) BBQ Sweet Potato Fries
(6) Mashed potatoes
(7) Garlic and Thyme Lamb Chops with pan jus
(8) Garlic Prime Rib Roast
(9) Paella (one with shellfish, one without)
(10) Creme Brulee
(11) Fruit Tart
These pics aren’t the best but here’s the spread:
and here are a few posed fam shots:
There is a good one of Steph and her dad, but I can’t find it now…Sorry Steph.
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year
Visit to…The Tree
December 28, 2008
Christmas Day 2008
December 28, 2008
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Putting Together Her Crib
December 25, 2008
Baby Furniture
December 22, 2008
Cheese Dip
December 17, 2008
I can’t take credit for this recipe, though I wish I could. Two of the coolest people we know, T&D, introduced us to this one Still, it is one of the best go-to dips for a party (especially one that involves football and beer).
Cheese Dip
Mandatory:
1 lb of hamburger
1 lb of sausage
2 lbs of velveeta cheese
1 can cream of mushroom soup
15.5 ozs of hot salsa
Salt & pepper to taste
What I like to add in:
1 diced onion
1 diced green pepper
1 diced red pepper
1 diced yellow pepper
1 diced head of garlic
Very Simple — all you have to do is sautee all the diced veggies until they are soft, seasoning with salt and pepper. Then add in the hamburger and sausage and cook until brown. Finally add the cream of mushroom soup, salsa and velveeta. Let it simmer until the cheese melts and everything combines.
Sure you could gormet this up, but why? This is friggin delicious. Maybe I’ll share their buffalo dip recipe after I make it for the next party…
Christmas Baskets 2008
December 16, 2008
Christmas Baskets 2008
December 14, 2008
Click here for the full photo gallery!
Every year (ok, just the last two) Jacquie and I have spent a weekend making Christmas baskets. It usually works out that Jacquie does most of the prep work, we share the baking, and I do most of the packaging. All in all a pretty good balance.
Obviously we couldn’t make everyone a basket — or a bag, as happened this year — but we’re working to make one for all our friends once we get more efficient. Anyway, here’s a list with links of what we made:
1. Peppermint Oreos and Pecan Shortbread Cookies in the hexagonal box
2. Aged Gouda and Walnut Biscotti
3. Ginger Cookies with Lemon Icing (we had a better bag but it was too small, thus the ghetto Ziploc bags)
4. Chocolate Chunk Cookies in the holiday take out box
5. Cupcake Bites in the little square boxes
6. A little bag of Lindt Chocolates and Peanut M&Ms
7. Cinnamon Rolls with Maple Icing (sorry, the batch didn’t make as much as we expected. If you didn’t get these it’s not a slight, it was logistical; I promise we still love you too)
Maybe next year we’ll create something of our own design! To Jacquie’s credit though, she did come up with the peppermint filling for the oreos
Merry Christmas, Happy Hannukah, and Happy New Year!
~Jacquie, Jason and Lil’ J
Our Christmas Tradition
December 13, 2008
Jason and I moved in together 3 years ago and since then, we’ve put up a tree every year. You can see this year’s pictures here and last year’s pictures here. Unfortunately, it seems as though we were camera shy in 2006.
Jason’s mom has gotten us a custom ornament or two every year and we hope the tradition will continue! We look forward to getting them in the mail every year and our favorite part of putting up the tree is adding our special ornaments as the last touch.
Here are the ones we got this year. One of them says that it’s our second Christmas as Mr. and Mrs. and the other one says that we are looking forward to little J in 2009. (To see the full gallery you can click right here
Merry Christmas!
December 13, 2008
I usually email this around every christmas because I love it so much, so I figured this would be a good first video for our website. It starts off slow, but if you watch whole thing you’ll realize how witty it is.
Merry Christmas everyone!!! (and Happy Hanukkah too )
Love,
Jacquie & Jason (& our almost born daughter )