Who's a happy dog?

Pfeffer Mint

Pfeffer doing what she does best

Bailey

The under-photographed smallest members of our family.

Enjoying the Weather

It's been so nice while we have been in Florida, I am beginning to get quite used to it. Going back north in a few days is not seeming so nice. Since I have started to feel better, I have been going out a little more.

Friday Mom and I went out around 9:00 to see what was still available for purchase during the "after Christmas" sales. Not too much excited me overall, but JC Penney's was having a HUGE sale on sweaters (after all it's been in the upper 70s for days) and I was able to get 5 sweaters for a little more than $40. While we were gone Morgan got to draw on the sidewalk with her new chalk. I am surprised my dad wasn't right behind her wiping it up!

That evening we had a really fun time at a restaurant called Hofbrau Haus (beer house) which if you can't tell by the name, is an authentic German restaurant. The atmosphere of the restaurant was very much like the beer tents in Munich during Oktoberfest. The beer served in this restaurant is brewed in Germany strictly for this restaurant (I think it's a chain but am not sure). Everyone was seated at long tables with benches pulled up to them. There was free beer until the kegs ran out (no, I am not making this up) for their "house" beer, waitresses and waiters in appropriate dress, and all the sausages, fried meats, and spaetzel you could imagine! The best part of the evening was when the band asked everyone to stand on their seats (which 80% of the restaurant did) and we all did the Chicken Dance! What fun. The food was not really great, but the atmosphere made up for that.

Yesterday we ventured out toward the beach to enjoy the gorgeous weather. It was 82 degrees with a breeze (gusty at times, but overall nice.) Morgan had an AWESOME time running around, flinging sand everywhere, and picking up shells as she went along.

We came home to watch an interesting WVU football game as the Mountaineers eeked out a win in the Meineke Car Care Bowl against University of North Carolina. Then Mom and I ventured back out to run some errands and we just enjoyed the rest of a gorgeous day while the men turned from WVU football to WVU basketball.

I am not sure what is on tap for today....I think we'll be stuck inside most of the day taking down Christmas and packing up for another year. We realized that my parents have now spent 9 Christmases in this house (which any of my military friends will realize is a real record) and we are pretty sure there will be a 10th and 11th before they pull up roots and move north back to Morgantown and the acre of property that is waiting for them there.

I hope you are all decompressing from the holidays and enjoying time with family before we are all back to the swing of things in the new year. I probably won't post until after the new year as we will be heading back home and will have to unpack from here and pack up Christmas ourselves. Be safe on New Year's Eve and we will see you all in 2009!

Trying out the new bike

Christmas Memories in Picture

A WVU Christmas for Dad

Mom in her kerchief (or Omaggin as we call them around here)

In this cookbook there is a recipe....I kid you not...for "Eels in Green Sauce"

The coveted Wii...I learned that once Jeff called Cecelia from a store to say that store "only had 61 left!"

Spider Pig, Spider Pig, does whatever a Spider Pig does!

Mr. Potato Head and his bucket of parts

Morgan's New Omaggin and Scarf

The look of pure joy!

7 Quick Takes Friday

1) Diaper rash cream isn't just for babies. If you need further explanation on this, contact me directly.

2) Today is the first day I have brushed my teeth since Monday. Now before you all say EEWWW, remember I have been sick and not out of my pajamas either for most of the week.

3) Looking at a room that has been "undecorated" makes it look awfully bare. Sure we look at these decorations all year long and they are treasures, but there is nothing like a festive holiday house to really lift my spirits.

4) Tomorrow we get to help my mother take down and pack her over FIVE HUNDRED Santas. Yes, you are reading that correctly. My mother is a Santa collector and she displays over 500 different ones throughout the house each year. These do NOT include the santa throws, rugs, towels, and other Santa items. These are simply the Santa figurines.

5) My vacation is half over and I have spent 95% of that half in bed. Not in bed resting, which wouldn't be a bad thing. If I weren't still sick already, that fact would make me sick!

6) It's a gorgeous 76 degrees in FL today and tomorrow it's going to be 78 degrees! Perfect weather.

7) You can set a watch to my stomach's internal sensor for when my nausea medicine has worn off...so I'm off for another dose!

For more random Friday thoughts, check out Conversation Diary!

Another One Bites The Dust

Instead of singing Christmas carols today, in our house we were singing "Another One Bites the Dust" as we (or my family) watched people get sick one right after the other. Apparently despite my desperate attempt to confine the germs to one room, they have spread, attacking my father, brother, and sister-in-law. Morgan doesn't have "IT" but she has a horrible cold, congestion, and very gross nose. There were so many sick people, we didn't even make it to church, which is utterly unheard of in my family, as we are perennial Midnight Mass attendees.

Despite all the stomach/intestinal sickness, we all managed to survive (and I do mean this literally for me and dad) opening presents and all ate dinner together. Mom and Patrick have bene running the house and looking after Morgan while I have been sick. I am assured that pictures WERE taken today and I promise to post some of them once they get off cameras.

Highlights of Christmas presents this year included a Wii for Jeff, BluRay player for Mom, Simpsons Movie and Spider Pig shirt (if you haven't seen the movie you won't understand the shirt) for Patrick, and it's a toss for Morgan between her Red Ryder Tricycle (if you thought I was going to say BB Gun, what kind of a mother do you think I am?!?! Wait, don't answer that) with horn and bell, her Yo Gabba Gabba guitar, and her Cinderella and Prince Philip dress up dolls from our friends Pierre and Jeannine in Belgium. Honestly I was so sick I can't remember what I got, so it will be like opening them all over again when I look at them in the morning.

I promise to update with pictures...we thought I had lost my camera, and I was way too sick to take pictures. The camera has been found, thank goodness, and I hope to be better tomorrow to take lots of pictures.

I sincerely hope you had a wonderful Christmas day, kept CHRIST in the spirit of your day, and are blessed through the rest of this year and into the next. Stay tuned here and on Morgan's website for pictures!

Christmas 2008

Arrived Safely

We have arrived safely in Florida to a lovely 73 degrees! It was a long trip...18 total hours in the car, one stop over in Charlotte, and lots and lots of movies thanks to our newly purchased DVD system for the car. That was the best money we have spent all year, for sure! Today Mom treated Cecelia (my SIL) and I to a "beauty" day of hair cuts, manicures, and pedicures! I have never had a pedicure today, and it was a great experience! Tomorrow we are having pictures taken and hopefully will be able to wrap the last of the Christmas gifts. I am looking forward to the nice weather and relaxation for the next 10 days or so. I'll post pictures soon!

Keeping Creative Kitchens--Cookies and Candy Edition

For this week's installment of Keeping Creative Kitchens, Alaina has themed this Candy and Cookie week! Since I posted a few weeks ago about my favorite Christmas cookies and candy, I thought I would post pictures of the actual baking of some of those cookies!

Sugar...essential to cookies

Morgan and Great-Grandma June mixing it all in

Julia and Amy

Adding the most essential ingredient...chocolate chips!

Time To Bake!

Believe it or not, my job was not ONLY putting the cookies in the oven. I did all the pre-measuring of the dry ingredients for the girls to add and prepared and mixed the wet ingredients along with my sister-in-law Amy. These were the first in three double batches of cookies for the evening. I didn't get to finish up as many as I had hoped for, but I hear there are plenty of cookies waiting for me in Florida when we get there on Saturday!

Be sure to check in with Alaina and see more cookies, candy, and recipes!

Patrick's Birthday

Today my husband turns THIRTY!!! He says he feels old today, but I am wondering if he is just saying that to be funny. Sometimes it's so hard to tell with him! We had a good party for him at his parents' house and his two best friends were able to come, which made the entire day great for Patrick! Here are some pictures of this momentous day and the "old man" (hahaha)

The cake...trucked all the way from Summersville!

Definitely still wild at 30!

Ewww....I guess he's allowed on his birthday right?!

The 30 Crew...RC, Patrick (the youngest 30), and Matt

Yes, that is Homer Simpson in a towel and slippers.

He dances and sings Macho Man...what a gift!

Keeping Creative Kitchens--Comfort foods for when you are sick

It's been a long week at the Tenneys because I have been sick. It's one of those all over body ache, cold sweats, nausea sicknesses that has put a damper on doing anything creative in the kitchen. So for today's post I wanted to comment on some of the things I keep in my kitchen (especially during the winter when we all tend to get sick) that make being sick a little less horrible.

1) Hot Tea, the ultimate in comfort foods. I always choose hot tea over coffee, but when I am sick hot tea is the only drink I want. I remember as a child drinking a cup of tea that mom would make for me. I equate it with love, comfort, and it helps settle my stomach.

2) Chicken Soup. This is a standard comfort food, but my chicken soup is very plain, involving only 2 ingredients. Swanson's Chicken Broth (it MUST be Swanson's) and Orzo pasta. This soup is deliciously bland so not to upset stomachs any further, and you can eat a lot of Orzo to fill up without feeling full.

3) Goldfish crackers. This is the only comfort food that I am still able to eat after my pregnancy. I had horrible morning sickness and the minimal food I could eat during those LONG 8 weeks still turn my stomach except for Goldfish. I especially like the ones with smiley faces, they make me chuckle in otherwise miserable situations.

So there you are. Comfort foods that are always in stock in my kitchen. What do you reach for when you are sick? What are your kids' favorite comfort foods?

Be sure to check out Alaina's website for more ways to keep a creative kitchen!

Sickies

Just wanted to update since it has been a week....after a very busy weekend of decorating the house and cleaning, I managed to get sick. Very sick. There will be better posts coming from this weekend (Patrick's 30th birthday is Saturday) and hopefully I'll be on the mend and the rest of my family will escape it! Until then.....hope you are well!

Keeping Creative Kitchens--Christmas Cookie Lineup

The Christmas season is always so busy, and I am always worried about things that won't get done or will be forgotten. My project this weekend is to get the decorations up and to start the Christmas baking. I always do some "annual" favorites and I hope to throw in a few new ones this year. My mother-in-law got me a Christmas Cookie Cookbook and I hope to make one or two recipes out of that this year. Those are to be determined. But here's the lineup of this year's Christmas cookies!

1) Chocolate Chip-- (so familiar, so traditional, so yummy!). My chocolate chip cookies are NOT chewy, because that's how I like them, but they are oh so good.

2) Pineapple Drop--these are my favorite cookies, and I only make them this time of year. I have had to start putting in pineapple extract to help beef up the flavor because it seems that canned pineapple has lost its overall flavor!

3) Pizelles--a traditional Italian flat cookie, these are ALWAYS part of our Christmas cookie lineup. They take forever to make, but I love them.

4) Peanut Butter Kiss--My father and husband's favorites, my favorite part is unwrapping (and eating) the kisses while I wait for the cookies to bake. I hope to have Morgan help roll the cookies in the sugar this year.

4) Butterscotch Crunchies--not a cookie, but always made at Christmas in our family. Some people call these haystacks. It's melted butterscotch chips, chow mein noodles, and peanuts mixed together and left to cool/harden.

5) Peanut Butter and Chocolate Fudge--again, not a cookie but another treat that only is made during the holidays. My parents make the smoothest fudge around! I hope I can get mine close this year.

Cookies 6 and 7 are going to come from my cookie cookbook. I may make a few other kinds, but I think I'll only have time for what is listed this year. Besides, cookie making does not help me do well on Weight Watchers!

Be sure to check out Alaina's website for more ways to Keep a Creative Kitchen!

Celebrating the Season

Ever since I turned the satellite radio to the 24 hours of Christmas music on Black Friday, I have been excited about the coming weeks. Even though it is always a very busy time of year and I am always stressed, something about these weeks of Advent always makes me feel good. Since Alaina posted a few of her family traditions, I thought I would follow suit.

**When my sister-in-law Amy and her husband Chris got married, we started giving them a new Christmas ornament every year. We continued that tradition with my brother and sister-in-law, and once Morgan and my niece Julia came along we just continued doing it. I want Morgan to have a tree full of ornaments when she leaves the nest!

**This year Morgan and I made a paper chain to count down the days to Christmas. This is something I fondly remember doing as a child, getting excited as the chain got shorter and shorter. I hope in the future to tie those paper links to doing nice things for others in the spirit of Christ and the season.

**This year I also started a new tradition of new Christmas pajamas for Morgan (and Julia). Instead of giving them to the girls on Christmas Eve, I decided to do this new tradition on Thanksgiving Day. That way they can wear their jammies all month!

**I also gave both girls a Fisher Price Little People Nativity Set and I want to use that to teach Morgan the Christmas story. Do any of you have a good suggestion for where to find proper age-appropriate (toddler) scripture readings to go along with that? Right now I need to keep things simple, for Morgan and for me!

**Patrick's family always opens presents Christmas Eve and then stockings on Christmas morning. On odd years when we spend Christmas with his family, we will continue this tradition.

So there you have it, more things to help me get excited about this time of year. I am looking forward to putting up the Christmas tree and decorations this week. I would love to know what you, loyal readers, do for Christmas traditions. I am always looking for new traditions to get started!