Merry Christmas

It's been cold here in Chicago, just like in the rest of the country.  So we've been spending most of our days inside, watching shows, listening to Christmas music, baking treats, and reading Christmas stories.  It's really been pretty perfect.

Grayson had his first pickle, and walked around with it in his mouth like this for 5-7 minutes.  I could not stop laughing.

He was pretty pleased.

Nate pulled out his trumpet and helped the kids try it out.

Katie was pretty good--and actually got it to make trumpety sounds.

Grayson was sort of lost as to how to work the mouthpiece.

We decorated a rice crispy train

Played in the snow (briefly)

Decorated the tree

...and made silly faces next to it.

Checked out the windows downtown

Took pictures of the tree using Pinterest Tricks

And Self-timer family pictures in the courtyard.

Even though we're not spending the holidays with family this year, we're all really happy.  Katie is so excited for Christmas, and Nate and I can't wait to watch her and Grayson get up on Christmas morning.  Here's hoping that your holiday season is full of happy!  Merry Christmas from us Murrays.

Christmas Food

Next to Christmas music, Christmas food is something that helps to get me in the spirit of the season. Mostly, this means that there's a lot of baking, candy making, and general eating of desserts and other deliciousness.

First, there are caramels. These are delicious. The first time Nate and I attempted to make caramels, we made them with some friends, thinking that they'd be easy and fun. Well, they were easy...but they took for.....ev......er. Seriously, we were adding like, 1/4 cup liquid from this 6 cup mixture and then it had to rise to the right temperature. The first attempt took like 3 hours total. We did end up with a mountain of caramel, but it was so much work...I was scared to try again.

Then, this year, I googled, "easy caramel recipe" and found this baby. In my opinion, it worked out just as well as the long, hard, expensive-ish one. Also, it took less time, and fewer ingredients--just make sure that you really do get it to the soft ball stage.

Next, there are cookies. I'm sure the rest of you out there have already discovered this, but cake mix cookies are the easiest thing ever. I've never made them until like, last week, and now, I wonder why. I made some devil's food cake cookies with semi-sweet chocolate chips...they were delicious. Think of the other combinations you could do though! Butterscotch chips and carrot cake cookies! Funfetti and m&m's! Chocolate and mint chips! Mmmm.

Me with the Linzer Cookies

We also made Linzer cookies this year--they're a bit more complicated, but they sure are pretty. When making these, just make sure that the shape you cut out in the middle leaves you enough dough to transfer to the cookie sheet...or better yet, transfer the base shape (like a circle, perhaps) to the sheet, and then cut the center part out of it. You can also use any jelly you please with these, and the bigger variety of jellies you use, the bigger the variety of colors you end up with.

We've also made some banana bread, some rolls, and tonight we had Orange Julius' (Orange Julii?) for dessert. These were all fantastically good--and the rolls freeze and re-heat really, really well. Still on the list of festive foods to try: fudge (any good recipes out there?) and a couple of cheese balls. This is in addition to whatever we have for Christmas Dinner...which will either be ham, and then some other good stuff, or hospital food. :)

Christmas Music

I love Christmas music. I don't really know too many people who don't. Sometimes the songs make me feel a little sad and nostalgic--especially songs like "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas." I may or may not have cried the other day when a fairly bad pop version of "I'll be Home for Christmas" came up on the playlist.

OK, I cried, but I still didn't hate it.

Anyway, I also adore getting good stuff for free. So, if you're interested in free music, I get it from two places:

Amazon 25 days of Christmas--Amazon gives you a free Christmas song each day. The best part is that you don't have to remember to download it each day--you can go back and get all the rest of the songs for the month too.

iTunes--they have new free music available for downloading every Tuesday. During December, one of the free downloads is always something Christmas related. You can also get free music videos, clips of TV shows, etc. Not all of the music is awesome, but it is all free. You have the whole week to get it, so if you forget on Tuesday, you can still snag it another day. The Downside? You've got to remember to download it before the next Tuesday, otherwise it's back to having to be paid for. To get it, open iTunes, go to the store, and scroll all the way down. There's a section that says, "Free on iTunes." Everything in that area is, well, free.

Enjoy expanding your collection...for free!

Christmas Break 2008

Christmas Break was absolutely amazing. We got to spend a lot of time sleeping in, hanging out with each other and with family, and just enjoying everything that Christmas break should be about. We were blessed with some amazing gifts from parents, friends, and each other, and a lot of time to focus on what Christmas is really about.

Enjoy a Collage from some of our adventures. I don't know why, but we seem to have forgotten the camera when we went to my parents house. Thus we have no pictures of the fantastic times we had there with family and gifts. Perhaps a re staging is in order? Maybe I can just convince you guys to send me some pictures--Jared? Ashley? Anyone?

The Sweet Life

Last night, Nate and I had some amazing food. I like my google reader, and in the recommended feeds, it linked me to a woman from our old ward's blog that had recipes on it. From there, I stole this recipe.

We made our own sweet pulled pork, and then we ate it with black beans and corn on homemade spinach tortillas. It was really, really, really good.

Here's the recipe:

Sweet Pulled Pork

For the Pork, buy yourself a picnic roast (also called the butt roast...even though it apparently comes from the shoulder). Place non-frozen roast in a crockpot. Add 1 cup of brown sugar and 1 cup of salsa to the mix. Cook on low for 8-10 hours.

After you've cooked it, then pull the roast out, and pull it--just use forks and make it look shredded. Then put it back in the crockpot with the juices. Let it warm while you make

Spinach Tortillas
Pull the frozen chopped spinach out of your freezer that you thought you'd only use in casseroles. put 2 cups of it in a bowl and microwave it for about 2 minutes and 30 seconds.

While the Spinach is being nuked, mix 3 cups of flour, 1/2 tsp baking soda, and 1/2 tsp salt with about 4 Tbs of olive oil. Mix until the oil is all mixed in and it looks a little like kind of crumby flour. If you grab a handful of it, it should stick together for a second before falling back into the bowl.

Take the spinach out of the microwave and stick it into a food processor/blender/something else to make it about the consistency of baby food. Ignore the smell...it's not that great.

Once it's liquid-y, dump the spinach into the flour mixture. Start kneading it with your hands. Be grateful you washed your hands first...then realize you wish you'd taken off your wedding ring first. Take off your wedding ring, then continue kneading the dough.

Split the dough into 8 balls. Roll out really thin...like...really, really thin. Cook in a frying pan with no oil for about 20 seconds each side. Stack the new tortillas underneath the old ones--this helps them to be softened after cooking.

In other non-food news, life is really good right now. We have a Christmas Tree, and stockings, and lights...it's lovely. We also only have a little bit before the end of the semester, Christmas, and New Years. For the most part, I'm so excited. I'm also a little bit sad though, because as soon as these things happen...they're over for a whole year. I plan to make the most of the holiday season. Pictures, and more food to follow.

Christmas was Amazing

Yesterday was such a great day. Nate and I opened presents at Nate's parent's house first thing in the morning, and then had a lovely breakfast, and then headed to my parent's house for more presents, food, and fun. Then we went to both grandparent's houses before coming home. It was a wonderful day. The family time, and the love, and everything else were simply wonderful. We even got so many gifts, which we weren't expecting at all. Everything was amazing, and I don't know how to be grateful enough. Just...thanks. :)

It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Semester

Today is the second to last day of classes, and I wish I could really express to you how excited I am. The best part about this is that I don't have any other classes to take, just student teaching next semester, and then I graduate.

To me, once the last day of class is over, I'm so excited. Finals week is kind of a do-or-die kind of time, and once I take the test, it's really over. Also, the best part of this is that we get to celebrate Christmas once finals are over. Seriously--this is wonderful!

AND there are presents under the tree. This is so good.

What a Great Day.

So, Nate and I have been getting into the spirit of Christmas lately. On Thursday night, we went out and got a real tree. Also, that night, we added lights to it. Yesterday, with some help from our families, we got a tree stand, and some ornaments to put onto it. The ornaments have been sitting at my parent's house since we got married, because they were the ones we used in our centerpieces. We also went crazy and got wrapping paper, which has come in handy because we've also been getting presents to wrap in it. It's been so much fun. Today, we slept in late, which was glorious, and then we had breakfast and lunch at Denny's. Yes, that's right. Breakfast, AND lunch (Nate ordered lunch, I ordered breakfast, and we shared). Also, it snowed like, 3 inches, which was beautiful. We went and got some Christmas Shopping done, which is really, really fun, and we found both the Carpenter's Christmas CD, and the Muppet's and John Denver Christmas CD used in this fun little store in the mall. Then we went to work, which wasn't that busy, and then we went to Wal-mart, to get various things we need for the baking and treat making we're doing for FHE. Really, it's just been wonderful. For your own personal holiday enjoyment, here is our current spread:

The Tree, and Presents


This is a picture frame with all of the wrapping paper we've gotten for this year, along with a picture of us. It's like...a momento of our first Christmas...also, we had picture frames that weren't being used.

The tree with the lights--isn't it beautiful?

Merry Christmas Everyone.

November is the New Christmas Season

It appears that Thanksgiving now officially no longer exists...at least not to any store with an interest in making a profit. The "Holiday Season" as this is called, seems to have become simply, "The Christmas Season." The radio stations around here began playing Christmas music the day after Halloween, which=November 1. While I adore Christmas, I wonder if this particular trend is really good for people. Christmas is altogether too stressful for so many people. I hope that an increase in length of the Christmas season doesn't amount to an increase in people wishing the season were just over with. I worry sometimes that if we go straight from Halloween, a holiday all about getting candy for children, to Christmas, which is a holiday all about getting presents for a lot of children (and some adults...), that we're going to forget to be grateful somewhere in the middle. That's why I love Thanksgiving so much. It's the perfect holiday to make you pause somewhere in the middle of all the getting and worrying about giving to realize how blessed you are and how much you actually have. I think Thanksgiving gives a great perspective to the Christmas season, and helps people maintain a little patience as they wait in those long sale lines and deal with parking lot traffic.

For these reasons, I'm not listening to Christmas music yet. I'm not watching (although it's likely my favorite movie of all time) A Muppet Christmas Carol, and we haven't put up a Christmas Tree yet. This is in no way a protest...but I get a little more excited each day for our Christmas Season. I get just a tiny bit warmer inside as I think about how much fun it will be to bundle up and go caroling at some point, and I get just a little more excited each day to see people's reactions to presents when they get them. I'm building up some serious Christmas Enthusiasm here, and I can hardly wait to unleash it all...right after Thanksgiving.