Getting into the Christmas Spirit

Some times getting into the 'Christmas Spirit" is hard for me. Once Thanksgiving is over, we have gotten our tree, (might I say that our tree looks fantastic!! Gets better every year! ;) and bake Christmas food, I feel a little bit more ready!! Sooo, here are some of my very favorite Christmas treats!

Ice Cubes Candy

Sparkling Cider

Mary Poppins (or sausage Cheese balls)

Peppermint Chocolate cookies

My Grandmas Punch

My grandmas Chex mix (aka Trash. Have no clue where the name came from!)

Chex

Sugared Pecans

Mini Spinach Quiche

Cheese Straws

Hot Chocolate

Italian Wedding Cookies

I hope I have done my job in getting you into the Christmas spirit, and making you extremely hungry. (I know I made myself hungry!)

What are some of your family food traditions?

xoxo

CCR

Dear Santa.......TIS THE SEASON!!!

I can not believe I just wrote those words in my title. Shocking!?!? Christmas already? I guess 15 weeks of school has gone by but I am still amazed at how quickly everything happened! Well now on to the "Dear Santa" part.

Dear Santa,

I have been good this year and would love to find-

A monogrammed necklace

A Charm bracelet (With a charm)

Some boots

Itunes GiftCard

Manicure

Mascara

Socks

The Wii

A Taylor Swift CD or one by Michael Buble

What do you want for Christmas?

Two days ago while we were trimming the tree, my mom made some delish Mexican wedding cookies. Now if you have not tried those yet- YOU REALLY NEED TO!!!!

They have pecans in them and are rolled in powdered sugar. Sheer bliss!!! YUM~

I hope I have given you some interesting gift ideas~~

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!

xoxo

CCR

Christmas Ornaments

Lately Target has had some really cute christmas ornaments.. Like this

Or this (This is not the actual Target Christmas ornament, but it was really similar!)

Sorry for the lack of posting. This week has been kind of crazy. Christmas shopping, drivers ED, ETC.

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!

xoxo

Caroline

Drivers Ed.

Yes. I am now taking drivers ed. I only have 9 days until I am finished! YAY! Then I can take in-car. I started yesterday. We go everyday from 3:50 until 6:40. I am taking it at a strange school, and I do not know one person in my class. The teacher has been telling us lots of scary stories about people who got into car crashes. That makes it kind of depressing. They all start out something like this- "Brandon was really a good kid. The ideal kid a parent would want......." or "Jennifer always obeyed the law. That was until one crisp January afternoon......"(The part about crisp January afternoon's was actually in there.) You get the picture. The only thing border line funny is the fact that the movie was made in the 80's, (aka big hair and jumpsuits.) and every 'cool' kid in the movie looks really geeky.

You could pray that I pass, meet some one I could talk to, and also pass in-car.

xoxo
CCR

GIVEAWAY!!! Go and check it out!!!

Christmas COUNTDOWN!!!!

How exciting is that? Christmas, right around the corner! I can not believe how fast it came this year

I felt like after Thanksgiving I could actually get into the "Christmas mood." Before that I got stressed out thinking about it, and watching as people stuck huge blow up snow men, Reindeer, & Santa Clause's in their front yard, and put up their Christmas tree. (If you really want to get stressed out, go to Florida, and see Christmas decor everywhere!) But now I think I am ready. So bring on the snow, the Christmas cookies, and hot coco! Bring on the Christmas carols, red & green!

I just hope I will be able to think up some good Christmas presents ideas. (Any thoughts would help a lot!)

Right now we have 24 days until Christmas, and only 23 until Christmas eve! I see a lot of shopping in my future! (HA ;)

CHRIST IS BORN!!!!!!

xoxo

CCR

HAPPY LATE THANKSGIVING!!!

Good morning everyone, I hope you all had a marvelous Thanksgiving! For my family and I, we spent it at the beach-hence my lack of posting. It was our very first year NOT being with either side of the extended family. We went down to Florida, and stayed in a condo for a week. It took 15 hours to get there, but we made it! Since it is November it was not the warmest it could have been, but it was warm enough for us to swim in the ocean, and the pool. It only rained one day, and we went shopping.






We rented bikes for the week, went swimming, watched the food network, relaxed, visited a wild life preserve, picked fresh oranges/grapefruits/limes, & went shopping.

For thanksgiving dinner we had-
Turkey, mashed potatoes, green bean casserole, cranberry sauce, rolls, iced tea, & pumpkin pie.

Everything was great!

I bought several souvenirs-
- 1 pair of shell earrings
- 1 pair of sea horse earrings
- 1 pair of starfish earrings
- Postcards
- Shells (both at the beach and at a store.)

I am very excited about my earrings! They are very nautical and were only $5! INCREDIBLE!!!






Last night my youth group watched 'The Prestige.' It was a very interesting movie- and yet I liked it. We had a long discussion about it afterwards. It was kind of dark and depressing, but I cannot even believe how someone thought up the plot. It was kind of like a mystery, about two magicians batting each other, and seeing who could make the best tricks. There were some gory scenes, so I would not advise that little kids watch it. Have you seen it? If so, what did you think?



MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!
xoxo
Caroline

Grilling

Grilling is the best way to cook ever! (Well that and roasting {click here for an amazing Ina Garten roasted berries dish- YUM} ) Sunday, my mom asked me what to make for lunch, the first thing (s) I thought of were kabobs. It was really warm yesterday and I guess that is what made me choose a summer menu. They were delish! I wish I had taken pictures. We had......


Grilled chicken, red and yellow pepper kabobs


Grilled Asparagus


Pesto Pasta


Iced tea


For dessert we had something that was a lot like tiramisu (MY FAVORITE DESSERT!) but it was slightly different.


YUMMY!!




Oh my word, I just looked out the window (At 5:32 PM) and it is dark. DARK!!! So early!! NOOOOOO! Well I guess that is what comes inside the winter package. Darkness, cold, and snow. Sounds good to me. (HA)

Have a good rest of the week!

xoxo
CCR

Hello everyone!!

I am so sorry about the lack of posting. (ALMOST 2 WEEKS! I can not believe it!) One of our computers has been blocking gmail, and blogger log in. I cannot comment, post or do anything but read other people posts. So I am still here but I have not been able to comment. The computer I am using is super slow, and all of my pictures I wanted to share are on the other computer. Hopefully I will be up and running soon. (did you get any of that?)

In other news, Christmas is coming! And fast! I am still shocked at how little of time we have left to shop, decorate Etc. I need to start planning my Christmas list!;)

My school is coming to an end for Thanksgiving/Christmas break and I have exams in two weeks. TWO WEEKS!!! I have been already in school for almost 15 weeks! Unbelievable.

Right now I am reading "Through Gates of Splendor." It is a really good book, although I find it kind of hard to stay interested.

OH- Here's something! Lauren and I went a Fall Retreat with our youth group. It was a blast!! We did tons of high ropes, and low ropes courses. I completed all of the high and low ropes! YAY!! But it was super scary, I was only standing on a thin cable, and I had to attach myself in by myself to each different course, while standing above 30 feet off of the ground. AHHHH!!! I also did the rock climbing wall and discovered that I LOVE IT!!!! I did the easy rock wall 3 times, and then decided to move on to the hardest one they had. It was very hard!! Only 3 of the 25 people in our group could make it to the top. Two of which were boys, and the last one was...........










ME!!! (I was very sore for days afterward!) I am still in shock that I did it-all the way!! I think everyone was shocked as well. So for the rest of the retreat they called me- "Beast" "Spiderwoman" & "spidermonkey." HA!!!! Imagine me, the girl who is super skinny, and has absolutely no muscle (HA) climbing a rock wall that 22 other people could not do! Anyways, needless to say, I was in shock after I got down. That was my very first rock wall I had ever done, although I had done like a six foot one, but it was really small. (It was connected with a high ropes course)

The retreat was a blast and I made some new friends. Josh (the youth group leader) and Jonathan (The 2nd youth group leader) put together this completely amazing pirate treasure hunt, complete with a treasure to uncover. (in the dirt) The catch? It was all over the WHOLE camp, (At night) and all of the clues were written in old English. One of the clues was found in the middle of the lake. My partner and I got stuck with a bad paddle boat that didnt work, and Hannah had to jump out (She got her feet and some of her jeans wet) and pull us back in. We were a sight! ;) Josh and Jonathan had every group start out with a different clue, so that we would not all be running to the same place, at the same time. The last clue we had to get from Josh after finding all the other ten clues. Josh & Jonathan had rigged up a laser pointer, to point directly where the treasure was buried so all you had to do was dig at that spot. (GENIUS!) (The treasure hunt took 3 HOURS!!!! Thats how hard it was!;) Two of my good friends won, and came home with a huge box of candie, and movie Gift Cards.

Have a great FRIDAY!!
xoxo
CCR

Earrings!!

HELLO everyone! I hope you all had a fun (and safe) Halloween!! In all of my posts, I have never talked about earrings. Even though I usually end up just wearing over sized pearls, I love a variety of different types.

All Of the filigree earrings are soooo pretty!

I love earrings, they can completely make an outfit!! ;) What type of earrings do you usually grab before heading out the door?

xoxo

CCR

*Photo Courtesy for all pictures- Google Images*