reason #502 why being married rocks...

one year old wedding cake!

have yourself a merry little christmas..

matching PJs, Trans Siberian Orchestra, Christmas Eve Advent reading, tons and I mean tons of gifts, 5 Christmas in one day, White elephant, Kota Christmas sweater, a lot of sweet time with family, about 750 miles traveled and as always, really really good food.

one year anniversary, in Denver

two little love birds, with no real plans in sight, mark their adventures with pictures and words...

Denver was so incredibly fun. Since I'm trying to treat this blog as a diary of sorts, I'd like to chronicle our anniversary trip to Colorado.

As we landed we checked in to our hotel, we threw our bags in our room and ventured down to the 16th street mall for some delicious fish and chips and a couple beers at Apaloosa Grill. We watched the horse drawn carriages shuffling people up and down the streets in the snow. It was kind of magical.

Day 2: Denver Museum of Nature and Science to see T-rex and other intelligent things. Last minute drive out to Red Rock Amphitheater at sunset to "oooo" and "ahhh" at the beauty God made for us. Then out to Littleton for 1$ beers and 1$ appetizers with Blake's good friend.

Day 3: Slept in, got a yummy breakfast at Snooze with some friends, then headed to Golden, CO to the Coors Brewery tour. Maybe a highlight of the trip. Pizza in town to follow.

Day 4: Enjoyed a free breakfast compliments of the hotel for being married a year. Borrowed snowboarding gear and passes from friends and made the drive to Winter Park. Boarded the whole day with a break at the lodge for lunch. Came back in a snow storm to grab some homemade chili with Blake's Colorado friends.

Day 5: Spent some time reading and studying at a local coffee shop while sipping on one of the best mocha's I've ever had. Then headed to the airport to say goodbye to Colorado and head back to Texas to see our families for Christmas!

To spend 5 straight days, no school, no work, no studying, with your lovable, and sometimes quite strange husband is the best. I tried to soak up every minute of it, because I know in a couple days it's back to the books for him.

Is your house on fire, Clark?

After filling our bellies with lots of turkey and stuffing (on Thanksgiving weekend) we got out in the yard with one thing in mind, lights! We also needed to move around so we all didn't fall into a tryptophan coma.

Our wonderful neighbors saw us out in the yard plotting, and brought over this box of goodies! Have I mentioned how great our neighbors are? I'm going to hang out in the front yard more often, it seems every time I'm out there someone comes over and brings us free things.

Blake and I had such a merry time running around our yard with strands of lights, throwing them up on our house. With joyful hearts, we checked the strands, replaced bulbs, wrapped bushes, lined the windows, methodically plugged them all in, and finally stood back to enjoy our Christmas creation.

Porch update: As a birthday gift from my mom, we now have the most perfect porch chairs. They are so darling. It's like I'm on a beach, but also out at a cottage, and they're so dang comfortable.

my christmas pallet art made it outside.

and here he is, the christmas light master. What a great job he did!

Happy Birthday Jesus!!!!

the etc. part of my last post

the tree, etc.

It's up, it's up! The Christmas tree is up! First we had to get one. Enter walmart, and we opted fake, an investment, but, don't fret - my mom got us a woodsy-piney candle to make up for it.

(also, please excuse the photos, I'm borrowing my mom's Canon Rebel, and I have absolutely NO idea how to use it)

I was feeling very traditionally classic with a hint of country this year. I just wanted to see some good ol' red and green, plaid and burlap. The burlap may be the only touch of country, but I just really wanted to use it as the skirt.

and a bow! I didn't want to commit to anything too serious for the tree topper, I couldn't make the decision, a star? an angel? a snowflake? too many choices, so I bought a roll of this flannel-y ribbon and topped it off with a big ol bow. It turned out great in my eyes!

I made most of the ornaments this year. It's a good starter kit, if I say so myself. I took this idea and made some bright green and lime colored ornaments.

I was on the line between making my own gold glitter ornaments and just buying ones on the shelf, then with everything at Hobby Lobby 50% off - it was totally not worth the time it'd take to craft my own. Sometimes, ya gotta go with your head.

Since Blake and I got married the weekend before Christmas last year, we got our fair share of Christmas ornaments as gifts and as I took them all out this weekend, I couldn't have been more happy about it. Here's one - bride and groom.

I glittered up some Dollar Store toys with some Mod Podge. I got a little lazy trying to attach a hanger, so this year they just sit on the branches. Maybe next year I'll make them official hanging ornaments.

I also bought felt to make the banner/garland. 4 for $1.00. I cut isosceles triangles and then hot glued them to a string of thick twine alternating white and red flags. It feels perfectly classic and home-y to me, I love turning the tree on every evening after work!

Here is my little helper elf, Dakota.

and, the big picture.

pallet art: christmas edition

Pinterest (ehhh.. Pinterest.. I'm beginning to shudder every time I hear the word) is ruining lives. Or maybe just mine. I'm beginning to have a love/hate relationship with this website. Can't live with it, can't craft without it. I still peruse the pages late at night when I should be sleeping, finding the cutest craft ideas with tutorial after tutorial flowing at my finger tips, and I hate myself for it. Instead of being imaginative, I just click "re-pin" and watch my creativity slip from my soul...

I'm being extremely dramatic. I'll stop.

I just loved this pallet art that has been dominating the blog world. Even though you see it everywhere, for some reason, I find it so homey and heart warming each time. I made my own, and for free!

Scrap wood from Blake's little shop outside + white and brown paint + bark and twigs from the yard + nails and hot glue = one homey and heartwarming piece of Christmas home decor. Or in my case, front porch decor.

some of the last words from "O Holy Night," I love seeing those words. It's such a powerful song, and singing those hymns on Sunday night church service is definitely in the top 2 or 3 of what I love most about the season.

We're doing an in-depth study of the Advent with our church, and it is so joyous to remember why we have "the holidays." We are, day in and day out, lovingly and patiently waiting for our King to come and restore us and bring us home.

our christmas wreath!

Wow. November has been a terrible blogging month.

With that, Thanksgiving was spent in Dallas this year and we had my parents up. No, no way did I cook Thanksgiving dinner, but thanks to the free turkey I received last week, we had our own, smaller, second thanksgiving after the real one. I am thankful for leftovers. My mom and I ventured out on Black Friday, we wild. My mom had seen the target commercials way too many times I think, because any time a sales person told us something favorable, she'd scream, "it's herrrreeeeeee." We spent the rest of Black Friday decorating the house with Christmas JOY!

Here is my first installment of "The Johnson's Second Christmas, but Really Kinda Like the First Christmas, Since the Real First One was in the Midst of Becoming Husband and Wife and Traveling to the Beaches of Mexico for a Dream of a Honeymoon"

I made a Christmas wreath.

Very simple and easy to make. All from Hobby Lobby: Styrofoam circle, Navy and Cream yarn, and two bundles of red berries. Yarn wrapped tightly around styrofoam in an alternating pattern, then hot glued berries to the front. Done and done. Merry Christmas and here's to early decorating and getting to enjoy every last minute of the season!

trick or treat!

we just shut the door and turned off the porch light...

Halloween 2011. Such a fun night!

Wonderwoman came to help pass out candy. She also started barking at everyone, loudly.. so she had to spend a bulk of the night in the back room.

Kyler, the lion, came by to fill up his homemade candy bag. He really, really liked the whoppers. Who likes whoppers? I think I saw his mom, Lauren, secretly putting his whoppers back into the candy bowl... busted!

He loves it, don't mind the face. It's his blue steel.

We got a good handful of trick-or-treaters tonight. I so badly did not want to give the kid that didn't dress up any candy, but I just couldn't be that cut throat. AT LEAST make something up kid! either way, Happy Halloween!!!

a sad, sad weekend in aggieland

welp. we all know what happened this past weekend, let's just continue on with our lives, with this post, like it never even happened. Let's talk about the great weekend we spent in Aggieland followed by a toasty fire and hot chocolate.

Saturday - we left Dallas before sunrise, here she is peeking over the edge around ellis county or so.. 6 am people.

our amazing seats at Kyle Field. We got to tailgate after the "game" with some CS friends, that helped to lift the spirits a bit. Homemade tortillas and fajitas tend to do that.

"Now forming at the North end of Kyle Field...."

We made the trek home to make our first fire in the new house, oh I love it. Isn't winter just the best?

hot dark chocolate. mmm! curled up on the couch with my boo watching Scream and other such Halloween nonsense.

Now, that's what a weekend should be...

Crockpot: Attempt #2

I was previously disappointed in my crockpot experience a couple months back. It was ok, but not everything people had been telling me about with this crockpot cooking technique. I also had issues with forgetting to turn it on in the mornings, so it took me about 3 days to cook one crockpot meal. But, I didn't want to write it off completely just because my own forgetful mistakes, so here is take two:

Bacon-Wrapped BBQ Chicken

3 to 4 chicken breast

6 to 8 strips of bacon

1/2 cup of BBQ sauce

1 to 2 apples, peeled or grated

1 lemon - juiced

In other recipes they had you mixing the lemon juice, sauce and apples in a bowl first, but I just dumped everything into the crockpot at once.

1. Drizzled a little BBQ sauce in bottom of pot.

2. Laid 3 chicken breasts wrapped in bacon down.

3. Threw in one honeycrisp apple (peeled and diced in my case)

4. Poured rest of the bottle of BBQ sauce on top. (I used a whole bottle, not just 1/2 c)

5. Squeezed lemon on top of everything.

6. Cooked on low for 8 hours.

I didn't even need the knife pictured above, the chicken just fell apart.

(mouth is watering as I type this)

What I learned: Wait to add the apples until the end, maybe an hour out? I'm not sure, the apples cooked for 8 hours, and were mush, delicious mush, but I wish I could have had a little crisp instead of apple sauce.

red-headed

Maybe it's because I'm slightly red-headed, but this color, any shade, I love. I'm mildly, yes mildly, obsessed with my newest fall wardrobe addition. Red ballet flats from Urban. I live in urban's flats from September to about April. Perfect for jean day Friday.

pumpkin carving.

So, we're not the most talented pumpkin carvers out there. But, we try. Here is our little special pumpkin.

Dakota wanted to help. Sorry Kods.

Blake's named him Jack. Original, I know. What a goob.

Hopefully we'll be able to draw in some trick-or-treaters next next Monday.

I'm all about tradition and makin' sweet memories, so hopefully tonight we can say we've done both.

happy halloween!