Perfect Mountain. Perfect Mountain Town.

After much anticipation, we were finally ready to leave for our ski trip.  We flew into Denver and drove to Breckenridge.  The weather was great- not nearly as cold as last year!

But that also meant, they didn't have quite as much snow and a few of the lifts and runs were not open.  We still had a great time and they had plenty of blues open for my liking!  Who need those blacks anyway?!?!

The weather was pretty nice the entire time.

My mom is pretty amazing!  I don't know if she's available for other ski trips, but if you are going, you might considering giving her a call.  She made us a homemade lunch every day.  After a tough morning of skiing, nothing is better than walking into the condo and having a steaming hot bowl of your mom's chili!  It was amazing!!!  I'm spoiled for life.  And it doesn't end there!

Every afternoon, she has the hot chocolate heating up. We come in take off those awful ski boots and put our feet up and sip some hot chocolate! It really makes the skiing experience!!!

We usually go out to eat at least one night- give mom a break and celebrate Ethan's b-day.  It's also fun to see Breckenridge's cute little Main Street.  They have some neat shops.

This year we also stumbled across this amazing crepes (creep, creepy, crapy, crap- however you say it) place.  It was sooo goood!  They had every imaginable combo!  They even had savory crepes!  I had one with nutella- amazing!

 

We took a ridiculous amount of photos on the trip, so here's a little slideshow- if you have 30 minutes to waste!

Moore Family Christmas

We celebrated Christmas with the Moore Family a little early this year.  Ethan graduated with his MBA on Saturday and we were leaving for our ski trip on Sunday morning- that left Saturday night.  Our family tradition is to open one gift on Christmas Eve and that gift is always pajamas (usually matching). 

I could pull out some pretty embarassing pics of me and Ethan right here, but I'll save us both and not.  We stuck to tradition and opened our pjs first!  The bonus of the quick version is that we have our hair brushed and make up on.  Usually, I have messy hair, sleepy eyes, no make up and glasses.  Pretty, I know.

Here are the Christmas Eve gifts . . .waiting to be opened.  What could it be?!?!  (We always act surprised even though we know it's pjs).

Here's the family pic in matching pajamas!

Next, we opened our gifts.  What a fabulous Christmas!  We got so many wonderful things- way beyond what we could ever actually need.  We are very, very blessed!  But the best gift was our time together on the ski trip!

Merry (early) Christmas!

Another Graduation . . .

It seems like we've been to a ton of graduations lately. And in our family, it seems advanced degrees are more of the "norm." BUT, getting an MBA remains a huge accomplishment and we are immensely proud of Ethan for graduating with his masters- all while balancing school, work, and family!

On Saturday, we went to the HSU December graduation to cheer on Ethan.

This is a graduation, not a pep rally!

Ethan & Sarah

Jeremy, me, the graduate and Sarah

The Moore and Shelton Family

Deck the Halls

I absolutely LOVE decorating for Christmas. It is one of my absolute favorite things about the holiday. I think it may have started with my mom- she made decorating our tree a Christmas family tradition.

As a family, we would go and pick out our beautiful tree (do I really even need to mention here that it was "real?"). We would bring it home and my dad would get the lights on the tree. My mom would get the Christmas music started (I'm pretty sure it was on a record player when I was little) and warm up the hot chocolate. Ethan and I had certain ornaments that were "ours" and my mom and dad would help us get them on the tree.

It made such a simple holiday chore into something really fun and special. We looked forward to it so much and talked about all the special memories associated with each ornament.

It's not quite the same since I'm an adult and despite my best efforts, Jeremy doesn't get super excited about Christmas decorations. The entire time we are decorating, he is thinking- who's gonna pick alllll this up when Christmas is over?!?!

We did do a little decorating this year and luckily, Jeremy is on board with the real tree. There is nothing like the smell of a real tree during Christmas! I wish I could bottle that smell . . .

Here's our tree in all her glory

collage of all our different decorations



I love these ornaments from Pottery Barn and I buy one every year (since JTW and I have been married). Simple, silver frames with the year engraved. I'll keep getting one as long as they make them. It's a great memory!

a view of our tree from outside

tree and wreath


How much is that doggy in the window?

Ivy and Win were really confused about why I was outside taking pictures.

Grab some hot chocolate, set your iPod to Ann Murray's Christmas tunes (or maybe I'm the only one that has that cd) and start decorating!

Happy Decorating!

Cookies for Santa

One of the best parts about Christmas is all the yummy baked goods! I love baking and decorating sugar cookies. I think I would do it more often if it didn't take so much time (and make a BIG mess).

Katie came over on Saturday and we decorated lots of sugar cookies! I think we dirtied every bowl and spoon that I own. But it was so much fun and I love the finished result!

I used a Martha Stewart sugar cookie recipe and it turned out pretty well- not too much spreading. The recipe says to put the cookie sheet in the freezer after you have cut out the cookies- I did not do this. Who can wait that long??? I did refrigerate the dough for several hours before rolling it out and cutting.

Try it and let me know what works for you. You'll definitely want to leave a few of these for Santa!

Sugar Cookie Cutouts

Ingredients:
4 cups sifted all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature
2 cups granulated sugar
2 large eggs
2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract

Directions:
1. Sift flour, baking powder, and salt into a bowl.

2. Put butter and sugar in the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment. Mix on medium speed until pale and fluffy. Mix in eggs and vanilla. Reduce speed to low. Gradually mix in flour mixture. Divide dough into quarters; flatten each quarter into a disk. Wrap each in plastic. Refrigerate until firm, at least 1 hour or overnight.

3. Preheat oven to 325 degrees with racks in upper and lower thirds. Let one disk of dough stand at room temperature just until soft enough to roll, about 10 minutes. Roll out dough between two pieces of plastic wrap to 1/4-inch thickness. Remove top layer of plastic wrap. Cut out cookies with a 4-to-5-inch cookie cutter. Transfer cookie dough on plastic wrap to a baking sheet. Transfer baking sheet to freezer, and freeze until very firm, about 15 minutes. Remove baking sheet from freezer, and transfer shapes to baking sheets lined with nonstick baking mats. Roll out scraps, and repeat. Repeat with remaining disk of dough.

4. Bake, switching positions of sheets and rotating halfway through, until edges turn golden, 15 to 18 minutes. Let cool on sheets on wire racks.

I also used both royal icing and sugar cookie icing. The royal icing, which uses meringue powder, isn't quite as tasty, but is perfect for outlining.

After all our hard work decorating, we went to the Christmas light display at Chickasha (pronounced: chic- A- shay). We decided to take Ivy and Win with us, which was a little bit of a mistake. They went crazy- barking and growling at all the moving displays. They were hopping all over the car from my lap to Jeremy's to Katie's in the backseat.

Despite Ivy and Win all over the car, we had a great time seeing all the thousands of lights. It was a great way to start off the Christmas season! Cookies and lights!!!

Thunder Rolls

We ended up with some free tickets to watch OKC's NBA team- the Thunder take on the 76ers. In all honesty, I'm not a huge NBA fan, but I like going to games on occassion.



This game was so fun because we had fantastic seats and Katie & John were going, too! Plus, as I already mentioned, the tickets were free!

Look how close our seats were!!! I could get Katie & John AND the court in the same picture! We usually sit in the highest section possible. The players look like ants from that view!

Such a great time with friends! As an added bonues, the Thunder won the game!