on break

Today has been a day for a Katharine Hepburn marathon, quilting, and tree admiring. If I had it my way the tree would be lit twenty-four/seven but energy saving and fire risks, etc., we don't leave it on while we sleep. So, instead I turn it on the minute I wake up and that seems to work just fine.

Christmas is the best time and I am so excited by the gift Dan is getting this year, I just can't hold it in. Good thing we get to open presents in two days otherwise I might just tell him by accident and that would spoil it because I am hoping that he is surprised. The man is hardly ever surprised and it would be nice, just once, to get a burst of emotion out of him due to something truly unexpected.

I've been putting off researching my stinking note for school and I know I'm going to pay for it but its much nicer to make food, and sew, and watch movie after movie. I wish I could say I am catching up on pleasure reading but even that hasn't made the to-do list yet.

Back to Katharine Hepburn. I was watching Little Women and I realized, it doesn't matter which version I watch I always want to kick Jo March for not choosing Laurie. I always wondered if I was only partial to him because I first met him as played by Christian Bale, but no, I like him even as played by Douglas Montgomery and I hate Professor Bhaer.

Maybe if they ever used a more attractive man. The accent plays to his favor but they always choose the most... unattractive men. Well, that's not entirely fair. Gabriel Byrne is somewhat distinguished but I've just always found Bhaer so snivelly (not a word - go with it). Which, some would disagree and say that Laurie is more moony but he also goes after what he wants. He should have stuck with Jo. And here ends my diatribe on Little Women.

Guys, break is glorious. Trees and presents and overthinking classic films (never read the book, I know, I know, I should). This is my life for a couple more weeks and I am relishing every second.

Merry Christmas!

recap

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The holidays happened. I took a lot of pictures and planned on doing a few posts because what better use of this blog is there than to photo dump pictures of my family having fun? The time has come and past for me to have made multiple posts out of events that happened two weeks ago (are we really almost halfway through the first month on 2013?!). So here, in a nutshell/blogpost, is what we did the last half of December:

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We went to California for Christmas! It was a last minute trip but boy was it wonderful. Cousin Jessica (who we really consider a sister so from here on out I'm going to refer to her as 'sister Jessica' but she is not a nun so don't get confused) requested that since all the sisters were in town - which really is a rarity for us - we have a baking/sleepover night. 

We hadn't all been in the same room in a year and a half so that night was pretty much the best of all possible worlds. Plus I got to see two of my beautiful friends and a junior - who did not cry when I held him; a feat that no one other than his mother could accomplish. Ha!

Really, you can't beat sisters, friends, and cookies. My trip could've ended right then and there and it would've been complete.

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But it didn't end there! I got donuts at the best donut shop in the world. How lucky that it is located in my home town. The Donut Wheel. The best donuts ever.

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And of course, Christmas day. (We had spent Christmas Eve with Dan's family. I really should've have taken some pictures but I haven't spent a whole lot of time with the extended family and it's tough to gauge if other people like pictures or if they are just going to find the constant sound of clicking and shuttering annoying. Just know that we spent Christmas eve with Dan's fam.)

Christmas morning we woke up early to open presents with Dan's family (and drink mimosas!). Then we spent the rest of the day with my family. We opened presents and ate so many good homemade things that Julia prepared for us. We ate Christmas dinner at Aunt Laurie's and then we played Cards Against Humanity.  

Cards Against Humanity is essentially dirty Apples to Apples (my friend Audrey explains it well here). Dad played under protest, Mom and Uncle Mike Loved it, Grandma couldn't believe what had become of her offspring, and the rest of us just laughed and laughed. Dan laughed so hard at some point that beer came out his nose. If you haven't played it, it's worth a shot. I do not necessarily recommend that you include your parents.

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New Years Eve we spent celebrating with friends here in Wilmington. We were also celebrating the birth of a dear friend of ours. We went to Hibachi (My first time! I caught a piece of vegetable in my mouth!) and I made those sparkly hats for everyone! We relocated to a local bar where a guy dressed as dracula DJ'd and Dan requested "Party in the USA." Yep, the Miley Cyrus song. 

Then we parted from the group. They went to a party and we excused ourselves to ring in the New Year on our own. We drank champagne and set off the poppers Dan bought at a nearby fireworks stand. 2013 started off perfectly.

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Now Dan and I are applying for jobs and law schools respectively. We're officially done with the Marine Corps mid-February and only God knows where we're headed next. I would really appreciate it if He would let us in on it, though. 

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Merry Christmas!

cats & christmas

Our cats seriously love Christmas. The boxes. The lights. The sweaters. The treats we bribe them with to get in the sweaters.

Athena had a sweater, too. A red one. Getting her into it was the worst experience. She made awful noises and made out like we were killing her. It was all nonsense. We were so gentle. She won, however. Her nails are much sharper than mine.

Houston didn't get his entirely on but it sufficed. We got the picture and successfully created an White Elephant party gift. He's just so classy.

Behold

My disastrous attempt at Bokeh (pronounced buck-oh... no it's not but that's how I've been saying it the past two days for no particular reason).

Some little meme on Pinterest made me believe I could achieve those big fuzzy, out-of-focus bubbles with my camera. They were mistaken. As are so many other Pinterest memes.

I was hoping I would be able to figure it out and have a super cool Christmas photo, but I think we're just going to use one of the from our recent military shoot. Which works for me because they look nice and it's easy.

Which all Christmas cards should be.

From the Burkharts

present

My first present for Dan is wrapped and under the Christmas tree. Seriously, I think I might like giving gifts more than I like receiving them. And that's saying something because I really love opening presents! 

Oh! AND I MADE THAT TREE SKIRT! Yep, just gave myself a little pat on the back.

p.s. Funny story about Christmas gifts: 

One year Julia and I came home from school and, since all our friends had talked about these things called Christmas lists, we made our very first Christmas lists. We had never heard of such a thing and excitedly ran to the first parent we could find upon completing the lists. Dad happened to be the lucky recipient and we gleefully handed him our carefully curated, adolescent Christmas lists. He looked at them and then said: "Now girls, gifts are from the giver." Essentially saying that gifts are not something we ask for but are given from love. That was okay, we thought. Lesson learned: no Christmas lists for the Herrington girls. 

Flash forward about eight years. Dad comes home and says "All right girls, I'm gonna need some Christmas lists so I know what to get you!" 

We looked at him appalled. "Dad, gifts are from the giver!"

loved

I got a text a couple days ago from my Grandma:

"Hi Rachie, I mailed a package today. You should receive it Friday. Love you, Grams"

Well, first of all I LOVE getting packages (who doesn't!?) but then it came early. Like, yesterday. Which was Thursday. Not Friday. 

And then I opened it. 

And the tears started flowing (many of you might know how tearful I have been lately and might question the legitimacy of my tears, but these ones were good tears! I think that gives them a bit more validity.)

Grandma had given us two gorgeous stockings -- like the stockings that had always hung in the houses of my grandma, mom and aunt. The stockings that had been at every Christmas as far back as I remember. 

What a beautifulgift. Christmas here just got a little more homey. 

Top that off with the two cards Grams sent (one with some money for a date with husband) and the sweetest hand-drawn-Charlie-Brown-Thanksgiving-card ever from my kid sister, Annie (who's not really a kid anymore but an honest-to-goodness grown-up stunner). Well, I'm not sure a girl can feel more loved by her family than I did yesterday. 

Seriously, I am so blessed

How gorgeous are those stockings?!

Christmas is here!!!

p.s. my gorgeous sister can draw, no?

advent.

Well, I took a break from writing papers (one is finished and due tomorrow, another is halfway done and due Thursday, and another I haven't finished the book yet and it's due Friday... fab) and made an advent calendar. My family never really did this growing up -- we may have had one of those paper calendars with candy in the boxes at one point, but it wasn't a tradition or anything. 

This year Dan and I are staying in Wilmington for the Christmas holiday, which has its ups and downs but I am trying to stay as optimistic about the prospect as possible. 

How does one stay optimistic? One stays busy. 

So, our advent calendar is filled with activities for us to do everyday leading up to Christmas (pick out a tree, read Luke 2:1-21, watch "It's a Wonderful Life, donate canned goods, etc.). I needed to pick out some cute idea for an advent calendar, something that I could make on the cheap, and there were tons of great ideas on pinterest: 

This one is adorbs

I love the socks in this one.

My bff made this cute calendar!

I liked this one but magnets baffle me. (as in I don't want to hunt them down.)

This one was sleek and sophisticated (neither of which describes me and Dan ;)

I heart clothespins in any form

Aaannd if I had a bajillion hours on my hands -- this would be AMAZING. 300 Buttons!

Alas, while all of those were darling, my heart fluttered at this one. 

I checked out the product on the etsy site and quickly determined that I could make this myself. Got my coupon for Joann's and bought some white kona cotton and various lace details and voila! (After 4 hours of sweat and toil) We have an advent calendar!

It's not perfect but who am I kidding, until I have a rotary cutter and pad none of my lines will be straight. None of them. But I love it and can't wait to get crackin' on these activities with my love! 

Down time

You see, if I lived in my hometown, I can't imagine that I would blog as much as I do. During the past 2.5 weeks I have been running around everywhere, catching up with friends, shopping, eating, your basic tom-foolery -- this has left little time for me to update the blog and I am not complaining, seeing all my friends and family has been such a wonderful breath of fresh air. Christmas was fantastic, I was spoiled rotten by my family and Dan's family. Dan in particular got me some cute things from Anthropologie (my favorite store in the world) including my favorite item, this hat:

Better view of the hat :) How cute is that!

Christmas was fabulous and hard all at the same time. The first year of splitting/sharing time between the families... tough stuff. My goal was that Dan and I would enjoy the holiday and I think that was accomplished. I wanted both of us to feel completely happy and content with whatever house we were at and we were: mission accomplished

Currently we are up at the San Juan islands in Washington with Dan's family. It is so beautiful up here (Yesterday it snowed!) Pictures of the amazing Northwest with follow after the New Year. See you in 2011!

A Little Christmas Cheer

I am easily swayed by the positive opinion of more than 100 hundred people when it comes to choosing recipes online. This particular recipe, entitled "The Best Rolled Sugar Cookie Recipe," had over 3,000 reviews with a rating of 4.5/5 stars -- you just can't deny that kind of response. The trick with online recipes is to look at the comments/reviews at the bottom, many times they will have little tips on adding or changing the amount of an ingredient. These cookies are so yummy and very addictive. I decided to make the cookies as a hostess gift for a holiday party we were going to on Saturday, because that is what married people do -- they bring hostess gifts. So, with my Pandora Christmas station blaring and my apron donned I baked the cookies on Friday and decorated them on Saturday. They are suuuper yummy (and cute, if I do say so myself). Anyway, here's a few pictures -- I was pretty proud of these suckers.

“The Best” Rolled Sugar Cookies

Ingredients:

Cookie

1.5 cups butter

3 cups sugar

4 eggs

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

5 cups all-purpose flour

2 teaspoons baking powder

1-teaspoon salt

Frosting

1-cup confectioners sugar

2 teaspoons milk

2 teaspoons light corn syrup

Assorted food Coloring

Directions:

1.    In a large bowl, cream together butter and sugar until smooth. Beat in eggs and vanilla. Stir in the flour, baking powder and salt. Cover and chill dough for at least one hour.

2.    2. Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Roll out dough on floured surface ¼ to ½ inch thick. Cut into shapes with any cookie cutter. Place cookies 1 inch apart on ungreased cookie sheets.

3.    Bake 6-8 minutes in preheated oven. Cool completely

To make frosting:

1.    In a small bowl, stir together confectioners’ sugar and milk until smooth. Beat in corn syrup and almond extract until icing is smooth and glossy. If icing is too thick add more corn syrup.

2.    Divide into separate bowls, and add food coloring to each bowl to desired intensity. Dip cookies or paint them with a brush.

3.    Share!

Wishin, and Hopin, and Dreamin, and Plannin...

Christmas is in 22 days! Better news, I leave for California in 12 days!! Such a great season. Since we already have a Christmas tree I thought I would post some ideas on what to put under it, are you reading this Dan? I hardly ever buy accessories for myself because I figure I can put that money towards a new article of clothing. This way of thinking is silly because with the right accessories you can completely change the look of the same top/dress/whatever. Silly or not, I still never buy accessories so this list is mainly accessories that I love. 

Alright here are the details:
Royal Chalice Dress - Modcloth.com $44.99
Little Birdie in the Cage Necklace - http://www.etsy.com/shop/earringsnation $19.80
Pointelle Chevron Tights - Gap.com $14.50
Vintage Bright Red Tote - http://www.etsy.com/shop/GetReadySetGO $59.95
Peek-A-Boo Pretty Gloves - Anthropologie.com $28.00 
2 Custom Luggage Tags - http://www.etsy.com/shop/OfTheFountain $22.45
Embarcadero Boot in Raspberry - Modcloth.com $44.99
Chocolate Icing Piping Belt - Modcloth.com $27.99


So, not all of the list is accessories, obviously, but everything is so cute! I am in love with those boots, unfortunately they don't have them in my size... lame. Hope you're enjoying Christmas wishin' as much as I am!