Holiday Baking and Cooking

My kitchen has been a busy place the past few weeks, I've been baking up a storm! Last year I started a tradition of giving goodies to my friends for holiday presents. I love to bake, and who doesn't like extra treats at the holiday's? This year they got homemade chex mix, fudge, and chocolate snowflake pops. I thought it all turned out really cute!

I also recently made a pecan pie and oreo truffles for a friend's holiday party. I was so happy with my pecan pie because last time I made it, it didn't set up and it was runny. This one was perfect!

This past weekend I did a lot of baking and cooking. I went to Beth's on Saturday to help her make 8 zillion dozen cookies for her friend who was in the Dickinson Tour of Homes (kinda like an open house thing). We came up with a new cookie variety, the Peppermint Butter cookie, let us know if you want the recipe, it's sure to be famous. (For serious, we put way too much Butter Flavored Crisco in them, accidentally, not knowing that butter and crisco do not have a 1-to-1 substitution. But seriously, they tasted fine. Just ignore that coating on the roof of your mouth, ok folks? We worked hard on those!)
I also made a Thanksgiving feast on Sunday and the Wilke's and the Woods's came over to help us eat it! We got turkey dinner on the cruise, but it just wasn't the same as all my mom's traditional recipes, so I bought a turkey on sale after Thanksgiving, and made that, stuffing, mashed potatoes, green bean casserole, and cope's corn (a Lancaster county dish)! Oh and a divine chocolate pie, if I do say so myself! Unfortunately I don't have any pictures of that; or maybe fortunately, so you don't drool on your keyboard ;) Everyone loved it and Wilke even said I am, and I quote, "one of the best cooks I know". I really do enjoy cooking and baking, but it's even better when my friends enjoy it too!

Cruisin' for Turkey Day

I'm a little behind on blogging, please forgive me! I have a hard time keeping up.
Over Thanksgiving, Cory and I were lucky enough to go on a cruise with my parents and my sister and her husband. A few years ago, my parents had the idea that instead of exchanging presents for the holidays and birthdays, we should take a trip together each year instead. We all easily agreed, as time together is hard to come by these days, especially with me and Cory living so far away. Well this is the first year we made it happen, and we all met up in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida, on Thanksgiving Day! We cruised with Royal Caribbean, on the Navigator of the Seas, which was a huge, beautiful ship. It was a great time - we had lots of sunshine, lots of good food, and most importantly, lots of good drinks. I mean, most importantly, lots of quality time with my family! Thursday and Friday we were at sea, and the ladies sunned on the top deck of the ship with several pina coladas, while the fellas headed to the Casino. Saturday we were in Cozumel, where we did a jungle hike excursion and got to see some Mayan ruins. They were really, well, ruined, but our tour guide was awesome, and it was really neat. Sunday was pretty much a repeat of Friday. It was a great little vacation!

Our Little Sholl-Devil

Get it? Sholl-devil; she-devil? I'm so clever.

Cosmo has been a bad girl lately. She's been eating our blinds :( We don't know what started it, but we haven't enjoyed it. Here's a picture of her handi-work.

But ya know what? We still love her. Cuz right now she's playing with three of her toys at the same time and it's the best thing ever in life. And cuz just look at this face:

How could you not forgive that? Honestly, I don't know how she lives with her own cuteness sometimes. I just don't.

House Project: Painting our bedroom

We have a lot of projects we want to do here in the Sholl house and one of them is painting our bedroom. We've actually had the paint for about a year and a half now. We got it when we got our pressure washer (Marshik's, we've got our eye on you ;) ) back when Home Depot was having a good deal. Well we finally got around to painting! Cory really loves cutting-in, so if you ever need help, let him know ;) And I'm pretty handy with a roller! Here are a few shots of our progress so far.

Cory's Birthday

Cory doesn't seem to like to blog anymore so I will write about his birthday. It also gives me a chance to show off what a great wife I am ;) His bday was last Friday and he turned 27! I got him this beautiful tool chest that he wanted with some DVDs tucked inside (Transformers on bluray, and That 70s Show season 5). Please also note the beautiful handmade bow and card.

I also made him this delicious beef jerky

and this even more delicious chocolate cake with peanut butter icing!

We went to happy hour at Boondoggles on Friday and then downtown to see our friend's friend's band. It was a fun night!! I hope you had a great birthday baby :)

PS - I don't know what that stupid grey line down the middle of our blog is. If you know how to get rid of it, please tell us!

MUDD-E

Last weekend, me, Alicia, Nujoud, Lisa, and Melissa took a road trip to Fort Worth to get muddy! We did the Mud Run, a 10 k run with military style obstacles throughout. It was super fun, we overcame some fears of heights (me mostly), and we got really muddy! And best of all, everyone loved our t-shirts that had our team name, MUDD-E. Melissa was injured so she came along anyways and was our official photographer! Here's a link to the awesome pictures she took:
http://picasaweb.google.com/meliwallace/MudRun2008#
And here's a shot of us enjoying our Mudslides, post-race!

Next time, Melissa will be running, and I've already recruited Jaime too, and possibly even some husbands!

St. Lucia

Cory and I went on our honeymoon in beautiful St. Lucia! I can't believe it's been over a month since we've been back. I finally got our pictures off our cameras and taught myself how to imbed a slideshow (I think)! We had a wonderful time doing lots of eating, drinking, and relaxing, and we even caught the second half of the Penn State game that weekend! St. Lucia was beautiful, and the Sandals resort was great; when can we go on another honeymoon?
The picures are out of order because they came off of three cameras, but you'll get the idea! Enjoy!