Our Life in the Yellow Brick House

I am not one to complain about anything Christmas-related, but for this post I'm making an exception. Was anyone else very annoyed by the fact that Christmas was on a weekend this year, and a Sunday at that?! With a husband who doesn't get a lot of holiday time off work, this made our multiple celebrations a little complicated. However, that's my only complaint. The rest of the holiday was absolutely fabulous because we got to do all of the things we love best: spend time with the ones we love, eat good food and laugh until our stomachs hurt. In the interest of brevity, below is a little Christmas timeline for you with photos of our celebrations. Dec. 23, 6:30 p.m. - Kyle gets off work and we head to Wichita to spend the night with Greg and Stacie. It was likely our last night to spend with them as couples who are married with no children. Little Henry will be joining us any day now! Dec. 24, 11:00 a.m. - I take Kyle to the Derby Medical Center to be treated for a sin...

Merry Christmas! I hope all of my wonderful readers had a great holiday. Kyle and I were blessed to get to spend it with our families, and I'll post some pictures of all of those celebrations soon. For now, though, I'm getting my last work day in before leaving for Kansas. I am looking forward to more time off because although I've only had to work two days this week, they've been brutal. Mainly because no one else is here, but also because I have been dealing with credit card statements and approvals. I "enjoy" keeping up with our personal budget as much as you can enjoy a task like that, but work is a different story. I have an aversion to anything relating to accounting. It's probably because I  have trouble comprehending reports and always forget to submit something. Pesky details! The only thing keeping me going the last few days has been thinking about this weekend and all of the fun giving and getting that comes along with Christmas. This year pur...

Since Christmas is almost upon us, I thought I'd share some of the holiday treats I've given this season. I always see cute ideas for packaging online, and I want to try them out. Figuring out what to put in them is always my challenge. I struggle with baking. Not all of us are blessed with baking talents like my cousin, Blair. She even makes her own marshmallows and has a blog to prove it! Take 1: Puppy Chow I decided that for my Student Foundation executive team I would make them a little bag of puppy chow to thank them for all the time they've dedicated this past semester. I like the holiday treat mixes with almond bark, pretzels and Christmas M&Ms, but there's something about puppy chow that makes me feel like a kid again. Probably because I still have vivid memories of eating it at Beth Berkenbile's house during play dates. Unfortunately the store was out of Chex cereal, and I had waited until the night before to make the treats, so I grabbed the off...

Lately I've gotten several surprises, which remind me of just what a magical time of year this is. My most recent surprise was given to me yesterday. There's a little diddy by the Carpenters that goes "Rainy days and Mondays always get me down," and they were right on! Yesterday was a double whammy because it was rainy ALL day on the Monday before the Christmas holiday. Needless to say, it seemed like a long work day. Just before I was about to head out the door, Erin, one of my coworkers, came in to give me my Christmas present. I thought it was so sweet of her to think of me, but I had no idea just how sweet she was until I opened my gift. It was an apron she had sewed for me! I cannot tell you how excited I was! Not because I had another apron (although that's pretty thrilling), but because she was so thoughtful and cared enough to spend HOURS working on something with me in mind. What a thoughtful gift. Kyle, take notes! The other surprises involve my fav...

Well here we are in the middle of December, and I can’t believe I have yet to post about Christmas! I love, love, LOVE this time of year. And let’s be honest, who doesn’t? Even if you don't celebrate Christmas people are more generous this time of year, you get days off work and restaurants carry beverages of the peppermint variety. I am in heaven! Decorating for Christmas was so much fun this year. Since we got married, we’ve been slowly building our ornament collection. Most of them are generic, but every year we add one or two that have a story behind them. I can’t wait for the day when almost every ornament on our tree has meaning. Compared to last year, our home is much more decked out. There are several reasons for this. The first is Pinterest. I have a little bit of a love-hate relationship with this site. I love it because it is chock-full of great ideas. I hate it because I feel like I need to try everything and there just aren’t enough hours in the day… I did ...

It's been a while since Kyle and I got back from our vacation to Estes Park, but thanks to the holidays, I haven't had time to blog about it. Well here it goes... (I apologize in advance for the length of this post.) Day 1: "Just the Two of Us" Kyle and I haven’t been on a vacation alone since our Honeymoon, so this trip was a special one. We decided to break-up the 12-hour drive by stopping at my grandparents’ house in Meade, KS. It was the first time I’d made that trip without my parents. After dozens of trips, I had a lot of stories to share with Kyle along the way. :)   I pointed out the Gloss Mountains and the wind farm on the way. Then we stopped at the bison reserve. If you look really hard, you can see a few in the background. This is as close as we got. It was VERY windy! When we got to the farm we got to pick our bedroom! This is a VERY big deal because when we visit, I am lucky to get the couch, so to get to pick my choice of three beds was g...