Holiday party, good food, and the cutest picture ever

First I'll start by addressing the post I made a couple of weeks back about the amazing scents going on in our house. Wild rice soup and beer bread, and the fact that it was the easiest meal ever makes it that much better.  I recently went to a Tastefully Simple party where we were able to try a lot of their products, all of which I can honestly say tasted great.  I ended up ordering the beer bread, wild rice soup, and jalapeno jam.  Kyle and I had the soup and bread for dinner PLUS I had the soup twice as leftovers and ate the leftover bread all week.  It tastes just as good as leftovers and it clearly makes quite a few servings.  Then there's the jalapeno jam.  Oh. My. Word.  I spread some over a block of cream cheese for a party appetizer and dipped Wheat Thins in that.  I also snacked on just crackers dipped in the jam all week and it was equally as good.  Such an easy (addicting), snack.  I'm going to order more of the jam and some other dips they have to just keep on hand for company that comes over or to bring to parties.  



Any carbonated beverage will work for the bread if you don't have beer

 


So easy and so good

 

I decided I'm going to have three parts to this post because I need to do some major catch-up.

This was the first year we didn't have our holiday party (tear) but I'm so glad now that I decided to skip this year.  With Christmas, a month full of birthdays, and moving (oh yeah, we've moved, more to come on that later:))  it would have been damn near impossible.  Needless to say, I'm glad other people hosted holiday parties this year and we were able to just show up with an appetizer in hand and have a good time!  Here are a few pictures from a holiday party we went to before Christmas...



Oh yeah, you better believe we have a full bin of holiday dress-up. I chose reindeer for this night.





The host





Santa must have had a rough year...





Ladies love Santa, who knew?






Santa and our lovely hostess

 




Me with the hostess



And for the grand finale of this post...our sweet girl meditating.  

       

I hope you all had a wonderful holiday!

Silence...

Just not right...

I have overdue posts to make but I'm having a hard time writing posts about joyful things going on in our lives when families are living their worst nightmare.  When I saw the news reports on Friday all I could do was sit and stare, in disbelief, with tears streaming down my face.  Those innocent little babies, the amazing, brave, teachers.  I have no words.

 

On Tuesday, December 18th, there will be a blogger day of silence. We will post the button and that's it. Please try to not post anything else that day if possible.

We are also raising money that will go to an organization in the memory of this tragedy. The organization is called  The Newtown Family Youth and Family Services. Here is the official description of the support service we are donating to:

"Newtown Youth and Family Services, Inc. is a licensed, non-profit, mental health clinic and youth services bureau dedicated to helping children and families achieve their highest potential. NYFS provides programs, services, activities, counseling, support groups and education throughout the Greater Newtown area.
ANY DONATIONS MADE TO NEWTOWN YOUTH AND FAMILY SERVICES WILL BE DONATED DIRECTLY TO THOSE EFFECTED BY THE SANDY HOOK ELEMENTARY SCHOOL SHOOTING."

Please visit THIS PAGE to make your donation.

We can't imagine how they must be feeling, especially this close to the holidays. We would love for you to spread the word on your own blog, Facebook, Twitter, etc. Let's make a difference and use blogging in a positive way. Thank you in advance for participating.

Love,
The Blog World

p.s. If you would like to, copy-paste and re post any part of this, please do. Share on.



With that being said, my posts will return on Wednesday. 

All my love,

Bre

SCENTS!

Oh my, the scents in the house right now are AH-MAZE!  Chestnut and Clove candle (believe me, it's scrumptious and makes the house smell like Christmas), beer bread baking in the oven (what? beer and bread together? Don't mind if I do), and wild rice soup simmering on the stove stop. Yes, get in my belly. More details to come on the bread and soup! 

Hope you're all having a beautiful night!

Weekend in photos...

This post is going to be light on text and heavy on the photos, so here we go...

This one is actually from a wedding we went to two weekends ago, the quality is terrible but I like that it looks I have two heads:)

 There's a park near us that does something every year called Lights in the Park, it's an all volunteer even and all for charity.

We stopped by this house after, it was sweet ass!  It was synchronized to music and I WILL be going back there before the month is over. See Santa in the window? It was simply magical!
Schultz Family Lights

My grandma came into town over the weekend from Madison and we celebrated Xmas with her.  One of our gifts was a desktop skee-ball game. No music, no lights, and my 2 year old nephew was obsessed!  When Kyle would put it away Nolan would literally climb up him to get him to open it back up. It's the little things in life!

Good thing my sister and I got our shopping in on Saturday because Sunday we woke up to SNOW and lots of it.

Shovel much?

Our legless dog.

It is such a pain to drive in but oh so beautiful.

 I hope you all have a great week and a magical holiday season!

Work happy hour...

I don't think I've mentioned on here that I work from home.  It is AMAZING of course but the one con is that you don't get to hang out with your co-workers and it can get a bit lonely at times.  The company I work for has employees all over the world so us MN people attempt to get together for a happy hour every once in awhile.  This was the first HH that I was able to attend and I am so glad that I did.  It felt so good to talk with my co-workers on a personal level instead of just going about our business and dealing with crazy busy schedules.  The happy hour this evening consisted of 5 women and one man.  He kept right up with the constant conversation us ladies were having and here is the best part...

He abruptly said he had to take off, I thought it was a bit strange at first but when us ladies asked for the tab we figured out the reason behind his quick departure.  He had paid for the entire tab.  How's that for spreading Christmas cheer?  I am a strong believer that the holiday season really does have an impact on people's actions.  The best part was that he did not want to be thanked, he didn't want to make a big deal about it, he simply made his get a way and didn't say a word only leaving it to the waiter to tell us that our tab had already been paid.  He made this very nice gesture after we had all had been talking about the family our team was "adopting" for Christmas and I truly believe he just wanted to do "more".  To him I'm sure it was pocket change but it was an unnecessary gesture that was so very much appreciated. 

So my dear followers, during this holiday season and always, lets remember how so very lucky we are and lets think of all the people that have much, much less than we do. 

I'll leave you with these sweet little pictures of our baby...I don't love the quality of the pics but this girl is so precious.

She thinks the tree skirt is her new bed...

Yep, sleepy time.

In Awe...

While driving home from a wedding this weekend and in mid conversation Kyle shouted "Oh my Gosh, look at that TREE!" His sudden burst of excitement startled me at first but when I looked to my left I saw the most beautiful thing.  I had no idea this tree existed and the minute I saw it brought a strange feeling of peace over me.  From the highway we were on it didn't look like the tree belonged to any one's house so I immediately started searching this mystery tree online when we got home.  To my surprise, there are a lot of people that already know about it!  I'll quit my rambling but I will say, these pictures I found online do not do it justice.  If you live in the Twin Cities you HAVE to take a drive to see it. 

 Here's an article about it that was in the newspaper a few years ago.