Christmas 2012

Time for Christmas recaps, mine included!  This is one of those posts that you might just want to scan through the pictures.  Ha!  I know i'm probably the only one who cares about all these details.

Anyway, we have had a really fun and full week, with just a couple bumps in the road (I'll get there in a minute)

On Thursday night, JC came over before band practice, and we exchanged gifts. Luke and I got him a Ron Swanson bobble head, and he got us a Joann Fabrics gift card (for me) and some athletic shorts (for Luke) and this amazingness for the baby:

Now the baby can be witty and hilarious like his/her father before he/she can even talk. 

Friday evening while Luke was at basketball, I baked some cookies that I used as gifts for some people.  It was hard, because I was still pretty nauseous, but I pushed through.  

Peanut blossoms and chocolate cookies with Reese's Pieces.

Sunday night was no fun in our house.  Luke had been trying to get rid of a cough for awhile already, but apparently something else hit him too because he was up all night Friday night with some kind of stomach bug.  It was really annoying when I woke up and had my couple of morning vomits that happen everyday (sorry, that's disgusting, but I have gotten desensitized after dealing with it for 5 weeks I guess) and we were practically fighting over the bathroom!  Luckily, Luke was able to get over the worst of it by Monday morning. Although he still had a headache and was feeling feverish all day on Christmas Eve.  I felt so bad, because he really NEVER gets sick.  That was the sickest I've ever seen him.  

We made the most of our Christmas Eve anyway, starting at the candlelight church service where Luke had to play in the band.  It was a beautiful service.

There were no seats left in the sanctuary when the band was done playing, so Luke got to watch from the sound booth.  I hope he doesn't mind that I stole this picture from his Facebook page!

After that it was time to party!  Dinner at my grandparents was first on the agenda.  We had lasagna,salad, and this amazing spaghetti squash and kale dish that I need the recipe for!  Also, lots of good desserts. 

Following tradition, we had a white elephant gift exchange, and then we spoiled the babies with gifts as well (can I still call them babies if they're almost 2??) 

We couldn't resist buying gifts for the babies either, so we bought Elin a little teddy bear (which is lame compared to Hudson's gift, but I had such a hard time finding a cute little girl gift!)  Hudson's gift requires a bit of a back-story.  He has always associated Luke with drums, and often follows Luke's name with "boom boom!"  When he is talking about him.  He has occasionally been found after a worship service trying his hand at Luke's drums.  So Luke couldn't resist buying him a little drum set.  Hudson loved it!  At first he really enjoyed sticking the drumsticks in his ears...

But then when they got all set up and he realized what they were, he got really 

excited!  We were happy the gift went over well...mommy was a very good sport!  (what mom would love this gift? ha!)  But we said they could seek revenge by regifting it in a few years if they get sick of it.  

Before we left, we opened our Christmas Poppers and got the obligatory crown picture after that (each popper contains a paper crown, a joke, and a little toy).

Luke was still a little under the weather...you can kind of tell in this picture

Next on Christmas Eve we exchanged gifts with Luke's family.  Even the baby got a few gifts!  10 weeks old  (on the inside) and he or she is already spoiled!

Speaking of spoiled, Luke and I are also still spoiled!  We got so many amazing gifts from Luke's family.  My favorite is my new Magic Bullet!  Hello, homemade baby food!  And I plan on using it a lot in the meantime for salsa, guacamole, smoothies, and milkshakes!

Christmas morning Luke and I woke up and exchanged gifts.  I got him some blu-rays, a Star Wars trivia book, and a gift card to a restaurant (that one's a bit of a boomerang gift, I admit).  He got me the Finding Nemo blu-ray, an Ohio State scarf, and new dishes and glasses!

Somehow on Christmas I decided to just put my camera (err,iPhone) down and just enjoy the day.  I figured I'll probably get at least 1000 pictures next Christmas, it being baby's first and all, so why not take a little break this year?  

Anyway, we spent Christmas day with family.  We had breakfast and a gift exchange with my parents to start out, then Christmas with Luke's mom's side of the family, then Christmas with my dad's side of the family.

Highlights of the day were seeing my sister, getting a new fireplace screen (and lots of other gifts!) from my parents, starting out the baby's library with the 6 or 7 books he or she already received, catching up with family, having my appetite partially back and not feeling nauseous so I could eat tons of good food, trying to solve the metal brain-teaser puzzles from Luke's grandparents (I failed), and this amazing tutu that Luke's cousin's baby was wearing:

#1 reason to be excited if our baby is a girl?  Tutus.  (I kid)

Luke and I got home Christmas night exhausted as usual.  Him more than me, because he was still fighting off sickness.  So he fell asleep in the recliner, and I secretly cheered, because that meant that I could watch my new Hunger Games blu-ray from Luke's parents with no complaints! Ha!  And watch it I did, crying no less than 3 times thanks to pregnancy hormones.  

The Christmas celebrations weren't quite over yet.  Yesterday, the day after Christmas, I ventured out in a snowstorm with the women of Luke's family to go see Les Miserables.  

Speaking of crying during movies...umm...don't forget your tissues if you go see this!  It was amazing!  I want to go see it again ASAP!  And it was fun to be out in the blizzard and have a pretty empty theater on a day when it would have normally been full to the brim.

I guess I didn't get enough of being out in the blizzard that afternoon,because later we had tickets to the TSO show in Cleveland.  We went with our friends Sarah and Doug, and despite the scary weather, we had a great time!  We ate dinner at Steak and Shake on the way, and then enjoyed the show.  

I hope your Christmas was as blessed as ours!  I know I'm looking forward to having a few days to relax before New Year's celebrations begin!  However, I have a lot of cleaning and organizing to do after the tornadoes of Christmas and morning sickness.  I have had a really hard time getting things done in the past 5 weeks, because I was basically in survival mode!  Luckily the worst of it seems to be over!  I'm only 10.5 weeks, so I know I still have couple more weeks until I'm completely out of the water, but I'm hopeful, and enjoying the past few days of feeling human!

Merry week after Christmas!

Weekend Snippets

Today I thought I'd share some random snippets from the weekend

1. Recipes. I mentioned these briefly in my week in review post. I made an appetizer and a dessert for our Ohio State/Michigan game party on Saturday. First of all, I made pepperoni rolls.
These are so easy to make, and sooo good! I just bought two refrigerated pizza crusts, and piled on the ingredients like I was making a regular pizza. I used lots of cheese and pepperoni, and also sprinkled on some Italian seasoning and garlic powder. Then instead of throwing it in the oven like that, I rolled it, starting in the corner and rolling diagonally. I folded in the ends, and put on a coat of EVOO. Then I put it in the oven (preheated to 400 degrees F) for about 15-20 minutes. I then took it out, and cut it in slices. I left the slices in the middle on the baking sheet, and put the rest on a plate. Then I put the middle pieces back in the oven for about 1o more minutes to make sure the dough was fully cooked.

Anyway, they were pretty good, and I can't believe I've never made them before! It was a great, easy little appetizer.

I also make this chocolate chip cheese ball, which I mentioned before.

I served it with chocolate Teddy Grahams, graham crackers, and Pepperidge Farm Pirouette cookies. It was very good, but not very good for you. haha! Click here for the recipe (From Kelly's Korner).

2. Trans Siberian Orchestra Concert. The annual concert was last night! It was such a great night, but way, way, way too late for a school night! Haha...I was absolutely dragging all day today. But last night was fun! We all went out to dinner on the way, and that was nice. Then we headed to Cleveland. We had to walk through Tower City to get to Quicken Loans Arena, and it was so pretty and festive for Christmas!
Anyway, once at the concert, we took our seats which were right on the floor...they were great! This year our group consisted of:

Me and Luke, Obviously
{Luke is doing No-shave November... hence the full beard. He actually isn't going to shave until January, because the band is all growing their beards for their trip to Colorado...let's just say I'm still getting used to it :-P}


My parents, who went for the first time this year!

And our friends from church, Laura and Stan. It was Stan's first year too.

I didn't take any pictures during the concert, because I wanted to be totally focused on it. Luckily, Luke took a bunch with his iPhone, so here is a preview:
The concert did not disappoint. I feel like I'm really ready for the Christmas season now!

3. Christmas. This weekend we basically began the Christmas season at our house. We put up our trees, watched Christmas movies, and I almost finished my Christmas cards. My goal is to send them all out this weekend. I really want to make this Christmas a special one, and I feel like we've gotten a really good start on things! My next step is to finish my Christmas shopping and wrap all the presents. And in a few weeks it will be time to start doing my Christmas baking. I love to bake Christmas cookies and hand them out to family and friends. And it's always nice to have some on hand when people come to visit.

Luke and I skipped date night last week with all the Thanksgiving festivities, but it is my turn to pick, and I think we're going to have a Christmas date night here at home this week. I want to make homemade hot cocoa, light some pine-scented candles, and turn off all the lights except the Christmas tree, and then watch Elf! I don't think I've watched Elf in a few years, and I am way overdue for a viewing!


P.S. I hope you have been enjoying my Christmas music player!

TSO...Again!

Tonight I had the privilege of going to see Trans-Siberian Orchestra perform their "Beethoven's Last Night" tour. Usually we just go see them at Christmastime, so this was very different. It was at a theater as opposed to an arena. They called tonight's performance-type "Rock Theater." It was very hard to describe, so you should go see them for yourself :-) If you have seen their Christmas tour, this is very different and worth seeing. It was more intimate than the Christmas concerts, and a little more "theatrical"...that's the best way I can think to describe it :-)

I'm still kind of on a high from the whole evening, so I wanted to post about it right now :-) Here are a few of my favorite pictures:

Here they are toward the beginning
The string section inspired me to try a little harder with my violin

Love this one!


Kind of creepy...That (below) is supposed to be Mephistopheles, AKA Satan, in case you were wondering :-P lol...it is a really amazing story, and Mephistopheles was a pertinent part of the story.

The first part of the concert was the story about Beethoven, and some interesting decisions he made and encounters he had on his last night on earth. The story is whimsical and fun, but also shows aspects of Beethoven's life in a real and relatable way. The narrator, as always, did an incredible job, and I really think he MADE the evening for me. After the story, they played three more songs from their newest album which was exciting!

I have said it before and I will say it again: if you have never seen TSO live, you should!! It may be a little expensive, but in my opinion it is always worth every penny. The Christmas concert is really something that is not to be missed!

In case you're interested, you can read about their 2009 Christmast concert HERE

And their 2008 Christmas concert HERE

Happy Saturday!!

Christmas Diaries Day 20: TSO

Yesterday was the day: the annual Trans-Siberian Orchestra concert at The Q in Cleveland! This was my 6th year in a row, and probably Luke's 9th. It is one of the highlights of the Christmas season every year!

Last night there were 6 of us who went:

Patty and Diana (my mil and sil)
Poor Di just had surgery on her ankle and was on crutches...we did not park close, and she had to hobble all over downtown Cleveland on her crutches! Not to mention going up and down the tons of narrow steps down to our seats! I bet her arms are sore today.

JC and Laura were there (our friends from church)...not sure why the flash was so blindingly bright
And of course Luke and myselfWe ate dinner at BW3s on the way to Cleveland...our waitress was super slow! And then we hit a bunch of traffic coming into Cleveland. We were really worried that we would be late. I tried to get a picture of Tower City glowing green and red as we came into the city in the VERRRRY slow traffic. You can kinda barely see it back there

We finally got to The Q and realized we had nothing to worry about, because of course the concert didn't start on time!

Our seats were pretty close. 5th row in the bleachers, right beside the stage.
It looked like there wasn't an empty seat in the place
Once the concert started, I was completely mesmerized through the entire thing, just like always. The show was a lot different from last year, because they just released a new CD a few months ago. It's hard to describe it, so here are some pictures and videos that can do a better job of that than I can! :-)
Last year I wrote about Anna Phoebe and how she is an amazing violinist who plays with TSO. She was there again this year with her pink violin in tow. Seriously, I want to BE her, and I'm more serious than ever about really wanting to learn how to play violin!
I took lots of pictures of her, because I just think she's awesome...

And this little guy was probably the most amazing keyboardist I've ever heard. I think he must have had 2 extra secret hands :-P

And...my favorite picture of the night taken during the finale

They ended the concert by playing "Cleveland Rocks," as they always do in Cleveland. It was great! We got home WAY too late, and I've been like a zombie all day at work, but it was totally worth it! If you ever get the chance to see them perform, don't pass it up!

Tomorrow is my last day of work before Christmas, and I am more than ready to be done! I will be sooo happy at this time tomorrow!

I'll leave you with a few videos that Luke took on his iPhone last night.

Opening:

Cool Narrator & Stars:

Another Cool Song:

Amazing, right??

Youth Explosion 2009

I haven't been around this weekend because I was busy being a roadie with Luke's band, The One80 Band, at Youth Explosion! there were over 1,300 youth there this year, and The One80 Band led worship all weekend! I have tons of pictures and stories, so I thought the easiest way to share would be to post just some bulleted points and pictures from the weekend. I'll not to make it too long :-)

*They began the weekend leading worship on Friday night. Here they are! I didn't get too many pictures of them playing, because I was their videographer for the weekend :-) I will be sharing a video or two of them performing in the next few days. I'm so proud!
*We got to sit through a lot of sessions while we were there with some great speakers and performers. We also got to act goofy and pretend we were high school again. One of the speakers told everyone to hug their friends. there are actually 4 people involved in this hug! It made me laugh
*Um, did I mention that as a wife of a band member, I scored a backstage pass for the entire weekend?? This is definitely the first time I've had a backstage pass for anything :-)
*With the backstage pass, I was allowed to go to the green room anytime. This is the room where all the band members and speakers go to chill and to eat. And they had some amazing home-cooked food there all weekend, too! Here are some of the band members in the green room*And here I am with Luke in the green room. Can you tell I was absolutely giddy? There were lots of awesome bands in the green room throughout the course of the weekend. Remedy Drive hung out in there a lot, some members of Leeland were in there on Saturday, and so was Francesca Battistelli. More about all that in a minute.
*Friday night before we headed back to the hotel, we got to hear Remedy Drive and Run Kid Run perform. We had seen Remedy Drive before, but if you ever have the chance to see them in concert, don't pass it up! They put on a pretty good show :-)
*Before we left, a bunch of junior high girls ran up to the band giggling and asking for autographs. I thought this was absolutely adorable, and of course I captured about 80 pictures of the band signing their first autographs :-P
*Saturday morning after our delicious breakfast at the hotel, we headed back to the church, and the band played first thing in the morning. We listened to some speakers, and then ate lunch in the green room. And no big deal, but Phil, the bassist from Remedy Drive ate lunch with us! He sat right by me. I thought this was a huge deal :-P He had somehow strained his vocal chords and wasn't allowed to talk for six week. It was fun trying to read his lips and read what he scribbled on his iphone!

*After lunch, we headed out for an afternoon shopping trip in Beachwood. It's a pretty nice area around Cleveland. We don't have a whole lot of great shopping areas close to us since we live in the middle of nowhere, so it was fun to be able to shop at places like Crate and Barrel, Pottery Barn, Sephora, etc. They were all completely decked out for Christmas. And it was 70 degrees and sunny. I think that might be the very first time that's ever happened in Ohio ;-)
*Saturday evening was so much fun! We had a delicious meal in the green room again, and then one80 really rocked out! They did such a good job :-) After that was the big concert: Francesca Battistelli, Leeland, and Brandon Heath.

*I have loved Fracesca Battistelli's music for a long time so I was really excited to see her in concert. She did really well! Her voice is so amazing. I decided to buy a CD right after her last song because she did so well!*Leeland was up next. I hadn't listened to them a lot before, but oh my...I am going to start! They were so amazing! It was great. (Even though my picture is aweful. :-P) They seemed really down to earth, too.
*After Leeland, we were all really tired. We decided to go in the green room and chill out for a little bit while Brandon Heath performed. I walked in with my purse and my new Francesca Battistelli CD in tow. As I walked in, a bunch of people kept whispering that I should have her sign it, because she was sitting exactly 2 feet behind me reading a Karen Kingsbury book. Everyone kept urging me to ask her, but I just couldn't do it. I didn't want to interrupt her reading because I thought she was probably trying to wind down after the concert and didn't want to be bothered by a fan in the green room. I actually felt like kind of a nerd holding her CD in my hand when she was in the room, so I shoved it in my purse and hoped she wouldn't notice! Anyway, I don't totally regret not getting her autograph on my CD. She seemed really quiet and reserved and like she didn't want to be bothered unlike a lot of the other performers. I still love her music, though!

*This morning the band had to play for the regular congregation at the church where the conference had been held. It was kind of funny, because the service was filled with older people, and The One80 Band plays lots of loud, rock music. I think the congregation still enjoyed it, though :-)

*We ate lunch at Damons, tore down, made the drive home, and unloaded the van. I am finally home, and ready for a serious nap. However, we have to go back to the church tonight for a meeting about our new building project. Yikes, we just can't get any free time this weekend! It's going to be hard to return to work tomorrow :-)

If you've made it all the way down here, thanks for reading! This was definitely a special weekend for the band and for myself! I hope we get to do it again :-)