Showing posts with label Merry Christmas. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Merry Christmas. Show all posts

Merry Post Christmas!


After a whirlwind Christmas adventure, I am finally back and a-posting! My sister, my parents, and I all drove up North for a few family visits on Christmas day. After finishing gift opening, we hurriedly packed and drove up to Brooklyn, NY and spent just over an hour in a Nursing home visiting one of my great aunts who has recently had a stroke. We then headed up to Rockville Center, NY for a family Christmas get together for my Mom's side. The next morning we headed further north to Sudbury, MA to get a quick visit in with my Dad's side. In all, we saw every relative on both sides minus 1 very elusive uncle on my mom's side. It was great to see (almost) everyone on both sides for a chance, despite how fast we had to travel.

As Christmas goes, it was very fun and for my "wow gift" as my parents have begun calling them, I got a GPS. I am pretty excited, but I have made a promise to myself that I will not become dependent upon it. My parents/Santa got me a TomTom, and just tonight I have downloaded a few new color schemes, my current one being a 4.5 star-rated "Girly Pink" scheme. What else can I do? It's kinda tough to see from my MacBook, but its a good glimpse! I love it and on our trip I found myself watching it like TV. My mom said it was the perfect chance to "get to know it" so that it's not s gadget-y while I'm driving with it. I got a bunch of other stuff too that I'm really excited about, mainly Lilly stuff from the store and a couple other pieces that I can't wait to blog about.

Tomorrow will be all about the Debutante Ball. Let me just preview it by saying that I haven't had such a fun time in a LONG time!! It was great, and fun enough to make the background picture on my computer! Lots of pictures to follow!

xxKatie

Christmas Baking

Hey everyone! First and foremost, Merry Christmas Eve!! My family and I are all in for the night and we've already been to Christmas Mass and Christmas Dinner! I'm ready to get in my Lilly jammies and hit the hay!

Today I baked over 40 cupcakes for a family Christmas party tomorrow that my godmother--my Aunt Patricia--and her family are hosting. We all will hop over (or in our case, drive 5 hours through the treacherous Belt Parkway and NJ Turnpike to get to Lawng-I-land.) to her house to see each other and have some fun catching up and playing open trading--to many people that's the White Elephant trading game!

In order to pass some time and have something other than a ham to bring to the party, my mom suggested that I bake some cupcakes! I got all the different decorating things I needed yesterday and enjoyed my 4.5 hours of baking today! I absolutely love cupcakes and these were some of the goodies I came up with:

I was MOST proud of those wreaths! Using a star tip and the kind of decorating frosting you can buy that comes with the 4 different tips, I piped the wreaths myself! I loved loved loved how they came out!


Here's a close up of the wreaths!

I also dyed some of the frosting pink--what a shocker! Then I made other designs like the santa hat and some more artsy ones like the one next to the hat. I also added first name initials of all my cousins to cupcakes so everyone had their own!


My mom also found the most darling sprinkles in the grocery store that we added as well!


These were the few that we're keeping at home for ourselves!
As you can see with this red bow, sometimes the frosting came out WAY too fast and thick if you applied too much pressure to the nozzle. Clearly, this was not going to make the trip with us!!

As you're all baking at this time of the year, keep the wreath design in mind! It is super festive and easy to do!

Merry Christmas!


xxKatie

Handmade Gifts



So obviously Christmas is fast approaching in only 4 days! I can't believe it myself! All of my friend's debutante stuff has kept me from really thinking about Christmas. One of my other friends, Maeve, just had an 18th birthday though too! It was a really fun night because it was just girls, and I couldn't remember the last time that I went to a party like that. I was a little overdressed because I thought it was a little dressier than it was in actuality. The gift I gave her, however, I had left up to the last minute, which is not something that I typically do. She held her party on the night of the day of our last exam (if the prepositional phrases in that sentence weren't confusing enough) so I barely had time to shop.

I was blog surfing and came across a site that had an entry on gift baskets for the holidays. I kept looking through it and then it came to me: MAKE YOUR OWN GIFT BASKET! Boy, did I run with this idea. I headed off to Target without a real idea other than what my friend really likes: cooking, baking, pastels, dark chocolate, etc. I knew that there were a few things that I would need: a basket of some sort, clear cellophane to wrap it all in, bows and ribbons to secure the top, and then the plethora of gifts to go inside.

I began browsing through Target and the first thing that I came upon was their "1$" steals section. It's a fabulous area of racks of one dollar items like festive/seasonal items, dog collars, cookie cutters, plates, plastic utensils, coloring books, no-name brand art supplies and everything like that. I found these GREAT pink sparkly plastic plates and bought 4 as a set in that $1 section. I tied them up with a square knot of pink raffia and decided that they would be my first part of the basket. I then decided that I'd have a pink theme of baking and snacks, a combo many girl's would like! Then I proceeded to the baking section because I knew that I would be successful there. I found a fabulous silicone baking mold for flower cupcakes and then a shape that when arranged next to its mirror piece would form a basket. There were about 8 flower molds, probably 2 or 3 different models of flowers, and then the 2 basket shapes (pictured). This was my second basket purchase. I continued throughout the store and ended up buying Funfetti Cake mix, pink Funfetti frosting, sparkling pink lemonade, a princess crown, a princess wand (both from the "circo" children's line at Target), some great Bliss dark chocolate that has a pink foil wrapping, sprinkles, and pink nail polishes and then a pink basket. It was a great basket.

My next OOB (order of business) was to find that cellophane wrapping. I didn't find any in Target, so I headed down to the party supply store by my house. I still had a hard time finding it there on my own until I hit THE LAST AISLE in the entire store. I found this great clear wrapping with white polka dots on it that I had to have. With all my purchases, I headed back home to put my basket together. Our kitchen table became a tornado of pink metallic "grass", white paper Easter grass, pink ribbon and clear very static cling-y cellophane wrap.

Unfortunately, I didn't take any pictures of the basket itself, but thanks to a friend who enjoys taking pictures and Facebook, I got a hold of a few pictures. The top picture at the beginning of today's entry, although not the most flattering, shows the backside of the basket and you can see the great cellophane wrap! Here is the birthday girl herself in her crown and with her wand:P.S. Deb Ball Night #1 was SERIOUSLY the most fun I've had in a really long time. We had a ton of fun, stayed up too late, and I can't wait until the presentation on Tuesday! I'll keep you updated!

P.S.S. I got deferred :( but it was about 99% to be expected, the early action is a little weird for the Nursing College. That 1% was like exactly what my mom said, "Just a little part of me thought 'What if you did get it? How cool would that be?'" So, I'm fine now, moved on, and shall be hearing in a few months! Future: Wildcat, Stag, Duke, Fighting Blue Hen, Gamecock, or Tiger writing for you right now!!!!

Happy Holidays and Merry Christmas to everyone! Happy big 1-8 Maeve!

xxKatie

Pink Friday

I hope everyone had fabulous PINK FRIDAYS! I did a little shopping today, but nothing major at all! I had to make today's post about how spoiled I am, considering that I had to wear a real winter coat for the first time this season today!! I couldn't believe it, but my Denali North Face fleece wouldn't cut it.


It was super windy today so I needed some protection from that especially. I can't believe how much I've seemingly taken the weather for granted! I know once I get back to school--for all of 9 days--I'll really appreciate how nice it is! Can you get over that, I mean I go back for a week and then I take 2 exams and come home. I also just realized that I'll be home for the Army/Navy game too! It's basically a holiday in my house!

We're BIG HUGE Navy fans in my house since it's my dad's alma mater. Plus, "Go A--Y" (you know what I'm trying to say) just doesn't roll off the tongue like "GO NAVY" does!

I hope everyone had wonderful holidays and that you managed to stay safe and sound! Now onto the Christmas music and decorating!

xxKatie

P.S. EVERYONE BETTER BE CHEERING THE COCKS ONTO VICTORY TOMORROW! U-S-C GOOOOO COCKS!