Sugar and spice and everything nice

Growing up, my mom did a ton of baking for the holidays. She would start in October, filling our basement freezer with mincemeat tarts, shortbread, Nanaimo bars, cookies and more. Unfortunately for her, my sweet tooth knew no bounds and I would routinely dip into the frozen supplies, depleting her stash and occasionally leaving her a little short when company arrived. To this day I have a soft spot for frozen baked goods.

Today, with the Husband up north, the house to myself and the holiday spirit humming within me, I took a page from my mom's book and baked up a storm. I baked enough that my cat, hungry for some attention, took it upon herself to pull a soup bowl off the ottoman, breaking it.

I baked enough to make quite a mess. Here's a shot I snapped when I was already half way through the clean up!



I made my mom's famous Nanimo bars. (I haven't perfected how to make them pretty yet. But they taste fantastic!) I confess that the Husband and I made these two years ago, and when the chocolate on top refused to cut nicely without breaking, we deemed them not worthy for presentation and ate the WHOLE PAN ourselves.



Chocolate chip butterscotch bars. This was a new recipe and they turned out pretty damn delicious, if I do say so myself.



And my first go at shortbread. I don't think I'll use this recipe again, but they have Toblerone pieces in the, so how bad can they be?



Next week, with my lovely Husband, it will be time for sugar cookies and gingerbread! We got some awesome cookie cutters as part of a very generous wedding gift and we can't wait to use them.

Oh! And don't fear for our figures! We have a few holiday events to attend, so all of this is being baked so we can spread it around. After all, that tropical honeymoon is fast approaching...

It's a good thing needles don't bother me!

Warning! If you have very strong feelings AGAINST vaccinations, just do yourself a favour and don't read this post. Seriously, Jenny McCarthy and company - just look away!

Okay. Welcome to the rest of you!

I am in the process of becoming a human pincushion.

It all started with my first trip to see my new doctor, who is clearly very pro-vaccine. In our delightfully thorough first meeting, she asked all sorts of questions that my last doctor never even touched on. (He also made me cry once, but that's another story.) The topic of chicken pox came up and I was all, "Ya, I'm pretty certain I never had that." And she was all, "Well, for some people it's just one pock and they don't even notice. Let's take some blood and find out if you're immune." The blood test was very clear - I have never, ever, ever had chicken pox. And not only is it bad to get as an adult, it's REALLY bad to get if you're pregnant. So I made an appointment and got a needle in each arm. One side for chicken pox and the other for measles, mumps and rubella. (Also things I never had.) On the way out I am prompted to make an appointment for early in the new year because I need a booster to complement the first shots. Sigh.

While I had an audience with my doctor, we had the whole H1N1 discussion. I had debated with various people about whether or not to get the shot. I didn't have a strong feeling either way, to be honest. I also have a pretty wicked immune system, if I do say so myself. (And I maintain that it's because I'm not fanatic about germs and stuff. Germs happen. I avoid eating spoonfuls of dirt, but other than that I don't stress too much.) But the doctor sort of talked me into it, so I'm headed in next week to get both the regular and the H1N1. More holes in my arms.

THEN the Husband asked me if I thought we needed any shots for our upcoming honeymoon (42 DAYS!) and so I asked my doctor's office about that. They said I should get the Twin RX vaccine for Hep A and B. It involves two shots fairly close together AND a booster. Holy crap!

So, if you see me out and about and I have a slight glow about me, it's just because I'm slowly, but surely, becoming bionic with the help of modern medicine.

Gotta love a love story...

I will totally see this movie. Not only for the romcom-ness of it, but for the scenery!



Ah, Italy! You were so good to me.

Nesting

Can we talk about how much I love this apartment in Brisbane, Australia?





Perhaps it's time to buy a lottery ticket and use up all my wishes for the rest of my life. Click here to check out the rest of the photos of this fantastic place - including a tiled bathroom that makes me swoon - and you'll be directed to my favourite site for porn. Decor porn, that is! (Come on, my Dad reads this blog!)

Quite the learning experience

I think this is so cool:



I mean, this woman is not only an awesome mom, but a brave one to travel around the world for a year with four children. In some ways, this is how I grew up. Not that we lived out of backpacks with only five outfits (the horror!), but that I got to travel to all sorts of different countries and experience how big the world is firsthand.

This, however, never happened to me:



Seriously awesome. Check out their website for more about this crazy adventure.

The WEdding - Part Eight

Here ends the wedding posts...for now. Just over two weeks later, I'm still immensely happy with the whole event and wouldn't change a thing about the day. I'm also happy to report that I didn't experience any major letdown post-event. Nope. Still feeling good. Loving being married to my wonderful husband. And excited about the future. Here's hoping that we can sustain the feeling in these two pics for many, many years to come:

The Wedding - Part Seven

I'm back after a little sojourn up north for my new mother-in-law's 80th birthday. (Guys, I have a mother-in-law. How strange is that!?) My wonderful Husband and new sister-in-law (!!) absolutely outdid themselves with thoughtful gifts and a small surprise party lunch, which went over beautifully. It was a very fun weekend.

But back to the subject at hand! I am nearing the end of the wedding posts, if only to give you all a breather before we get our professional photos back, because then I will definitely be inundating you all again.

Anyway, here's a post about the little details. I had a couple of past brides warn me not to spend too much time on the small details, because they found that they went unnoticed by the majority of the guests. I guess their sage advice went in one ear and out the other, because I did worry about the details. Although I enjoyed worrying about them!

The first project at hand was our escort card board:



The Husband found the frame at a flea market this summer for $5 when we were up north being hosted at a friend's gorgeous cottage. Then we chose the fabric and ribbon and I enlisted my very crafty friend to help me turn it all into something useful and pretty. I love the way it turned out! (It looked even better when it was full of the escort cards.)

Next up, the centrepieces:



As much as the Husband and I both LOVE flowers, I wanted to do something a little different on the tables. You see, part of my goal at the wedding was to make sure the guests didn't feel like wallpaper. Since it was a relatively small wedding, I really wanted everyone to feel like they were there for a reason! Because they are a part of our lives. So I found these photo holders (and I got a GREAT deal on them) and then went through the process of finding (and copying) photos of all of our guests to fill them. So each table had pictures of the guests sitting at that table - old pics, new pics, all kinds! I have to say, these took FOREVER to put together. I questioned my sanity repeatedly, but I'm really glad with how they turned out.

Next, our ring box:



Back in the late summer, I started to think about what I wanted for the rings. I was positive that a lacy little pillow was not the way to go, so I turned to my favourite place for crafty inspiration: Etsy! Lo and behold, I saw some nice little bark boxes. So I sent an email to my friend with the cottage I mentioned earlier (She was also the MC at the wedding!), asking her what she thought and did she think we could make one. Now, she comes from a very artsy, crafty (FANTASTIC) family, so her reply was just, "I'm on it!" In fact, her beautiful mom painstakingly made us a box from birch bark that she collected around their cottage. Apparently it took a couple of tries and many hours of effort! Also, to pay homage to the Husband and his love of comic books, she lined the box in Spiderman comics. It's so lovely.
Our talented floral designer friend put the finishing touches in of the moss, leaves and ribbons. It was perfect and suited the wedding perfectly!

And finally, quiz and favours:



In order to encourage people to interact with guests that they perhaps hadn't met or didn't know well, we concocted a quiz all about the Husband and I. It was inadvertently very hard (and several people got incredibly...creative with their answers), but there was a prize! And one of my college friends won!

The favours, hidden inside those little paper bags, were my homemade chocolate chip cookies. I'm a wee bit famous for them and they went over very well. While I baked them well in advance and stashed them in the freezer for awhile (all 12 dozen of them), my mom and I spent an afternoon wrapping them in plastic wrap, putting them in the bags and then threading the twine through and tying on a little ticket. It seemed like it was going to be an awful, tedious job, but four hand made fast work of it! Thanks Mom!!

And in case you're wondering what those little tickets say: