Happy Holidays from our crib to yours!

We started decorating last night and finished most of it today. The trees are up, decorations are out and the baking was in full swing today. I made pumpkin cheesecake muffins and the first batch of what has become my signature holiday sweet, nutty chocolate toffee crisps. Lots more batches to do.

We did a little rearranging in Cady's room today, and in the midst of that, we decided to play around with her and some lights. We love the way it turned out. She's wearing our favorite PJs too. You may remember them from this post. We loved them so much that we found them in a bigger size and bought them. Lucky us, they were on clearance!

Thankscamping Weekend

We spent Thanksgiving weekend camping with our neighbors at Silverwood Lake in the San Bernardino National Forest. We are thankful to have such good friends in our neighbors, especially when we can't be with our families. We are lucky in so many ways, and have so much to be thankful for. We're so glad Cady's first Thanksgiving was something fun and memorable, maybe we'll make it a tradition!

We hope you enjoyed your Thanksgiving, with friends and family! Here's a few shots of our weekend. Clockwise from top left: 1. The Thanksgiving table with campfire cooked ham and turkey, fried turkey, stuffing, yams, potatoes and gravy, broccoli casserole, corn casserole, salad, green bean casserole, rolls (with homemade herbed butter with herbs from our back yard), pumpkin and pecan pie. 2. Dan with a sleeping Cady at the table. 3. Claire and Chico overlooking the lake. 4. Half of our group on a hike: Maddie, Lisa, Claire, Rod, Garrett, Jack, Mike, Connor, Danny, Kevin and Denise. 5. On the hike.

The Holiday Baking Begins

When Dan and I worked in Sharonville, I organized a "baked goods" silent auction to benefit the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society. It was a fun twist on a traditional bake sale. People donated a baked good and the bidding started at $1.00. One of the donations was a lemon pound cake from our co-worker Kellie who worked with me on the conversion in Greensboro, NC. Kellie's cake went for something like $35. I couldn't imagine what made so many people bid on it, and what made it go for that much money (I mean, isn't a cake just flour and sugar?). Well, after having had some of the cake when the generous winner shared it, I understood.

I have asked Kellie for the recipe at least five times, and have always misplaced it, or deleted the e-mail she sent. She sent it again when I was on bedrest and I finally wrote it down for my little vintage recipe box. I made it for our neighbor Dave's birthday, which we'll celebrate on Friday.

Here's the recipe, it's super easy and sure to be a crowd pleaser. The outside gets nice and crusty and the inside is dense and delicious. It's excellent. Thank you Kellie!

3 cups of sugar
3 sticks of butter (I know, I know...Paula Dean would be proud)
cream the butter and sugar together for 2-3 minutes
add in 3 cups of flour gradually, mix well
add in 5 eggs, one at a time, and mix well
fold in 3/4 cup of lemon-lime soda and 2 tablespoons of lemon extract
pour the batter into a greased bundt pan and bake at 325 degrees for 1.25 hours
let the cake cool, then flip it upside down, get it out of the bundt and let it cool
taste it, and tell me how good it is

We're back!

It was a busy vacation, but so much fun! After leaving Cincinnati, we headed down south. We spent the weekend with my best college friends. Since college, our original group of four has expanded to include three husbands and eight kids! The weekend was great, we stayed in Fort Morgan. We did a lot of eating, watched Alabama football and played at the beach with the kids. Here's our whole crew.

After the weekend, we went to my parents' house. Unfortunately, Mom was just getting over a cold, Cady and I picked one up in Cincinnati, and Pop had it too. We kept it pretty low-key, since we'd been running around almost non-stop since we left LA and since most of us were sick. We did do a big family dinner on Friday before we left.

Cady's Cincinnati Debut

Our trip started with a redeye flight from LAX to CVG, where we sat behind LA's mayor, Antonio Villaraigosa. When we arrived early yesterday morning, we took the shuttle to pick up the car, and we realized we left a laptop on the plane. Luckily it wasn't a turnaround flight, so we went back and got it. It was 32 degrees when we got in the car. By far, the coldest weather Cady's seen to date.

After a quick nap for all of us, Cady went to her first Gamma Phi Beta event, a Founder's Day luncheon. It was nice catching up with these ladies!

Then, we went to Mike and Stephanie's house where Cady met her cousins. She didn't cry the whole time, but she was pretty crabby after a short night's sleep on the plane and very little nap time during the day. From left to right in the back: Josh, Zack holding Cady, and Jake. In the front: Kelly, Jessica (Josh's wife) holding Maura, Alana, and Kelsey. She also met the majority of Dan's mom's side of the family. Yes, that's a whole lot of people. Needless to say, Cady slept very well last night.
Look at this adorable cake! Thank you Stephanie, we loved it! Today, Cady is six months old! We took a few pictures from Mt. Echo Park, with quite possibly the best view of Cincinnati.
We went to another family gathering late this afternoon. This time, Dan's dad's side of the family, also a whole bunch of people. They get together this time of year to celebrate Thanksgiving so that everyone can do their own thing for the actual holiday. Cady was really good, and her cousins were really helpful. They pushed her around in her stroller and did what they could to entertain her and keep her happy.

There will be two recipes to follow...once we get them from Kelsey and Stephanie. One is a spicy chicken dip and one is a Halloween candy leftover cake.

We have our first tooth!

Look what we found this morning!

Happy Halloween!

Whoops, it's been over a month since I posted something on our blog. Terrible! Anyway, we were pirates for Halloween, and Cady was our parrot. She makes such a cute little parrot, don't you think?

In other news this week, Cady started eating baby food! She had her check up on Friday and weighs in at 17 pounds and 27 inches. She seemed to be way more into the spoon than the food. We'll see how it all goes. Maybe we'll try sweet potatoes next, and then some avocados from our tree!