Grott Framily Christmas 2012!

this year for christmas craig and i packed up our presents and spent the holiday with our good friends, the otts.

meet dan and emily:

we enjoy their company quite a lot. we've known them as long as we've known each other, and since we moved back from the eastside, we also attend the community group that they host. we all enjoy good food, games, and spontaneous trips to get frozen yogurt...especially together.

moving on.

we kicked off our grott framily christmas celebration on christmas eve by eating dinner at a chinese restaurant called moon palace, and ended up with WAY more food than we could possibly finish (we ordered family style). we were skeptical at first, but it actually ended up being pretty tasty.

apart from having to wait 15 minutes for our check, we left stuffed and happy.

from there we headed home to watch christmas movies, drink egg nog (homemade of course), play games, and make christmas cookies.

(yes, you do see dinosaurs, squirrels, circles, and maple leaves. working with what we had!)

i saw the movie the christmas story for the first time (an annual tradition for everyone else), and then i taught them all how to play nertz. we stayed up until midnight, opened one gift apiece, and then headed to bed.

the next morning craig and i were up before the otts, so we made coffee and sat and read the story of the birth of Jesus. it was my favorite part of the day, quiet, still, true, caffeinated, and with my love.

then the party really got started with some maple glazed cinnamon rolls (pioneer woman recipe, new favorite) and breakfast burritos.

we opened presents...

(craig and i got each other the same kind of socks!!)

...and talked to friends and family across the states!

the otts even spoiled and surprised us by making us our very own stockings, stuffing them, and hanging them overnight, santa-style!!

the rest of the afternoon was spent playing games, watching movies, and relaxing before dinner prep began.

(twins in their gray sweatshirts, black sweatpants, red beanies, new slippers, and irish coffee mugs)

our friend corey joined us as well, and together we feasted on a dinner of bacon wrapped pork tenderloin with roasted veggies, roasted yams with apples, mashed cauliflower, cornbread stuffing, and sourdough bread.

we topped it off with some sea salted dulce de leche cheesecake, and then rolled ourselves back to the kitchen to do dishes.

all in all, it was a christmas filled with good company, both in person and via technology, delicious food, and the truth of a good and gracious Savior. what a lovely way to celebrate!

oh,and treats. lots and lots of treats....

(yikes!)

love,
tracey

Decorations and soup.

Apparently my lunch break is one of my few opportunities to blog these days...I'll take it!

We decorated for Christmas! Went out and got a little tree (next year we hope to go to the woods and chop one down, but for now, we went the parking lot route and bought one at Safeway) and collected some other greens from the yard. I repurposed some of our hundreds of extra wedding invites (I KNEW I saved them for SOME reason...) into decorations, tied a ribbon bow on top, and that was that!

In other news, our phones woke us up this morning at 5am with a blizzard warning. To all of you who might be concerned, I'm glad to say that it's clear and...sunny?...outside right now. No lie though, when my phone alerted me to the "hazardous conditions" I was ever so slightly hopeful that it might actually snow. Not yet, but I have my fingers crossed.

Also, I made the most delicious butternut squash soup last night. The recipe in a nutshell: 2/3 cup peeled and chopped apple (like honeycrisp) and 1/3 cup minced onion sauteed up for 5-10 minutes in a pot until caramelized. Add in 2-3 cups of roasted butternut squash chunks, 1 cup of chicken broth, and salt/pepper/sage/thyme/garlic/dash of cayenne to taste. Boil for a few minutes, puree up with an immersion blender (early Christmas present!), and thin out with milk (I used about 2 cups). We each had a hearty bowl and there was about a cup leftover. Perfect on a blustery wet evening like last night!

Until next time,
Tracey

home.

things are finally coming together! a couple of weekends ago craig and i spent an entire day just working on house projects. i finally put away the stacks of all my work papers and books, and craig made a mason jar planter for the wall (which i'll be using for candy canes, candles, and twine to decorate for christmas).

we also repurposed a huge old frame to hang some wedding photos with clothespins, and filled it and some other wooden frames with wedding and honeymoon photos.

we need to get photos of other people so every frame doesn't have a picture of us in it.

i'll try to do a post to give a little tour of our home...soon.

this past friday we had our good friends, the reeds, over for dinner- officially our first guests at our new place!

(ransom is flying, not being squished. just fyi.)

i cooked up some coconut lime chicken with sweet potato fries and zucchini tots, and as is our tradition, we ended up making some chocolate chip cookies on a whim. (really, a great recipe! some of the better chocolate chip cookies i've had.)

nevermind the fact that it took us all weekend to finish doing the dishes :) our new house lacks a dishwasher...but craig probably does more of them than i do!

this weekend we also FINALLY went shopping for some bedding! success. with all our macy's giftcards from the wedding we got a white quilt, matching shams, and a bedskirt. still on the scout for some sheets.

and with all that, home is starting to feel a bit more like home! now that most of the essentials in place, hopefully i can decorate some for christmas, especially since the month of working weekends is now over. (thank goodness.) we might even get a little tree and put a few lights up!

i'm excited for this advent season. this past saturday we got together with several friends to talk about how Jesus is the embodiment of the hope that we have. we spent time reading some scripture that talks about hope, and how it is tangibly applicable to us. what was most impactful to me is the fact that knowing truth brings hope, and hope allows us to be bold, because it is grounded in something eternal.

with this new season we started a new series at church, meaning that the previous sunday was the end of the esther series, the book that we've been working through for the past few months. the series closed in a way that definitely challenged me. the book of esther ends with the people of God celebrating their deliverance from what was to be a seemingly unavoidable slaughter. they were able to defend themselves and were victorious, but then returned to the life that they had, life under a terrible king who, on top of that, raised their taxes. what our pastor pointed out is that they after their victory they still had plenty of reasons to despair, but they chose to celebrate. all too often i choose to despair over the little things that aren't perfect rather than celebrate the grace that i have in Jesus. i get caught up in how i wish things were rather than celebrating the blessings that are very present in my life.

so with the coming season of advent, i want to CELEBRATE. celebrate the fact that Jesus has come, and that he is coming again someday. celebrate the fact that he has redeemed me and given me purpose, joy, and hope. celebrate the fact that he has blessed me with a husband who knows and seeks Him, and who loves me second only to God. celebrate the fact that even in difficult times God is purposeful to refine us and allow us to know him more.

love,
tracey