Egg Nog

Love me some Egg Nog!!! So T.J. asked for a glass and I thought I'd pour myself a mug as well. I think I downed it all before he had taken his second drink! OH MY WORD. That was so great. Kind of like heaven in your mouth :) My mom is going to have Braums Egg Nog at home for us- right mom? :) We miss Braums! Why is Egg Nog so great? Is there actually raw eggs in there? Can't be right?? I'm a little clueless about the ingredients.

So FOUR DAYS until we're in O-K-L-A-H-O-M-A!!!!!!!! :) I probably won't pack until Thursday night... :) I love traveling. Anyone else enjoy going airport to airport- finding your gate, grabbing snacks- reading a nice new book? :) THAT IS ME! T.J. said he enjoys it too. I do get nervous about ACTUALLY flying though. I still don't get the math on how we stay up there... We decided we are going to have to get our Mexican fix RIGHT when we get to OK :) We are heading for Ted's for dinner around 5:30 that Friday night! :) I can't wait to see family and friends. I'm SO EXCITED. Can you tell? :)

So we went to Cooperstown, NY this past weekend. We had a great time. We went with a couple from church- Micah and Heidi. They have a PRECIOUS 3 yr old and 3 month old. It was nice to meet Micah's family and feel part of a family. We walked out in the cold a lot :) and the snow was a lot better then here in Ithaca.

Last night we had about 4 younger couples over from church and that was great as well. I feel so blessed for all the people God has already put in me and T.J.'s life out here in NY. We are not forgotten! :) We give all the glory to God.

My computer is taking forever to upload videos but I'm going to try to upload some random pics/videos that we've taken lately.

We are watching Micah and Heidi's cat named Boy :) (Frances named him) over the break and we are SO GLAD b/c since we'll be gone for 9 days Ace will have a friend to play with. Let me tell you I wish we would've had our video camera out this morning b/c we could've won a nice price on America's Funniest Home Videos. Ace and Boy are HILARIOUS together. Boy is very crazy like Ace (black too) and they literally will leap 5 ft from the recliner to the floor to tackle each other all 4 paws spread out (you'd just have to see it) Hopefully I can get some on video to show you what I mean. Needless to say they are BFF- Ace almost licked him to death earlier. :) Here is a pic of them sleeping next to each other.

Trying to take pics for the Christmas card :)

I will upload more videos later- It's just taking too long! :(

Okay fine here's one more. This is the puppy we are watching for our landlords. They bought this sweet LITTLE Yorkshire Terrier for their kids as an early Christmas present. His name is Toby.

DIRTY RICE!

Alright folks- I ABSOLUTELY love when someone gives me a recipe I fall in love with :) I have found TWO great recipes this week but one I'm especially excited about b/c it will become a staple in this house!

Tamara Wright my dear dear friend who actually took my position when I left SandRidge gave me this simple easy recipe that maybe everyone else knows about but I sure didn't! Her fiance, Darren told her about it and now it's our favorite :) I LOVE TAMARA- I talk to her almost EVERY day on gmail chat :) LOVE YOU TAM!!!!


Okay so here is the simple directions- Buy a box of Zatarain's Dirty Rice Mix- follow the direction on the back and then throw the mix in heated up white corn tortillas!!! It's that easy. The directions basically tell you to add oil and water, boil it, then add the rice and 1 lb. of beef then simmer for 25 mins. I REALLY liked it. T.J. added some sour cream and shredded cheddar cheese to his and it was really good like that on flour tortillas too but I also just like the plain ole mix with the corn tortillas. I'm sure this can't be really bad for you- especially if you use ground turkey or venison (which I'm sure we'll do)

Alright do ya'll got that? :) Make it this week and let me know what you think.

Here is another DELICIOUS recipe my friend Lindsey sent me- It's Cheeseburger soup and we really enjoyed it with bread on the side!

Aw man :( I just realized you can't copy and paste into this box! Okay well if you want the recipe email me at kellyross13@gmail.com and I will send you the recipe! :)

Enough about food :) I can't talk about it that much b/c when we get back from OK T.J. and I are going into a healthier lifestyle- we are both gaining weight and need to start the working out and eating better again! :)

ONE WEEK TILL WE'RE HOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOME :) SO EXCITED!!!!

It's super cold here but I hear OK is really cold too! It's snowing today and we got 5 inches the other day!!! :) I can't wait to start sledding and show all our videos from that, I'm sure we'll get the dogs on the sleds too! :)

Here shortly I'm going to pick up T.J. at Cornell and we're going to Cooperstown, NY with some friends from church to meet their parents. I'm excited about that! They live on 40 acres and we'll have a great time I'm sure!!

I'll add some videos later- I don't have the time to upload them now!

Love you all!

Syrup

After finally going and washing my hands b/c they smelled like syrup I can finally blog. :) Did you know I hate the smell of syrup? That means I also hate the smell of hazelnut which smells a whole lot like maple syrup. I can stand the smell if it's on my waffles/pancakes but that's it. After, I need a good hand washing, clothes changing and mouth brushing. :) Does your skin not crawl seeing a little kid with sticky syrupy hands?! Or the smell of someones breath at the office when you know they ate pancakes earlier??!?!?! T.J. and I decided on a waffle night tonight. Which really means we don't have anything else to eat. :) This just made me think of my junior year in college when I could smell maple syrup in the stairwell- I was THOROUGHLY grossed out. I couldn't STAND the smell and decided that Kendi and I would FIND THE SOURCE! :) Michelle...did you ever know that we found the smell in YOUR room?? HAHAHA, up on the 5th floor you had the burnless hazelnut candle permeating the whole dorms!!! :) I'm sorry for invading your space to find the smell. It makes me queasy just thinking about it.

WOW- anyways!!! I had decided to go ahead with my "Not me Monday" blog since it's technically almost Monday but somehow I got distracted!! T.J. is in bed which I don't know HOW considering we just woke up from a THREE HOUR NAP not many hours ago! I LOVE naps but I rarely take them b/c I just get a little scared about them messing up my night of sleep! So as he's FAST ASLEEP (which probably happened when his head hit the pillow b/c he's a weirdo) I'm doing laundry, cleaning the kitchen, emptying the litter box, starting the dishwasher and blogging. :)

Where do I start?

It couldn't have been ME that got a parking ticket the DAY AFTER getting pulled over in a school zone. NO WAY that would happen.

I surely didn't watch Twilight with the commentary on RIGHT AFTER watching the whole movie with T.J.... NOPE I would've been in bed with my husband, not wasting my time listening to Robert Pattinson and Kristin Stewart talk about themselves in the movie. :)

I didn't scream and almost have a heart attack when I found a HUGE TICK on the doggies bed. I couldn't have ran and covered it up with a candle so T.J. could deal with it when he got home.

I didn't just google "huge tick" so I could post a picture of what it looked like and then almost threw up in my mouth after seeing the pictures and grabbing a piece of paper to cover the screen as I x'ed out.... awoeijflasdjflaskdjflasdjflasdfjlasdjkf (me freaking out right now)

My mother-in-law didn't tell our landlord "now how do I know where you work again???"... I definitely didn't have to remind her in front of him that it was because she did a background check on him before we moved here. :)

That is it for now! TWELVE DAYS TILL WE'RE IN OK!!!!!!!! :)

Well this has been a different week to say the least! First I have to say goodbye to the in-laws which was NOT fun and then I got a ticket on top of that. :( So sad right?

Here is the run down of the ticket. I got a call from Tony that Mackenzie was sick at school so if possible could I run and go get her? As I'm driving to her school I see the school zone sign and slammed on my brakes (as I realized this was the 2nd school zone sign) and hoped there wasn't a cop nearby b/c the school zone was 15mph and I was going 32 in a what I thought was a 30 zone. Anyways a minute later a cop swerves behind my parked car in the parking lot and started screaming at me for my license and registration... I'm not kidding- I was like... okay he's really mad, this CAN'T be good. I then realize I THREW AWAY MY REGISTRATION thinking it was my old ins. info., really Kelly!??!?! So as he continues on I start crying. Why do you ask? I DON'T KNOW. Probably b/c the last time I got in trouble with a guy being so stern with me was when it was my dad and I was 16! I don't like getting in trouble!!! So he tells me someone stole the sign on the first speed zone sign that tells you how fast you're going but obviously that's not an excuse.... so yeah that stunk... anyways 30 minutes later when he comes back to my car I THOUGHT I had calmed down but when he started talking to me again oh I just decided to start crying again...hard. Like I COULDN'T talk. He thought I was a SR in HS and I couldn't even talk to tell him what my situation was! :) So embarrassing. SOOOOO I'm SCARED TO DEATH how expensive this 17 over ticket will be (in a school zone). I'm going to go talk with the DA next week and hopefully get it reduced- say a prayer for me! I really don't want to start crying again! I take FULL BLAME for the ticket- don't get me wrong, it just stinks b/c these are the lessons you have to learn- I learned, I now am a paranoid driver and try to pay attention to everything!!!

On a totally different note! :) I took the doggies to the vet today to get their kennel shot so we can take them to the "Lucky Dog Inn and Cat Spa" while we're gone over Christmas. :) Little recap of how it went... They did great of course at first and everyone loved them. Then when we got out of the room (keep in mind I'm holding them by myself one in each hand) there was a huge black lab. I knew what was coming... the dogs LITTTTEERRALLLLLLYYY dragged me across the lobby. I was wearing my Uggs and they were just slliiiiddding and I'm bracing myself backwards saying "nooooooooooooo" as my hands are getting rope burns b/c they aren't actual leeshes they are ropes. :) Fun fun fun. I ended up putting them in the car b/c I couldn't handle them by myself anymore. That is more then 100 lbs of pure muscle and they will take you wherever they want to go! Here is a video of them when I got done paying... keep in mind they are only allowed in the back of the car. And yes I let them stay like this all the way home. :)

We've had fun this week dressing up the dogs in Christmas attire :) I don't want to show too much but I want the Christmas card to be a surprise but here is Ace after I put his sweater on him. He was NOOOOOOT a happy camper!!! :)

I'm going to start sending out Christmas cards tomorrow so if you haven't given me your address please do so! :) I promise I'm keeping everyone's addresses this time so I don't have to keep asking you for it! :)

Tonight T.J. and I are going to go see NEW MOON!!!!! :) We're SOOO EXCITED. I've been wanting to see it since... oh- since I saw Twilight! :)

Love you all!

Thanksgiving

I am thankful for so many things! Don't worry I'm not going to list them all out, but I am SO THANKFUL. Mike reminded me that we are very RICH no matter WHAT your financial status is! :)

So... the in-laws are now gone. :( This means a sad empty house! I just keep telling myself "2 WEEKS FROM FRIDAY!" B/c I know before we know it we'll be there in OK having the best time.

I won't bore you with a play by play of the weekend but I'll try to give you the overall picture. We ate out at 3 GREAT restaurants, went to a couple falls, went to the farmer's market, wegmans ;), had THANKSGIVING, decorated the tree, and also watched a couple movies. The best movie of them all would have to be BLINDSIDE. I think I liked it the most out of everyone but WOW what a great movie. We did watch Elf too which is a fave!

So funny story... Ace has been very active with killing all the little predators around our house for the past month of so. Mike realized this as he was putting his shoe on and saw a headless mouse next to his feet and it scared him. WELL- as we're leaving to go to a waterfall I'm upstairs and can hear everyone SCREAMING/LAUGHING downstairs.. so I run down to the garage and Troy had put his whole foot in his boot and realized it just didn't fit right- there had to be an old sock in it or something. He then preceded to put his hand in his boot and wrap his hand around something furry. :) Ace decided he'd leave his headless mouse in Troy's boot this time. Troy was NOT HAPPY but really Ace was just trying to be sweet! ;) It was so funny, I don't even WANT to know what would've happened if that would've been me or Debbie's shoe!!!

Mike was very happy b/c we were able to watch the OU/OSU game here on Saturday. But Mike what I don't think you realized is now that we pay however much a month for that channel that we NOW get, 4-5 other hunting channels are available now too that T.J. has already set up to be DVR'ed! Oh geez...he is in there right now watching it as I type... this can't be good!

Troy wouldn't really "wake up" until about 10pm every night. Without fail Troy never got his "second wind" until about 10pm... when everyone else wanted to sleep :) FYI do not wake Troy up unless you want to be on his bad list for the majority of the day! ;) Me and Troy had fun playing "Words with Friends", I have to admit he did smoke me a couple times but I did in fact smoke him a couple times as well! :) We both have a love for word games!

Thanksgiving dinner was great! Debbie made some delicious food! We literally PIGGED OUT. I think Troy's plate was 1/2 a foot high :) I can't wait for next years already. Tonight I am going to try and make THIS- I'll let you know how it turns out!

We took some family pictures and even though the boys were not THAT happy about it we did end up with some good ones! It was fun showing everyone around where we live!

All in all it was great... now starts the countdown of when we go home to OK! :)

Lazy Sundays

Who doesn't love Sunday? Even with going to church you get to sleep a little later then usual, then you get to worship our AMAZING GOD, then yummy lunch with just a relaxing afternoon!!! (usually) T.J. is asleep on the couch as I type. Don't worry I have nothing important to blog about but after reading my friend Sara's blog I got the urge.

3 official days until the in-laws are here- WHOOOPEEEE. Let me just tell you THAT I LOVE MY IN-LAWS. I feel so blessed. I know there's always the "mother-in-law" stereotype but let me just tell you the Lord couldn't have blessed me with a better 2nd family. My in-laws make me a better person!! Thank you Lord! :) T.J. and I are SO EXCITED about them coming. It's supposed to be really cold and rainy but I know we'll make the best of it! We will be crammed in my 4 passenger car but that's okay! :)

OH! I almost forgot! T.J. got a buck yesterday! He was a little nervous he wasn't going to get any meat this year but he got one! :) He's already processed some of it and we had yummy fried venison the day he got the buck. It's a nice 6 point. (See picture below) Now our freezer will be filled with venison and that makes us very happy! I'm attaching another picture of T.J. and his friend Brian when they went duck hunting. Unfortunately I DON'T like duck meat! Oh well- T.J. can eat it by himself.

Alright well I need to start on dinner- I read this blog and the beef enchiladas look DELISH so I'm going to try this tonight.

Here is a sweet picture of Mackenzie (the girl I watch) and our kitty Ace, she LOVES our cat :)

Next Wednesday!!!!!!!!!

Just a pretty picture I took on the way to the family I babysit for- they live on a farm.

I'm SO EXCITED less than a week and Mike, Debbie and Troy will be here!!! :) I have lots of cleaning and shopping to do! :) Words can't describe how excited me and T.J. get when family comes to see us (yes it's only happened once so far but still)!!!

Supposedly it's supposed to rain the whole time they're here :( but we'll have fun anyways!!! Debbie sent me a list of things to get for our Thanksgiving meal- she is SO ORGANIZED- LOVE IT!

So I never blogged about the women's retreat I went on a couple weekends ago. Let me just tell you- it was AMAZING. I met some other girls my age and some other women that have the sweetest hearts and I can't wait to get to know everyone even better! I love hanging out with women of all ages and so this was an amazing opportunity I'm glad I participated in! The women that spoke talked a lot about the body of Christ. I truly am feeling the Lord's body lately! It is just amazing how you can be so lonely and then when you're with a group of believers you feel Christ all around you. We can't take this for granted! We had time with small groups too which was great and then a time of "sharing" the last day. I was wondering why the women were passing around tissues before the talk and I realized really fast why! Sob session!!! :) It was great though. Sometimes we feel like we're the only ones going through hard times and then all it takes is for another person to open their mouth and you realize you're not alone. Everyone has struggles and we need the Lord and each other to build each other up! So in a nutshell?! AWESOME! :) The Lord definitely wanted me there.

That is all I have for now- I will leave you with some "Not me Monday moments" that I haven't shared in awhile ;)

It wasn't me that turned the hot water on to defrost some chicken and forgot about it. I definitely didn't hear a weird noise that was coming from the kitchen to find water POURING out from the sink all onto the floor :) whoopsies!

I absolutely don't try the baby food when I feed the little twins :) That would be WEIRD. Who wants to know what baby food tastes like!?

After sharing french fries with my husband on our "night out" and wondering why the fries tasted so funny I definitely didn't realize my husband had poured SUGAR all over the fries instead of salt :) NOPE he definitely knows that the HUGE container with the HUGE hole is for sugar- not salt!

I didn't cry when Taylor Swift won entertainer of ther year... nope.... not me.........

My cat isn't killing MOLES and leaving them outside the door- EWWWWW

I'm also still not convincing Mackenzie the 7 year old I watch to braid my hair b/c no one ever plays with my hair anymore. :) Oh well!!!!!!!!!!!

Love to you all!

Kelly