My Most Favorite Time of the Year!!!

Its here! Its here!! The Holidays are here!!!! If you know me, you know that I absolutely love Christmas and everything associated with it!  Now before you all jump down my back because I'm skipping Thanksgiving.  I consider Thanksgiving to be lumped right in there.  Nothing beats a day with family, good food and thankfulness.  I find it so appropriate that we enter the Christmas season with a day to be reminded of how thankful we should be for everything that God has given us, especially the greatest gift He has ever given us! An eternal life with Him!!

This past weekend, Geoff and I decided to take a trip back to the Ozarks to get our fix of Lamberts and Christmas at Silver Dollar City!!! And it made our trip even more special because both of our parents went with us!  So we had full tummies of yummy hot rolls and chicken friend steak and pass arounds and our hearts were full of joy from Silver Dollar City!  And good news: the highway to St. Joe is back open from all of the flooding this summer so now it only takes 5 1/2 hours to get home instead of 7! YAY!!

So after our festive weekend we decided it was time to deck our halls!  It was fun to pull out all of my Christmas decorations since I didn't get to last year. (I was moving back home from Pittsburg to student teach) Although, sadly a few of my music boxes are still in my parents garage, but I don't think there would be room.  Our little place is pretty festive!  And Geoff has big plans for our porch, that is this weekends project.  Lets just pray that Michigan beats Nebraska, otherwise I will have one grumpy husband for quite a while!

Us at Silver Dollar City!!!

My Christmas Decorater Helper

Our Tree!!

All ready for the Holidays!!!

Updates and Cooking

Hello bloggersphere readers!  I haven't updated in a while so I thought I would inform you of whats been happening around the Karhoff casa.  After a somewhat disappointing Halloween (refer to last blog post), we got to look forward to my parent's visiting the following weekend!! So our week was spent preparing the little abode to be ready for visitors.  Friday FINALLY came and my parents were here!! We really enjoyed just spending time with them, showing off Lincoln and cooking yummy food!!  We didn't do anything major, and I don't even have pictures to post of the weekend (Gasp!)

I've also kinda of gotten into cooking lately.  Maybe I'm becoming more confident in this wifey skill but I really am kinda proud of a few of my creations.  So I thought I would share my little tiny tid bit of success in the kitchen. 

1. Chili
I'm pretty proud of my chili.  Granted, chili isn't something that is too hard to mess up, but your talking to the girl who made the most disgusting batch of mashed taters in the first few weeks of cooking.  It all started on the first cold day, Geoff and I were freezing and decided to make chili.  It turned into throwing in a bit of this and a bit of that and voula, CHILI! I made a pot while my parents were here, and they were pretty impressed. 

2. Baked Potato Bacon Soup
This was a recipe that I added to from a cookbook I got at non other than Silver Dollar City! Its super simple and sooo tasty.  It reminds me of the baked potato soup from Chili's.  Here's the recipe:
1 can cream of potato
1 can cheddar cheese soup
2 cups milk
salt and pepper
2 cans of diced potatoes or peeled and cut up baking potatos
4-5 strips of bacon fried up and crumbled up into the soup

Throw all of the ingredients in a pot and bring to a boil, then simmer until the soup thickens.  I add in bacon once the soup is simmering. 
It is sooo yummy and good that we have had it twice in the past two weeks.  I think you could even crock pot it but I haven't tried yet. 

3. Calzones
Tonight I made homemade calzones that turnded out way better than I thought.  I'm still perfecting it, but I think it might be a new favorite.  I found this really awesome dough recipe from my new favorite blog, The Small Things blog. 

You should really check The Small Things blog out.  She is awesome with hair, makes cute jewelry and crafty things, attempts to cook like I do, and loves the Lord.  I'm pretty sure she is supposed to be my best friend.  Lol.  Here is the link: The Small Things Blog

Well thats all for now.  Our tummies are full of yummy calzones and we are watching Jericho, a show we have recently become addicted to on Netflix.  Until next time...

Fall Festivities

Happy Fall!!! Today was the first official snow of the year!!! WAAAHOOO!!! It really got me in the holiday mood.  So much so that I played Christmas music on my way home from work! But before I get into my Christmas/Thanksgiving holiday mode, I'll catch you up on our Halloween. 



We started out by visiting the pumpkin patch near our house.  We got to take Roscoe with us and he loved it!! They had a small petting zoo, corn maze, hay ride (or as they call it in these parts a hayrack ride, I don't get it) and you got to pick your pumpkin straight from the patch!  Roscoe was really intrigued by the donkey and the donkey wasn't so sure of Roscoe.  All in all, it was a fun afternoon.  

Then this past weekend we carved our pumpkins!! Geoff hates the nasty insides of the pumpkin, so it was funny to watch him squirm.  Fun fact for ya: this was the first time in all our years together that we were able to carve pumpkins together!

On Halloween, I had to work, with kids...ugh.  It was a long day, but when I came home I got everything ready for trick or treaters.  We even had an extra "spooky" dinner! 

Even our Gnome dressed up for Halloween! 

"Spooky" Rigatoni...Geoff is never going to let me live this down. 

Unfortunately we did not have a single trick or treater all night.  Oh well more candy for us!