2008 Christmas Highlights

Christmas Eve at the Stahl's...

Kendra & Tim putting together the traditional Christmas puzzle.

Late-night cookie frosting with Becky & Kendra.

The whole fam together (note my brother in the background - home for Christmas!)

Day After Christmas at the Bontragers...

A little game of Skip-Bo.

And the hot item of the day... a toy microphone.
Here we have a little stand-up comedy by Taylor... and an 80's acoustic set by Tim.

And now, HAPPY NEW YEAR 2009!

COLTS (Guest Post by Tim)

This blog has become quite girly, so I thought I'd toss in a little something of my own. Last Sunday, Dec 14, five cohorts and myself were lucky enough to earn some Colts tickets to the game against Detriot.

Sure, it was the 0-12 Lions, but it was THE COLTS and a brand new stadium, which by the way was an unbelievable sight. Gargantuan. And we were only 13 rows from the field.


We had a good time and even got to see my sister, Mandy as we were leaving. She works at all the home games.

Anyway, after the game we went to St. Elmo's Steakhouse for supper, which was just a few blocks away from the stadium. About halfways through the meal the star of the game we had just watched sat down at a table right beside us. Dallas Clark. Quite honestly, he could be my twin (if I was 6'3", 250 lbs., and pure muscle). Such is life...

Recipe to Share

I love new recipes and can often be found "reading" cookbooks for fun (I know, weird). But as long as a recipe is easy and sounds good, I'm gonna try it.

Recently I was flipping through a cookbook a friend had given my mom and found one of the simplest recipes I've ever seen. So I had to try it (especially when I saw 2 of the 3 ingredients were peanut butter and chocolate!) Who knows, maybe this is an old recipe and tons of people have it, but I thought it was too good - and too easy - not to share.

Dipped Cookies

Ritz Crackers
Peanut Butter
Almond bark – white or chocolate (or, I just used a bag of mixed peanut butter & chocolate chips)

Spread peanut butter on Ritz cracker. Top with second cracker. Dip cracker sandwich into melted chocolate. Put on waxed paper to set. Enjoy!

As you can see, two "magically disappeared" before I could take the picture...

Hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving! Tim and I spent the day in Ohio at my parents' and then had lunch with his mom and dad on our way back through Middlebury. It's over an hour between the two places, so we try to switch every other year.

So now that Thanskgiving is officially over, I decided it was OK to put up our "real" Christmas tree. So on the evening of December 1 exactly, Tim and I headed out looking for a tree.

We knew a local fire station was selling them as a fundraiser, so we decide that would be our place this year. Unfortunately... it had been snowing the entire day so all the trees were covered and we couldn't tell how they looked at all. Oh well, we've had some pretty unfortunate looking trees over the years, so we weren't too discouraged. All in all, I think she turned out pretty nice (and smells wonderful - which is the best part).