Christmas with my father & grandmother.

My dad goes to Iowa some years for Christmas since my stepmother's family all live there & this year is one of those years. We ended up having Christmas at my grammy's house over the weekend. Look at her cute little drink buffet: [Yes, the ice bowl has a BAG in it... hahahaha]


I loved her place settings!



She made breakfast casserole [omg my fave!], veggies, hash browns, & fruit salad. Everything was awesome.


And she purchased a danish ring from Panera. I had to grab the cream cheese one, naturally. Mmmmm.


There was one too few chairs at the table [she lives in a tiny assisted living apartment] so my brother Colton got outcast to the mini chair. Let me just say that he's about 6'2" and looked absolutely ridiculous in his little chair... so of course I had to take a picture. Hahahahhahahaha.


After we were all STUFFED like crazy, she brought out a plate of cookies: half purchased, half homemade. The homemade ones were my favorite, of course. I love my grammy's baking. She gave Ash a box of homemade TOFFEE for Christmas. I was jealous. I love homemade toffee. That's one of those things in life that I'm not sure I really care that it's bad for you... it's just so gooooood.


My stepmother bought me an adorable set from Kohl's & this was my fave piece:



I also have matching mini bowls & coffee mugs. I love the size of the bowls, too. They're perfect for serving portioned snacks/meals. Can't waitttt to use them. I also got a lot of cash $$$$ & a sweater. I ended up buying an HP Photosmart C4750 printer from Costco with the money. I didn't have a printer! Isn't that nuts?! Now I do and I can't wait to print out 2482948294892849 coupons & be like the little old ladies in the grocery stores.

Merry Early Christmas and Happy Holidays! =]

Our anniversary dinner. Mmmmm.

Even though I didn't get picked for the Foodbuzz 24, 24, 24 for December 19th, I still carried out my plans. Our anniversary happened to fall on the same day of that contest... We went to The Melting Pot for some fondue. Ashley loves cheese like no other & I knew she'd love it. Since she said she had never tried fondue, it was settled right then - we were going. I made reservations for right after our massage appointments.

I've been before, but not to this certain location, which is fairly new. It's GORGEOUS. Our table was SO private. The lighting was just right and I loved everything about it. I can't wait to go back again.



Our beer-cheese appetizer fondue with apples, bread chunks, and raw veggies:


Um, THE BEST caesar salad EVER. I seriously want about 20 lbs of this salad. It was uhhhhhh-mazing.


Yeah, so I kinda got so wrapped up in the meal that I forgot to take pictures until only this was left of my meat: [filet mignon, shrimp, & chicken] We got the Mojo seasoned cooking pot.


Mmmm Mojo.


Sauces: obv you can tell which ones we loved. The one on the bottom left is ginger plum sauce and it was freaking amazing on the chicken. By far my favorite thing of the night.



For dessert, I didn't get Gina's Tweeted suggestion of chocolate + Bailey's before we ordered, so we ordered the Yin & Yang chocolate [dark & white swirled]. These were our dippers: strawberries, rice krispies treats, brownies, marshmallows, pound cake, cheesecake, and bananas. We asked for more strawberries & didn't eat all of the cheesecake. There's nothing better than strawberries + chocolate. Mmmmm.



Isn't this GORGEOUS?!


I can't wait to go back there. They had a special for Christmas that if you buy $100 in gift cards, you get $50 free. Um, yeah. Should've done that. We could've had two dinners =]

Christmas dinner @ Ichiro!

Ichiro HAS to be one of the best Japanese Steakhouses I've ever had... and I've had a lot. Our friends Nicki & Anthony [the parents of little cutie baby Reece!] took us out to dinner for Christmas. Well, all of their two employees. Ashley also works for them as her side job. Anywayyyy.



I really love Kirin Light. Regular Kirin, not so much, but the Kirin Light oddly enough reminds me of Blue Moon.


The salad comes with either ginger or "mayo" dressing. We always get the mayo. It's not JUST mayo... it's some sort of sweet dressing. It's good, but this time the salad was BATHED in it, so I only picked out a few leaves and left the rest.


I would bathe in this soup if I could. The soup is always my favorite part of Japanese dinners... Mmmmm.


Half my meal:


And all of it together [after I'd picked off a few shrimp...] HEY! Listen! It takes a long time for them to start plating and finish plating. You're lucky I got this much food in one picture. I'm usually done with the first half before the veggies & steak come.


Their Filet Mignon is sooooooooo yummy. It's like butter - so soft and tender. Of course, me ordering it as rare as legally possible helps with that, too ;]

Little baby Reece's Puffs slept through the wholleeee dinner... except the fire. Ha. His eyes got as big as saucers when the fire blazed up.



He's soooooo cute.

Here's the mail, it never fails.. except..

...when you miss the UPS guy two days in a row. I left a note on the door yesterday asking them to leave the packages with my neighbor, but apparently he decided to leave his house, ha. I FINALLY got my packages and I got FIVE at once.

I got my Cali Bowls I ordered from Kath's OpenSky when she had the coupon to buy them for $.99... But everyone else who got them only got 2... I think they sent me extra on accident? Oopsies!


Two of my packages were from Victoria's Secret. My hoodies and panties came in. Woohoo! Just in time for the ONE DAY of cold weather in Florida...

I'm sending this one back because the color is HIDEOUS on me in person. Yucko.


My 5 for $25 pantiessss... that are staying in the wrapper on camera, thanks.


And my new fave hoodie - the "Bling Boyfriend" hoodie, whatever THAT means. Ha. Last year, "blinged out" was rhinestones on the hoodies... this year they stepped down to sequins. Ah well, it's still cutesy.



The other packages were the rest of Ashley's gifts, which I wrapped all while she was showering. She won't even know what happened... well, until she reads this, that is.

Sephora swag.

With my beautiful, generous gift card, I went to Sephora to make myself a happy little girl with the following swag:


1. Clinique Dramatically Different Moisturizing Lotion This stuff is my winter staple. I first got it as a free gift after purchasing some other Clinique makeup, but honestly, it's the only thing I ended up going back for more.


2. Benefit Dandelion blush. The best blush evAr. I've gone through 4 things of this stuff. It's a pinky peach color with super subtle gold flecks of "sparkle" - aka NOT GLITTER. Just a shimmer.




3. Urban Decay Eyeshadow Primer Potion. Okay, so I dunno about you... but my eyelids are slightly darker than the rest of my face. This helps even out the skin tone, as well as prep your lids for color. I usually only use MAC eyeshadows, so I don't have a problem with pigment showing up, but this FORRRREAAAL makes eyeshadow POP!

Thankssss Heidi boo!

P.S. - If anyone didn't read my tweet about it... If you have an EXPRESS CARD or a VICTORIA'S SECRET ANGEL card [or any other card from WFNNB] your APR will go up to 24.99% in January if you do not cancel your card. I know they have high interest rates anyway, but mine are both at 12% right now, so I just wanted to give everyone a heads up! I canceled both of mine this morning.