Christmas 2009

I didn't do very well this holiday season with taking my usual 2-3GB of pictures. too busy I guess. but at least I got some right?

Our tree in terrible lighting. It really did look good. I promise.


The sibling + pets lineup. Classic.


Randy Carter & Becky. Our living room is getting SO packed at holidays now! It was fun having them over on Christmas. Oh and Randy proposed to Becky later that night. She said yes, and they're getting married April 2nd. Wahoo, another sister! becky is awesome. She's like me, but cooler. We even have the same camera and get the same pants at Lane Bryant. Soul sisters.


Becky's gift to me. A "penguin books" version of pride & prejudice. The coolest book cover ever! I LOVE IT! She said she stalked my blog to find out what to get me. That's cool, because I blog stalk her too. Again, soul sisters.


Rachel is one for faces if you can't tell. The bow on her head was on the gift I gave her. She knows she loves it. Can't you see it in her face?


The necklace that Michelle made me and all the other girls in the family. She soldered these and made the chain herself. I can't imagine how long it took her to make these. i couldn't believe she made it herself, so cool!


Rachel's child. If you touch it, she WILL bite you.


The gift I was saving up for because I didn't think anyone was going to get it for me. My parents surprised me and got it. Have you guys seen "Julie & Julia" the movie? It's AMAZING and I want to be julia. I'm tall enough already, now I just need to brush up on my french cooking skills. Pastry city, here I come.


Miles was rubbing his belly for the longest time. Such a funny kid. Soothing I guess. We should all try it sometime.


Michael and his Victoria's Secret Gift. Actually it was a cat poop scented air freshener from Randy & Becky. Our cats have often dragged their bums across Michael's bed and no one elses in the family. Maybe they love him more?


Mom and the embroidery Rachel sewed for her. Rachel worked for months on it and has never done a cross stitch or embroidery before. She prety much taught herself how to do it with a little bit of coaching from me. Very impressive!

Christmas came early!!!

Tonight I was forced to go shopping against my will. Boy oh boy was I glad I was forced. Hold onto your knickers people, I just got the steal of the year! (Which is saying a lot because I am always finding awesome things at thrift stores at 1/10th the original price)

I got this puppy, BRAND NEW, never opened, for...........wait for it....... ONE DOLLAR!

This, friends, is a genuine chefmate cooking torch. I have been drooling over these since they were invented years ago and I first saw one used on the food network. They usually run at about $40-60.

And I practically walked out of the place with one for free. Thank you Salvation Army! It kills me that I have to wait several days before I can make some creme brulee with a perfect caramelized crispy top, or a lemon meringue pie with perfectly golden meringue. Why must I wait days before I can make these works of art?

1. I have SO much Christmas stuff left to make, I know I won't finish it all,

2. I started my new job today!

Yes people, I finally got another job. It's in a doctors office doing billing like I did years ago at Bryner Clinic. The great thing is I know how to do almost everything because of my old job. The tough thing is I started today, two days before Christmas Eve, and work tomorrow for a full day. So guess what I'll be doing Christmas eve? Making a bajillion presents until the evening, then finally getting a break and going to Steven's family Christmas Eve party. after that, I'm just going to take it easy, maybe breathe a little, and just RELAX! This year has been so stressful, I'm not sure why.

Anyway, just thought I'd share my amazing find, announce my new job, and wish you all a Merry Christmas, because I know I won't be getting on here until days afterwards with how busy I'll be.

So............ Merry Christmas & Happy New Year!!!! (if I don't post by then) I hope you all have a great holiday with family and friends, I know I will!

Bec

100.3 degrees. Yup, that's me.

Replace the cute cats with two smelly dogs, and you have me.

This picture is a perfect rendition of what I've been up to the past week, almost an entire three weeks, when I think about it.

I've been sick. SO tired and sick. And with sickness comes boredom. You can only play halo for so long, watch videos so many times, visit blogs that haven't been updated, and read books for so long you want to gouge your eyes out.

Why am I taking so long to heal?!?! Why virus gods? WHY?

Again, Steven came to my rescue and sent me 2 seasons of Mythbusters. It's the one thing so far that hasn't gotten boring. Why? Because it's an awesome show! If you haven't seen it, I highly recommend it!

When I was moving things around on my computer, I happened to notice a little descrepancy in it's timing. Or notification thereof. See the example below.


So, is it 12 minutes, or 3? Which one do I believe? Make up your mind, or lie to me and only give me one estimate, but don't give me two. My brain can't wrap itself around diffficult concepts right now. It's sick remember? I don't know why I'm actually making a post out of this, but I'm bored and wanted to blog. This is what you get.

I was talking with Shell yesterday (was it yesterday? I know no concept of time right now) and she mentioned that she had her christmas gifts planned out for friends. My mind has been pulling blanks for christmas. I had so many ideas last year that I'm burned out for this year. That is, until I was looking through some pictures today and got a stroke of genius for gift ideas. I now know what I'm doing for all my grilfriends, Steven and most of my family. It will be one cup of awesome I tell you.

One thing I found while going through the pictures were these garden shadow boxes/shelves. Made out of simple wood scraps from the yard. I'm SO making these when I get a chance. I'm going to nail them all over the back fence in my yard. See how much I can make my dad freak out while I'm at it :D

Well, time to go drink something because my throat is starting to feel like sandpapaer again. and that's WITH a cough drop in right now. The joys.....

Corn Salsa!!!!

Another cup o' goodness from Christmas Baking Day at our house. I misplaced the recipe, so I'll have to do it by memory. Good thing I took a picure of all the ingredients!


1 Green Pepper
1 Yellow Pepper
1 Red Pepper
1/2 large white onion
1 large tomato
1 jalepeno
1 small bag frozen white corn- thawed
Lemon Juice
Italian Dressing
Garlic Salt
Minced garlic
1 can black beans rinsed





Cook corn on low heat on the stove until just cooked. Put in fridge to chill



I used the green of the jalepeno AND all the seeds. I love the hotness though, so if you're not one for spicy, skip the seeds





Chop all the veggies to "salsa size" whatever you prefer really.





about 1 Tbsp of minced garlic, 1tsp garlic salt, 2 Tbsp lemon juice, 1/4 c. to 1/2 c. Italian dressing. Just keep testing for flavor as you go alopng and add more of anything you want more punch with!





Here's the finished product, mostly going off of Michelle's recipe. Gorgeous no? It was fantastic, but my family loves HEAT!

Enter in the Rebecca version of the salsa! Chili Powder, Crushed Red Peppers, Tabasco. Add as much as you want, tasting as you go along so as not to over flame the hotness. Side note- the Italian dressing is very liquidy (so a word) and kept draining to the bottom of the bowl with all the spices. I stuck in a Tablespoon on Tomato paste and it worked perfect for making the sauce stick to the veggies.

Now THAT looks like salsa! It was delish! A must-try recipe.

Originally from Shell B's recipe I stole during our baking day. This turned out so good, it was gone in about an hour. I even Doubled the recipe and it wasn't enough. This one's a keeper! Thanks Michelle!

Christmas Toffee

These are from December from our female cooking day, but who cares right? The first item of goodness was toffee. Oddly enough the woman who gave my mom this recipe from our ward, died tis weekend. Kind of a coincidence I'm posting it now.

Anyway, Here's the recipe

2 Tbsp Margerine

2 Tbsp Butter

2 C. Sugar

2 Tbsp Water

2 tsp. vanilla

Here's the lovely Michelle cooking away. She was always the one to make the toffee.

Cook all ingredients but vanilla until the mixture becomes "brown paper bag" brown on medium high heat. Off heat, add vanilla.

Miles loved all the attention of two Aunts, Mom and Grandma. He has TEETH!

Pour into buttered pan (that has sides or you're in for a mess)


After a minute or so of setting, plave chunks of milk chocolate on toffee. It's hot enough it will melt from the heat of the toffee.


Take a break while chocolate melts and play with cute nephew bug.


Spread melting chocolate evenly over whole pan

Make fun designs in chocolate!

Miles wanted to test the toffee to make sure it turned out right.

So did Toby.

Sprinkle with chopped almond or walnuts

Now try not to eat the whole pan in one sitting!

I've been no place but home for the holidays

Christmas has kicked in at the Hodgson house! I spent half a day at Shell's house this week helping (eating mostly) make cookies for her family party the day after. First off she made corn salsa that's made with white corn and a bunch of other tasty ingredients. It was SO good. I'm getting all the ingredients on Tuesday and making it for my family. I can't wait!!!

After the salsa we did sugar cookies and coconut macaroons. Michelle was genius and made half the batch into chocolate sugar cookies by adding cocoa. Actually, they were pinwheels to be technical.


Michelle ghave me a plate full to take home for helping her. Even though I pretty much talke to her sister the whole time and tested evrything while stealing all her recipes. But that's what friends are for, right? :D The joke of the day was teeth cookies. We were cracking up like no other. While crushing the candy canes, Kim noted it sounded like crushing bone. Then MIchelle piped up, "Actually they look like teeth when they are freshly pulled with the blood still in the root." After examination of the candy canes, we realized she was right. Does it not look like little teeth in the cookies? makes you want to go out and a eat a dozen or so! But they turned out good and we ate them anyway. She needs to re-write the recipe down with the title of Teeth Cookies.


This upcoming wednesday is our cooking day for the girls in my family. We'll have about 8 different things cooking at once. Should be interesting, and hopefully we survive it without killing eachother.

Oh side note, I'm starting up a new blog (yes me, beckstreet who is constant end never changing) I'm keeping this one as my personal blog, but this new one called "She Hints" is going to be all stuff I love and stuff I want. I'll also have an etsy shop linked to it where my family and I will be selling random stuff. So look for that ina couple of days. It's gonna be BIG!!!

It's still Christmas time for my family so we're still away consuming our bodyweight in chocolate (when I say we, I really mean, well, me).

Tonight we went to our (the Hodgson Side) family Christmas get-together. It was held at my uncles new mansion in Bountiful. And when I say mansion, I mean mansion. He lives on the highest point of any mountain in Bountiful and his house is at least four of mine combined, probably more. It was SO nice to have space to have our Christmas celebration. Getting to his house was another thing. Randy drove, and his tires are bald. Combine this with falling snow, wet roads, and a grade to steep you leanforward so the car doesn't start rolling down the hill, and you get terrified passengers becoming very prayerful.

The gifts were awesome this year!! My Grandma has been travelling the world this past year, and got our presents abroad. I got one of those wooden dolls that seperate and have 5 more dolls inside. From Russia! The real thing. Also a tote bad and pearl necklace from China. My mom got a real Jade bracelet from China. Gorgeous!! And as usual she shelled the cash for everyone. I have the most generous grandma ever.

My cousin Brady had my name this year and got me a $10 giftcard to Deseret Book. I love that place and could buy the whole store. All in all, a great second Christmas!!

Today I actually changed my myspace profile. i realized that my old one, you can't really read the font very well. So, you should go look at it. I added two blogs as well.

Well, the camera is still lost. I think I may actually have to clean my room to find it. It would happen sooner or later I guess.

Brother Allen (SLCC insitute choir director) called me up yesterday. I guess I'm starting choir again!! I"m excited, but dreading having to get up at 6am again. I truly believe my body was built to go to bed late and wake up late. It just functions better and I sleep better. Plus I need 9 hours of sleep. Or it could just be that depression has stuck around and is effecting my sleep habits. Is fatigue and lots of sleeping a sign? Who knows. I'm getting over it.

I've been obsessed with looking for homes for sale in Utah these days. I want to move out, but paying rent just seems like a waste of money because you're not investing as if it was a house you were paying for. Houses are expensive though. Some very small ones in Ogden for about 70k up to 100k. Hard to pay for a house/bills/car when you only make $12/hr. Where's my millionaire dream man when I need him? I guess it's all dreams as I don't even have a job yet. Oh well.

Not that I'm actually trying for a job at the moment anyway. I've started a work out program early in December and I've been dedicated all my energies and time to it. It's the fastest I've ever lost weight, and I don't want to do anything that will distract me from it. for now, that is. I'll be updating my tracker above quite soon. Watch out!!!!!!

Well, church tomorrow(who knows if I'll actually go) so I should get to bed. Does anyone else watch Greys, private practice and Chuck? when in the heck are they going to have new episodes?!?!?!?

Tootles ya'll

becs

Christmas Blues

The day after Christmas. Kind of a boring day compared to what you've been going through the past month in preparation for this holiday. But I really can't complain. I was spoiled again at Christmas. My mom knows stuff I like more than anyone else in family, so I usually end up getting the most gift-wise.

I got my favorite bedding from Ikea that matches my whole room. Looks SO nice!!! New scripture case I wanted(yay for magnetic closures!!!), an awesome photo album that is emroydered, diamond blue earrings, way too much junk food, Lane Bryant Jeans and two sweaters I picked out at the mall a while ago. Lots more, just can't remember at the moment. I'll take pictures when I can find my blasted camera. It's been missing for amonth now! I hope no one stole it or if it is lost it's in my room. Starting to get worried.

Yesterday I had SO much junk food. I think the only thing I ate that was healthy (relatively) was the yearly ham dad brought home from work. I got stuck cooking it. It was good though. I only tried two bites, didn't want to get sick on Christmas.

Christmas Eve Michelle and Lema found out they were having a BOY!!! We also got to see ultrasound pictures. Feels so much more real now that we can actually see him. They want to go with the name Miles. The first two letters of michelle's name, and first to letters of Lema's name. I think it's cute. now my mom is going to go nuts buying everything blue green yellow and prange for baby. Can't blame her though. I'm way excited too!

today we all slept in, had a big healthy breakfast (as opposed to junk food from stocking) and now we are getting ready to go see either National treasure or Water Horse. I'd prefer to see I am legend, but Mom will have noneof PG-13 anymore.

Well, going to the movies, gotta run!!!

Tootles, bec