In honor of our new prez

If you have seen lolcats pictures like this before, I'm sure you will find this funny, if not, maybe just weird.

Christmas Cookies

With all of the baking to be had around the holidays, and a cookie exchange going on at work, I thought I would share my favorite cookie recipe. I found this several years ago on allrecipes, and I have made it a number of times, and just made a batch tonight. Target only had Nestle cocoa, but I will say that I prefer the taste of Hershey's in this recipe. These are also really good with andes mint chips in them.

Chocolate Chocolate Chunk Cookies

1 cup unsalted butter
1 1/2 cups white sugar
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
2/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
2 cups semisweet chocolate chunks

DIRECTIONS
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F
In a large mixing bowl, cream together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. This should take about 10 minutes! Add the eggs one at a time and mix to incorporate. Add the vanilla and mix thoroughly.
In a 1 gallon plastic food bag, place the all-purpose flour, baking soda, salt and cocoa powder. Seal the bag and massage the ingredients to combine. The mixture will appear homogenous with no separate ingredients showing.
Add the flour and cocoa mix to the creamed butter and sugar. Mix together until the dough appears completely combined - about 3 minutes. Add all the walnuts and chocolate chips and stir them into the dough. Drop by two teaspoonfuls onto an ungreased cookie sheet. Or roll into balls, place about two inches apart on the sheet, and flatten slightly with your fingers.
Bake for 11 minutes at 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). The cookies will appear to be just barely firm with a sheen to their surfaces. Allow to cool on the sheet for about one minute before removing to a cooling rack to cool completely. Store in airtight containers.

The Christmas Reindeer

Just chilling in the woods...

April's Wedding!

It was a busy wedding weekend for us as Phil's cousin Brian got married in Houston and my dear friend April got married to her beau Greg in Fort Worth! Phil went to Houston with his fam and I stayed up here to be one of April's bridesmaids. April was a beautiful bride and I had a great time catching up with old friends who I rarely get to see these days.

Heather wanted to take a picture of my reflection, funny girl!

April's gorgeous boquet

My bouquet, so pretty!

Ash & Me
College Roomies
Carriage ride to end the evening!

A shopping we will go..

I have a great boss. She is young, fun, and we have a lot of the same sense of style (except for her Gap hatred.) Hopefully she doesn't find my blog because I tease her about being old all the time and I have to keep up appearances. So, we decided that we would take a day off from our lovely workplace and go shopping! Phil and I have been slowly (ok maybe very slowly) decorating our house over the past few years. But I am still on the hunt. We need a new coffee table, end tables for our bedroom, and lots and lots of art. I love to collect inspiration pictures, and this is what I'm liking right now: gilt end tables with antiqued mirrored shelves, Seguy's butterfly prints, folk art, and impressionist paintings, especially acrylics like the below by Elin Pendleton.

Introducing StellaDallas!

My friend Ginger's sister just opened this absolutely adorable new store. It is located at Lovers and the Tollway, and if you are looking for one of a kind pieces, you have come to the right place. I love Amber's style, and she has a fun way of taking traditional antique pieces and painting or recovering them to give them modern flair. She also has a fabulous collection of gift wrap and stationery, and gifts such as jewelry, candles and lotions. So stop by if you are in the area and say hello! This pic was taken before the store opened. Currently, there are the cutest chairs in the windows.

Caught on Tape

I guess you can't embed youtube videos on blogger anymore? Does anyone know how? I know I've done it before? But here is some cuteness that I caught on tape. Of course it is the dogs playing. I love how at one point Patton gives the camera a stare down from across the room.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eEwttCfzUIY