Christmas Time!

Merry Christmas!

We spent a great Christmas at my parents house this past week. It was full of baking, game playing, reading Christmas stories, watching movies and most importantly...eating! There are a few pictures below, however, keep in mind that I was at the mercy of my sister with pictures because as usual I left my camera at home.


Here Bingley is, enjoying the Christmas tree before presents got piled around.


Ross playing with the boys new air soft guns...Wor got one too...he can't wait to try it out!


Our traditional kids stair picture, complete with all pets but Summer who ran off right before the picture.

We hope everyone had a lovely Christmas! I will include a recipe that I made for Christmas eve...it was very yummy. The recipe is based on one from Smitten Kitchen, a lovely food blog that I suggest you check out. I used my own torte recipe in this which is from Williams-Sonoma. Everything besides the torte is the same as the recipe from Smitten Kitchen.

Chocolate Chip Cookies

Recently Mary asked for chocolate chip cookie recipe ideas on her blog which is here. I responded with my tips but now I think it is time that I share my favorite recipe. Now keep in mind that this is my favorite regular chocolate chip cookie recipe. My mom has a recipe for oatmeal chocolate chip coconut cookies that by far win my prize for best cookie of all time. I will share that recipe some other time, though.

Tollhouse Chocolate Chip Cookies

1 c. softened butter
3/4 c. white sugar
3/4 c. brown sugar
2 eggs
1tsp vanilla
1 tsp salt
1 tsp baking soda
2 1/2 cups bread flour
As many chocolate chips as you prefer

In a stand mixer cream butter, both sugars and the vanilla together. Add eggs one at a time mixing well. Add salt and baking soda and mix well. Add flour 1 c. at a time. Add chocolate chips and mix by hand. Chill for 1 hr. Drop by spoonfulls on ungreased cookie sheet and bake at 350 until just starting to brown.

Life Lately

So I have blogged about a few random things but not really about anything going on in our life. So here is my attempt to do so:

Wor is still working for Webassign and recently got promoted (yay)! He seems to be enjoying himself there and it is nice to have him working close to campus and to home. We are in the nursery at church and Wor is really enjoying it. I think he secretly likes to play with the trains and cars more than the little kids do. He is such a little kid at heart, he loves to play with my little brothers and sometimes I have to remind the boys AND Wor that its not the time or place to tackle each other into a wall.

I have been working and in school. As finals draw nearer I keep wanting to concentrate on Christmas instead of school. Hence why every single Christmas present has been bought and most wrapped and not a single final paper has been started. But in my defense I also have dozens of recipes to make and I have resisted doing so. I have had fun helping Rachel with wedding plans and even just looking at wedding stuff. Planning my own wedding was really not all that fun for me, but helping other people with their weddings is a blast for me.

Well anyways, that's whats going on in the Thongthai household...I know a post without mention of some 4 legged fluffy things named after Austen characters. SHOCKING!

Brussel Sprouts

Yes, brussel sprouts may seem like an odd title for a blogpost.

Yes, most people consider them gross, disgusting and a wee bit odd.

Yes, all of you brussel sprout haters are incredibly wrong.

Let me guess...like myself, as a little child you had a mound of little cabbage looking things placed in front of you at the dinner table. You think "oh cute, baby cabbages!" Then you take one bite choke and decide that baby cabbages are never entering your mouth again. When asking my dad, the least picky man in the world, about them this morning he completely agreed that they were gross. So brussel sprouts had never entered my mouth until yesterday. The thing is, last weekend while at the grocery store I saw a bag of little raw brussle sprouts. THEY WEREN'T FROZEN! I did not know such things existed. So I decided that I must try them. So last night I decided that we were gonna eat them and even if we did not like them that the rest of the meal would keep me from entering into culinary dismay for the night. So I made them...and you know what. They were darn good. I mean do you remember the bitterness of the little frozen ones that your mom nuked for a few minutes before throwing a little salt on and serving? Well these were like a completely different vegetable. They were nutty and not a bit bitter. The reason: they weren't frozen, no idea why but hey I will not complain about it. So I have included two recipes below. One for brussel sprouts and one for tilapia en papillote (the meal redeeming recipe). Enjoy!

Oven Roasted Brussel Sprouts

Rinse, trim and halve 1lb brussel sprouts. On a large baking sheet toss sprouts with olive oil to coat, salt and cracked pepper. Bake at 375 for about 30 min or until tender and begining to brown. Eat while pipping hot!

Tilapia en Papillote aka tilapia in parchment paper pockets

2 Tilapia Filets

1 Lemon

2 Tbsp butter

salt and pepper to taste

Cut 2 strips of parchment paper so they are about an 3 inches wider than your filets. Place each filet in the middle of the strip and top with lemon slices the butter and seasonings. Pull the parchment paper up and start folding it down until you reach the fish, make a nice firm crease. Fold each side in so that they are firmly creased and close to the fish. Bake on a cookie sheet in a 400 degree oven for 10-15 min. Open packets and dig in.

Watch for more recipes, I will be testing some holiday ones soon.

Promised House Pictures

I have been horribly awful about posting pictures of our house.  Here are some pics of our living room...the most complete room and the one that is most often clean :)

Kitty Update

I just now realized when looking through pictures on my camera that I have not put any additional kitten pictures up.  Here are a few- some of them are old but some are new as of today.  Enjoy!

Here is little Bingley sleeping as always- I wanna say this was about a month ago

Again Bingley- And yes he did put himself there and yes he is asleep

This was tonight at dinner- if you can't tell, Bingley is hugging Darcy while snoozing

Here is our little fluff ball all curled up

Remodeling!

The past few weeks have been chocked full of busy-ness (yes I know that is not a word...thank you spell checker). We invited Wor's family to come down and stay with us starting tonight and then promptly realized that the guest bedroom/ bathroom were still in shambles. This is my definition of shambles: Half peeled wallpaper, no mirror with gapping hole in the wall in place of a mirror, light fixture hanging/ needing to be replaced, toilet bowl but no toilet tank, guest bed laying on the floor, guest bedroom full of boxes, no pictures hung in the house and kitten toys scattered EVERYWHERE. As I am writing I am proud to post that the bathroom has been primed and painted, there is a whole toilet in there along with the bathroom hardware installed, a new light fixture secured firmly to the wall, a mirror on the wall (yes it is hiding the gapping hole) bed is on a box spring AND bedframe, the only box is one with stuff we are giving to Wor's parents, pictures are hung, floors are clean (every surface in my house for that matter is clean) and the kitten toys are still EVERYWHERE. All this on top of Wor working overtime most of that time, me studying for midterms on top of working (yes apparently teachers now consider the end of September to be the middle of the term) and managing to get thank you cards written, but not sent out yet because somehow we could do everything else but not install a printer so we could print return address labels out...no idea. So yes, I am ready to have my first house guest of my life! I will try and take a few pictures of the house and post them since not many people have seen the house looking like someone actually could live in it.

Wedding Pictures

We have our wedding pictures!

Renee Vick was our wonderful wedding photographer! You can see more pictures at http://www.photographybyrenee.info/clients and our password is "hannah". The pictures also feature some of our other wonderful vendors! We recommend every single one of them to anyone who is looking for someone in their line of business!

Wedding Cake:

Cake Dreams by Sally-http://cakedreamsbysally.com/index.html

Best tasing cakes in the world! Also, as you can see in the pictures, very beautiful!
Catering/ Venue:

Sisters Catering Company- http://www.sisterscatering.com/

The 360 view on their webpage is of our wedding reception set-up!

Music:

Casablanca Orchestra- http://www.casablancaorchestra.com/

Great Band! They play all of the songs that I love to dance to! They also make a great addition to the decor!

Florist:

The English Garden Florist- http://www.englishgardenraleigh.com/

Everything they do is beautiful and she really helps you find flowers you will like on a budget you will like too!

Favor/ Candy Table:

The wonderful and lovely women in my family volunteered to do the favor table. So many of them pitched in and bough, made and decorated candy for the table! Thank you!

I Have the Best Husband!

At our house I am typically the meal planner/ preparer and Wor does the dishes (amongst many other household chores). Sometimes I put together fairly mediocre meals, actually I put quite a few of those together especially considering most people think of me as a great cook! Now my husband is wonderful but also a big liar! Here is my example: Last night we had just gotten home and I needed to figure out what to pack for us for lunch today. So I had bought a ton of Rice-A-Roni on sale and decided to make riceangna which is a recipe I made up as a teenager that really does not resemble rice- lasangna at all, but hey that's what came to my mind when I made it. I also popped some frozen chicken nuggets in the oven to go along with the riceangna. Needless to say, not one of my better meals ( the vote is still on pulled pork taco's with homemade pico de gallo for that, yum!!!!). But when I text my dear hubby and say "was lunch too awful?" He of course texts back and assures me that it was very yummy and seemed concerned that I did not think so also. See what I mean? He is either a liar or has no tastebuds!

In other news, I got a haircut! It is super duper short. I am giving Wor a haircut tonight, despit his protests that he really doesn't think it is that long or doesn't notice it being that long. The kittens are getting very big and we are becoming very attached to them (and we think they are getting attached to us also). Ross graduated from the police academy this past week and I really really enjoyed getting to go see him graduate and we are all SOOO proud of him. He will make a great police officer!

~Hannah

Pictures!

Ok so we finally got the cord for my camera last night and now I can post some oh so cute pictures of our new baby kittens.

Introducing:

Mr. Darcy (front) and Mr. Bingley (back)

So those pictures were taken the night we got them and they have bulked up a litte (or a lot in Bingley's case). They are cute, sweet and full of trouble. We are having to use baby gates and boxes all over the place to keep them out of things.

So besides kittens, in my free time (typically not much of it) I have been reading Julie and Julia and have to say I am sorely disappointed in this book. The author has the most awful sailors mouth ever and has the mind of a teenage boy hopped up on hormones. I honestly wonder how anyone could see this as a good movie making book. I will, however, see the movie because I have formed an attachment to Julia Child (and her wonderful pie crust recipe) and no director in their right minds would have stuck to the story that this lady wrote. Not to mention I have heard that Meryle Streep is absolutely wonderful in it. But if it disappoints me as much as the book has, I will surely let you know.

~Hannah

Kittens

So 11 days after we got married we decided to embark on our first parenting adventure...we are now the proud parents of 2 adorable 7 week old kittens. For months I kept trying to downplay the responsibility that kittens will be to Wor, he never had a pet growing up and seemed to go at this responsibility as though we were expecting a baby. Now that we have the kittens...I am totally right there with him on that. The are cute but you really do have to watch them every single second, especially when you have 2 of them because they like to get into trouble together. So here we are now kitten proffing our house which we are now noticing has a lot of dangerous places for kittens to go. It is all worth it because they are so sweet and cute! They are both male orange tabbies. Mr. Darcy is completely orange and Mr. Bingley has white paws and is a bit chubby. I promise to post pictures soon...as soon as Wor finds the USB cord for his camera or the one I ordered for mine comes. Also, I suppose we will need internet at our house before I can do that, my faith in UPS delivering our modem is starting to deminish, however.