Watch out, they spit.

Tonight you see art entries by Mr. & Mrs. Santa Haws. I know our art work is astonishing, but you should consider we are in late 20s, early 30s. We have mastered Crayola. I have created "Santa's Bora Bora Beach House." The man deserves a quality vacation! Also if I won a bajillion dollars today, I'd go straight to Bora Bora!
Mr. Haws has completed an art work entitled, "He Has Come." Way to get all religious on me Josh and make me look bad. Gosh! Actually, this is why I love you. Thanks for the good reminder about what this is all about. Also, very Picasso-esque stars and awesome camels!

Newer traditions

I realized this year as I was making my list and checking it twice that Josh and I have developed some of our own holiday traditions. When did that happen? Somewhere in the eight years of marriage, poof! I thought I’d make myself a little catalog of how they developed so that when the kids ask me, “Why do we eat these weird sandwiches and Auntie doesn’t?” I’ll have an answer.

I’m a terrible bread maker. The science behind the magical potion called yeast seems to fail me. Even when using one of those “No Fail, even your dog could make these rolls” recipes I can’t figure out. I can get the dough to rise the first time and then doom. Predictible fail. However, the stars seem to always align when I make Hawaiian bread. And so it became our tradition that I would make Hawaiian bread on Christmas. It may have started as a necessity tradition but we’ve grown to love it. Hawaiian bread has the best aroma ever, and the taste has just a hint of pineapple. Mmmm good!

Another tradition is that we have ham for Christmas dinner, which is pretty standard; however I found this crazy ham sandwich leftover recipe last year. Mostly I hunted it down out of frustration. We had lots of ham left over and I was bored with it. Three additional uses is usually my leftover limits, and last year I still had a huge ham stack! So I turned to my favorite recipe website allrecipes.com and found this gem. It is good, people. Grilled Ham & Pineapple Sandwiches. They are dope! Sour dough bread, smear on some cream cheese, cooked ham, pineapple slice, smoosh it all in your sandwich and throw it in a fry pan until everything is nice and warm. Yes, you can’t eat it every day or your heart would stop, but it is pretty amazing stuff. I imagine it would be righteous on a Panini press. Hint, hint Santa.

Right now you are thinking, “Are all of their traditions about food??” No! Okay yeah, most of them. We like food. Non food traditions include a Homer Simpson Santa that has to be on display somewhere in the house. He seems to not get packed up every year. So Homer Santa is always watching, all year long. A set of reindeer dessert dishes that comes out every year, each has its own reindeer in full character. My favorite is Vixen. The additional of a new “couple” to the Christmas ornament collection. Last year it was a really beautiful set of Santa Mickey & Minnie. I think it will be really fun when we have 50+ couple ornaments for every Christmas we’ve spent together. Won’t that be a beautiful tree?

And so begins the 12 days of Christmas blogging. Have a topic you want to hear me ramble on about? Leave a comment because as wise Homer Santa says, "Seasons Greet-er-ings!"

Funky Produce

We were snuggled up reading books last week and Josh suddenly says, "When I was little I used to think people were saying "Old Tomato" when they were saying the word ultimatum. I'd think why would you be giving someone an old tomato? Why does that make them want to make the decision? I'd hear adults and think oh man it's getting bad he just gave him an old tomato! It made a lot more sense when I got older."

Then he went right back to reading as I erupted into giggles. I can imagine this little farm boy and how awful he would have thought it would be to have someone give you an old tomato. Really, what's worse than an old tomato in the produce world?


::::Side Note::::: Last year I did the 12 Days of Christmas Blogging, I would like to make it a tradition! If you have any suggestions of topics, throw them at me in the comments. Happy Christmas!

K...Ouch!

As an early Christmas gift we have received a Ginzu set of knives that completely rule! You know you are special (cheap) when you get excited and cheery about knives that cut instead of saw. It has been awesome!

I keep showing Josh how great they are. The conversations usually goes something like this, "Josh! Look at how uniform my tomato slices are, check out our french bread, watch me dice these carrots with ease!"

"That's super wife. Just don't cut yourself. You aren't use to the cutting power of the Ginzu."

And he's right, so I've been squeezing it easy. But on Saturday we were in a rush, throwing together a side dish for a dinner party. I'm mixing ingredients together, Josh is cutting celery and all the sudden I hear, "OH MOTHER BEAR!" Yes...that is really what he said.

He sticks his finger in the sink and turns on the water for you see, the power of the Ginzu had won. Now I go into nurse mode, cold compress? pressure? band aids? I'm sure he's about to bleed out from a finger wound. Yeah, yeah I tend to over react, it's out of love. Don't judge me..... So I'm throwing out First Aid options and in a perfect Josh answer he looks at me and says, "Do you know how bad it is going to hurt to type the letter K this week? Every time it's going to be like click, ow!, click, ow!" His finger looks like a trauma scene and he's worried about typing the letter K. But I guess I can't blame him, it's a very important letter. I just used it 19 times to tell you this story!

Thank you

Tomorrow is Veteran's day and as a little salute to the Veteran's in my life I wanted to share the stories I remember most as told by my grandfathers about their time served during World War 2. I am thankful for the service that is given by those who have served (thanks Dad!) and those who do serve.

One Grandfather served as a Sergeant in the Philippines. He was in charge of a work crew of Filipinos who went out and worked cutting down bamboo each day. One particular day they were scouting a new area and came upon a stream. As Grandpa went to step into the water to cross an older Filipino man jumped in front of him, pointed at grandpa's shoes and signaled for my grandfather to allow this man to carry him across the water. Shoes were such a rarity and prize, the man could not allow them to become wet.... Now this is the moment I vividly remember as a child. Grandpa could not tell this story all these years later without tears shining in his eyes. I do not think my Grandfather ever had a day where he was not thankful for shoes. After several attempts to reassure the man that my Grandfather wanted to cross on his own, he finally allowed the man to carry him across.

Here in the United States, my other Veteran Grandfather met his dear wife. He tells of being on the town one night with other soldiers. They had stopped in a little place for dinner and all the tables were full except for one which had a few remaining seats. And they were in luck because the other seats were occupied by lovely ladies! (Side note: sometimes I think it would be a better world if we still shared tables) Grandpa began working his magic with the ladies talking with them and learning more about them. One girl in particular caught his eye who eventually became my Grandmother. But the story of the night that they both loved to share is that he said to one woman at the table, "You look like you have a little Italian in you." All the women at the table laughed and laughed, thoroughly confusing Grandpa. Eventually she stood up showing her pregnancy and announcing, "In fact, I do!"

You are the best as always!

I've always been interested in how phrases spread in society. Who first thought of "chillaxing" and why did it suddenly become an accepted term? Is chillaxing better than relaxing?

Two phrases have made a sudden emergence among my acquaintances. People are starting to say "Have a blessed day." and they are starting to say, "You are the best as always!!" Okay, maybe I watched too much PeeWee's Playhouse as a child but I feel like these are the secret words and I should yell every time I hear them! AAAAAH! then laugh and go about my day.

My friend and I were discussing the "blessed day" topic. Just once she said she'd like to answer with, "No." How awkwardly funny in the Michael Scott kinda way would that be... "Have a blessed day." "No." What would the blessing giver say? It does beg the question though if you think about it, is it your place to bless someone? How do you know they are religious and want to be blessed?

"You are the best as always!" has become the common email sign off when people are asking for things. "Can you shave my pet llama? You are the best as always!" Here is the sneaky part, it totally worked on me the first few times, I thought, I'm the best? Well heck yes I'll shave that llama! But now, I'm not so sure.... do I want to be the best carney at the carnival? Maybe this trick will work if we are ever invaded by aliens. "Hey space invader, can you not use poisonous gas on my neighborhood? You are the best as always!" It is the verbal equivalent of a Jedi mind trick.

Now chillax, leave a comment, You are the best as always! Have a blessed day!

Cars

About 3 weeks ago I was rear ended on the freeway, yes I'm okay. No Josh's pickup was not, to the tune of about $8500. I have learned some things from this experience, first that it is way better to get rear ended by a pickup when in a pickup. I think it would have been much worse for me if I'd been in my car.

Also I am grateful for my good insurance company. Okay yes, they are my paycheck (I work there) but they rule. I was not at fault, but they are covering my damages while the other company tries to blame me for it. Our life moves forward. People, pay for good insurance. It is worth every penny.

I have also learned that when karma provides you a Dodge Challenger as your rental car for the price of a Dodge Neon, you say THANK YOU! Do you know how many people check me...or maybe it's just the car...out now? I'm a hot ticket! Hey baby, yes it's my....rental. Whatever, I'm so hot right now.

In the midst of all of this our other car has just about died. So we are car shopping and Josh is being super agreeable. I should be happy right? Instead I'm all nervous! I know what I want in a 4 door, hatchback, kid friendly (we are hoping to adopt and all) but seriously I get to pick as long as it meets the budget? I am too.....me for this responsibility. I can't pick out a dress for church without changing three times and you want me to pick the car? This is going to be an adventure for sure. I pity the poor eager car dealer who pounces on me this weekend, can you say sucker?

Pray for us & the sales man.