Christmas Light Bulb Cupcakes

Yet another great cupcake idea from the awesome cupcake book Katie got me for my bday. I made these cute cupcakes for the kiddos in the Christmas play at church a few days ago. I think they turned out excellent. I was going to just leave them plain without the "cording" but I thought they looked like Easter eggs without it. It really completes the whole look.


I think my favorite part of the whole thing is the little electrical plug at the end of all the lights! The kids really liked them and I had fun making them. Thanks again Katie for the cupcake book :) It has really come in handy for cupcake ideas!!

Last weekend

This year, I have been a little bah-humbug about my Christmas decorating this year. We have been beyond busy and tired this last 6 months or so and it was already well into December before we had time to do any kind of decorating. But you know that I cant just do nothing at all.

Matt and I usually use our fake tree but since we didnt want to get a whole bunch or stuff down, we thought it would be fun to get a real tree this year. Last weekend we did just that. We went to Horn Seed Co. and got a pretty Noble Fir tree and a beautiful Christmas cactus. We only got down the bubble lights, the ornaments, the stockings, the tree skirt and had a decoration that Monica gave me at Thanksgiving. Which might sound like a regular amount of Christmas decor to most people but as my sister puts it, our house looks like "Christmas threw up in it" usually so this is pretty toned down! But I am glad we did some and I like our tree alot and it kind of feels like Christmas is actually here now even though it has been rather warm this year.

Our pretty Christmas tree

My Christmas cactus. It will have magenta flowers on it in a few weeks. Some are even close to blooming now.

And on Sunday Matt had a very impromptu performance at Penn Square Mall. Our band director from OC came to Mayfair on Sunday morning and asked Matt if he wanted to play in a trombone choir with him and the UCO trombone choir. So he did and I went to watch them. They did a great job! It have never heard so many trombones play together at once but it is really pretty. They even invited Matt to join them on Friday afternoons if he ever gets a chance to go!!

They played about 30 classic Christmas tunes including: "Grandma Got Run Over By a Reindeer" and "Feliz Navidad" as well :) I thought I got several videos to choose from to post but apparently I deleted them because I can only find one. This is "Carol of the Bells." It wasnt the best one they played together but it is the only one I had on the camera still...enjoy!

* A disclaimer of the video after I watched it just now is that Blogger.com sucks and it always screws up my video editing but it wont upload the spliced version so this is kind of in the middle of the song but oh well. I am tired of messing with their video upload system. It makes me mad everytime I try to put a video on here. You would think that with so many people that use this website that they would make it more user friendly...one can only hope I guess :)

Houston Happenings Part Two

I know it is way past Thanksgiving but I feel I should finish my post. So later Thankgiving day Matt's grandparents came over and we had a great meal and good time with them. We took this picture with them for Monica to make them a Christmas gift and we always laugh because he smiles like this in every single picture. With his mouth open. We took another one with all of us imitating him but i forgot to post it. But we pretty much spent the day watching football and consuming 10 times more calories more than we just burned off running that morning! And I guess I had been more tired than I thought from work and what not because I took a 3 hour nap late that afternoon and then turned right around and slept for 9 more hours after like a 3 hour break from sleeping!!

Aside from the race, we didnt make too many plans and events that we had to attend. We tried a couple of new restaurants, did some shopping, and hung out mostly. We tried a new pizza place that is New York style pizza that was really good. And it was funny because we ordered 3 pizzas to share but we had at least 4 different servers bring us like 7-8 pizzas and ask if they were ours. We also tried a new yogurt place like all the ones that were here and it was delicious of course. This picture below was taken at the riverwalk. We saw this purse from about 20 feet away and thought someone left it and so we were going to go see if it had an ID and got there and it turned out to be fake. It was this artistic display called "treasures from grandmas purse" or something silly like that with all kinds of things around that were part of it. I think all the people around were laughing at us!!

Oh yeah and one thing I was super excited about doing was roasting chesnuts this year. When we were in Tulsa I bought some at this whole foods store and took them to Houston and told everyone how awesome they were and how much I loved them in Vienna when I was there. Anyway, so I cooked them and when we went to try them, they were so nasty!! They tasted like a weird potato. It wasnt the worst thing I have ever eaten but it certainly wasnt the best thing by any means. We took a picture but I forgot to get it from Monica's camera.


So, as most elderly people do, Matt's grandparents have to wear depends. Monica bought some to take to them and before she did, we took some silly pics of Lucy in a pair. She looks like she is wearing the "Oops I crapped my pants" underwear from the SNL skit! She looked pretty cute but she didnt stand for it too long. After about 30 seconds she tried to tear it off!!!

And one last picture of our kiddo!

Houston Happenings Part One

So after we came back from Tulsa, we had to work for 2 days then headed out for Houston at 9:00 pm at night because we both had to work late and finish packing. We decided to stop south of Dallas and stay at a hotel so we would be past all the bad traffic. We had booked a LaQuinta ahead of time hoping that it would be nice and it was. I was a little skeptical of staying in a small town because I didnt know if the hotel would feel safe but this place was brand new I think and only charged 5 dollars extra for dogs.

Lucy enjoyed the luxurious accoutrements: down pillows and blankets, leather furniture, a big window, fridge, flatscreen TV and a queen bed all to herself!

(We put her in the bed for the pics, she didnt actually sleep in the covers)!

We rolled into Houston the next day about high noon and hung out with the fam and cooked for Thanksgiving the next day. We had to cook early because we were all participating in the "Run Through the Woodlands" bright and early Thanksgiving Day. It was great weather for running, not too cold and we all finished with great time. Matt ran the 5-mile race in 46 minutes and Deanna and I ran it in 58 minutes. We have been training for it since the Race For The Cure and I am so proud that we finished. I was just thinking the other day that we have run in four races this year!! Three 5Ks and one 5-mile race. We plan to keep running through out the winter but it has to be at least 32 degrees or warmer for us to get out in that in the mornings.

Here we are before the race...nice and clean not sweaty and disgusting yet...

And John and Monica before the race...they walked the 3 mile race that day.

And here we are crossing the finish line. Matt finished first so I dont have a picture of him :( I did just look on the website and found one pic of Matt and like 10 of me but I cant copy the proof and I am not going to buy one bc they are expensive so I guess I am out of luck. There were so many of me and Deanna because we would wave and act crazy when the camera was close and they laughed and took pictures. But there were some regular ones too.

I think I will stop here and post the other half tomorrow...same bat time, same bat channel.....

Livin' on Tulsa Time

Well, I am super behind on posts so I will attempt to do some pre-posting this weekend and catch everyone up-to-date with the Meredith fam. Anyway, two weeks ago we went to T-town to hang out with Shay and my mom. This time we stayed at Shay's apt. She lives in the corner of a second story duplex and Lucy really enjoys hanging out in the corner and talking to all the people, dogs, cats, squirrels and anything that walks by. (I really like this picture of Lucy)

...and so does Sampson (Shay's dog)

Also, another favorite of both dogs is looking out the window above the couch.

I also finished up my newest sccarf creation. My friend at work had an Old Navy scarf from a few years ago on the other day and I thought it was super cute so I decided to try and make it. It looks exactly like this one below that I made. I thought I would be cool and trendy and take some pics of it in the outside settings as you can see.

I am really pleased with the way it turned out and actually kept it for myself. In a whole year of knitting and all the things I have made, this is the first one I made for myself!

And lastly, Shay got her first lesson in knitting and made a whole scarf in a few hours. She says she is "not crafty" but picked it up in like 5 minutes. I think she is just foolin me. It was a really enjoyable weekend filled with lots of lounging, a little shopping and good food. You can't beat that!

Dr. Matt in the making

It's a rare occasion these days when I get to go to work with Matt and check out the awesomeness of his lab. But a couple of weeks ago we went up there on Saturday afternoon so I took some pictures to share. I dont know how he gets things done but I guess he does because he is almost finished. Everytime I go there, I just want to clean up his mess but I never do!

Every good doctoral candidate needs a good workspace...clean and organized to get proper brain juices flowing! You cant tell it by this picture but the shelf looks like it is about to fall on your head when you sit at the desk because it is overloaded with heavy books and what not. (Not pictured: dirty dishes and shoes and other random junk all around).

And of course, plenty of hazardous chemicals that not only can kill you, but kill trees and fish according to the above label!

I sat on the sidelines and knitted while waiting for Matt to finish up his work.

Matt made some crazy chemical a few days before and let it dry in the bottle. This is what it looked like after he took a close up picture of it through the glass bottle. It looks like Mars or something to me. And if you are really interested, Matt drew the chemical diagram at the bottom of what this is that he made. I'm sure all of you will open up a new tab and look it up straight away wont you!!

In all seriousness, I am super proud of my husband and cant believe he is almost Dr. Matt. How weird is that! He will be finished officially in May but maybe earlier than that. Please keep us in your prayers as we are actively searching out jobs for him and if you hear of a chemist opening, please let him know.

another scarf and hat combo

and this is my favorite so far...i think i say that a lot but it is. I think I tend to like the ones the most that I come up with on my own the best. I have had this pattern in my head for a while but just now got around to trying it out. I will make slight changes the next time I make it but in general, really proud of this one (in a humble way of course)!!

She's my best friend....

Lucy and Charlie had a sleep over weekend at our house this weekend. As always, the combo is full of shenanigans but too cute to stay mad at for long. I think Jack was glad she came over too. He thinks that Charlie is scared of him so he acts like tough stuff when she is here. We tried to get some good videos but they didnt turn out really well so I will just share some pics.

A mid morning hug :)

Jack is hanging out in Lucy's new bed for her crate which looks kind of like a raft.

Lucy's leg is on Charlie's back, looks weird.

Pooped doggies.

Jack is stalking the little birds in the bush outside the window.


And then there is Charlie looking smart! This one survived all the playing for now. Other toys were not as lucky.

Peyton's Language

Last week, Kenny Mayne did a satirical clip about Peyton Manning's play calling from the line of scrimmage. I really like Peyton Manning and I hope he is as good of a guy in real life as he always seems in the football world. Anyway, it's funny so I thought I would share with you!

Pink/White scarf set

My most recent knitting project. I knit alot now during football on Saturdays and Sundays because otherwise I dont have very much time. But then I miss out on all the football.! THere needs to be more hours in the day! Anyway, I intended these to be for Matt's cousin whose name drew in the Christmas drawing but there seems to be some confusion among the family members about who drew her so I might keep it for myself!

Silly Lucy

The other day, we looked over on the couch and Lucy was looking very creepy. She was sleeping but her tongue was sticking WAY out of her mouth. I tried to get a picture but she had scooted it back in some. Still creepy looking though.

And then the other day I bought her a new walmart girls sweatshirt. I put it on her when she stays outside when it is chilly. It is way cheaper to buy a kids sweatshirt and cut it than buying a dogs coat. But I put the sleeves on her legs and they looked like 80's leg warmers.

She was not amused and quickly tried to pull them off and play tug!