home for the holidays at the porters'!

next stop on our home for the holidays tour of oklahoma was at blake's parents' house!

as with every good porter event, we hung out with great people, ate a lot, talked about eating while eating a lot, & did something revolving our beloved sooners.  it was a mighty fine time.

{beau, nonie, & blake}

{the newest mr & mrs porter}

{lisa & her mom reading on their kindles...

which need any other name.}

the two foods we miss the most while we are in alabama are mexican & beef.  since we did the mexican & steak thing with my mom, we did a lot of hamburger with the porters.  we always have to go to the family favorite red horse grill - best onion burgers in norman.  & we got to try out a new downtown instant classic - the garage.  we had some fabulous bison burgers with fancy toppings.  & played skeeball!  oh my gosh, we will have to have a skeeball machine in the man cave someday.

blakey hadn't been home since last christmas!  craziness.  he was so excited to get to hang out with his family again.  we missed justin & peyton a ton, but blake did get a good bit of little brother time:

{playing with blake's fantastic christmas gift -

a arcade game cover for the ipad!}

{watching a bowl game outside on the ipad}

the sooners played their bowl game while at the porters', so we watched outside from the hot tub!  a not too hot hot tub on a not too cold december evening with a big tv & a couple of beers is a pretty fantastic way to watch the sooners, even if it is the insight bowl.

& tanky got to play with his cousin, kaizer!  they ran & ran & ran & ran.  & loved every minute of it.

{my tired little guy}

{love him!}

for breakfast, dave created a belini bar!  it was fabulous.  tradition peach, delicious blueberry, & strawberry too.  what a fun morning.  we should remember this for a bridal shower some day...

love the porters!  {hehehe.  such a fitting phrase, isn't it?}  love our time at home.  

{somehow i didn't get a single picture with dave in it.  what the heck, dave??  next time.  or no more huehuetenango for you!}

love love,

kjp.

home for the holidays at mom's!

our first stop on our little vacay home for christmas was my mom's!

our first two days were a great start to our vacation - food, more food, a little wine, some football, & a lot of rest.  exactly what we had hoped for.  we got to eat fantastic oklahoma mexican food.  ate delicious steak.  & enjoyed a scone or two.  oh, & i took my mom for her third pedicure ever.  third.  craziness, mom!  treat yourself more!

& blakey & i might have fallen asleep by 8 o'clock both nights.  {by might i mean it absolutely happened.}

mom & ray just got the most adorable {ehemmm... 2nd most adorable} boxer puppy!  her name is dakota.  she looks JUST like tanky did when he was a puppy.  so, of course, we loved her immediately.

& of course we had to take dakota to meet our little guy!!  at first they weren't too sure about each other... tanky wanted to protect his grandma's house & dakota thought he was gigantic.  but after a little running around outside, they became best of friends!  

as soon as we saw little dakota, we knew the perfect christmas gift for her.  a pink green man!!  tanky loves green man so obviously she will too.  & she did.  squeak squeak squeak squeak.  perfect gift!

& after two days of play play play, these two were a sleepy duo...

by the way, oklahoma sunrises, as it turns out, are just a beautiful as sunsets.  but i had to turn 26 to learn that :)

merry christmas, mom & ray!!!

love love,
kjp.

thankful thursday - tanky.

my little guy wasn't feeling well last night, which makes him the most adorable pouty guy on the planet.  he crawled into my lap & wouldn't move all evening long. 

i wish i could make him feel better,  but i am so grateful for times i can snuggle with him & blakey & fuchsia monkey. 

they are the best.

i hope you can think of something for which you are thankful today.

love love,

kjp.

home sweet 'homa.

blakey & i spent the last week in good ole oooooooooklahoma!!  which taught us there is nothing better than being home for the holidays. 

& reminded us there is nothing more beautiful than an oklahoma sunset...

merry christmas & happy new year to you all!!

love love,

kjp.

our christmas meal.

after we ate all morning & all afternoon long on christmas, it was time for our christmas dinner! 

 {since it is christmas, after all,

i went all out & we drank the best - 

kendall jackson grand reserve.

good wine is so good.}

we started a christmas tradition last year of eating cornish hen - blakey was certain the "traditional" christmas meal is a christmas bird.  {i'm pretty sure he got this theory from a christmas story...}  since i was positive i didn't want to cook a huge bird for just the two of us, i decided cornish hens! 

they are cute little things.  one bird a piece would be perfect if you hadn't eaten all day long.  we had.  so we each hardly ate half of our bird.  maybe next year we will share a tiny bird :)

{hen recipe HERE}

i found a delicious looking semi-healthy version of french fries on pinterest, so i decided to try them.  i love french fries.  all potatoes, really.  oven baked garlic parmesan fries.  pretty darn good. 

{baked fries recipe HERE}

for a little piece of home for blakey, i finally made his aunt susan's famous caesar salad.  it was delicious!  i added a little red onion & accidentally used all of the parmesan on the above potatoes, so we went with asiago.  so good!  thank you thank you, aunt susan!

& for christmas dessert, i continued with our traditional christmas rum cake.  it's so darn good.  {& if you'll keep a secret, it is quite fabulous with coffee for post-christmas breakfast :) }

{pioneer woman rum cake recipe HERE}

{love our family}

merry christmas!!

love, the porters.

our christmas morning.

happy happy post-christmas!  we hope you had a marvelous christmas.  blakey, tanky, & i certainly did.  

since blakey had to work on christmas day, we got to celebrate all day saturday.  after a little sleeping in, we let tanky open his christmas present first...

he tore into that gift!  it took him about 45 second to get his new elephant unwrapped.  he gets one, maybe two, stuffed animals a year... as it takes approximately 3 minutes to rip them open & get the stuffing out.  i think this guy was a new record - probably 1 minute. 

{hard work being the t guy}

we spent much of the morning chatting with blakey's family & my family.  & then we continued with gift opening!  

{pretty new christmas ornaments!}

my sister & benny boo did a pretty freakin awesome job with gifts this year.  we had a numbers theme for the girls & a ninja theme for the boys.  they definitely followed the themes much closer than we did.  but all gifts were fantastic.

{my amazing new bubblewrap calendar!

there is a bubble to pop on each day for 2012.

so so excited about it.}

{blakey's stink bomb...}

{& his ninja gear!

ben - you suck.

but blakey totally loves it.}

then to our gifts!

{to: birdie.

from: byrds.}

i got blakey a new wedding ring!  he lost his earlier this year {tear}, so he needed to be married again :)  & he got me two AMAZING gifts!!  a new super awesome "buffet" le creuset.  it is in between a skillet & a dutch oven.  & is so so great.  & he got me matching le crueset coffee mugs!  they just started making coffee mugs.  & i love them.

{he's the best.}

onto christmas breakfast!  i got to immediately use my new super awesome buffet & make migas topped with chorizo.  what are migas?  delicious mexican eggs.  i know this will shock you, but i used the pioneer woman's recipe {HERE}.  super delicious.  super easy.  try them.  i think they are our new christmas tradition.

{christmas mimosas!}

{migas & chorizo!}

love love,

kjp.