Wednesday, December 30, 2009

Jeramy leaves for the rig tomorrow...already...*sigh*. I wish he had about another week before he had to leave. I have some light bulbs I would like changed...and it would be good to have a few more evening to hang out on the couch together. This hitch home Jeramy spent the first week in the office covering for a coworker and the second week and then some out in West Texas for the holidays. This is our third night home from our trip and it's just gone by too fast. So tonight I thought I would make an extra nice meal for his last night home.

So, how exactly is a beef tenderloin supposed to look after it's cooked? I read a friend's blog last week and for Christmas dinner they had a beef tenderloin which sounded amazing. So I found a recipe and followed it exactly and it still turned out as basically a big hunk of raw meat with a cooked exterior. I was able to salvage it by slicing and then cooking the slices in a pan, but I'm pretty sure that's not the point. So, off to research and figure out what I did wrong. Maybe I should just stick to casseroles and stir-fry.

The house feels a little vacant tonight, we already put all of our Christmas stuff up. It was either do it today, or it would have to wait until Jeramy got back. I don't think I could take another 3 weeks of stockings hanging from the fireplace.

Until the New Year, Peace be with you and your family.

Saturday, December 26, 2009

The Day Mom Missed Christmas...or at least the part where she has to cook and do dishes.

The children, even 33 year old ones, were all nestled and snug in their beds when 8am rolled around and Grandpa started banging on the door. What five year old isn't up at the crack of dawn to open presents? Our five year old of course....she was tired.

We invited my grandparents over to watch the kids open presents and I figured that Ryleigh would definitely be up by 7:30 or 8 at the latest, but since we all stayed up so late on Christmas Eve we were all snoozing away well after the sun had peeked above the horizon. It was all good though, we needed to get up and get after it, it would be a long day ahead!

Everyone received more than enough in gifts, especially the girls. We may have to rent a U-Haul to get all this crap, I mean gifts back to Katy. Ryleigh was delighted to find that she had indeed been good enough to get her DSLite from Santa. The same dumb Santa had a DSLite back in Katy but left it in the top of the closet and therefore had to procure a second DSLite and sincerely hopes that the first DSLite can be returned without hassle. Along with the duplicate Sleepy Time Dora that Avery received. Dumb Santa.

After gifts come lunch and my Mom is in charge of lunch for about 30 family members from both sides of the family. Becca and I usually help and I was glad to be able to help more this year because for the first time in 6 years I was neither pregnant nor did I have an under two year old to care for. Freedom is good. But brownies that carry bad pecans are not and apparently that's what got served on Christmas Eve and those of us that ate them paid the price. First Jeramy who went to bed at 9pm on Christmas Eve, then me who was up in the middle of the night and finally mom. Two hours before everyone was due to arrive and about the time all final preparations needed to be made for lunch she was down for the count. In bed with a bad tummy ache. Fortunately for everyone my mom raised a couple of girls that aren't scared of the kitchen. Becca and I furiously started whipping up pies and deviled eggs, we got the tableware all out and set, brewed the tea, made grandma do the gravy and we were all good to go. Poor mom missed the whole dinner, she didn't get to say hi to a single guest. By the time she emerged from her room at 9pm, everyone was gone and the kitchen was clean.

Mom did make it out for our annual tradition of watching the VHS tape of Christmas from 20 years ago. Christmas 1989 was a special year filled with gifts of sweat suits, Scattergories, a pool table and godzilla. It was the year that Curtis got a mini pool table which my sister and I discovered at 3am and decided to play with until my parents heard us and sent us back to bed at around 3:30am. I got a race track and declared that I shall open no other gift so that I could just play with my race track. The best part was when my 8 year old sister opened a gift that was not marked for anyone. Inside was a nice ring which she declared as her own. Steve promptly scolded her for opening to her mother's gift to which she was deeply sorry because the Beckanomics 2nd principle of "finders keepers" had be thwarted. She then went back to the pile of gifts and found one clearly marked as hers, read the lable to all so that all would know and then went about her business of opening gifts.

Without a doubt this has been an eventful year. Some really awesome events and some not so awesome. There were many moments during the last few days that I just had to thank god for my family. Of course my fantastic husband and beautiful girls, but the extended group as well. I'm glad that we all have each other and that the sane can balance out the insane.

I hope that 2010 will be a year of no moving, a year of growing and a year of understanding. But most of all I hope that 2010 will bring us all more love and happiness than we ever thought possible.

Cheers and Happy New Year!

Monday, December 21, 2009

Out West

Friday Ryleigh got out of school at noon since it was the last day of the 3rd six weeks. We are now officially halfway through Kindergarten. Yeah, I'm totally stunned. I can not believe how fast it's all going. First grade, here we come!

So on Friday since Ryleigh got out of school early we loaded up and headed to Austin to see our friends Karen and Jeremy and their adorable little 12 month old, Autumn. Karen and Jeremy met at our wedding, they actualy walked down the aisle together as bride's maid and groom's man. Hmmmm, wonder who made that happen...:) It was so awesome to see them and little Autumn. All three girls took a bath together Saturday morning and it was just unmeasurable cuteness to see them playing together in the bath.

Saturday we made it the rest of the way to West Texas just in time for the Wood family Christmas event at my Uncle Wayne and Aunt Kelly's new house. I love having to walk around a big ol' pile of horse crap on my way to the front door of a house. And of course, the evening wouldn't have been complete without the dog getting sprayed by porcupine quills. But hey, the food was awesome and the company even better. It's always nice to see all the cousins that I grew up with, especially now that we all have our own little families.

So we've already eaten at Habanero's and had the midnight munchies chimichanga from the gas station, so that's pretty much it for decent non-hamburger type food in this town. Jeramy ventured out to the new Chinese place today for lunch, but I'll stick to my sandwiches thank you very much.

Tomorrow Santa has to make a trip to Odessa for some last minute gift buying because Santa is an idiot and left the Santa gifts in the top of the closet back in Katy. Santa is really hoping there will be no problems trying to return the DSI sitting in Katy since a second DSI has been purchased to take it's place Christmas morning. Stupid Santa.

Today is Jeramy's birthday and I'm glad we still have friends in this town because I'm laid up on the couch with a sore throat and slight fever. He just headed out to go hang out and I think I will be heading to bed shortly after the girls. Cheers NyQuil!

Tuesday, December 1, 2009

Thanksgiving Pics






Some pictures from our time with Papa Dale and Nana Wood...we love you guys and miss you soooo much!