After having a great, early Christmas dinner at my parent’s this past Friday my hubby and I decided to drive around the Country Club area of our town. In the past you could count on some of the streets to have the trees lit up to look like candy canes, but this year there were plenty of houses that out did themselves! This year there’s even a company that is doing carriage rides around the Country Club area. It’s pretty neat and kind of reminds me of the carriage rides you take when you visit NYC. So of course I did take some photos for your viewing enjoyment! One of my more recent favorite places to stop is a tree in front of Hamilton Park that the owner definitely puts some time and effort into decorating. They must add more lights every year because I don’t remember it being this bright last year!




If you live in Wichita County and drive into Wichita Falls often this house and its tree is a must see!

This is a really cute addition underneath the tree. So after I jumped back in the Jeep and my hubby drove around some more we came upon these houses…
   
Now this house and its lights we could see from a mile a way! The first thing that popped into my head was the movie Christmas Vacation!

These trees are actually off to the side of the house, the house is decorated pretty plain-jane compared to the trees.

And last, but certainly not least, the final stop on our tour:
  
I heard lots of oh’s and ah’s coming from the cars as they drove by this house. I can’t remember the street it was on but if you drive through Country Club I’m sure you’ll find it, since it’s the house next to the one above. Well that’s all the photos for now. I’m sure there’ll be more and maybe some video since we have a couple of houses to drive by that aren’t in the Country Club area plus the Burns Fantasy of Lights on the MSU Campus. My husband made the comment that the BFL seems to be shrinking, he says he remembers when the displays would start as soon as you drove up and now you have to drive in the lane for a bit before you see the first display. Either way we’ll be making a visit soon! So stay tuned there’s more to come!
Ok before I go two more of my favorite stop:

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Once again today was COLD! Not as bad as last Wednesday, but cold nonetheless. So I did wear my trusty brown coat again today and underneath my outfit for Wednesday was…

A long sleeve  2 in 1 sweater vest blouse by Austin Clothing Co. for Academy that I don’t really like, this is the second time I’ve worn it, but it keeps riding up, so if anyone wants to trade with me, I’ll trade my medium 2 in 1 sweater vest for your medium sweater just leave me a comment with what you’d like to trade and your email address so I can contact you. And my Levi bootcut 515’s ,which I ♥ wearing for many reasons, one being that if I’m wearing them that means my workouts at the Y must be working! Saving the best for last, my boots by Antonio Melani, I bought these earlier this year when they were on sale, that’s right, just call me Mrs. Frugualista! I can wear them all day and walk to and from the courthouse without my feet aching that is a major plus in my book! You can’t really see them since I didn’t wear them over my jeans maybe I’ll take a pic of them and post them later. So there you have it my outfit for Wednesday.

I hope everyone is having a great December please stay warm, stay safe and thank a solider because you are warm and safe!

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True fact: every time I bake cookies I end up in the hospital! Not because I’ve given my self extreme food poisoning or anything like that, it’s just one of those things. Just ask my hubby, he ate the very last batch of cookies I will ever bake while I was eating liquid “hospital food”! Since I have a big sweet tooth I instead find other things to bake/make, one of those is Oreo Balls. Yes, I know one of the ingredients is Oreo cookies, but I’m not baking the Oreo’s I’m just using them in the recipe and fyi you don’t actually have to use Oreo’s you can use the store brand cookies. I prefer to use Oreos since they’re my favorite. So for those of you who would like to give it a try here is the recipe:

What you need:

1 package of cream cheese (I use Kraft Philadelphia Whipped 12oz container) If you decide not to get the Whipped you’ll need to soften the cream cheese you’ve chosen.

1 package of Oreo cookies

1 package of Chocolate Almond Bark

FYI I bought all my ingredients at Walmart

Here’s what to do with your ingredients:

1. Place the Oreos in a gallon size plastic bag and crush the Oreos. You can do this in many ways, if you have a small hammer you can lay the bag flat on a large cutting board and have at it! Or you can take the bag outside and smash the bag against the driveway/sidewalk/porch. Either way it’s a great way to vent (if you need to ☺)
2. Put the crushed Oreos into a mixing bowl and add the cream cheese, with a hand mixer using the 1 or 2 setting mix the Oreos and cream cheese together. This can take a while since the Oreos and cream cheese can get stuck in the attachment of the mixer, so you’ll need a spoon to get the mixture out. You’ll mix until moist.
3. Now you’ll need a spoon. Scoop some of the mixture onto the spoon and mold into a ball. You can make the balls any size you want. My first few batches were quite big so I didn’t have a lot of Oreo balls. Place the the molded  mixture unto wax paper preferably place on a baking sheet then place the sheet in the refrigerator to cool for at least 30 minutes
4. After 30 minutes, but before you take out the molded mixture from the refrigerator, take your almond bark and following the directions on the packaging to melt the almond bark bar
5. Once the almond bark is melted to your liking take out the molded mixture and dip them in the melted chocolate. There are various ways of dipping them in the chocolate, you can using a toothpick or tongs, I’ve tried both ways and I prefer tongs. Once it’s been completely covered with chocolate take it out of the chocolate and place it back on the wax paper.
6. Place the Oreo Balls back in the refrigerator to cool and be prepared for requests for Oreo Balls from now on (if you share them that is)!

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Weather alert!! Today was freezing! So for my feet I had two choices my Uggs or my cowboy boots by Ariat (my favorite boot maker by the way), I picked my cowboy boots since I was going to workout at lunch and it was so cold I figured I may as well have socks on my feet already. I was also hoping for some kind of precipitation but that didn’t happen! My jeans (one of the perks of my job) of course are Lee Rider’s and my sweater is by Liz Claiborne Petites, I did need to put a t-shirt underneath it though or I would’ve froze before I arrived at the courthouse! So there you have it my hiatus is over and a new installment of WWSWW has begun!

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So what do you wear when it's 22 degrees outside and the windchill is 12?!? You wear your heavy coat by Preston and Yorke (petites) your very cozy handmade (not by me) scarf and of course gloves (not my favorites, but more on that later)! Even with all that on, my trek to the courthouse was torture! I've been in Texas for 15+ years and I'm still not use to this weather!

-- Sent from my Palm Pre

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I've been on hiatus! Doesn't that sound better than saying "I've neglected my blog" :) I actually had kept up with the pics for WWSWW, but just didn't get around to posting them. So tomorrow I begin again! I may write a mobile post to get the pic to my blog faster, but I like to edit/crop first and a negative about my Palm Pre is that it doesn't have any kind of editing feature for photos. So a quick hello to let you know my hiatus is over and expect a weekly WWSWW starting tomorrow!
Here's a photo of how I spent some of my hiatus:

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