What a year 2011.

Overall, I think this was the most "un-happening" year in the sense that no drastic life changes were made. In 2010 we found out we were pregnant, bought a home, Andrew graduated grad-school, we had a baby, and our life completely changed in a matter of 365 days. However, 2011 was a complete opposite. There were no big events, no life changes, or anything close to that matter.

It was however the year that we evolved in our role as parents as well as husband and wife, grew as individuals, and really enjoyed this little life that we have begun. I would even go as far as to say that we did pretty good as "first year parents," and building the foundation for our future as well as our children's futures. And that's why I believe that 2011 was just as monumental as 2010.

In its own way.

So what did we do? Well, let's take a look. 

January.

My maternity leave ended and I had to go back to work. This was when I still worked days and Andrew was finishing up graduate school. So he would be home with Elliana during the day and I worked 3 days a week. Day shift. Crushed me. I wrote this post where I really poured out my heart.

Also, I made changes to the blog. Big changes. I changed the design, name, and feel of it. I had a schedule... although I have not stuck to it all year, I do plan on going back to my original thoughts for my blog. More on that later.

February.

This was the month that a big change happened in my life. Where I made the personal decision to start couponing more, researching more, and figuring out how to save more money, make money, and earn free stuff. And I am so happy that I did.

I also made one of the best purchases of my life. And that was the snuza. After reading about multiple SIDS babies, I just lost it at home, was a complete mess, and came to the realization that something, needed to be done. And that's when I met snuza. Snuza met me. And we become best friends for life. We obviously don't use it anymore, as she is much older, but we plan on using it with our future babies as well!

March.

This was a monumental month for me as I made the switch to night shift so that I could be with my baby full time during the day. And I have never regretted it from that day forth. It has been one of the best decisions I have ever made and I have loved to watch my baby grow every second of every day. Not missing a single beat.

Also, I remember March being important for my little ol' blog here. There were moments when I had thought about going private, but I quickly realized that this blog is not about keeping secrets or hiding who I am. Instead it's about showing my life, re-living the memories, and capturing the special moments. Plus, add a little bit of sass and laughter in it... and well that to me turns into one of my favorite hobbies to date. Blogging.

April.

April was just a relaxing month for us. Nothing big going on. We were getting very comfortable in this whole "parent" thing. And with me having switched to night shift, I was finally getting the groove of things. And... the baby was finally starting to take naps... 30 minutes or 1 hour at a time... but regardless... she was learning. As was I {how to survive on no sleep}.

I did however learn some lessons of being a mom just a few months in. I wrote about it here.

And of course, it was our baby's first Easter.

May.

My baby turned 6 months old. Half a year. It was big for us. Huge. We turned 6 month parents as well. 6 months breastfeeding also. It was a great month of celebrating these big things happening in our life.

Andrew also graduated from graduate school and we were SO SO proud of him! He even got a big boy job just a couple months prior. We were overjoyed and blessed.

At the same time, I switched units in our hospital and started working in the ICU. I couldn't be happier with where I am at today in my career.

June.

Summer was here. I feel like a brand new woman during this season. It's definitely my favorite season. I am always the happiest. And now that we have this little bundle of joy? It makes it even 10 times better. Because I get to enjoy it with her.

I also discovered something absolutely amazing. This stuff is DA-BOMB {I just love saying this, as I know it will embarrass me 10 years down the road... er.. or 1}. And you know what, it's even awesome in the winter time! I can't drink any other beer now. Once you go BLL... you can't go back.

Elliana also said "Mama" for the first time. My heart melted guys. Blob. On.The.Ground. That would be my heart.

We also left Elliana for the weekend for the first time ever to go to Andrew's sister's wedding in Arizona. It was hard, but we survived.

July.

Birthday month. This was my golden year. I turned 25 on the 25th. I have a beautiful home, a handsome husband, and blessed with a precious daughter. I have my health, and my family nearby. I feel like the luckiest girl in the world. It was a good birthday to say the least.

Our AC also broke this month. And that was torture unbearable to describe. We also had issues with the company our insurance people set us up with. A hot mess {ha} it became. We fired those people and went onto the next. And 9,000 dollars later {somehow we ended up replacing our working furnace too?} and we were living like humans again.

August.

We celebrated our second year wedding anniversary. And we recapped what an amazing 2 years of marriage we had. And another 70 more to go. If not more.

September.

Elliana got to go to the zoo for the first time ever! It was such a fun family affair, and we can't wait to go back again in the spring.

October.

Elliana had her first halloween. She was the cutest little cow on earth.

November.

Our baby turned 1. We celebrated the year that marked the best time of our life. Our lives truly began the day she was born. And it has been magnificent since.

We also celebrated Thanksgiving with both my parents and Andrew's parents. And Elliana started walking!

December.

We wrapped up the year with Christmas, and it was magical. It was everything I could have asked for it to be. And we are so thankful for the year that we have been blessed with. The gift of life is what we are most truly thankful for.

Thursday Randoms

1. Rolling on the ground. My daughter's new thing is that she loves to just roll around on the ground. All the time. And she kicks her legs up in the air. Makes lots of noises. Then does it all over again. This is how she hangs out most of the day.

2. DIY Canvases. So I did this project a couple of months ago, and then never got around to going back to it again, however a couple of days before Christmas I realized that I had these pictures blown up, these canvases purchased, and all this modge podge {sp} stuff hanging around and it just needed to be done. So I did 3 more. And I have to say, I was so impressed and so happy with the end result {and so were the recipients}. I think my brother kissed the canvas that I gave to him a million times.

3. Hott dress. I'm not sure if I mentioned this last week, but I had ordered a dress from Macy's for Andrew's birthday and it arrived like the.day.before. I had purchased a back up dress just in case. But no worries, it came in time and it was f-a-b-u-l-o-u-s. I love everything about it. It made me feel like a hott mama {just for a moment}.

4. Baby's sleeping. Why is it that the babies are just the sweetest when they sleep? And suck their thumb? I melt into a huge blob when I see her sleep. And on our way down to Louisville for Christmas, I got to stare at this all day.

5. Puzzle Picture. Um. Awesome. Let me tell you. The only reason I had gotten this is because it was free with my "save more bucks" but seriously, I would definitely pay money for this. And I will again next year. This is a puzzle magnet, and I can't wait to put it together with Elliana one day. In the meantime, it will hang out on our fridge {once I rearrange a few things}.

6. Christmas Matching. Elliana kind of set the tone for our Christmas outfit. I was originally going to wear jeans, heals, and nice shirt. However, once I put on her sweet little dress, I just knew I had to match her in some way. So remember that "back-up" dress I talked about above? YES. That came to good use here.

7. Back seat drivers. Does everyone else sit with their babies in the back seat when the husband is driving? I do every time. And we do weird stuff. Make weird noises. And annoy the husband. Ha. She brings out the child in me, what can I say.

8. Puppy love. No, not that Carson kind. This is one of those "dancing dogs." Holy moly what an invention. It took us forever to figure this thing out {don't laugh}. But in all seriousness, we could not figure out why it would stop mid-song. And then we realized we weren't pressing it down hard enough. Well. Ladies and gents. Now that we have that figured out, lets just say Elliana ADORES this thing. She hugs it. Kisses it. Claps her hands to it. I mean, b-f-f.

 9. Christmas AINT ova.  The calendar may say so, but I still have my little freebies arriving at my doorstep, and believe me, I'm not complaining one bit. In fact, these are my latest obsession.

10. Russian baby. She totally plays the part well. And the sass? Shut the front door, this girl has it down to a T. I don't even have to train her. It's an art she has mastered. Plus, I just adore this hat and coat so much. We get so many comments at the store when we go out. Elliana loves the attention.

11. MY BOOTS! My boots my boots my boots. These are the ones I have wanted so so bad. The Steve Madden Intyce. And I got them. And I love them. And I LOVE my MIL for getting these for me. They arrived in the mail yesterday and I was tempted to wear them to work. What? It would totally go with scrubs. These boots can go with anything... or nothing. Wink.

When Husbands become kids. I mean kids become Husbands.

Here's the thing about boys. Men. Husbands. Whatever you want to call them. They're all alike. In the sense that... they never truly do grow up.

You can have a 12 year old, immature, hairless, high-pitched pre-teen, and then you can have my 25 year old (as of like 5 days ago) husband, and I guarantee you wouldn't notice the difference.

Okay, maybe some difference. But those don't really matter. What's important is that they are the same species.


For instance, let's rewind here to a couple of days ago.

T'was the night before his birthday....I receive a text...

A: "Becky... for my birthday.. I request to play video games."
B: "Okay... your birthday is not until tomorrow."
A: "Yes. But it's my birthday week. So I request to play video games tonight."
B: "I request a Louis Vuitton bag. Since we are requesting things around here"
A: "Goodbye."

That was how our conversation went.

And then he came home from work. We did our usual routine. We ate. We played with Elliana. We giggled. Did bath time. Read books. And put her to bed.

I snuck into the office to check my email, when what do you know, the "pre-birthday" boy himself walks in to.... what do you know, "play video games."

Okay. Fine. Whatever. His birthday was in fact just hours away.

So he played. While I answered some emails and enjoyed my bud light lime. Oh yes, I forgot to mention that bud light lime came into the picture an hour prior. How else would I survive a night of video gaming.


That and twitter. Although, 99% of the time I feel like I am talking to myself... it does still serve the purpose of its entertainment. And then you get those select few friends who turn around and egg me on. I fall to peer pressure.


Oh yes, back to the husband. So. I'm sitting there next to him while he games like a dweeb {hott dweeb, might I add}. Talking to his little "friends" on his headset.  In all fairness, they are really his "real" friends. But still.


And then, 2 {or 6} bud light lime's in, a few tweets later, and I decide that I wanted to make some "animal" noises really loud into the "microphone" of the headset.

Well. My friends. I highly do not recommend this.

I  got kicked out. Andrew was embarrassed. I was giggling like a school girl. And here I am dragging my butt downstairs thinking... "what to do now."


Cookies? Why yes, that sounds like a marvelous idea.

I set the temperature to 350 and wait. And wait. And stare. It's 350. It probably "ding-donged" a long time ago. But I'm still staring. 10 minutes later, and then, I finally realize that oh it's ready for me.


Cookies go in. 10 more minutes pass, and I realize that it's supposed to be at 325. Fail.


Then, I pull the delicious chocolate-chip cookies out. No worries. They survived my little mistake. I put them on a pretty little white plate, salivating at the sight of their sweetness, when I quickly realize... Houston, we have a problem.


Cookies and milk? Or cookies and beer. Oh the decisions to be made.I was between a rock and hard place.

Unfortunately, the decision was made for me when I realized that the only milk that was left in the fridge was my daughter's organice whole mils... which so happens that there was only enough for her in the morning.

Being the good mom that I am, I made the responsible decision to forgo the milk and stick with the beer.

During this dilemma of mine, I receive this text from my husband {who is upstairs}...

Question of the hour. Did I go... or did I stay.

Well. It was his birthday after all.

And the good wife in me?

Grabbed my bud light lime. My plate of cookies... and...

"Honey. I'm home." - {with the animal noises left at the door}

Happy Birthday again, My love. Only for you would I endure this sort of torture in life.
Man, I love you.

Christmas Recap {Show Us Christmas}

What a great way to end the Christmas link-up hosted by myself and Aly by recapping all the wonderful things we did over the Christmas weekend! I hope everyone enjoyed all their gifts and were surrounded by those they love most.  I can't wait to see what everyone was up to!!

As for the S household, we were a busy little bunch.
Christmas Eve we started out by picking up the little one from my parent's house {Andrew's birthday was the 23rd and we stayed downtown that night}. We headed back home singing Christmas carols {ha} and then took a nice little nap {much needed}. 

Elliana got dressed in her "Christmas Eve day get-up" and she of course looked as cute as ever. I think that as soon as she put that outfit on she felt like she owned everything and everyone. She pranced around like a little beauty queen making all sorts of ruckus.

Meanwhile, Mama and Papa are running around the house trying to get thinks packed and get the car loaded for the weekend. Not to mention the ten million presents we had to somehow squeeze into the car. That was fun.

Eventually, we made it. We got ready. Everyone got themselves all spiffy good looking and headed out the door to my parents house. Well, first, we had to roll around the ground like a wild woman. And by we, I mean Elliana.

At my parents house the Christmas music was playing, the home smelt of my mother's home cookin' {russian home cookin'} and the mood was set.

My brother, sister-in-law, and nephew arrived shortly after. Lots of hugs and kisses went around as I hadn't seen my brother for over a month {what a shame, we live only 30 minutes away}, and I even gave him his birthday card/present then. His birthday was November 30th. Oops.

In no time, we were gathered around the table, giving our Christmas toasts, and eating a mucho delicious meal. Mucho mucho. The dogs were begging at our feet in their usual style, and the kiddos were ready to go and play.

Due to the ridiculous amounts of presents {took up almost the whole room} we had to open presents in spurts. And we had to start soon if we ever wanted to get done and get to bed.

And the chaos began. One after the other. Presents were being thrown. My nephew was opening presents that weren't his. Elliana was getting lost in the piles. Drinks were getting spilled. And the P household had turned into a real-life zoo on Christmas.

We had to finally stop and take a break it was so insane.

So what do we do when we take a break? Why, we go and eat more. That is what Russians do. We love our food, and we love to take breaks. Because we hate being overwhelmed. Wait... I think everyone is like that, no?

Christmas Day we woke up early at my parents house, loaded up the rest of the stuff, gave Elliana a quick bath, and got her into her dressed into her cute little Christmas Jammies.

She of course snoozed in the car, and we arrived to Louisville in no time where Andrew's parents, sister and brother-in-law, and nana were waiting for us.
We ate a nice hearty breakfast {never disappointed over there} and then soon gathered around to celebrate Andrew's birthday. That's a first. Seeing as how he was born 2 days before Christmas, we cannot celebrate Christmas until we celebrate his birthday.

So we opened presents and cut the cake and said... "Hurry up Andrew." Not really. But I'm sure that's what we all were thinking.
And then we opened presents for hours. Elliana wasn't as into the opening of the presents this day as she was the night before, but I think that's because she didn't have her crazy wild cousin around showing her the ropes.

Regardless, we all had a blast.

Elliana got pooped out again, took a nice nap, while dinner was being served. We ate a nice Christmas dinner, with {per Andrew's and his sister's request} a special deep fried turkey and it was glorious to say the least.

Here are the dogs. Also waiting to taste one of the sweetest things to have blessed this earth.

The night ended with drinks, basketball, and a whole lot of baby stealing phones, remotes, and pressing buttons.

Oh what a joy.

And early the next morning, we enjoyed more amazing family time. More great food. And Elliana got lots of snuggles from her grand-pa.

We were all pooped by the end, and it has definitely been wonderful to finally be home. However, we came home with 6 full large trash bags of stuff, not including the big item boxes.... and we have no desire to put it all away.

I've started.... but I sure have a ways to go!!

And about those gifts? Here is just a glimpse of some of those goodies that our families spoiled us with!

and I forgot to add the Keurig in this picture...
because we do have one of those now. Hahaha. Yes. He was thrilled.

Happy Holidays

Happy Holidays

From Our Family to Yours.

Hope you guys had an amazing weekend.

Don't forget, tomorrow we will be linking up our weekend recap for the Show us Christmas series!!

Can't wait to see what you all did, and show you all the fun we had!

Happy Birthday Love of My Life

For Andrew's birthday, would you mind taking a minute to check out this blog. This mama is selling her baby boy's clothes (and other mama goodies), many of which weren't worn or gently used, and the proceeds are going to ST. JUDE'S HOSPITAL! What a great thing she is doing! So if you will go and check it out, and maybe even buy something, that would be SO awesome. Happy Holidays!!

Thursday Randoms+ Guest Post

1. Birthday. Tomorrow my husband will be the big 2-5. I have a little fun surprise planned for him... actually a few fun surprises, including his friends driving into town, a hotel, dinner, and lots of drinking. Maybe a birthday suit will be involved? On my side? Ha. Good wife? No. Awesome wife.

2. Christmas. Is this weekend! Say what?! Who can believe that it is finally here? I know I can't. Honestly, I feel like it's already going to be summer before you know it. Which is totally fine by me.

3. New i-phone case. Hello look what arrived in the mail. Yes. That would be my new i-phone case. Is it fabulous or is it fabulous. Yes, it's fabulous. Check out those sweet initials too. I could have easily just put Becky, but I thought B.S. was much more suiting for this mama.

 4. Early Christmas. Yes, we had Santa come a little early to our house this week. He sure had a beard, however forgot his outfit at home. That's okay though, because he came with gift. That's all that matters. Thanks Dad!

5. Husband cooks. I know last week I talked about how I do all the cooking {during the week} and I mentioned that sometimes husband cooks on weekends. Well, that sometimes happened to occur this past Sunday and it was aaa-mazing. Licking fingers until they bleed amazing. Steak. Baked potatoes, warm bread, and spinach. I need him to do that more often.

6. I need this. Can someone please convince my husband that the kitchen set we purchased last year is no longer needed, and that we have to replace it with these chairs below. Hello, are they beautiful or what? Drooling. A friend on twitter suggested I break the legs off our current ones... now, that, my friends, sounds like a proposition worth taking up.

7. Keurig. It has arrived. And has since been wrapped. Who do you think is going to jump up with joy come present opening time? My husband. He better. For how hard he made me work for it. {Not really, but we won't tell him that}. Again, best wife. Right? Right.

8. Dude. This mama over here sent me a package full of goodies, chocolate, a moose for Elliana, and more chocolate and goodies. We promised not to get each other anything. She broke that promise. Which means she's an asshole. A nice asshole. I'll give her that. Wink. Love you. Also, because of this nice little package, Elliana had her first lollipop, and it was organic. What do you know. Munchkin was Happpppyyy. No worries, my asshole friend is getting something right back at her.

9. Indiana, sucks. Also, Jody informed me that Indiana does not allow shipment of alcohol to this state. Did I mention that they do not sell liquor on Sundays either? Now common, that's just wrong in so many ways.

10. Labels. If you notice, I am still tweaking my blog for 2012. I am adding a few new features. One is the "labels" feature, where I categorize my posts into specific topics. Therefore it makes it easier for my readers to find what they are looking for. It can be found on the right column, and looks like this below. I am still adding a couple more labels, and that should be up and running in the next couple of weeks!

11. Santa Packages. Many of you asked on my traditions post where I got the Santa package from that was delivered to Elliana. The website is here. Highly recommend it for next year!

11. Like mother like daughter. That would be Elliana and I. We are the same person, just 24 years apart. Seriously. Elliana loves the camera. And making faces. And we could seriously do this all day long...

And she totally works the camera.

She can go from this.

then I say...

Elliana, "smile"

And she goes to this.

12. I'm guest posting over here on my love's blog {sometime today, not sure what time}. She's so awesome and too gorgeous for words. Read about how "I do it." The mom thing. Follow her, and love her!!!

Honey...I gave the Keurig to a Blog Friend.

If you follow me on twitter then you may have already seen this "Keurig" conversation between Andrew and myself. And if you didn't... well then you get to see it first hand here on the little blog of mine.

Just a little background before you start reading.

1. I texted Andrew to tell him that I had just gotten a free Keurig using my plum dollars.
2. He texted back how excited he was... how awesome the thing is... this and that and blah blah blah... he was going on and on about it. Telling me all about the bells and whistles. Okay.
3. Cursing is a norm in our texts... don't take things too seriously now.
4. When I initially told him about the Keurig, I had no intentions of playing a prank on him.
5. But a prank it has turned into...

So... I tell him that I actually already shipped that Keurig to a blog friend....{I'm in green, he is in grey}

at this point.. i'm all sorts giggling

 

 

{since when do I have to ask for permission mister?}

So then he starts to play the "guilt" card on me.

{i mean really, is it that cool. Yup,  didn't think so}

So then I suggest maybe his mom get him one....

He called me after this text telling me

"you need to call the company and tell them you made a mistake,

and that they need to change the shipping address."

"becky, i'm begging you."

ha. desperate.

I try to calm his nerves....

And there you have it my friends.
My husband just compared the Keurig to our child.


And I just about died from laughter.

And in case you were wondering...

No. He still doesn't know that I was kidding.

Show Me Christmas Traditions; Link Up

Welcome back for the third week of Show Me Christmas hosted by Aly @ Analyze This and myself. This weeks theme is Traditions. This includes past, present, and future. Traditions that you have done for years, traditions that you plan on doing this year, and traditions that you would like to start in the future. This includes activities, games, recipes, crafts, etc. Next Tuesday is the last Link-Up for this series and it's Show Me Christmas {show us your gifts, tells us what you did, what you ate, favorite memories, etc}. Last weeks link up Decorations, and the first weeks link-up Christmas list.

Here at the S household there are certain Christmas traditions that we have continued as kids, ones that we just started this year, and others that we hope to begin as our family grows and our children get older. I would love to continue to build on the traditions as I think this time of the year is truly so special and remarkable. To me, the holidays is all about family and making memories {and Jesus of course}. And I am looking forward to capturing these moments year by year.

The traditions begin around Thanksgiving time. A few days before Thanksgiving we begin to decorate the house. From top to bottom. I hope that Elliana will be able to help us next year {although I know she will still be pretty young}. But as she grows {and our future children grow}, I will definitely make this a family event. Get everyone involved. We turn on the Christmas music and decorate away. For now, we only decorate the inside of the house, however, I know that as our children get older, we will have to start decorating the outside.

Sourc

Then, the Sunday after Thanksgiving, we decorate the actual tree. I am really looking forward to next year when Elliana will be able to help hang the ornaments. She already gets so excited about the tree, so I have a feeling she will love participating in hanging the "balls." Stockings won't go up until December 5th and that night St. Nicholas will come to fill the stockings. Naughty or nice? Coal or gifts. {I have a feeling I may have fun with this little tradition}.

Source

I also love the tradition of putting shoes out on December 5th and filling it with candy {also a St. Nicholas tradition}. We used to do this in German class, and I think we are going to start this tradition next year when Elliana will understand more. I plan on doing it with husband too. Again, if you are naughty, you get coal in your shoe. So my goal this year is to be out on a hunt for some cute St. Nicholas shoes for next year.

The remaining of the days after December 5th to Christmas Eve consist of multiple family activities including family crafts, santa pictures, family "tree" pictures, baking Christmas cookies, reading Christmas books and watching Christmas movies. Also, as a tradition, the we will buy Elliana {and future children} PJs to wear Christmas Morning {and stay in the pjs all day}.

Source

Every year, I will have the kids write out a "wish list" to Santa. And then, we will have a "package" sent to the kids from "Santa." Elliana's package actually came yesterday, and I am in love with it. It came with with a letter addressed to her from Santa. A post card from Rudolph. A "tree light." A little door knob sign that she puts out the night before Christmas and there's a checklist of stuff she has to do, including putting out cookies and milk for Santa, taking a bath, wearing her xmas jammies, etc. And to top it off, she got a "certificate" that said she made it on the nice list. I LOVE it. Here is a glimpse of just some of the stuff.

Christmas Eve, we will head over to my parent's house {as we do every year}, and the kids {my brother and I} will bring dishes, my mom cooks a whole feast {enough to feed a whole army} and the night consists of lots of eating, drinking, and laughs. We then begin to open presents around 9-10, and continue for hours. This year though, I think we may open some gifts, eat, then open more, and so forth. My dad always wears a little Christmas hat, and he is the Santa that passes out the gifts. Whatever gift gets picked up, is the gift that must be opened by that person. This is my favorite tradition, as we all have so much fun seeing what everyone gets. Often times, my mom gets us some "embarrassing" gifts, and my brother, sister, and I always have a good laugh about it. Something that I would like to incorporate next year is the white elephant tradition and the gifts from the heart tradition.  So I am planning on having everyone draw a name from hat this year, and they have that person for next year and they must make that person something {from the heart}. And you would gift that person the following year.

Now, this year {as we do every year} we will spend the night at my parent's house, and we probably will continues this tradition for years down the road. So Elliana and I {and our future kids} will make cookies the night before for Santa, and instead of "milk" we will set out some water for him. Because, well, stinky milk would be no good.

source

Christmas day will consist of "Santa" gifts and spending time with the other side of the family, Andrew's parents and sister. Now with his parents having moved to Texas and his sister living out of state, I can't say for certain that this little tradition will always be on Christmas day, but regardless, we will make it work!

And of course, the rest of the day will consist of bumming around, playing with our "toys" and spending time together as a family. I hope that our kids will want to spend this time with us. Eat lots of yummy food Christmas day, and play "board games."

And as an added bonus, this year {and hopefully every year} the day after Christmas, we are going to go to Christmas at the Zoo. They have a huge show, lots of crafts, and a Santa! I can't wait!

Source

Here is my Family Traditions Check off list. I plan on adding on/tweaking it every year.

 Favorite Recipe

 Cran-Horseradish Suace {served over cream cheese and crackers}

• YIELD: 8 servings
• COURSE: Appetizers

Ingredients

• 1 (16-ounce) can whole-berry cranberry sauce
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1/3 cup minced onion
• 2 tablespoons prepared horseradish
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 (8-ounce) package cream cheese
• Garnishes: fresh rosemary sprigs, fresh cranberries

Preparation

Stir together first 5 ingredients in a medium saucepan. Bring to a boil, stirring often. Remove from heat. Cover and chill 1 hour or up to 3 days.

When ready to serve, spoon Cran-Horseradish Sauce over cream cheese on a plate. Garnish, if desired. Serve with assorted crackers.

 

<a border="0" href="http://www.frommrstomama.com/" target="_blank"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhAAeJrpmKqyNQaSXxMdExMP-MzDkES0SGLjJc462jajeGGvqwDRKk9jLwEwQVJ0LJ8m4LoJW50W8lqkVaehmG-fMTKJEQskaLhEHGL1BmhkiSr2p7_fo9186JRfrpKvcquS2A0KAt9hmc/s1600/christmas.png" /></a>

Thank you again for linking up and sharing the holiday spirit with us all. I can't wait to hear what kind of traditions you guys participate in during the holiday season. With our growing little family, I am always looking for new ideas and activities that we can do together.