Happy Birthday, Jesus!

Me, Kristen, Harper, & Ellis. Photography by Brooke Glassford.

If I could, I'd mail you all one of our Christmas cards.

Thank you deeply for all of your support and sweet encouragement this year.

Remember the Reason for the Season...

"The mystery of the humanity of Christ,

that He sunk Himself into our flesh, is beyond all human understanding..."

- Martin Luther

and have a very Merry Christmas!

What's a Christmas Gram? I want one!

They worked and are kinda cute! Melting Snowman Cookie recipe below.

One of the things I miss most on the road is not cooking. Ever. Eating out is so fun, but close your eyes and ponder this: eating out almost every single meal for 4.5 months. Yeah. It gets a slightly old. Plus, I gain lb's. (Dear collegians, y'all are just so wonderful and I love all the restaurants you take me. Part of the job :) You take excellent care of me--thanks for everything!)

So this little Southern belle is happy to be back home cooking eggs for breakfast, making sandwiches for lunch, and just shuffling around a kitchen that includes more than a microwave, sink, and paper plates.

I tried my hand at Melting Snowmen Cookies that I saw a picture of on a blog last week, and they're so yummy! There was no recipe on the blog, but it's pretty easy to figure out. I advise a tall glass of white wine when you get to the decorating part. And patience. Lots of patience... And lock up any bird dogs that may get annoying.

Perfect Sugar Cookies Recipe

(So this my buddy Jay's mom's/my mother's BFF's recipe. Straight outta the Trinity Presbyterian School cookbook. Go cats GO.)

+ 3/4 c. butter or margarine

+ 3/4 c. sugar

+ 2 large eggs

+ 2 3/4 c. flour

+ 2 tsp. baking powder

+ 1 tsp. vanilla

Preheat oven to 400°. Cream butter and sugar. Beat in egg and vanilla and baking powder. Add flour one cup at a time. Dough will be very stiff. Bake on top rack of oven 6 to 7 minutes, or until cookies are light brown. Roll and cut out, using cookie cutters. For best results, before rolling out dough, chill dough or use flour that has been stored in freezer.

Royal Icing

(This one I totally did off the top of my head, combing a few recipes and making things up, ha. This is what I THINK I ended up doing. Any good royal icing recipe will get the job done.)

+ 2 1/2 c. shifted confectioners sugar

+ 1 c. whole milk

+ 4 tbsp. butter or margarine, softened

+ big marshmellows for their heads

Combine confectioners sugar, 1/3 c. milk, and butter in a bowl. Stir until smooth. This is when I got creative: you'll need to judge the stiffness of the icing and LITTLE BY LITTLE, pour in the milk to make the icing more runny. I hate that word. But you know what I mean.

Leave 3/4 of the icing white, and remove a fourth. Divide further and dye into whatever colors you want to decorate the snowmen. The plastic bag trick works best: put the icing in little baggies and cut a teeny-tiny hole at the tip. For the "black" icing, I melted dark chocolate chips and poured the chocolate into a plastic bag.

Cut the big marshmellows in halves and stick onto royal icing puddle before decorating.

Well, if we need Halloween cookies I know what to do.

I made a few snowmen with surprised faces, but do you see how he looks so sad and scary and Scream-like? Clearly, I opted for smiley faces instead.

Have fun!

'Cause we're crossing over state lines.

Photo courtesy of Bippity Boppity Boo

LC Lesson #65: I get asked a lot of times if I'm going to "bad" chapters, or going to "spy on them." Really? No, people. Not at all. I'll go to a 100+ year old /300-member chapter Monday and then fly to a chapter that colonized last semester Thursday. No discrimination. Heads up--collegians erywhere, your local Greek Leadership Consultant or whatever loves you already. Before setting foot off the plane, Imma love you blindly for the 3 following reasons:

a. You wear my pin. Or I wear your pin. Potay-to, potah-to. We can do the grip and whisper secret things if you're super pi-tastic and into that.

b. Again, you wear my letters. Wouldn't I want you to succeed?

b. Welp, uh, you're the only person I likely "know" for 6 states.

I basically am begging for your love.

In Christmas spirit, I'm pleased to report that when the 7 of us get our LC Travel Schedules for the upcoming month, we revert to squealy-toddler-on-Christmas-morn mode.  We just got our January schedules this week (yes, it is usually a few weeks before the new month that we get 'em), and I'M SO EXCITED!

Look where I get to go in January!

Indiana University

Bloomington, Indiana

Beta Alpha Chapter

Washington and Lee University

Lexington, Va.

Theta Zeta Chapter

Drake University

Des Moines, Iowa

Theta Eta Chapter

University of Maryland

College Park, Md.

Beta Phi Chapter

Blog title: Matt Hires-State Lines.

All you need is love (and spray adhesive).

Photo courtesy of Dwelling Gracefully

Last week, I asked mother dear why half the acryllic paint downstairs had dried up. "Ashlyn, I don't have the little craft elves at home any more." Ah, the plight of an empty nester: no little children to create masterpieces and get white paint on the kitchen table the morning of the Sunday School party mama was to host at night. Not that I did that last Thursday or anything. (What? My paint collection was nice and liquidy.)

Thus it is established that we Stallings girls get crafty on the reg.

So when sister Kristen showed me the above image from some chick's blog, I lunged at the chance to help her. She finally moves off the Kappa Dee dorm floor and into an Auburn apartment which translates to, like to any 20ish-year-old female, A NEW OPPORTUNITY TO DECORATE! Whoo-hoo! K-dawg and her hip hootie-hoo roommates are gonna be so cute with this hangin' up.

Whatcha need:
+ scrapbook paper

+ card stock (the same size as your scrapbook paper)

+ spray adhesive

+ la pencil

+ la ruler

+ les scissors

+ twine

Ah, the tongue-sticking-out-of-the-mouth-because-I'm-concentrating face. Adorable fam trait.

I mean, you can probably do the math and figure it out, but I'll spell it out just in case you're having a rough day. Kristen spray adhesived the pretty-yet-flimsy scrapbook paper to card stock so it was nice and bulky. We did this in the kitchen AT NIGHT so the slumbering father bear wouldn't get mad. It's just too darn cold to craft outside. Then, I sketched out the letters on paper--we did it just like Nashville blogger homegirl's picture, but I bet any cool font style looks good. K cut them out until her hand just about lost mobility, then punched holes at the tops to basically sew the twine through.

Result? Not so bad!

Great message. Great truth.

I'm sure we'll have to Sticky Tack them to the wall a bit in case the girls having raging parties and it gets really windy. Because there's usually wind at parties...

Blog title: If I have to tell you who sings that line, I question if your parents loved you.

Some people say I've done alright for a girl.

Kristen + me. Photo courtesy of Kristen Stallings.

Point A: I am sorry for not blogging lately. I was out galavanting/hop-scotching around Montgomery. But I'm back yo.

Point B: However, this past week, I've gotten to kick back. Here are some things I have a crush on lately. 123go.

My Minnetonka boots (see above image). For all those concerned, I still love them. So did half the employees of Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International. And that's a win.

Hot yoga class. Obsessed.

The Radical book. It's by David Platt, pastor of Birmingham's Church at Brook Hills. And one-sixth the reason I'm dying to go to Passion Conference again this year.

My weird love for stationery. During college breaks,  I hustled around a Montgomery paper shop creatively named The Paper Store. Tucked in an creaky 1930's house in the Old Cloverdale district of gump town, it was pretty much THE place to get your bridal paper suites/invitations/calling cards. I got addicted (and pretty good, brushmyshouldersoff) to font sizes and Crane's Blue Book. I'm the type that holds invitations up to the light to figure out the watermark.

Fascinating, I realize. I'm even nerdy than you think.

Photo courtesy of Lucky Luxe.

Anyway, finding the Lucky Luxe website made me grin. The designers may have Mississippi State/Ole Miss relations, but clearly breach from the Old South cream-paper-black-rook wedding invitation that is likely hanging off the side of your fridge. Nico and Lala is equally cool.

A. Bryan Photo/this slideshow. We'd sit in college and stare at this website. Samford University: Where ya get a ring by spring or your money back.

The Lex + Loren video. But my friends and I've decided it ain't got nothin' on Two Pease in a Pod.

Kate Middleton. I lie. This is an old one. I've had a girl-crush on her and that Sloan Ranger whatever style for 3 years now. Don't let the fame change you, Kate. Stay strong.

AND they're not inviting Obama to their wedding.

BAM.

I knew we'd be friends, Kate.

Ann Mashburn. My ultra-hip bestie Camilla works at the Atlanta boutique. Camil has more style in her baby finger than I'll ever claim ownership on. Hence she and her eye for beauty get hired at swanky joints like this:

Photos courtesy of Unabashedly Prep.

Kelle Hampton's blog. Read if you're a fan of the Fly Through Our Window/The Pioneer Woman set. Or read if you have a soul. It's the treck of a gorgeous photog mama and her two precious girls--one who has Down Syndrome. As the daughter of a special needs teacher, I turn to butter around Down's babies. This blog is legit.

Photo courtesy of Kelle Hampton.

Blog title: Melanie Safka - Brand New Key. Because I always loved roller skating birthday parties at Looney's. And I'm still pretty rockin'.

Omgosh. Please be my friend.

Photo courtesy of Sunday in Bed.