Christie’s Cookies

This past Christmas my neighbor and friend Christie Halverson brought by a beautiful box of cookies for the kids and I to enjoy. They were almost too pretty to eat but eat them we did and let me tell you, they are the most delicious, crave worthy cookies I have ever had! Such delectable sweetness must be shared so Christie is opening a bakery in her native Texas where we can all get our fill of her unique confections in the store or online, thank the Lord! I’ve asked Christie if she’d be willing to be a guest contributor and share a Valentine’s inspired cookie recipe with us all and she graciously obliged. So without further ado, here’s Christie!
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Holidays 2017: New Years

Night Before New Years Eve Party
For the last five years my mother and I have hosted a “Night Before” New Years Eve party at our ranch partly inspired by Jeffrey Katzenberg’s “Night Before” the Oscars party. Though his party is all about raising money for The Motion Picture and Television Fund, ours is more about the avoidance of hosting a big New Year’s Eve bash and all that that entails. The night before the big ball drop doesn’t hold quite the same pressure for off the charts merry making and allows for a quieter, more relaxed friends and family vibe. We’re still celebrating the season and ushering in a New Year with joy and laughter just without all the popping champagne bottles, riotous countdowns and forced smooching. I look forward to it every year and start planning menus and decor early November.Continue Reading

Holidays 2017: The Food

Holiday meals are just as important to me as the decor, the gifts and the cheer. In fact I’m not sure there would be any cheer for me without excellent food! My mother traditionally hosts Christmas Eve dinner and I host Christmas day. If I haven’t mentioned it before, my mother and I live only one short mile apart, which makes celebrating the holidays as a family much easier, among other things. Sharing the heavy lifting of preparing, serving and cleaning up major holiday meals where our whole family is in attendance is a pretty significant blessing. My mother worked extra hard this year to provide us with a beautiful Christmas Eve meal and is still worn out almost a month later from all the work. I think she may have gone a bit overboard, but hey, I’m not complaining. The food was to die for!Continue Reading

Holidays 2017: Birthday Trip to N.Y.C

Katherine Heigl celebrating her birthday in New York City
So in my last holiday post I mentioned that my birthday, falling the day after Thanksgiving, was kind of a s*#t show. The good news is that my friends and family more than made up for it with a badass trip to New York where we ate, shopped, rested, ate and ate some more! We celebrated my birthday three nights in a row at some of my new favorite restaurants in the city and got to see Josh play at the city winery on the Hudson Pier, which was the real reason and inspiration for the trip. When I found out he had two shows in the city early December and that our friends here in Utah had already booked their tickets so they could see him play I had the most intense FOMO ever! I’m not much of an impromptu traveler and usually choose to stay cozied up at home if given the option. This time however I couldn’t bare the thought of missing all the fun. There’s nothing like New York at Christmas time and I hadn’t been able to enjoy it in years. So I called up my sister and mother and convinced them to take the trip with me by using it as a great excuse for a much needed Heigl gals holiday getaway! So without further ado, here are all the pictures of our fabulous New York City trip and links to all the best spots we found in case you want to plan you’re own getaway soon.Continue Reading