Keeping up with the Joneses: 2010

Best gift I gave this year!

Posted by Kendall Jones Tags: the domestic life | 16 responses. Leave a Comment!

I'm SO excited to share this with you! I gave special Christmas gifts this year to my mother and grandmother that I just loved, and so did they :)

I'm sure you're not surprised to find that I come from a family that loves to cook. My grandma Bobo is particularly good and has been whipping up dishes for many, many years. I have talked about her and her recipes before in this post. After observing around her kitchen, I noticed that she stored her recipes in large plastic baggies. A very antiquated system, if you ask me. And, I know she had trouble finding things!

So, I enlisted the help of my talented friend, Michelle, at my office. She's an art director with some serious skills!

Using Zazzle.com, she was able to fully design and upload artwork for 3 different 3-ring binders for my Grandma to store all of her recipes in. Aren't they pretty!!!??

Each binder is customized with her lovely name :)

I filled them with page protectors, and made dividers to break up all of the many food categories.

I even told Michelle about a color scheme to match my Grandma's kitchen, and she did a perfect job!!

The very best part was giving them to her!! She was shocked and so excited.

We proceeded to spend over 3 hours at her kitchen table sorting through all of her recipes and putting them into categories. She has a mix of magazine clippings, hand-written notes on the back of things, recipe cards, etc. So, it was really fun to sit together and go through them. Eventually, I'd like to help her type up her favorites and make a hard-bound book for the family. But, one step at a time! :)

But, I didn't stop there. I wanted my mom to have some, too!

So, Michelle made a second set in colors to match Mom's kitchen! I love them!!

This one is my favorite.

No wait, this one is :) Ahh, I love them all! Don't they look cool when lined up together? I love the spines! I am thinking I'll have Michelle do a set with lots of red with my name on it, because I SO need some, too!

Good news for you, friends..... My talented friend Michelle has the ability to make this available to you on Zazzle. She is in the process of uploading her artwork files so that anyone can get their name on the above designs. Here is her 'store'-zazzle.com/msimkin+gifts There is already one binder up, but more are to come! How exciting is that!? Or, you could chose from one of the many other designs that other artists have added. But, I'm personally partial to these!

Isn't gift giving fun?

Appetizer Ring

Posted by Kendall Jones Tags: appetizer series, recipes | 4 responses. Leave a Comment!

With the upcoming New Year's Eve holiday, I thought I'd share with you an easy, make-ahead appetizer recipe that I got from my cousin, Ashley. It's so darn simple and it's something you can remember without writing it down, too!

Now, I realize that picture makes it look like a glob, but it really looks nice on a platter, honest!

Appetizer Ring

(click here to print on one page)

Ingredients:

2 cups shredded cheddar cheese

2 cups mayo

2 cups chopped pecans

2 bundles chopped green onions

1 jar of strawberry preserves

Combine first 4 ingredients and spread into bottom of a well-greased bundt pan. Refrigerate overnight (covered). When ready to serve, run a spatula around the edges and invert on a serving plate. It should come out in a nice ring pretty easily! Spread the preserves on the top and put the rest in the center of the ring. Serve with crackers.

It's so easy and yummy!

Our Happy Holiday

Posted by Kendall Jones Tags: family | 10 responses. Leave a Comment!

We had a wonderful, magical, blessed Christmas! It was all around a fantastic weekend, spent with those we love, enjoying great food, and counting our many blessings.

Here are the pics!

Getting ready to head out to the traditional Christmas Eve dinner out!

For the third year in a row, my mom & dad have come to our house for Christmas :)

Keith's sis & bro out at the restaurant

We love being spoiled at a nice restaurant!

The whole gang!

Back at our house, the 'kids' pose together :)

I made chocolate martinis for everyone and they were thoroughly enjoyed!

A Jones family Christmas tradition is to open one present on Christmas Eve - matching pajamas! The girls get a matching set and the boys get a set.

The boys got a very cute set from Polo, but embellished it with the buttons and Santa belt that was on their wrapped box! AND my Dad came out dressed as Cousin Eddie from Christmas Vacation, and kept everyone in stitches :)

The ladies love the jammies from Victoria's Secret!

Group picture using the tripod!

...And then it was Christmas morning.....

And we had ourselves a breakfast feast!

I made this delicious Spinach Bacon Quiche and added a chopped red bell pepper - it was fantastic!

We had tons of pretty wrapped presents under the tree!

Ryan got things started with the first gift

Mom with a grater set!

Penny with her spa gift card

I LOVE Christmas morning!

Meagan and her Sephora brush set

Dad loves to open gifts!!

I got lots of goodies, but I really liked this cake decorating caddy! I can use it to store all of my baking accessories :)

For Keith, I gave him all golf gifts, starting with this ornament.

He also got some golf balls, a new putter and this cool organizer for the garage!

But, my gift from Keith was the greatest. He blew me away!! There's a little back story here: When we were in college, Keith gave me a pair of small, beautiful diamond earrings one Christmas. He had a mini scavenger hunt with clues that led to the earrings. I loved them! I wore them constantly and slept in them most of the time. BUT, when I was in Liverpool for work this year, they were stolen :( I was pretty upset. Since September, I've been missing my earrings SO much! So, of course, it was on my list to Santa...

Well, this year, my sweet hubs did another special scavenger hunt around the house that led to the most beautiful (and bigger) earrings!! I was in tears by the time I opened them! He was also sweet enough to get me a pair of fakes to wear when I travel, just in case :)

I wish this pic wasn't so blurry, but it sums up exactly how I felt about this Christmas - JOYFUL!

Diamond earrings and gifts are great, but those aren't the things that make Christmas special. It's all about family, togetherness, and thanking God for the best gift of all - the birth of Jesus Christ!

Merry Christmas to all :)

Merry Christmas from The Joneses

Posted by Kendall Jones | 3 responses. Leave a Comment!

Merry Christmas to you and yours!

Keith and I wish you a very happy holiday!!

Nashville fun!

Posted by Kendall Jones Tags: time with friends | 2 responses. Leave a Comment!

I'm on a Garth Brooks high today! Yep, that's right, Garth. Maybe you've heard of him? If you're from the South and know anything about country music, you certainly do. If you're like me, you know every word to every song, too.

I grew up listening to his music. Memorizing it. Playing songs over and over again, on a cassette tape. To say I've been a fan my whole life is an understatement. So, when he announced that he would be doing a series of concerts to benefit the flood restoration in Nashville, we were all about it! He hasn't done a concert with his full band in over ten years. This was big!!

So, yesterday was the day! We headed to "Nashvegas," as they say, and picked up our friends, Miles and Caitlyn on the way....

We love hanging out with them!

We enjoyed dinner downtown and strolled around afterward before our 9:00 showtime!

It was great to be in Music City. I hadn't been since high school, and I especially was pleased to see how great the town looks after the flood.

Happy to be on our mini-getaway, happy to be with friends and happy to be counting down the minutes to Garth!!

Nashville is definitely the capitol of country music, and all things western wear :)

Elvis is everywhere in Nashville, too. I suppose we take The King for granted being that we live in Memphis, home of the blues, birthplace of rock 'n roll.

Caitlyn poses with a creepy Willie Nelson fortune telling machine. Odd, to say the least.

Right across from Bridgestone Arena was an awesome wine bar. I've never been in a wine bar like it (maybe they're more common and I just need to get out more?), but anyway, there were display cases of wine all around the room. You insert your card and select how full you'd like your glass, and voila! out it pours into your glass. This was way fun! If we had had time, I would have selected the 'tasting' size on lots of them to figure out what I liked best :)

Group shot!

We frequently checked out the window of this bar to see how the line was moving to get into the concert. Imagine 20,000 people leaving the first show, and 20,000 people trying to get into the next one. All in ONE area. Crazy times. Luckily, we timed it just right and had no problems getting through :)

Finally in our seats, we anxiously awaited Garth!!

And there he is. The legend. The country music icon.

Our floor seats were fantastic!

We turned around to snap a pic, but I wasn't looking at the camera! There's Garth just over Keith's head :)

All 4 of us sang our hearts out to every song! Each one was more exciting than the last.

Garth was incredible. Absolutely amazing. It was, hands down, the best concert I've ever been to. And, the only one where I, and seemingly every single person there, knew every lyric and belted it out the whole time!

Garth's wife, Trisha Yearwood, even made a special appearance and sang a few songs with him. It was great!

We saw show #7 out of 10. His voice was hoarse, and he had to be totally exhausted. But, he rocked it out for two and a half hours! He sang over 20 songs at least - unbelievable!

It was an amazing night!!! Thank you, Garth, for letting me check this one thing off my bucket list :)

Today, before heading out of town, we drove over to Opryland Hotel. Another icon for Nashville!