holidays

Spinning in A Holiday

16 Jun posted by ~The South Dakota Cowgirl~

When you can get up every morning and do what your heart desires, every day is a holiday.

When you periodically find cows in your yard, every day is a holiday.

When you see smiling kids doing what they enjoy, every day is a holiday.

Ty, Julissa (our niece), and Kara (our summer intern)

Kelsey and her awesome horse, Polmol at the Ft. Pierre, SD Regional Rodeo

When there’s a good dog around, every day is a holiday.

When the person that puts the “er” in your happy, gets to spend his days with you, and you with him, riding, helping others, or working together, every day is a holiday.

Zach teaching some budding 4-H horsemen some skills, in Gettysburg, SD.

For more random spins please visit Jen at Sprite’s Keeper.

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Filed Under: family, holidays, the spin cycle

Valentine’s Day Over-kill

11 Feb posted by ~The South Dakota Cowgirl~

I don’t know that I’ve ever been completely stoked about Valentine’s day. I’m sure there were times in my life, when I was excited that my beau would feel the pressure to buy me flowers and getting them at school or work was always fun. And I do love how fresh flowers smell. Though, recently I’ve decided, as much as I love them, I desire something more practical. Like a new coffee maker. Maybe that means I’m getting old? I did spend one Valentine’s Day working in a Flower Shop- and I loved it. I don’t begrudge those that want to spend money on flowers, or even those that make a big, huge deal out of a day dedicated to L-o-V-e. But as a whole, my life is one big Valentine’s Day.

I’m sure that at some point years ago, it was used, by me, as a good excuse to go to a restaurant and eat a forced menu, which I despise by the way.

Maybe it I used it an excuse to beg for something I wanted that I didn’t get for Christmas.

But now I mostly think it’s just the marketing world’s way of telling us we need to consume more; buy more; spend more; and in the process it makes people who don’t have a Valentine feel unworthy. Yet another reason to at least feel ambivalent about the day.

Granted, for me, it hasn’t always been this way- there have been times in my life when I wasn’t as fortunate as I am now. But in case you can’t tell from hanging out here, I am happy, healthy, and I am loved. For the first time in my adult life, someone loves me as much or more than I love them. Oh sure, my parents love me, but we’re not talking about them today. If I were not loved, do you think I’d be 1000 miles away from my home, in the frozen north? I think not. If we weren’t secure in each other, and in our relationship that would never happen. So I don’t need a Holiday to celebrate that!

I can celebrate it each time we talk; each time we hug; in the time we spend together.

I can celebrate it in the fact that he’d rather sit next to me on the couch, every night, and watch TV with me; and that now that I’m not there, he doesn’t find the same appeal in our television shows.

I can celebrate it in the fact that as much as he loves me, he’s willing to give up sitting next to me each night so I can pursue my dreams.

I can celebrate it in the fact that if someone has to go to work to make ends meet that he would go first; and allow me to stay home, cook, tend chickens and ride.

I can celebrate it in the fact that I don’t need a special occasion to cook something wonderful for him.

All he needs from me is for me to smile and be happy and content and love myself. And all I need for him is to love me just the way I am.

For more Spins, Visit Jen at Sprite’s Keeper.

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Filed Under: holidays, life, love, the spin cycle

The Christmas Finale

3 Jan posted by ~The South Dakota Cowgirl~

It’s tradition in Zach’s family to spend Christmas Eve at Uncle Leo and Aunt Lois’ house. It’s also their tradition that they’re not together on Christmas Day. They do their Christmas celebration either before, or after Christmas. They also take turns hosting. I haven’t quite got it figured out. I think it goes from youngest to oldest, and because the two brothers in between the youngest, Bud (he and his wife hosted this year) and Zach, and they aren’t interested in hosting or some such thing as this, I believe that means it’s my turn next year.

To say that Zach’s family is huge is really a big time understatement. Granny and Poppy (his mom and dad) had seven kids: three girls, and then four boys- Zach being the oldest of the boys. They lost Lisa (the middle daughter) two years ago in June to a freak four-wheeling accident. The oldest sister has 2 kids; Lisa had four- the oldest of them now has two. Lorelei had three (we lost her son this year *tear*) and her oldest daughter has two children of her own, and her boyfriend has twin girls. So you can see where this is going, right? Not only does Zach have countless nieces and nephews, he has great nieces and nephews too. So all but two of Granny and Poppy’s kids have kids; the two holdouts are second youngest Wayne and the youngest Bud.

Needless to say we draw names. But that still makes for lots of presents under the tree- plus we buy for Zach’s two Goddaughters- the two that belong to his oldest sister. Granny and Poppy buy for everyone, as does Granny’s Niece Sharon. She also keeps us in more good horses to ride, but that’s not what this is about. This is about how much fun we had on New Year’s Day; when we could all be together.

There are lots of gifts.

These were taken before everyone arrived. No prizes guessing who wrapped the pretty ones in the front. If you guessed me, you win. If not, shame on you. Then the cuteness started showing up.

Great Niece, Jetta.

Her older sister, Layla in the brown and pink, and step-sister, Kaya in the turquoise.

Uncle Wayne and Jetta. I managed to catch him with a funny expression on his face.

There were cookies to be eaten.

Pictures to be taken (this is Colette-the oldest in the family) taking a picture of me!

Our niece Cindy, and her nephew (great nephew to us) Damion. Is he so cute? I might have gone crazy taking pictures of him. I just want to squeeze his cheeks!

Cute, Cute, Tia; the twin to Kaya above, and half sister to Jetta.

Niece Shari-mom to Jetta and Layla.

We also ate. Such yumminess. Kirsten, our lovely hostess, made lasagna, from scratch along with Caesar Salad and garlic toast.

Look at all that cheese. Yum.

And there were cookies. Glorious peanut butter stars. I’ve never had them made quite this way before and let me just tell you, they were Goo-ood!

Speaking of hosts, here is the lovely hosting couple. Bud was giving me grief about taking his photo.

and the grief continued:

Isn’t our hostess lovely?

And there were more pictures to be taken of me. Mind you, I’ve not seen them yet.

Another pretty niece, Katie

And more presents…once everyone finally arrived.

There were smiles:

Lauren, another great niece.

Laughter:

Zach and his sister, Lorelei

I finally managed to get Bud to smile:

That cute baby again:

Kelsey, and Cindy, who were born one day apart.

And attitude:

Wonder where they get it? Uncle Guthrie Maybe?

Love:

Granny sharing some love with the grandkids.

And then the mayhem began. And I do mean mayhem. Really my photos don’t capture the craziness that happens once everyone is given the green light to begin opening presents. Kids are tearing into stuff all at once! The floor is littered and it’s hard to see who gave what to whom. Crazy. Really. Crazy. Somewhere in that mayhem, three little girls, received necklaces made by The South Dakota Cowgirl. Lucky girls, really!

That is Kaya’s twin sister, Tia. Oh, wait, you’ve seen her already.

This is what remained of the mayhem:

When the mayhem subsided, we played football with the baby, drank some wine, and the kids played with their toys. Katie is on her third ipod. I’ve never even had one yet.

I know I took more pictures than what I showed here, but this was probably more than most of you wanted to see about our first family gathering of 2010. Thanks for hanging in there with me.

Happy New Year Everyone!

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Filed Under: family, holidays, life

New Year’s Eve

2 Jan posted by ~The South Dakota Cowgirl~

We stayed in this year for New Year’s Eve. It’s the easiest thing to do when you’re out in the middle of nowhere; plus we had the kids, and it’s more fun to enjoy it with them. Besides that it’s been super duper cold and who wants to go somewhere when the temps are below zero? Certainly not me. Nope. Not. Me. Not. Gonna. Do. It.

The moon was gorgeous that night:

The sunset was pretty:

As the sun set, the moon got higher and brighter:

We headed down the hill to hang out with Zach’s youngest brother, Bud and his wife, Kirsten in their new house.

Our evening consisted of the kids, Ty and Julissa (Guth’s daughter) wrestling with Uncle Bud:

There was a new flavor tried:

Kelsey’s guitar was re-strung by Uncle Guth, while she watched:

The Ty and Juju played Ty’s new card game:

Then we played guitars. We’re big time cheaters. Bud hooks the laptop up to his super fly Sony Flat Screen, so we can cheat and see the chords we should all play.

Needless to say, we had a lot of fun ringing in 2010! What did y’all do to ring in the new year?

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Filed Under: family, holidays, winter weather

Christmas With the Kids

31 Dec posted by ~The South Dakota Cowgirl~

We finally got to have Christmas with the kids last night. Had the blizzard not gotten in the way, we’d have been able to do it Christmas Night, but Mother Nature, often has her own ideas for how things should go and sometimes they don’t jive with what we’d like to have done.

There was laughter:

Zach ended up on the semi-clean kitchen floor:

And there were tears:

Kelsey and Ty gave me the framed print of Bam Bam and I’m really glad they did. She and Ty hooked their dad up with a framed print from his favorite day of the year, our Branding, and they gave us a Minnesota Vikings tin of Popcorn, as well as framed black and white school photos, which I like better than the color ones that we already had, courtesy of their mom. Kels also blessed me with a custom halter she had made in Vegas, and she gave her dad one too; but it’s not custom and didn’t get photographed.

Ty got a super cool pair of boots that we picked up Vegas, and some new xbox game that he wanted. Of course I wasn’t paying attention and the camera wasn’t ready for the amazing expression on his face when he realized what it was. It might be Call of Duty. We also got him a table-top roping dummy that was the highlight of the night, entertainment wise. Kelsey’s big gift didn’t get here yet, and she doesn’t know what it is, so I can’t tell you , but she did have her stocking stuffed and got the full series (to date) of “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia”.

Here are a few of the photos from the evening, and all the fun that was had! Don’t forget to look at the bottom left of the photo-there is commentary to be seen there! I realize too that my house is messy. We live in this house. In fact, the table was barely cleaned off from dinner, when the roping dummy made it’s debut there. So please, pardon the mess. The Zebra print chair isn’t supposed to be a coat rack either.

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I hope that everyone has a safe and happy NYE celebration. We plan to break out the guitars, and the booze, stay in and hang with the kids, and the siblings that are here (Bud and his wife, Kirsten; Guthrie and the cousin, Danial). Should be a fun time. I’ll see if I can manage photos of tonight too. Be safe everyone!

Much Love-

the south dakota cowgirl

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Filed Under: family, holidays, horses, life, love, photography, winter weather

Zach Loves Me!

30 Dec posted by ~The South Dakota Cowgirl~

Yes he does. And boy am I lucky. He pays attention! Like no one else has ever paid attention. My entire Christmas, so far (we’re not done yet- we have Christmas with his family on Friday and Christmas with his kids tonight) has been kitchen themed. And that doesn’t hurt the feelings of someone like me, who has mad skilz in the kitchen.

At Thanksgiving when we had Christmas with my family, My folks gave me us (Zach and I) a 17piece set of Cuisinart Stainless Steel Cookware. Needless to say I was excited about that! And my brother and his wife, graced us with some more roosters that watch the kitchen from the top of our cabinets. My sister bought me a digital photography book, so I can take better food pictures for this blog. Well, that and better pictures in general.

Then, on the eve of Christmas Eve, Zach had a KitchenAid Stand Mixer delivered for me, as well as under the cabinet puck lights, because I’d been asking for some. The mixer was a complete shock, as I couldn’t believe that he got me such a cool gift without me asking for it. How awesome is he? Super awesome. So I am now the proud owner of a silver KitchenAid Stand mixer.

I am really looking forward to getting the kids tonight, and seeing them dig into their stockings and open the gifts we purchased for them. I’ll also be using the mixer today to make Kelsey a banana cake. I made some jewelry for Zach’s great nieces whose names we drew in for the Gift Exchange. That gift making put me in the mood and had me designing another 9 pieces using the beads I bought in Vegas. I’ll be posting photos and prices on those pieces as soon as I can. Hopefully tomorrow. In the meantime I am glad that I’ve gotten to read about everyone else’s Christmases. I really mean to post some Christmas Memories that I had from when I was child, but the Blizzard had my mind elsewhere. Next year, maybe.

Did y’all get what you wanted for Christmas? Did you get a gift that thoroughly surprised you like I did? I’d love to hear all about it!

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Filed Under: family, holidays

Merry Christmas Blizzard

25 Dec posted by ~The South Dakota Cowgirl~

We’ve been under a blizzard watch for the past couple days (and it won’t end until noon tomorrow the 26th- though it might still snow even if the wind knocks off), so I figured now was as good a time as any to explain to y’all just what we do to take care of the animals when it’s 18 degrees outside with a NNW winds making it feel like a -1. It’s burn your face and fingers kinda cold, folks. Besides that it burns your face, and makes your fingers freeze if they get wet, it covers you in powdery white stuff from head to toe. Literally. As type this, there is an 8 ft drift of snow outside our living room window, we’ve had to shovel snow off the porch 4 times today, and once when I went out to check on the chickens (where I had to bail snow out of their hen house 2X today) I fell into a snow drift. Blizzards are not fun. Snow can be fun, but when you can’t find your own driveway for all the snow, well that’s just, so, not cool.

Since several of y’all have asked lately, I will tell you what we do for the animals here when it storms like this. If it’s not a complete bear cat (like we’re having now), where it’s generally a total white-out we will feed hay to the cows- which I’ll take photos of when we get the chance to do that. The saddle horses and three of our studs are turned out to fend for themselves and chances are they do their best to stay out of the wind and wait out the storm. The mares and yearlings the same. We have a few miscellaneous mares, two crazy goats, and one lonely stud at the corral by the barn along with about 20 calves that didn’t make our shipping loads. Those get fed hay since there isn’t any grass to eat. And this storm, Zach put the Baby Bam and his mama in the barn out of the wind and cold, since he’s still such a tiny baby. We check on the stuff by the barn, because it’s within reach- it wouldn’t be prudent to drive through a pasture looking for animals when it is a white-out as it’s easy to get lost or stuck.

Feeding hay involves getting into the big green tractor, picking up round bales, opening gates and dropping hay. The opening gates part isn’t any fun when it’s snowing and blowing outside.

Other than the above it’s about staying in, staying warm and not going anywhere. Blizzards are good at getting snow where there shouldn’t be snow. Like in the door jam between the screen door and steel door; or in the hen house where you have to shovel snow around because you’re afraid your chickens will be drowned in snow.

With all that said, here are some pictures I snapped. Two of them I took on Christmas Eve, during the morning calm before the storm resumed. The others I snapped this afternoon.

snow drift outside the window

another view

snow drifts suck

The only thing you can see that shows you where the road kinda sorta is...

The view from the living room.

The Dining Room View

Feeding on a snowy Christmas Eve

Snow, snow, everywhere!

We’ll do our best to stay warm!

Love-

TSDC

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Filed Under: holidays, winter weather

Merry Christmas!

25 Dec posted by ~The South Dakota Cowgirl~

Here’s to wishing you and yours a very merry Christmas! May your day be filled with good food, family, lots of warmth and smiles and fun!

Love,

The South Dakota Cowgirl

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Chocolate Covered Pretzels, Anyone?

22 Dec posted by ~The South Dakota Cowgirl~

I have been busy in the kitchen all day- in fact, I think I’m calling it quits for the day(and maybe the week); I’ll see how I feel tomorrow, but I still haven’t wrapped a single present; I have laundry to do, and Zach is working on installing a headboard in our bedroom as we speak. I so better get on the stick. And speaking of sticks, I covered some in chocolate today. Pretzel sticks that is. I dipped them in white chocolate and milk chocolate and covered them in crushed M&Ms as well as colorful sprinkles. I hope the pictures below make you hungry. That was the goal. In fact, I ate so many of those, and sugar cookies, that all I wanted for dinner was jalapeno stuffed olives. And no, I’m not pregnant.

I would have loved to provide a play-by-play on this pretzel project but my schedule just isn’t going to let me. In fact, as soon as this posts, I need to shut the laptop, because it sucks me in like the Bermuda Triangle or a black hole, and doesn’t let me free of its grip. So until tomorrow when we visit the Hoover Dam, or maybe take a look at some newly weaned colts, I bid you farewell and leave you with thoughts of pretzels dancing in your head. Or is that sugarplums? Oh never mind!

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Have a good one!

TSDC

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Filed Under: food, holidays

Decadent, Simple Butter Cookies

22 Dec posted by ~The South Dakota Cowgirl~

Butter cookies are by far one of my favorite holiday treats. Several years ago, I found a recipe in Bon Appetit magazine and fell in love with the short-bread type cookie. All. Over. Again.

And then, I lost the recipe. That’s what happens when you get divorced. You lose stuff. But that’s for another time.

I had tried a couple other recipes since then. But none quite fit the bill. Then the other night as I was Twittering, a thought occurred to me- ask someone if they have it. So I did. And you know what I got, a big zilch. Oh I got a recipe for butter cookies and it is definitely one I’ll make; but it wasn’t the recipe I so desired. And then it happened. I decided I could try to figure it out on my own. After all, how hard can it be- butter, confectioners sugar, flour and an extract. It wasn’t rocket science.

My first attempt tasted great as cookie dough, but failed miserably when it came to baking it. I didn’t have enough flour in it. So I added more, and before I knew it, I had a lovely, soft in the middle, rich, buttery and yummy cookie.

And because I love you all, I’m sharing. Here goes…

Obviously we’ll need butter:

For best results please use it at room temperature. I used salted, but if you want to use unsalted it wouldn’t mess up the cookies. I honestly don’t know why there is even salted butter in my house. I usually have unsalted. My bad.

You’re gonna wanna beat that butter until it’s creamy and super soft.

Just looking at it makes me gain weight. But it’s the holidays. Who cares, right?

Then, because you love yourself, and the people you’re making cookies for, you’re going to want to add some confectioner’s sugar and some almond extract. If you hate almond extract, and I’m not sure why you would, you could add vanilla. It wouldn’t be as good, but then I’m not eating the cookies you’re baking so add whatever you want!

Mix it in:

Until it looks like this:

Then add some flour. I don’t keep special flours around- I use unbleached. But you can use whatever kind you’d like.

Get that good and mixed in, and then add more almond extract and more flour.

Mix until it becomes “dough-like”. Typically butter cookies are chilled, rolled and cut into shapes. But I don’t bother with that.

I take tablespoons full of mixture and roll them into balls like such:

Place them on your cookie sheet or baking stone (I use a baking stone- less clean-up that way- and you can tell my stone has been well-used).

Bake them at 350 degrees for about 10 minutes or until they just start to get golden around the edges:

I don’t wait to let mine cool on the baking stone before placing them elsewhere, because the stone holds heat well, it has a tendency to keep baking the cookie after it’s left the oven. So put it on a cookie sheet or wax paper to cool, and be sure to eat at least one straight out of the oven. Because we all know that warm cookies are the best.

Here’s the recipe:

2 sticks (1 cup) salted, room-temperature butter
1 1/4 c confectioner’s sugar
1/2 Tbs almond extract
2 1/3 c flour

Whip butter until soft, blend in confectioner’s sugar and teaspoon of extract. Add 1 cup of flour, mix well. Then add remaining flour and extract. If you desire to chill them and roll them out, let them chill for about an hour in the ice box, or if it’s minus -20 outside, 10 minutes on the porch will do it! Otherwise, spoon the mixture into your hands and roll into golf-ball sized rounds, and bake for 10 minutes in a 350 degree oven. This yields about 20 cookies. You could double the recipe or just make a second batch. They’re so simple. It takes more time to clean up than it does to actually make the cookies!

Yields about 2 dozen.

If you do not have salted butter in your kitchen- simply add in about 1/4 tsp of salt. And like I said above you don’t have to chill the dough, but after this season (2010 Christmas) the chilled dough makes the cookies better for some reason).

Merry Christmas, and you’re welcome.

TSDC

PS. I hope to, at some point this week, share my recipe for stuffed, roasted, poblano peppers. I’m hungry just thinking about them!

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Filed Under: food, holidays, recipes

Spinning in A Holiday

Valentine’s Day Over-kill

The Christmas Finale

New Year’s Eve

Christmas With the Kids

Zach Loves Me!

Merry Christmas Blizzard

Merry Christmas!

Chocolate Covered Pretzels, Anyone?

Decadent, Simple Butter Cookies

South Dakota Cowgirl Art

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