Happy Thanksgiving

Hey y'all! I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving celebrating with your friends and family. Tyler and I stretched the holiday over two weeks this year. We celebrated the weekend before in Lexington with his family. I had to work the day before and after Thanksgiving, so that would make it hard to travel and spend time with the family. We wanted to be able to relax and enjoy our time with everyone, so Ty's mom planned a wonderful family get together on the 19th. We loved it! We drove down the day before and spent the night. The morning of the dinner we woke up bright and early to run some errands. I made my grandmother's punch recipe, and I had to go to the store to get the ingredients for that. We also did a Dunkin Donuts run for everyone to hold us over until we ate. I think we counted 28 people total that came to eat that day. It was so fun! Here are some pictures from our day with Ty's side of the family.

Barbara and Doug brought us some goodies.

We celebrated with my family on Thanksgiving day. First we stopped by my grandmother's house, and we got to visit with Tay, Brandon, and baby Bo. He is the most precious thing! I can't wait for Christmas now because he is going to be so excited! 

After visiting at my grandmother's, we went over to my maw maw's house for dinner. We had so much fun eating, talking, and visiting with each other. After dinner, we got out all of the sale papers and started making a game plan. I'm not one to go out to the stores to shop on Black Friday, but I do love a good sale. I like to shop online during Black Friday and Cyber Monday for everyone's Christmas gifts. I always get great deals, and I don't have to get out into the crowds. 

My crazy Ty! So thankful for him and so much more!

After the holiday, we wanted to just relax. We came home and put our Christmas tree up so we could start enjoying it. I hate to say it, but I did not get out my Spode Christmas dishes this year. It just seemed like too much trouble to get them out of storage. Scruffy has been enjoying the decorations being up LOL She likes to get into everything! She always swats at the ornaments and bows while I'm putting the tree together, and she gets into my ribbon while I wrap gifts. She loves it! I am happy to say I have finished ALL of my Christmas shopping. I love picking out gifts for everyone! Now I am patiently waiting for all of them to be delivered so I can start wrapping. Once I get a few gifts under the tree, I'll do a decorations post. I'll also be attending some holiday parties soon too! Hopefully I will have more than one post up this month! 

As usual, I will include a quick and easy recipe. I made this a few weeks ago for the first time in awhile. We used to eat it all the time in Lexington. This recipe is like a mixture between spinach artichoke dip and alfredo pasta. Y'all are going to love it! I didn't add chicken to it this time, but that is a good addition to this dish. 

I take frozen spinach and heat it up. Add in artichokes (with a little of the juice). You will definitely have to drain them before adding them. A small amount of juice is fine, but you don't want it to be too watery. I like Prego brand for pasta sauces. I've heard white sauces are the worst to buy from the store and should always be homemade, but y'all know ain't nobody got time for that! LOL

Boil the noodles until tender then mix in with the spinach and artichoke. Add in the pasta sauce and stir it all up. I like to add a layer of Italian blend shredded cheese to the top before baking. I bake on 350 degrees for about 20 minutes or until the cheese is melted and the sauce is bubbly. 

Here is the finished product. Ty and I like to make garlic cheese bread with this. It is the perfect addition to the meal! Ignore our leftover Halloween candy in the background. 

Until next time.. Take care y'all! 

Happy Fall, Y'all!

As the saying goes, "I'm so glad I live in a world where there are Octobers." This October was one for the books! I am so happy to be back in the hills of WV during this beautiful season. The fall foliage here is unlike anything I've ever seen. We are lucky to live in such a beautiful state! Just look at some of the views from a recent hike Ty and I took on The Carriage Trail. The weather was perfect! I only wish there was a little more red/orange on the trees.

It seems like my posts are becoming a monthly occurrence. I keep saying I will try to blog more, but it is hard to find the time! You all will be happy to know I have been sticking to my goal of eating better (sort of LOL). I did a really good job at prepping meals for about two weeks, and then I fell off the wagon. I was drinking about 3 cherry cokes a day and eating sour gummy worms like they were going out of style. I watched a movie on Netflix called Fat, Sick, and Nearly Dead.. y'all, OMG! That evening after the movie I headed over to Kroger to get fresh fruits and veggies for my NutriBullet juices LOL 

Here are some of the things I cooked at home for us to eat on during the week:

This might have been one of my favorites. I just baked some chicken breast and green peppers with fajita seasoning and added it to a frozen bag of Mexican rice and veggies. It was just as good heated up as when I first made it! I'm not trying to follow any kind of diet or anything. I just want to eat a little less fast food.

All packed up and ready to go!

This homemade chicken noodle soup was another yummy meal I made that Ty and I ate on for a few days. 

I've been working a lot lately including weekends. A couple weeks ago I had the weekend off and decided to cook us a good southern supper. We had pinto beans, corn bread, mac and cheese, and kraut and kielbasa. This is one of my most favorite meals!

Besides working, event planning has been taking up a lot of my time. I was so honored to be asked by the dean of the school of pharmacy to plan an alumni event. When I was at school at MUSOP, I planned many socials for the students, so I think that is why they asked me to help with this. I spent a lot of time prepping and planning, but it was so worth it! The whole day was wonderful, and I loved getting to see some of my teachers and classmates. 

This vase was given to the school by the Blenko Glass Company. It made the perfect centerpiece for the skybox event! I knew I wanted to have an arrangement on the table, but I didn't want to go over budget. I went to Kroger and found different flowers in shades of green and white, and I put this arrangement together myself.

Gift bags were taking over our home office. Poor Tyler had to deal with my stuff all over the place for weeks.

Each gift bag had these adorable green and white cupcakes made by Cakes By Appointment. They also made our wedding cake, which was delicious! Petra always does a great job!

The view from the skybox. It would've been a perfect day if the Herd would have won!

Of course, the grand finale of October is Halloween. I worked on Halloween Day, and Tyler was out of town most of the weekend. My sweet momma came to visit me while he was out of town. We had a great girl's day!! Because we live in an apartment, we didn't have any trick or treaters. I did however get a picture of the most adorable trick or treater: our baby Bo. 

Mimi and Scruffy before heading out to eat at Fujiyama. 

Halloween at work. I loved everyone's costumes!

Our precious boy.. I told Tay we need to draw those eyebrows on every day LOL Cutest thing ever!

Chunky girl helped mom and dad carve a kitty pumpkin. (She loves me I swear LOL)

He will kill me for posting this. She loves him so much!

Yesterday I packed up all of my pumpkin table linens and changed them out for some Thanksgiving glitz. I don't have all of my holiday decor since it is put up in our storage unit. A few weeks ago we went to get our winter coats out of the building, and we found our Christmas ornaments! I brought those home with me, but we couldn't get to our tree. I guess that means we will be getting a live tree this year!

Notice Scruffy girl in the bottom of this picture. She always has to be front and center!

I got this gold beaded table runner and placemats at Kohl's last year after Christmas. They were on major sale, so I scooped them up! They will match my gold rimmed Spode Christmas dishes too!

I hope everyone had a fun and safe Halloween! I am already prepping for the next holiday. I am chomping at the bits for Christmas, but I am going to celebrate Thanksgiving first. We usually wait until after Thanksgiving to put our tree up, and we watch Christmas Vacation while we set everything up. It is a little tradition that Ty and I have done every year since we met. 

I hope y'all enjoyed this October roundup. Until next time.. Take care y'all!