Valentine's Day 2017

Happy (belated) Valentine's Day! I hope everyone had a great time celebrating those you love. I know some people don't really like Valentine's day, but I am NOT one of those people! I understand why some don't like it. They're thinking we should always show our loved ones we care about them. We shouldn't need a special day to appreciate them. I completely agree with that; however, I think Valentine's day is a chance to go above and beyond to make everyone you care about feel special (this being friends, family, coworkers, and fur babies.. not just significant others)! I love every holiday, and Valentine's Day is no exception!  

My coworkers are so special. I couldn't make it through a single day at work without them! Everyone has been so welcoming and helpful since I first started working with them, so I wanted to show them my gratitude by getting them some yummy Valentine treats. I didn't get any pictures of the donuts, but they were so cute! Dunkin Donuts made heart shaped donuts and ones with pink frosting and sprinkles. Very festive!! 

I also made my baby sister a special Valentine gift bag. I filled a hot pink bag full of small gifts and had it waiting on her when she came to my house. She loved it! It had a pink and white polka dot coffee mug, pink nail polish, a face mask, strawberry scented body wash, pink lip gloss, and some candies. She got me a gigantic Reese heart (my favorite) and the sweetest card. I'm so fortunate to have such a close, special bond with my little Pooter girl! 

I made a trip to Target to pick up Valentine's gifts (stuff for Kelly's gift bag, a toy for Scruffy, and some baking supplies to make Valentine cupcakes). Of course, I was wearing my hot pink coat with a pink sweater when I went shopping. The cashier started cracking up at me because literally everything about me was PINK from my clothes to the things I was purchasing! LOL What can I say.. Pink is my signature color!

My sweet Scruffy girl liked her Valentine's Day gift!

As expected, Tyler made sure I had a wonderful Valentine's Day. He is always so sweet to me, but for this holiday he goes above and beyond. We celebrated for several days starting last weekend. I made lots of treats for us including strawberry heart shaped muffins and cupcakes. 

Tyler always does such a great job at gift giving. He got me some beautiful black rhinestone Michael Kors slip on shoes that I have been eyeing for awhile now. Also, since the RHONJ DVDs were such a hit on my birthday (and because I have re-watched the first three seasons 100 times now), he bought me season 4! 

We had already exchanged gifts over the weekend, so you can imagine my surprise when I walked into work on Tuesday to a gigantic edible arrangement! Y'all, I'm terrible. I did not get a picture of my beautiful arrangement. It was in a big red basket and full of chocolate hearts, strawberries, heart shaped pineapples, and grapes. It was so pretty! I rushed home from work to break into it, and after Kelly and I had about 14 strawberries, I realized I hadn't gotten a picture LOL So you all get to see the after picture once I had disassembled it. 

We had our Valentine's Day dinner on Tuesday at a place called Paterno's. It was delicious!! The restaurant overlooks the Power Park baseball field. We had an appetizer that was a green pepper stuffed with hot sausage and topped with marinara and cheese. YUM! Tyler and I both got alfredo as our main course. We will definitely be going back to that restaurant! 

For my Valentine outfit, I went with one of my favorites: my Lilly Pulitzer cashmere cape. It is so soft, and it is the most vibrant color of pink. I accessorized with my sparkly J Crew necklace that my mother in law got me and my Louis Vuitton clutch from my parents. 

My handsome Valentine.. the cutest, sweetest, smartest, most caring man I know! 

I think it goes without saying that I had a wonderful Valentine's Day. I feel like the luckiest girl in the world to be married to Tyler. He takes such good care of me. I am very blessed to be spending my life with my best friend in the whole world! I hope each and every one of you had a great holiday full of love and lots and lots of chocolate! Until next time.. Take care y'all! 

   

Meal Prep for the New Year

Hey y'all! I know that the start of the new year means many people are going to try to become better versions of themselves. Now that could mean many things to different people. For example, a "better" you may mean getting healthier, becoming more active, cultivating relationships with God/family/friends, etc. I have many things I would like to accomplish this year to better myself, and eating healthier is one of them. I have lost count on how many posts I have done where I have said I want to eat better. My version of healthy may not be your version. I consider not eating Taco Bell every other day living a healthy lifestyle LOL I want to plan my meals to prevent me from having the urge to eat fast food. I knew I really needed to make a change when I had tortilla chips and gummy worms for dinner at work last week.

I headed to Pinterest to get some inspiration. Here is a link to my Pinterest, and here is a link to a blog I found that is EVERYTHING, y'all. This lady is amazing. She gives detailed instructions on how to prepare everything (little to no pre-cooking is involved), and she also provides you with a grocery list! I don't really like leftovers for longer than a couple of days, so meal prepping for the week is hard for me. Also, I get tired of having the same thing over and over again. By freezing the meals, you get the convenience of meal prepping without the leftover taste.

I got home from work today and decided to bite the bullet and prepare the meals. I honestly had everything finished in less than an hour. The meals I prepped were chicken fajitas (2 freezer bags), spicy BBQ pulled pork (2 freezer bags), and crock pot chicken pot pie (1 freezer bag). The thought behind these meals is that you will have the main dish of the meal ready to go when you get home by cooking it in the crock pot. Then you can add any sides/extras to the meal when you're ready to eat. For example, with the chicken fajitas that I froze, I can make regular fajitas in tortillas with a side of refried beans. With the second bag I made I could do a burrito bowl with the chicken and peppers and add in Mexican cheese and rice.

Just some pointers for the whole process:
1) Get out everything you will need for each meal
2) Work on one meal at a time
3) Use ziplock freezer bags not just regular ziplock bags
4) Make sure you squeeze out as much air as possible before freezing
5) Thaw overnight in the fridge before putting food in the crockpot
6) Each freezer bag will last in the freezer for about 3 months
7) Date the freezer bags with a "use by" date

How cute are these measuring spoons?! I placed the spices next to the teaspoon amount that you will use in each recipe in the following pictures. 

Crock Pot Chicken Pot Pie - This recipe calls for you to add frozen tater tots at the end.. yum! 

1/2 tsp of black pepper, salt, and celery seed

  1/4 tsp of poultry seasoning 

For this recipe, I had to make a sauce. This is the only recipe that required pre-cooking. Here is the finished product.

All of this made two freezer bags of chicken fajitas. I just cut up the chicken and peppers, sprinkled everything with juice from a lime, and added the spices. 

1 tbsp of honey and 1 tbsp of chili powder

2 tsp of ground cumin and 1 tsp paprika 

Chicken fajitas ready to go in the freezer.

Spicy Dr. Pepper Pulled Pork - For this recipe, you combine all of the ingredients then freeze. When you are ready to cook, add the contents of the freezer bag to a crock pot and a can of Dr. Pepper.

2 tbsp of brown sugar

1/2 tsp of salt

1/4 tsp of pepper

Pulled pork ready to go in the freezer.

As you can see, the recipes are very simple and straight forward. It is not complicated at all, and most of the ingredients I had on hand already. In less than an hour, I prepared five make ahead meals. I can't wait to make one and give y'all an update on if it is good or not. I don't plan on doing any more of the freezer meals until I test these out to make sure I like it. Let me know if any of you try these out! Again, these recipes are not mine. For the full recipe and grocery shopping list, click the link I listed above.

___________________________________________________________________________

For NYE, Tyler and I went to our friends' house. We loved getting to ring in the new year with some of our favorite people! I got to visit with my sorority sisters, friends from undergrad, Ashton's friends from law school that I came to love, and new friends from Charleston. We had a great time together! Evidently I was so consumed with hanging out with everyone that I didn't take a single picture the whole night. Okay, there is one picture on my phone from NYE that won't be making it on the blog. Tyler and I tried to take a selfie, and Lawdy was it bad! LOL Half of my face is cut out, and it is so blurry. Instead, I'll just end the blog with a picture that I stole from my friend Bree. Until next time.. Take care y'all! 

Christmas 2016

Hey y'all! I hope each of you had a very Merry Christmas. We loved getting to celebrate Jesus' birthday with our family this year. The holidays are always a whirlwind for us since we travel so much, but it is always worth it. We started our celebration the day before Christmas Eve. I worked until 5:00, and then we hopped in the car and headed to Lexington to spend the night with Tyler's mom and Kip. Rhonda made several yummy appetizers and some delicious peach tea. After we ate, we opened gifts and watched Christmas Vacation. Rhonda got me a BEAUTIFUL bedroom comforter with all of the matching pillows. I told her about this cream bedding set that I had seen online at Macy's, and she asked to see a picture. We both got so tickled when I showed it to her because she has the exact same one. She also got me a few other things including the softest Vera Bradley pajamas. I've already had to wash them three times since Christmas because I want to wear them every chance I get! 

All of Ty's mom's decorations were so beautiful. 

Little Emmie being a good girl.

The next morning we woke up bright and early to head to Inez where Rhonda's parents live. One Chik-fil-A stop and a bathroom break later, we arrived at our second Christmas celebration. We had a great dinner and got to watch baby Emma open up all of her gifts. Having little ones around makes everything so much more fun!

This is Mo with her great granddaughter. How sweet! 

Tyler's aunt Michelle and her granddaughter Emma. 

Trying to get a picture with the wild child LOL

Rhonda with her two babies! 

Notice Emmie behind the chair.. She never leaves Rhonda's side. 

After spending some time at Ty's grandparents' house, we got back in the car and headed to my maw maw and pawpaw's house. We had another delicious dinner there, and then we opened up gifts. I hadn't seen my cousin Emilee for many months, so it was good to get to spend some time with her and Ross. I always love when we can all get together. 

Look at my maw maw's beautiful tree! I love it! Her decorations were so pretty. 

All of the grandkids with maw maw and pawpaw. 

For Christmas this year, I wanted to do something special. I schemed with my pawpaw Fred to make the women in our family a cookbook with recipes from my maw maw's recipe box. These are recipes that we have grown up on, and I wanted everyone to have a copy of them. I began working on this back in the summer. It took a long time to scan in all of the handwritten recipes and old family photos. I also typed out all of the recipes so they would be easy to read. The cookbook ended up being over seventy pages long. It was a labor of love. I think my maw maw, Aunt Michelle, and mom loved it so much, and that made all the work worth it! 

I snapped pictures of each of them opening it up.

Love these three women so much!

After spending time at my maw maw and pawpaw's house, we headed to my mom's to spend the night. Mom also had some yummy snacks made for us. Yes, we ate something at every single house we went to LOL Every year, we open gifts at my mom's on Christmas Eve, and then Christmas morning we get our stockings. I was so excited for Tyler to see what my parents got for him.

Look at my little sweetie and her new Lilly Pulitzer dress I got her in the print Southern Charm.

Mom got Kelly a pair of pants in the same print that I got in her dress LOL Can you tell we like Southern Charm?! 

Dad got Ty an awesome tool set with some accessories. 

Look at that grin LOL

He was tickled to death with his Apple watch!

Okay, so here is the most exciting gift I got for Christmas. If you follow me on Pinterest, you've probably seen the countless pins on my Salt Life board of blue townie bikes. I have always wanted one but never bought it for myself. When it was time to open gifts at my mom's, my sister told me to turn around and hide my eyes. When she said to open them, I spun around to see her wheeling this beautiful thing out of my parents' bedroom LOL I was ecstatic. Honestly, I was in shock at first. I immediately hopped on it only to find my bike riding skills have gotten a little rusty over the years LOL I can't wait until it warms up so I can ride it around. I hope Tyler knows we will now have to get a bike hitch for my car because this thing is definitely coming to Myrtle Beach with me! Thank you so much Kelly! This was the best gift ever!! 

Now, don't think Kelly didn't get an awesome gift too. That sweet little thing had been looking at fur coats/wraps/capes everywhere we went for the last three months, but she could never find exactly what she wanted. When I found this fur cape online at Dillard's, I just knew it would be perfect for her. She loved it, and she looks absolutely beautiful in it! 

My mom surprised me with a few things that I did not know I would be getting. I had sent her a picture of this nativity scene from Hobby Lobby back in the fall when they first put it out. She remembered me wanting that and got it for me. I cannot wait to start using this every Christmas. How special! 

She also got me a hand mixer and mini food processor that match my mixer.

I accidentally broke the box (oops) BUT she also got me this white cast iron pot. I LOVE it! I can't wait to make some Hoppin' John in it for the New Year!

On Christmas Day, we woke up and had a delicious breakfast that my mom made.  After breakfast and opening our stockings, we got ready for another day of traveling and visiting with family.

We had a wonderful time at my grandmother's house. Seeing Bo open all of his gifts was so much fun. Listen y'all, that baby is just everything. He is the cutest, sweetest, smartest baby boy in the world. He entertained us the entire time we were there! 

Kelly did it again with giving an awesome gift. She had this beautiful picture of my grandmother and pawpaw Peanut framed. Gran loved it so much that she cried. It was such a thoughtful gift.

Gran got Bo a vacuum cleaner because he loves to help around the house while Tay cleans. That sweet boy vacuumed all day long LOL Tyler asked Tay if he could come to our house and visit with his new toy!

After visiting with my grandmother, we loaded up the car to head to one last Christmas gathering. We  loved getting to see everyone at Doug and Barbara's house!

Brooke got everyone awesome gifts. She got Barbara and Robin glass pineapples that were beautiful. She was opening it up in this picture, and I think her expression says it all! 

We finally made it back to our house around six that evening. We carried everything up into our apartment and then crashed. We loved getting to see everyone and spend time with our families. Christmas can be a hectic time with traveling and trying to buy everyone the perfect gift, but it is important to remember the reason for the season: the birth of our Savior. 

I hope you all had a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year! Until next time.. Take care y'all!