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! 

Thanksgiving

Do you know those times when you are having so much fun that you forget to "capture the moment" by taking pictures? This Thanksgiving was one of those times for me. This was the first Thanksgiving that Tyler and I spent as a married couple, and it was great! We got to spend time with both of our families, which I always love to do.  There is nothing in the world as special to me as family!

I only got Thursday off from work, so we spent Thanksgiving day with Tyler's family in Lexington. On Friday after I got off of work, we headed to WV to see my family for the weekend. I decided to cook a few things to take to Thanksgiving dinner at Tyler's mom's house. I was so nervous because I have never prepared anything for a large group of people before, and I really wanted it to be good. I headed over to Pinterest and found some great recipes! I made punch (my Grandmother's recipe), sweet potato casserole, a pumpkin dessert spread, and THE mac and cheese. I have to say everyone really enjoyed everything! I was so happy!

I know most bloggers post perfectly posed pictures on their blogs and Instagrams, but I don't consider myself a real blogger which is why I feel comfortable showing you this picture. No makeup and wet hair up in a towel.. This is real life y'all! LOL

I didn't get a picture of the punch, but it was a huge hit! I'm feeling generous, so I will give y'all the BEST punch recipe ever. My grandmother has been making this punch for as long as I can remember, and I wanted to make it for Tyler's family. They loved it, and they drank every last drop!

Freeze maraschino cherries in their cherry syrup in an ice cube tray the night before you are serving the punch. This is a cute little touch.

Add 1 packet of cherry jello mix, a cup and a half of sugar, a 2 liter of ginger ale, a 2 liter of sprite, orange sherbet, and lime sherbet. Mix all of that together, chill, and serve! Try it out, and you can thank me later! 

Unfortunately, I didn't get a picture of the punch. I put it together right before we headed out the door to Tyler's mom's, and it slipped my mind to take a picture of it. My aunt Michelle got me a beautiful crystal punch bowl for my wedding shower, and it was the perfect excuse to break that out of the box and put it to good use!

The first thing I made was a pumpkin dessert from a pie mix I picked up on my bachelorette weekend. I paired the mix with cinnamon graham crackers, and it was really good!

The sweet potato casserole was delicious and so easy to make! You can find the recipe for it on my Pinterest board titled Recipes or by clicking this link.

I have to say this is the most action my KitchenAid mixer has seen since my maw maw got it for me. Now I am gearing up to make Christmas goodies for our friends and families. I love my mixer!

Ready for the marshmallows 

Before baking

It tasted as good as it looks! This is more like a dessert than a side dish.

Now, the real hit was this macaroni and cheese which is appropriately called THE mac and cheese.  Here is the link that I found on Pinterest.

If you click on the link and read the post, you will find some variations to this mac and cheese. I made THE mac and cheese with cheddar, havarti, and bacon. I mean you can't go wrong with bacon, right? Right.

This was probably the most time consuming thing I made. First, I had to fry the bacon and crunch it up into small pieces. Then, I boiled the noodles (2 pounds of noodles to be exact) in a huge pot. While the noodles were boiling, I had to make the sauce. The sauce I made exactly as the original recipe. After the noodles were cooked, I drained them, added the sauce, and put in the cheddar and havarti cheese. I stirred it all up and let the cheese melt. Then, I added in the bacon and stirred that up. For the topping, I melted some butter and mixed in panko bread crumbs. I put the macaroni into a casserole dish, added the buttered bread crumbs to the top, and baked it for about 15 minutes. Y'all.. Can you say YUM?! It was so worth the time and the mess!

My sweet husband carried out all the food to the car while I finished getting ready, so I didn't get any good pictures of the mac and cheese. I did get this picture of the food all wrapped up and ready to be taken to Rhonda's, so this will have to do.

Thanksgiving day was great. There was SO much food! Besides the dishes I brought, Rhonda had turkey, dressing, ham, green beans, corn, mashed potatoes, rolls, and desserts galore. I think we counted almost 22 people that came for dinner. After we ate, we all just sat around and talked. It was so nice spending time with everyone! 

After work on Friday, Tyler and I traveled to my hometown to visit with my family. Saturday my mom made prime rib, fried chicken, mashed potatoes, broccoli and cheese casserole, rolls, half runners, coconut pie, and pecan pie. We pigged out! I was so glad my family came up to see me even though they had already celebrated Thanksgiving on Thursday. When you don't get to see your family any time you want, you really start to cherish times like that. Unfortunately, living in the moment means not taking a ton of pictures. 

However, I do have this awesome video that Kelly took of my mom, my uncle Freddie, my maw maw, and my pawpaw. Mom played the piano while Uncle Freddie, Mawmaw, and Pawpaw sang. They played from the church hymnal and entertained us all! I cherish moments like this! There is truly nothing better than being with the ones you love!

I wish I would have gotten more pictures, but I was enjoying myself spending time with my family. After everyone left, we watched Christmas Vacation. Isn't that a requirement after Thanksgiving?! Then I went to visit my JuJu, and she tied a beautiful cheetah and red bow for my Christmas tree (next blog post y'all). She also gave me some adorable snowman decorations for my house. She has always spoiled all of her grandkids. We are lucky to have her!

As you can see, I have plenty to be thankful for! Tyler makes me the happiest little lady in the world, and I am so thankful for him. He is more than my husband. He is my best friend! We are also lucky to have such wonderful, loving families. I am blessed beyond measure! 

I hope all of you had a wonderful Thanksgiving and enjoyed spending time with friends and family. Until next time.. Take care!