Birthday Celebrations

Hey y'all! The last two weekends we have celebrated two amazing women: my maw maw Ellen and my mom. My maw maw's birthday was on the 12th, and we celebrated with shopping and lunch in Charleston. My mom, maw maw, sister, and I got to spend the whole day together which I loved. We shared lots of laughs during our girls' trip! My sister got my maw maw a beautiful card and some special cupcakes from a local bakery. I also got my maw maw a card, and I found her a huge red temp-tations bowl. Ironically, she had been looking for a big bowl to put mashed potatoes in for Christmas, so I was happy to have found that for her! Of course, we both got her restaurant gift cards since those are her favorite. I think my sweet maw maw had a good day celebrating her birthday!

As many of you know, today is my mom's 50th birthday. Since this is a milestone birthday, we wanted to celebrate in a big way! My sister and I have been planning something for her for months now. We knew we wanted something low key and relaxing where we could all spend a little time together. We've all stayed at The Greenbrier before but never together and never at Christmas. We decided to do a weekend getaway to America's Resort and help my mom celebrate the only way we know how: in sweet Southern style! 

Mom and dad met Tyler and me in Beckley to deliver us a precious package: my Pooter sis!

Pulling up to the resort..

Our adorable room.. I loved the bright colors!

First things first was lunch at Draper's. 

My sweet parents waiting on our table for lunch. 

After lunch we had some ice cream. We each got different flavors and sampled each other's. For future reference, get the Butter Pecan over Strawberry LOL

Kelly and I headed back up to our room to set up mom's surprise party, but before that we had to stop for a photo shoot in my favorite area of the resort. 

Here is the birthday banner I had made to hang up in our room. It has a picture of mom as a baby, her high school cheerleading days, a college picture, and a current picture. How sweet!

Mom idolizes Jackie Kennedy. When we arrived at The Greenbrier, the first thing she asked was if Jackie had been there before. I told mom maybe Jackie was coming to her birthday party LOL You can imagine her surprise when she saw Jackie herself sitting next to her gifts!

Getting excited...

I love how excited she was!

My mom with her new purse that my dad got her. She has been eyeing it for months now even though she only mentioned liking it once. I love seeing her so happy!

After mom's party, we said goodbye to the boys. They headed to watch the UK basketball game while the girls went to the tree lighting ceremony. 

We made our way outside to the front lawn where we were greeted with hot chocolate, candles, and carolers. The Springhouse Entertainers sang beautiful Christmas songs, and everyone lit their candles during Silent Night. It was so nice. Santa arrived on his horse drawn sleigh to help do the countdown to LIGHT UP THE GREENBRIER!

Here comes Santa! 

After the ceremony, we headed back to our rooms to get ready for dinner. Check out this display made of chocolate in the main lobby. How neat!

When I made the reservations for mom's birthday dinner, I made sure they knew it was her 50th birthday that we were celebrating. When the waiter brought out her cake, he said he was a little confused because he thought someone was supposed to be turning 50. When we told him it was my mom's 50th birthday, he didn't believe us LOL 

He was so sweet. He tried singing Happy Birthday to mom but forgot the words LOL He was so cute mom just had to give him a hug!

Now that I look at this picture of my beautiful mother, I see what the waiter is saying. This does not look like a 50 year old woman LOL

After dinner we called it a night. We were all so exhausted. The next morning we had breakfast together before heading home. Here is a picture of my parents before we left. Mom is wearing the new faux fur vest Kelly, Tyler, and I got for her. She looks so beautiful! 

The cutest cappuccino I've ever had (and the tastiest!) 

I hope you all enjoyed this post. I'm closing with this picture of my family. They mean the world to me. When I think about everything my mom has seen and done in her 50 years on this Earth, it amazes me. I can only hope to be half the woman, wife, and mother that she has been. I am so thankful that I had the best role model in the world to set an example for me. She is the epitome of class and the perfect example of a true Southern lady. This is what it looks like to be 50 and Fabulous, y'all! Until next time.. Take care!! 

Getting In The Christmas Spirit

Hey y'all! It is hard to believe we are almost halfway through December, and Christmas will be here before we know it! I have all of my decorating and shopping finished, so now I get to enjoy the rest of the holiday season. Tyler and I attended our first Christmas party of the year last week. His firm hosted their party at The Clay Center. It was very unique. The Clay Center is the venue for The Nutcracker, and they were having a dress rehearsal the night of the Christmas party. We were given backstage tours and were also allowed to sit in on the dress rehearsal. I loved it! It was so nice getting to spend the evening with some of our friends and to get to meet the people that Ty works with. I didn't get very many pictures from the party because I was too busy enjoying myself and visiting with everyone! 

The day after the Christmas party I had to work. When I left the house, it was snowing! I was so excited to see the first snowfall of the season. It was beautiful.. cold, but beautiful. You can imagine my surprise when I got into work and there was no heat in the pharmacy. Needless to say that made for a very uncomfortable and LONG day. I had started feeling a little under the weather, and spending 8 hours in the freezing cold certainly didn't help the situation. I was supposed to attend another Christmas party that was a cookie exchange. I was looking forward to going so much, and I had even made 30 peanut butter blossom cookies. Unfortunately I just wasn't feeling up to it. I ended up crawling into bed around 6:30 that evening. 

I spent the rest of the weekend trying to recuperate; however, duty calls. I had to get up bright and early for the Alpha Xi Delta Housing Board meeting. This was the same day as the Mother Daughter dinner, so I bumped into my mom and sister at the house after my meeting. I just love that Kelly is a legacy and is carrying on the Alpha Xi tradition! She makes me very proud! 

Now, enough of what I've been up to lately. Let's get into the Christmas Spirit, y'all! I wanted to take a few pictures of my decorations. I didn't go all out this year with the decor since half of my stuff is in storage. Also, please pay no mind to our gifts that are exploding from under the tree. We have a lot of people in our families to buy for, but I love it. I enjoy picking out gifts for everyone that I think they'll like. I also got some pictures of the gift wrap I used this year. I started with black and gold wrapping paper and bows that I got from WalMart, but I ended up running out. I finished my wrapping with paper I had on hand, so we have a big variety this year! 

Yes that is RHONJ on my TV lol I am re-watching the DVD's Tyler got me for my birthday. 

This one is out of focus, but I liked the way the lights looked.

I love how you can see the tree in the mirror in the dining room. 

This is the Christmas Ornament we purchased from The Biltmore the weekend we got engaged. 

This is an ornament we received for our first married Christmas..

...and this is the ornament we purchased on our one year anniversary trip. 

Always burning Vanilla Bean Noel during the holidays. 

This is our Christmas card. I absolutely loved our cards last year with our wedding photo on them. Unfortunately, we haven't had professional photos done since then. This is a picture taken by Staci Long at our wedding rehearsal. I love it even if it is an older picture of us. 

As usual, I'd like to share a quick and easy recipe with y'all. This is the wildly popular "Reindeer Chow." It was my first time making it, and it was so simple! I had enough to send some to our family and to keep for ourselves. Here is the recipe I used:

Measure out 9 cups of chex mix cereal into a large bowl.

You will need 1 cup of semi-sweet chocolate morsels, 1/2 cup of peanut butter, 1/4 cup of butter, and 1 teaspoon of vanilla. Put all of that in a bowl and microwave it for a minute and a half. Stir it up until it is all melted together. Pour that mixture over the chex cereal and mix it up. You want this to coat all of the cereal. In a large ziplock bag, pour 1 and 1/2 cups of powdered sugar. Add in the coated cereal to this bag, seal it, and shake it all up. You want the sugar to coat the cereal. 

Once everything is finished, spread it out on wax paper to cool. You want to wait until the cereal doesn't feel sticky anymore. After the cereal finished cooling completely, I added in holiday colored M&M's and mini marshmallows. 

I found these adorable baggies at WalMart for less than $1.00. I scooped the Reindeer Chow into the baggies and tied them up. Now my family will get to enjoy this holiday treat! 

Mom and I have been getting to see each other a lot lately, and I have been loving it! Here is a selfie we took at the mall the other day. Our mall is so beautiful at Christmas time!

I hope this post got you into the Christmas spirit! I have loved getting to see everyone's pictures of their Christmas cards and Christmas trees, so keep them coming! Until next time.. Take care y'all! 

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!