Wordless Wednesday

Merry Christmas!

These are a few of my favorite things...

One thing I absolutely LOVE, LOVE, LOVE about the holidays is decorating for them! The main reason I love it is all the memories that come flooding back to me as I get out each ornament, or my Christmas Village houses, or even our stockings. All of our decorations are a mix of old and new which I LOVE! (Have I mention love in this post yet?)

One tradition that we started the 2nd year of dating... since we had only been dating a month the 1st year, was to buy a photo frame ornament from Pottery Barn monogrammed with the year to put a photo in it. I thought I would be so neat to see how we change through the years, and how our family changes. Can you imagine after 50 years?!?!? We will have to have a photo tree all on it's own!

Here are the ornaments that I buy year after year. Let's hope they don't stop making them or it will really mess my "uniformness" up! (yes, I know that is not really a word) OCD doesn't go away with a Christmas Tree!

(this is not one of our ornaments, I just pulled from website, but she is a cute little girl!)

Besides looking at each of these ornaments, (we are up to 6 now by the way, meaning our 7th Christmas together) I love getting out all the other ornaments and remembering where we got them, who we where with, or who gave it to us. It is so fun. And since you only get to do it once a year, it makes it all that more special.

Here are a few of my favorites

This one my mom gave us last year for our 1st Christmas in our house.

It is Waterford Crystal and when the lights hit it just right, it is beautiful!

Everyone has to have a peace sign!

I bought this one last year for myself and friend. We always get once ornament alike each year.

(also from Pottery Barn)

Roll Tide!

We bought this on our engagement trip at the Beach Club. 

I love Sock Monkeys! And every tree needs one of these lit guys. 

And this was our 2009 frame (for Pottery Barn) since we got Bella last year.

Mark one year down for a new family member, hopefully some more to go! :-)

Speaking of "No.1 Pet", she has lost her privilege of roaming about while we are gone to work, at least while the Christmas decor is up. She had been doing so good, until one day. Ted came in to find two chewed up ornaments, one of which was his when he was a little boy. A little wooded teddy bear with his name on it. Sad day. I am just glad she didn't bring the whole tree down when she went for the little guy. She was also eyeing sock monkey so he has since been moved to the top. Hopefully she can't see him!

**Side Note**
Because I started this blog OVER a week ago and can't seem to finish all my decor, I will stop this post for now and will be back soon with the rest of our decor!
(Plus everything else I need to catch up on!)

Holiday Kickoff...

Thanksgiving, to me, officially kicks off the holiday season and we had a great one last week! I always enjoying visiting my hometown and being with family! Here are a few pictures to share the love...

 Cute Little Mimi getting all ready!

 A Thanksgiving card for MG that turned into a place mat.

 MG was being too quite in my room so I went to go check on her and this was what I found.

 Followed by my discovering she had gotten in gum that wasn't hers and didn't ask so  proceeded to tell her that she needs to ask and this is the response I got...

heart breaking!

 But, Bubba can make it all better!

And whats Thanksgiving without a little manicure to end the night?

Later that night, we did something that no sane person in their right mind would do, well at least not twice.

Wal-Mart. Cullman, AL. Midnight.

Enough Said!

These people are crazy! I don't know if Ted will ever be the same from this experience!

Moving on to Friday and the dreaded Iron Bowl! Alabama came out blazing the 1st half and went down in flames the 2nd half. Oh well, you can't win them all! 

But you can look cute win or lose. This was my outfit when I was her age!

How cute is she?!?!?

Maybe one day I will have little girl of my own to pass the tradition on to!

Roll Tide! We will be back.

Or in MG's words: "Roll Eagle".

She knows how to play her cards right in a divided house!

Coming up:

Decorating, Crafting and Shopping!

Cindy...

I have only mentioned Cindy once before on the blog, in this post, but those of you who know me, know her well! She is my car, a 2001 Nissan Sentra that I have had going on 10 years!!! Most people get a new car not long after college graduation, it's a mark of achievement so to speak, but not me. Nope, my mark of achievement of no car payment! :-) (for now anyway)
And up until this year she has put up with me and my "not so skilled" driving abilities. Every incident we have had, has of course, been my fault, until now! Now she is getting old and stubborn and wants too much attention and my money!!! After that post, we had to spend a decent amount of money on her to get her computer fixed. Who knew that they a computer tells you car everything it should be doing. I sure didn't! Until it BROKE and cost us over $1,000 to fix!!!! Geez Louise!

And now,this morning, I take her in to get her tires rotated so she will drive more comfortably, just like a good owner should do and what does she do??? She needs new brake pads and rotars! What? Seriously? Right before Christmas? Just a bit over $300, that's all! So in the last 6 months we will have had to shell out almost $1,500 on a 10 year old car when I  really want a new one anyway!

And with Thanksgiving just a few days away, I stopped to cool off think, at least I have a car. At least we haven't HAD to buy a new car and can do it when we are ready too. And even though there is a TON of other things I would rather spend that money on, or "save" since we are on the Dave Ramsey plan right now, at least we were able to fix her. It is so easy to get wrapped up in crappy things that we have to do that it is hard to remember and be thankful for the not so crappy things.

So as I still cool off from not being very happy with Cindy, I am really trying to focus on the many blessings in our life and not sweat the small stuff!

"Give thanks to the LORD, for he is good;

his love endures forever."

Psalm 107:1

Breakfast with Santa...in November?!?!

Okay so in most cases, it is a bit early for a visit to see Santa and I have, up until this year, been a very anti Christmas before Thanksgiving person, but our society is making it harder and harder to be that way.

I have been a member of the Jr. League of Tuscaloosa for the past 3 years. I was one of those members that just signed up for things to get my hours in, and check off my "requirements". This year I decided that I was really going to get involved and meet new people. So for the 2010/2011 year I have the title of Fall Fundraiser Publicity Chair! There are 3 main Fall fundraisers, BBQ Sales, (great for football season!) Breakfast with Santa and then the New Year's Eve Gala. So needless to say, I have been in the talks about Ole St. Nick since September! Being in Tuscaloosa, we have to plan around the football schedule and of course we want to make sure we do it earlier enough for all the parents to get their pretty Christmas Cards ordered! So November 20th it is!

(Disclaimer: yes, I have my tree up but that is only because we are leaving town for Thanksgiving and no one will be back to visit our house before Christmas so I thought I might as well put it up before this weekend so we could get some pictures in front of it. But don't doubt that I still have my pumpkins on the mantel!)

I knew I wanted MG to come down this year since she didn't last year and she is really now getting to the age, 3 and a half, where she is into the whole Christmas thing. Well, of course she wanted to bring her cousin Maci, so we had a great little girls night, plus Ted and Bella Baby, Friday night. We went to Cici's Pizza for dinner... Thank goodness for the salad bar at the place! It is only $4.99 for a reason people! And then went home to enjoy some movies, popcorn and have a "slumber party"!

Bella was really excited about this "slumber" party!

Bathed, popcorn in hand and ready for the movie

The next morning we were up and had some great entertainment from the lit story teller herself, MG. She went on and on and on for about 10 mins about a fox outside, who was up and tree, everyday and every night, yadda, yadda, yadda. Now I understand when my mom would ask me to be quite just for one minute! :-)

At least Maci knew what she was talking about and was entertained!

You can't help but love that wild red hair!

The next little bit, was consumed of us getting ourselves ready plus two little 3 year olds! Wow, what a job! They should really have classes on these types of things!

But we successfully did it and were off to Breakfast with Santa!

We ate, we saw Santa, wrote him a our letters, which by the way, they will get getting one back from him as well, Shhhh...and did some crafts!

Great weekend with the family. (and Santa)

And $130 later...

Bella was diagnosed with a cold!
Yep... that is correct, it took $130 to find out that Bella had a cold. Really starting to wonder if pet insurance might be worth it!
She has had a terrible cough for a week and it wasn't getting any better. Other than the cough, she has been perfectly fine, running, playing, eating.  But those puppy mother instances kicked in last night and I insisted that Ted take her to the vet. Since is has the day off today for Veteran's Day, I figured this was his fatherly duty! A few shots later and some medicine should fix her right up!
This could have been a result of us not turning on our heat yet, and this is what she looks like in the morning!

It's not like we don't have any heat... Ted builds fires at night. She is just a baby when it comes to the mornings and being cold!

Speaking of Veteran's Day... Thank you to all the Veterans and their families for making a great sacrifice for our country! Proud to be an American...

Happy Thursday, Happy Veteran's Day!

Baby it's cold outside...

And I am so excited about it!
(and I LOVE that song.. the Rod Stewart or Dean Martin version preferable!)
We got a load of firewood delivered to the house this morning and can't wait to use it this weekend!

Other plans, besides being lazy, on the agenda include:

• Dinner tonight with The Baxters and Sarah and Nathan coming in town from Destin.
• 3 F's tomorrow... Football, Food, and Friends! Can't think of a better way to spend a chilly Saturday.
• Relaxation and snuggling with Bella. She is a huge baby when it comes to the cold.
• And some stocking up of the freezer.

It is so nice to have single servings of food frozen for lunches or when we don't fill like cooking. I plan on making this yummy Taco Soup that Mrs. Smith posted on the other day and my Memaw's Beefy Noodle Casserole. I am not sure what the real name is but that is what I called it when I was little.

Beefy Noodle Casserole

Ingredients:

 1 pound ground bee, 1/2 cup chopped onion, 1 envelope beef/mushroom dry soup mix, 2 Tbsp ketchup, dash of pepper, 1 1/2 cups water, 1/2 package of egg noodles (the small ones), 1 cup sour cream,

1/2 cup crushed corn flakes (I never use these but it says it one the recipe)

Directions:

Brown ground beef and saute' onion

Stir in soup mix, ketchup, water pepper

Cover and simmer for 15 mins.

Cook noodles

Fold in meat mixture and sour cream with drained noodles

Melt butter with crushed corn flakes and top casserole (again, I skip this part)

Bake at 350 for 20 to 30 minutes!

Happy Weekend!

Pictures to follow.

Ramble On...

Love that song by Led Zeppelin and that is exactly what this post will consist of, my brain rambling! :-)

Last time I blogged I was headed to met Mr. Parker Moore for the 1st time. He was perfect in every way! He was so good while Michelle and I visited for the day. Lindsey is the 1st out of our college group of girls to have a baby so us "Aunts" have been filled with excitement since the moment we found out we were expecting our little "panda".  As you can tell from this post here.
(Side note: we call him a panda because that was our sorority's mascot in college, AOII! Dorky, we know!)
He was about 2 weeks old when we met him and all he did was sleep, eat and tinkle! (all over his clothes just like most little boys do!) We even were able to go out to lunch with him.
Michelle and I loved spending the day with Parker and mom and can't wait to do it again!

Look at those sweet lips!

Last weekend was Halloween so we headed up to good ole C-town, Cullman, AL. We figured since we didn't have any kiddos of our own we would go enjoy the holiday with the fam and see little MG.  Of course this also consisted of Bella Baby tagging along for all the fun! She loves her step-sister, Bren,but  am not sure how much Bren loves Bella!

We also did a little pumpkin carving. Every year Ted and I have a little contest to see who's pumpkin is better. Last year we weren't home so we just sent pictures via text. Mine won. This year Ted was thought for sure he would bet me. The judge, MG! We would ask her which one she liked better when she got there and you can't argue with a 3 year old because they always tell the truth. I went a little more artist and did and owl sitting on a tree, with a pattern of course. And I will be honest, it was one of those that you can't really tell until it is night and lit up. So I just knew MG wouldn't know what it was. Ted had a funny looking little face that was pretty cute. Not to mention Ted's was on a big pumpkin and mine was on a smaller one. We all know kids like the "big ones" so I thought for sure Ted had won it this year. A little while later MG came bouncing in the door and Mimi said MG, did you see the pumpkins outside.

MG: yes

Mimi: Well, which one did you like better?

MG: as she is rolling around her little eyes Um...The OWL!!!

She wins me over very time!

MG was Cinderella! She loved getting dressed up and I loved watching!

And in case you noticed in the picture above... I got a new toy! The , other, love of my life... a Canon EOS Rebel T2i WITH an extra lens.

Needless to say I am in LOVE! There is nothing better than a good picture. One thing I love, love, love in houses are photographs everywhere! It is what makes it a home. So I know I will get my money's worth through the years. Now, I just have to convince Ted of that! ;-)

Wordless Wednesday...

New Blog Design....

Happy Hump Day!

(Blog catching up is rising to the top of the To Do List!)

Sugar & Spice...

And PUMPKIN!...

That is what pumpkin bread is made of!

I am headed down to Opelika tomorrow to meet the first of our college group's, baby boy, Mr, Charles Parker Moore! I can't wait to snuggle wuggle with him! In preparation for this little journey I thought what better way to let the Moore's know how much we care about them as to bring them some goodies, just as any southern lady would do! (including wine for the new mom!) So I decided to get out the ole' Kitchen Aid mixer and whip up a few loaves of pumpkin bread! I have come a long way in my cooking over the past few years, but baking is a skill I am still trying to master. However I must say, this turned out to be a success!

Pumpkin Bread

Ingredients

1 (15 oz) can pumpkin puree

1 cup vegetable oil

4 eggs

31/2 cup white sugar

1 1/2 tsp baking soda

1 1/2 tsp salt

1 1/2 tsp ground all spice

(I used pumpkin pie spice because I had it)

1 1/2 tsp ground nutmeg

2 tsp ground cinnamon

1/2 cup chopped nuts (walnut or pecans)

1 tsp baking power

Directions:

1. Combine pumpkin, oil and eggs. Sift together dry ingredients. Combine the 2 mixtures, blending thoroughly.

Which will look similar to this:

2. Pour into 2 greased 9X5 inch loaf pans and bake at 300 for 1 hour.

Here is the fun part.. I went to Michael's the other day and found these cute little mini loaf pans for 60 cents a piece. So I decided to get them and then fix up a cute little bags of mini loaves to take to the Moore family as well as pass along to my neighbors.

How cute are those!?!?!?

(Ted had to have a little sample... that one will stay at the Baker's!)

I am going to wrap them in foil for extra protection then then put them in this cute little bag

Along with putting the recipe inside.

(also found these cute little fall recipe cards at Michael's... $1 for 20 of them!)

Hope they enjoy it as much as I enjoyed making them!

Happy weekend everyone!

Wordless Wednesday...

Fall at The Baker's!

Happy Fall Y'all!

Oh the places you will go...

I love that Dr. Seuss classic and the title is the reason I have been missing in action the past few weeks! 
New Orleans to Houston to Chicago all in the past two weeks can really wear a girl out! Mixing work and play can most certainly wear a girl out! Especially this one, but they were all GREAT trips!  I can't tell you my excitement of being back home!

I love Fall and I love to be home decorating, cooking and doing any other craftiness I can get into to. One of my favorite reasons I love fall is the color change. And as much as I love the great state of Alabama there is just no comparsion to the season change that northern states get. Here are a few photos from the Chicago suburbs.

My Chicago trip was the first, of hopefully many, mother/daughter trips. There was a total of 6 of us that went and enjoyed the wonderful city of Chicago. I also incorporated a bit of work in the trip that lead me to have to rent a car which is why I have the lovely pictures of the suburbs. Let's just say that was the 1st time driving in a major city and I hope it is the last. Me and cab drivers do not get along while I am not in the back of their cabs! Geez...

After that stress was over I could continue the trip stress free and enjoy the time we all got to spend together. We enjoyed dinner at Gibson's, Gene and Georgetti's and Shaw's Crab House while there. As well as going on an architectual tour, Second City Comedy Show, hitting up a few stores, lunch at the John Hancock Buildng in the Signature Room (on the 95th floor) and most importantly having a great memory with our moms! This was my mom's 1st time to fly in 20 years!!!

The whole gang.

Mom and I at lunch at the Signature Room.

Cheers to a great trip!

View from the 95th floor!

The past few weeks have been busy, fun and exhausting. I am glad to be back in a routine and home with my lit family.

Warning: random blogs ahead... trying to catch up on all my thoughts! :-)