Turkeys & Tailgating

Thanksgiving Recap: For those of you who might be interested to know, Gracie does not like: dressing, cranberry sauce, or green beans (for the record, I already knew about the last one). However, when it comes to Thanksgiving Gracie does like ham, sweet potato casserole, and....deviled eggs. I never would've guessed on the eggs until I gave Bryan one and Gracie said "I own bite." so I gave her some...and she inhaled two of them.
Thanksgiving is always fun for me because I see family I don't get to see alot throughout the year, but I always end up eating way too much. And every year I tell my Granny to give me her dressing recipe and she never does. This year, I'm putting my foot down!

Tailgating:

So tonight, somewhat in honor of the Iron Bowl/Auburn vs. Alabama garbage that e.v.e.r.y.b.o.d.y seems to love but me...we had an impromptu tailgating-style picnic on the coffee table. First Bryan made us fuzzy navel slushies. Gracie's is the one picture above, and yes folks we are working on the "big girl" cup now!


This is a picture of Gracie and her new and yet unnamed pal, Little Lamb. He was a gift from a friend of Nanna Kay's.


A picture of the non-Iron Bowl watching picnic we had on the coffee table. We had our fuzzy navel slushies, potato salad, tortilla chips and cheese dip, and pigs in a blanket. Yum!

Bryan also started a fire so in the spirit of keeping her new clothes clean, we stripped Gracie down to nothing but her diaper. She is pictured here on her princess couch, while we hung out on the livingroom floor munching on goodies and watching The Polar Express. She's got a mashed up pig in a blanket in one hand, chip in the other.

I just don't "do" football. My family never has, and in the six years Bryan and I have been together (while his Mom, sister, and brother-in-law are avid watchers) Bryan and I have honestly never watched a game. I'm just not into football! But we had fun celebrating in the spirit of hanging out and chowing down anyways!

Spirit of Christmas

After recovering from our nasty encounter of "The Crud" thanks to
Amy Wade & her Family, it seems we have been run down by another infection: the spirit of Christmas!

I think poor Bryan thought I was nuts when I called him this morning to ask very politely if he would mind pulling out the Christmas tree and putting it up. In the last six or seven hours I have completely decked my home out in Christmas attire, and made a loaf of pumpkin spice bread so that the entire house feels all warm and cozy and Christmas-y. And take a piece of advice from Rachel's blog and find some mulling spices to simmer on the stove. I promise, your entire house will smell like Christmas!

Gracie was very excited about helping decorate the tree, so Tina and I let her help with putting the candy canes on. When I can get my hands on my camera, I will take pictures of the tree so we can show off her hard work.

The picture posted at the beginning of this post is one of Gracie from a portrait session Nanna Kay had done at Sears this weekend.If you receive an email from me, you have the opportunity to order prints if you'd like to. If you didn't get the email about them, just email me and I'll pass it along!

Week-End Review

In my previous post, I mentioned that I would inform those of you who check my blog (thank you!) whether or not Gracie liked the Snappy Smothered Chicken. The answer is a big, resounding "No!" and her Mommy didn't much care for it either. For me, it was the white cooking whine I used. It tasted better in another recipe I've tried previously, but it just didn't sit well with me in that one. I will probably substitute chicken broth or extra milk next time and see how that turns out.

So far our weekend has been kind of laid-back. Friday night, Nanna Kay kept Gracie so Bryan and I rented Mr. Brooks and Reign Over Me. I'm not a big Kevin Kostner fan and the movie was kind of morbid and gross, but Bryan and I are huge fans of Dane Cook so we rented it anyway. I won't spoil the movie if you're interested in watching it, but it just wasn't my cup of tea. Reign Over Me, however, was actually pretty decent but a tad on the depressing side (if you watch the trailer, you'll find out why). The story is linked to 9-11 in a roundabout way.

Then on Saturday I had to work, which is loads of fun considering I'm in retail and we're always busy this time of year. The next few days will be just as busy. Then last night we had dinner at the home of my sister-in-law Tara, to celebrate Nanna Kay's birthday. Nanna took Gracie to have Christmas pictures done at Sears, and I will post a link to that whenever they are online.

Other than that....the weather is kind of dreary here this afternoon and my mom and sisters are coming for dinner. We are looking forward to having a quiet Thanksgiving with Bryan's family this week. I'll post more later!