WRAP IT UP IN MAROON IN WHITE

There are a few things getting wrapped in maroon and white around our house lately!

My friend Tracy has been taking crocheting lessons from her grandmother (so sweet right?) and crocheted Elting this precious little maroon and white hat for this winter. Thanks Aunt Ta Ta!

And this Christmas we decided to do a Mississippi State themed tree in Kenny's office. We have collected enough ornaments through the years.

DECK THE HALLS AND GOLDEN TROPHIES

Friday morning while my mom and sister Black Friday-ed it up. Kenny and I decorated the tree with Elting. I say this every year but I just love pulling out the ornaments and talking about them. Kenny and I give each other an ornament each year and they are so special to me.

We sat Elle down and let her play and she watched while we decorated and we listened to Christmas music. It was a great morning. The amount of packages is puny because I sent half of them home with my mom to go under her tree for Christmas morning. We are a little worried about getting everything to fit in the car for Christmas travel.

On Saturday, my mom and sister stayed in Memphis with Elting and Kenny and I headed to Starkville for the Egg Bowl. I cannot believe we went knowing it was supposed to pour the entire time. And pour it did!

The only reason we went in the first place and stayed for most of the game was because our seats were covered. So we were not getting poured on. But the wind still blew lots of rain our way. So the poncho (gifted to me by my nice lady friend sitting next to who I got to know over the season) was totally necessary.

And the Bulldogs were triumphant yet again! We smeared them! The game was a whole lot of fun! Now we are bowl eligible.

SNAPSHOTS OF A HOLIDAY

My family and I had a great holiday. My mom came in town and we cooked at our house. We were sad Kenny's parents weren't able to make the trip. Kenny's aunt is in the hospital and they decided to stay down there. We missed them!

Elle hanging out in her jumperoo waiting on the Thanksgiving meal to be ready.

Kenny and Annie decided to put up the tree so the lights would be pretty while we ate.

Our little family on Elle's first Thanksgiving.

Aunt Annie and Elting

CC, Annie and Elting (see all of our boxes in that corner. Christmas presents. I have them all wrapped now.)

Just a little Thanksgiving playtime.

Watching Daddy carve he turkey.

Elting had Thanksgiving dinner too. Since she is eating mostly finger foods these days she had green bean casserole, stuffing, turkey, mashed potatoes and squash casserole. Yum!

THANKSGIVING WEEK IS HERE!

Kenny and I had a low key and fantastic weekend that included a Saturday afternoon date with a couples massage, mexican food, margaritas and the Mississippi State football game. Despite having lost if I could recreate that date once a month I would be a happy happy girl. We were home by six to put our little girl to bed and then were in bed early.

Sunday night I made this easy and delicious recipe from...you guessed it! Pinterest! Seriously go make it. And it is moderately healthy depending how much cheese you add.


Cheesy Chicken and Rice Bake

2 whole Boneless, Skinless Chicken Breasts
4 cups Cooked Brown Rice
¾ cups Frozen Corn
15 ounces, fluid Can Black Beans, Drained And Rinsed
1 cup Plain Greek Yogurt (or Sour Cream)
4 ounces, fluid Can Green Chilis
½ cups Salsa
1 cup Low-fat Cheddar Cheese, Plus More For Topping
2 Tablespoons Fresh Cilantro For Garnish

Preparation Instructions
Preheat oven to 350F. In a large bowl, combine all ingredients except for cilantro and mix thoroughly to combine. Make sure the yogurt and cheese are stirred in throughout the entire bowl. Season with salt and pepper if desired. Transfer to an oven-safe dish and top with extra cheese if you would like. Bake for 20-25 minutes, or until heated through. Garnish with chopped cilantro.

Thanksgiving week is here! Yippee! My mom is coming into town today so we can cook and get ready for the big meal. We are having Thanksgiving at our house. I have to say, I am equally excited for leftovers on Friday while watching the LSU/Arkansas game. We are totally going for Arkansas in this house. Would love to see them sneak in and get in the championship game. We will also be trimming the tree Friday night.

Then it is on to the Egg Bowl on Saturday. I love the holidays!

FOTO FRIDAY-CHRISTMAS CARD EDITION

Because you haven't gotten to see a single picture of Elting this week. I mentioned last week that we had our Christmas Card photo session with the wonderful and talented Molly, with Good Golly Photography, (like her on Facebook here and see more of her work) We got to see the sneak peak yesterday and I am thrilled with the results. Cannot wait to see the rest and choose the pictures we will use for our Christmas card.



Speaking of Christmas Cards! My friend Susan at J Press designs will be doing our card again this year. She always does the best job and I love that the cards are unique and there is a very small chance that anyone is going to have the same design as I do. Which is a risk you take if you order from one of the online companies. She is so easy to work with and if you have an idea of what you want, she can make it happen! Go check out some of her designs she has already created for this holiday season here!

TAILGATE GOOD EATS

Brought to you by Pinterest of course! As I mentioned yesterday, we had some seriously good eats on Saturday. The two things that I made were from Pinterest and so incredibly easy.

I made Pizza Puffs.

It is a recipe from a great blog called Plain Chicken. They were gone pretty quickly. Here is the recipe.

Sausage & Pepperoni Pizza Puffs
adapted from Everyday Food
(Printable Recipe)

3/4 cup flour
3/4 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp garlic powder
3/4 cup whole milk
1 egg, lightly beaten
4 oz mozzarella cheese, shredded (about 1 cup)
2 oz mini turkey pepperoni, (about 1/2 cup)
4 oz low-fat sausage, cooked and crumbled
1/2 cup pizza sauce

Pre-heat the oven to 375°. Grease a 24-cup mini-muffin pan. In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, garlic powder and baking powder; whisk in the milk and egg. Stir in the mozzarella, sausage and pepperoni; let stand for 10 minutes.

Stir the batter and divide among the mini-muffin cups. Bake until puffed and golden, 20 to 25 minutes.

Meanwhile, microwave the pizza sauce until warmed through. Serve the puffs with the pizza sauce for dipping.


I also made these Crescent Jalapeno poppers. Another easy recipe! Check out the recipe here!

A couple other of my favorite things we had on Saturday was a shrimp dip made with cream cheese, canned mini shrimp, Heinz cocktail sauce and mozzarella cheese. You just layer it up and serve with fritos. Yall! It was good!

And a recipe that I absolutely have to hunt down are these things that my lovely friend Rebekah made. They were little mini corn muffins topped with home-made pimento and cheese and bacon. Oh my lord! They were awesome and so very pretty. They would be perfect for a party!

TAILGATING WITH FRIENDS

After our wonderful shower it was time to head to campus for a LONG day of tailgating. Since we had so many in people in town there was a ridiculous amount of food. More on that tomorrow. I promise.

Hanging in the chair dubbed the love seat. It is actually two chairs connected with a cooler arm rest in the middle.

People lining up to ring their cowbells at Alabama fans passing by.

So funny to watch. All in good fun of course.

Little Wilson (same age as Elle) was tired from all the festivities. I wish Elting would sleep in our arms like this.

Getting ready to go into the game.

And the game was F-R-E-E-Z-I-N-G. It was so windy. And I was not prepared. I accidently grabbed my warm socks instead of my gloves and I had no shame in putting those on. By the end of the game the nice lady next to us had shared her blanket and ear muffs with me. It was miserable. I will be way more prepared for the Egg Bowl.

SHOWERING AT THE TEA ROOM

So when we decided that some friends and I wanted to host a baby shower for my girlfriend Megan on the weekend of the Alabama game, we had no idea that we would have such a hard time finding a venue. Little unknown fact (at least to us) absolutely NO restaurant in Starkville will make any kind of reservation on a game weekend. No room rentals no table rentals. Nothing. Someone told us about Three Generations Tea room and a lovely conversation with Paige (think little old lady) followed and we booked!

It really was perfect. Paige told me she does all the cooking, all the decorating and we would just need to show up. This was ideal for us since we were all coming from out of town and had no where to host/cook/decorate/ that was convenient.

The Three Generations Tea Room turned out to be quaint, and a little quirky. And as far as the decor went very "old lady" but we had the BEST time just chatting over coffee tea and brunch served by Paige out of tea cups that we were told to pick out from her very large collection. She instructed us to pick one that matched our personality. So cute!

It really was one of the most relaxed and fun showers I have been to. I think Megan enjoyed it and Baby Martinez (gender unknown???) got so many cute and great things.

The table all set for the guests and mommy of honor to arrive.

The serving table. Love the decor.(wink wink) Most people thought that stork was a flamingo!

Along with designing the invitations, Susan at J Press Designs designed this Wishes for Baby Martinez card that matched the invitation. Everyone filled them out while we sat around and talked and then we read them aloud. Some of the answers were funny and some were incredibly sweet. Either way. It was such a fun idea and will be fun for the baby to look back and read.

The hostesses with the mommy to be and modeling our gifts from her. These fabulous cowl scarves. I love it!!

Megan showing off some of her new book collection. Mine was the Giving Tree. I loved that book as a child. Our group of friends like to do books in place of cards.

This picture is a little dark. But thought it was cute of Meg sipping forming her tea cup.

Megan modeling her new diaper bag and other accessories.

Guest of Honor and all the attendees. Not sure why the left side of the picture is so dark.

Cannot wait to meet Baby Martinez and find out if it is a boy or girl. When we polled all the girls we were split exactly down the middle.

BULLDOG BASH

I mentioned on Friday that we were headed for Starkville this past week for an extremely busy weekend in Starkville. We arrived in Starkville that afternoon. Our friends Megan and Patrick brought two of their friends along originally from Ohio. They wanted to see campus so we ended up walking over from our condo to campus and toured the ENTIRE thing. I have to say I loved it though. It was a cool afternoon and the leaves are beautiful right now. I finally went in the new Union and saw buildings I haven't seen since I graduated. We are always on campus for games but we usually hang around tailgates and there are people everywhere. It was nice just being there on a normal day. We even stopped in for some Mississippi State ice cream at the bakery.

Friday night Starkville was hosting Bulldog Bash in the Cotton District. There were so many people there. The condo we rent is on University where the event was being held. Making for amazing people watching. The headliner band was The Avett Brothers who were great. There were so many people in the streets it was kind of hard to get anywhere close to the stage. It also ended up being really really cold and windy. So were were pretty bundled up. After a while the girls ended up in one of the bedrooms talking where it was warm. It was still such a fun night.

Bundled up on the tailgate, trying to stay warm and people watching.

Hanging out just talking where it was warm!

FOTO FRIDAY

HAPPY 11-11-11!!!

Sorry for the lack of blogging this week. I do some work from home for Kenny, his boss, and some other guys and I have been super duper busy this week work wise. On top of having some outings with Elle. We went to a music class for children and also went to our local bookstore's story time. I really liked it and plan to start meeting a friend there each week. We had our Christmas Card photo shoot on Wednesday with Good Golly Photography. I will be sure to share the pictures when I get the sneak peak. So see, very very busy!!

Kenny and I are also headed out of town this weekend to Starkville. We are playing Alabama (yikes!!) and I am throwing a baby shower for my friend Megan and her baby who is due in January. On top of that today is Bulldog Bash and our condo is smack dab of the middle of the Cotton District so that will be so much fun. So look forward to lots of fun posts next week!

Saw this on Twitter after the LSU/Alabama game. Read the caption. So funny and sad all at the same time. Maybe we can pull off the upset. Ha!

Grocery Shopping with mommy for tailgate yummys! I will share the recipes next week.

Waiting on story time to start. Horrible picture of me. Had to put this one in because she was making a face I have never seen her make before.

Picked this book up for Elting yesterday for our nightly story time. I loved this book as a child and can't wait to read it to her.