Thanksgiving

Our family is thankful for so much this year! Jackson and I are thankful each day that we are married to each other. We are also thankful that Rosie came into our lives this year. For our first married holiday season, we are incredibly thankful that both of our families live close enough to see them on holidays. This year we are heading to Greensboro to Jackson's brother's house for early Thanksgiving with his whole family. Then we are making our way down to the beach for Thanksgiving with my family. I can't wait to visit with everyone and I'm sure eat way too much.

Speaking of eating, this year for Greensboro I am making 2 unhealthy but delicious Paula Deen recipes.

First a broccoli casserole:

Servings: 8-10 servings
Prep Time: 10 min
Cook Time: 35 min
Difficulty: Easy

Ingredients 

2 10-ounce packages frozen chopped broccoli, cooked and drained
1 cup Mayonnaise
1 cup Grated sharp cheddar cheese
1 10 3/4-ounce can condensed cream of mushroom soup
2 eggs lightly beaten
2 cup crushed Ritz crackers
2 tablespoon butter, melted

Directions

Preheat oven to 350.  Spray a 13 by 9 inch baking dish with vegetable oil cooking spray. In a large mixing bowl combing, broccoli, mayo, cheese, soup and eggs.  Mix well with a metal spoon.  Place the mixture in the prepared baking dish.  Top with the crushed crackers and pour the melted butter evenly over the crackers.  Bake for 35 minutes or until set and browned.

And second, Paula at her finest with a Double Chocolate Gooey Butter Cake (sans nuts)

Servings: 20-24 servings
Prep Time: 20 min
Cook Time: 50 min
Difficulty: Easy

Ingredients 

1   (16-ounce) box powdered sugar
3 to 4 tablespoon cocoa powder
1   egg, plus 2 eggs
1   (8-ounce) package cream cheese, softened
1   (18.25 ounce) package chocolate cake mix
Butter, for greasing pan, plus 16 tablespoons (2 sticks) butter, melted
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup chopped nuts

Directions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

Lightly grease a 13 by 9-inch baking pan. In a large bowl, combine the cake mix, 1 egg, and 8 tablespoons (1 stick) melted butter, and stir until well blended. Pat mixture into prepared pan and set aside. In a stand mixer, or with a hand mixer, beat the cream cheese until smooth. Add the remaining 2 eggs, and the cocoa powder. Lower the speed of the mixer, and add the powdered sugar. Continue beating until ingredients are well mixed. Slowly add the remaining 8 tablespoons (1 stick) of melted butter, and the vanilla, continuing to beat the mixture until smooth. Stir in nuts with a rubber spatula. Spread filling over cake mixture in pan.

Bake for 40 to 50 minutes. Be careful not to overcook the cake; the center should still be a little gooey when finished baking. Let cake partially cool on a wire rack before cutting into pieces.

Finally, at my family Thanksgiving I always make REAL (no jello or shortcuts) banana pudding. It is a  little trouble making sure the pudding mixture doesn't burn and gets to the right consistency, but it is so worth it!

what you need

3/4

cup  sugar, divided

1/3

cup  flour

Dash  salt

3

 eggs, separated

2

cups  milk

1/2

tsp.  vanilla

45

 NILLA Wafers, divided

5

 bananas, sliced

make it

HEAT oven to 350°F.

MIX 1/2 cup sugar, flour and salt in top of double boiler. Blend in 3 egg yolks and milk. Cook, uncovered, over boiling water 10 to 12 min. or until thickened, stirring constantly. Remove from heat; stir in vanilla.

RESERVE 12 wafers for garnish. Spread small amount of custard onto bottom of 1-1/2-qt. baking dish. Cover with layers of 1/3 each of the remaining wafers, bananas and remaining custard. Repeat layers 2 times.

BEAT egg whites on high speed of mixer until soft peaks form. Gradually beat in remaining sugar until stiff peaks form. Spread over custard, sealing well to edge of dish.

BAKE 15 to 20 min. or until lightly browned. Cool slightly. Top with reserved wafers just before serving.

Happy Thanksgiving!! 

Holiday Treats

This holiday season I discovered the Candy Cottage. What is Candy Cottage you might ask? Well, it is plastic, washable, reusable, snap-together gingerbread house. I think it is one of the most brilliant creations because the house part of a gingerbread house is always tricky. To me it made the whole thing not worth it. Too difficult! Plus, the plastic house can be used for all sorts of holidays. I first saw it decorated with Halloween candy as a haunted house! The Candy Cottage is sold at various shops or online here.

http://www.candycottage.us/SnapsnSeconds.html

Today, my trusty helper Hannah and I tried it out. While a lot of the decor wound up in Hannah's mouth, we had fun decorating our house. Here we are working away.

Here is our finished product.

I'm excited to decorate for some holidays in the future!!

Weekend Projects

This weekend was a rare treat. Not only did we not have to travel, but also Jackson didn't have to work Saturday morning. We celebrated by playing with Rosie, attending church at IPC, and doing some projects around the house. It was so nice just to have some time to get things done together.

Last weekend Jackson bought a new lawn mower with a bagger to do work on our mounds of leaves. However, the day he planned to work in the yard it rained. So this weekend we finally got to see how it runs. It definitely beats all that raking we did last year!!

Meanwhile, I got to work on a couple of projects I've had in mind. We had yet to put up any of our wedding pictures so I got a set of white frames from Pottery Barn and went to work. Our hallway is now full of pictures of us on the happiest day!

We also have been needing some hooks for coats, keys, etc. by the door so I picked up a kit at Target and topped it with our wedding gift from Seaside, a picture of the Seaside Post Office.

Finally I'm most excited about the fire pit I bought for our back porch. Home Depot had it for $39.99!! I couldn't believe it. I also was amazed at how easy it was to assemble. I did it myself and that is saying a lot. I can't wait to fire it up!!

It has since been relocated to our porch. If anyone wants to come have some wine by the fire, be my guest!

Updates

So, I've been a little behind on my blogging lately. Sometimes life just gets a little hectic and some things have to take a back seat. To make up for lost time, this post might be a little longer.

I didn't realize until this year just how many parties there are surrounding Halloween. It is rivaling Christmas. Jackson and I attended a party for my law school and another at my brother's beautiful home. Neither of us are big on dressing up and being uncomfortable all night so we try to find ways to be as cheap and comfortable as possible. We went as Penny and Sheldon from Big Bang Theory. I dressed in a makeshift cheesecake factory waitress outfit and he wore his Bazinga shirt. Easiest costumes ever so I'm pretty proud. However, Rosie, Hannah, and Sally stole the show this Halloween. They were a bumblebee, an owl, and a pumpkin.

Somehow in the year and 1/2 that Hannah has been alive I forgot how much babies sleep. Sally loves some shut eye.

In other news I took the MPRE on November 3rd. It was just as much fun as any standardized test. To forget all about it and enjoy the rest of the Saturday, Jackson and I went to my college roommate Rachel Wilson's wedding. It was such a joyous ceremony and very Rachel. I'm so happy for the beautiful couple!!

This past Friday, Rosie went to visit Dr. Katie to get spayed. Jackson and I had a hard time being without her at the house for a night but she took the surgery like a champ. She doesn't seem to know that anything happened to her. Keeping her calm is the most difficult part for sure! Rosie only knows play mode. However, the first day she did get some extra sleep. I took full advantage of the extra cuddle time. 

The election for Jim Hughey went really well. He held a 9 percent margin the entire time. Of course he accepted his position with class and grace. I'm so impressed with his character and I think that anyone who came in contact with him felt the same way. Thanks to all of you who voted for him!!

Finally, the magazine that our wedding is in is out in stores. Pick up a copy of Gulf Coast Bride or look at it here http://gcbride.printrelay.com/fall2012/#/26 to see memories of my favorite day to date. I can't believe it is immortalized in print :)