Ladies Ornament Exchange

I attended my first Christmas party of the season last night.  Alice and Becky hosted the Ladies Ornament exchange.  They changed up the game a bit this year and it was really a lot of fun.  Rather than drawing numbers and "stealing" the gifts, we drew instructions that told us what to do.  For example:  exchange gifts with someone wearing a scarf, exchange gifts with someone wearing blue, exchange gifts with someone who sings pretty, exchange gifts with a great grandmother, etc.  And then after we all went around and exchanged our gifts as instructed, we opened the gift and kept it.  It was different and I really liked how it worked!  What a fun night to kick off the holiday season!

Thankful Thanksgiving 2013

Thanksgiving is my absolute favorite holiday!  A special time to be with family and friends.  And to be thankful for all of our blessings (although I try to be thankful for my many blessings every day).  I was so happy when Michael arrived home safely last Friday night.  That seven hour hour drive with him alone always makes me nervous.

Saturday morning we made a stop to see the sweetest woman on Earth.  My Mawmaw is a very special lady and I am so very thankful for her!  I hadn't seen her since I carried her to the doctor last month.  And Michael hadn't seen her since August.

Monday afternoon I came home from work and found this on my couch.  Avery loves her Nae Nae.  

My brother, sister-in-law and nephews came over Monday night for dinner.  It's always a blast when we are together. I am so thankful for both my brother and my sister-in-law...she is the sister I never had.  And of course I love my nephews to pieces.

Avery kept calling Hudson by Alex.  Not sure where she came up with that...ha

Tuesday night some of our very good friends, the Turner's, were passing through town on their way to Tennessee.  I am so very thankful for this family and the friendship we have.  

Thanksgiving Day we had lunch at my cousin Teri's house.  Teri and Waymon are two of the kindest people I know and I am so thankful for them both!  I love how they open their home to everyone and truly want everyone there.  Family from both Teri and Waymon's sides were there.  It made for a houseful and a great time.  To me, that is what Thanksgiving is about - spending it with all your family and friends.  The more the merrier!  It breaks my heart to think about people who have no family or no place to go on Thanksgiving Day.    

Carol and Paul couldn't make it out for the feast, so we delivered a meal to them on our way home.  These are two good Christian people here!

This was the site about 30 minutes after we got home....

Thanksgiving night, I prepared a small feast for our kids.  I absolutely loved having all of my kids under one roof!  These moments are becoming fewer, so I am cherishing them more.

Cody and his girlfriend Amber

Caleb with his girlfriend Brianna and Courtney

How can our kids be so big??  Crazy how time flies!

No matter what life throws at me, I know I am so truly blessed.  I have an awesome forgiving God whom I serve (and I need forgiveness daily!), a loving husband who is my rock, kids whom I love with all my heart (they may not always make decisions I agree with, but that doesn't make me love them any less), a roof over my head and food to eat.  And for that, I am truly thankful!

I will close with one of my favorite quotes at the moment:

Always pray to have eyes that see the best in people, a heart that forgives the worst, a mind that forgets the bad, and a soul that never loses faith in God. 

God Bless!

Branson & Deanna

Branson Bridges and Deanna Mitchell were married in Australia back in June.  They just got back to the states last month and have spent the last week or two in Blossom.  An Italian themed fellowship meal shower was given for the newlyweds!  

Congratulations Branson and Deanna!  Wishing you a lifetime of love and happiness!

Tropical Banana Bread

I bought some bananas, that I thought looked pretty good, at the grocery store one day.  The very next day when I get up, they were all brown!  So I knew I needed to do something fast, or they would just go in the trash.  I found this recipe on Pinterest (from Six Sisters Stuff - one of my favorite sites) and we LOVED it!

Tropical Banana Bread
Ingredients:
3 cups all purpose flour
2 cups granulated sugar
1 tsp salt
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp baking soda
3 eggs
2 tsp vanilla
1 cup canola oil (vegetable oil or applesauce can be substituted)
4-5 ripe bananas mashed (about 2 cups)
1 cup shredded sweetened coconut
1 (8oz) can crushed pineapple, with juice reserved
1 cup powdered sugar

Directions:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
In a large bowl, combine the flour, sugar, salt, cinnamon and baking soda.  In another bowl, mix together the eggs, oil and vanilla. Add in the pineapple, coconut and bananas and stir.  Pour the wet ingredients in with the dry ingredients and mix until they are just barely combined.  Don't over mix.  Pour the batter into two 8" by 4" greased loaf pans.  Bake for 65-75 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the middle of the loaf of bread comes out clean.  Let bread cool for 5-10 minutes before removing from the pans and placing on a wire rack to continue cooling.

In a small bowl, mix together the reserved pineapple juice and powdered sugar.  Drizzle over the top of the warm bread and enjoy!

Makes 2 loaves of bread.

Making Scarves

Last Sunday Sandra met Amy and I at the church building and showed us how to crochet some scarves.  A group had met a couple of weeks ago and made several of these scarves to give to cancer patients, so we made some to add to that.  I don't think I have crocheted since I was in Sandra's homemaking class over twenty years ago (wow, that makes me sound old).  I really enjoyed making these scarves, but mostly enjoyed this time with Amy and Sandra - who was the best homemaking teacher ever!  We may start a "crocheting" circle....ha  Later that night all I could think about is wanting to make some scarves! I had the fever!  I am such a dork!  But it is so relaxing and helps take my mind off of all the crazy in my life.  And so now I have made 4!  I even spent my lunch hour one day this week teaching a friend how to make them.  

A shower for baby Choate

Brian and Kimberly Choate are expecting their second daughter next month.  I was one of the hostesses for their shower along with Mel, Amy, Tiffany, Britney and Melanie.  There was a really good turn out for the shower and baby Brianna got so many cute things!  

Can't wait to meet the newest addition of their little family!

Roasted Brussels Sprouts

This is a recipe from Barefoot Contessa.  I saw it a while back on a blog I follow, and have been making it ever since.  I would never in a million years thought that I would ever eat brussels sprouts.  We LOVE this recipe!  I make this as a side dish with one of our meals at least every other week.  

Ingredients

1 1/2 pounds Brussels sprouts
3 tablespoons good olive oil (from the picture above you can see I think Great Value is good...ha)
3/4 teaspoon kosher salt (I used sea salt)
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper (I use garlic pepper - on everything!)
Directions

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F.
Cut off the brown ends of the Brussels sprouts and pull off any yellow outer leaves. Mix them in a bowl with the olive oil, salt and pepper. Pour them on a sheet pan and roast for 35 to 40 minutes, until crisp on the outside and tender on the inside. Shake the pan from time to time to brown the sprouts evenly. Sprinkle with more kosher salt ( I like these salty like French fries), and serve immediately.

Tennessee Trip

We made a quick trip up to Tennessee to visit Michael this past weekend.  We had not seen him in 6 weeks.  I was really excited to get to see him!  And I needed to check on his broke hand (he broke it two weeks earlier)!  Michael has been wanting Avery to come up and visit him.  We decided to leave VERY early so that she could sleep most of the way.  We were also glad that Brittany wanted to go with us!  It turned out to be a beautiful weekend and we had a great time!  

Michael gets out of class at 2:30 on Friday's.  He had not been out for too long when we arrived at campus.  Avery was glad to see her Mikey!

We went out to eat Friday night at Cheddar's and then made a stop at Target for a few things.

Avery was a big help in helping Michael get his cast all covered up so that he could shower.

Saturday morning we slept in and then went to Falcon Ridge Farms in Toone, TN, about 20 miles down the road.  It was an awesome little farm that had all kinds of fun things to see and do: playgrounds, catfish pond, petting zoo, hay rides, "train" rides, pony rides, a pumpkin patch, a corn maze and a corn box full of shelled corn for the kids to play in. We spent around 3 hours walking around and enjoying the grounds.

The blackberry bushes still had lots of big juicy blackberries

The corn box was pretty cool

All aboard!

The corn maze was really a lot of fun.  It took longer to walk through than I thought it would.  It had questions (about pumpkin facts) through out the maze that would tell you which way you needed to go...if you answered correctly.  We had to back track a few times.  This was the funnest part of the whole farm!

After the maze, we had a picnic with hot dogs from the concession stand.

Then we loaded up for a hay ride to the pumpkin patch.  That was all it took to put my curly headed friend to sleep.

It was the last weekend for the patch to be open, so most of the patch was pretty picked over.  It was still really cool.

I guess a day at the farm is tough on both little girls and big boys!

We went to the mall for a little while on Saturday afternoon.  Then we just hung out at the hotel and went out to eat that evening at Logan's.  We were all pretty tired by bedtime.  

Sunday morning we went to church and then took Michael out to eat before leaving to come home. 

It was such a nice trip and we had a great visit with Michael!  I didn't want to leave.  Goodbye is always the hardest part of the trip!