My two favorite men

1.  I love that my hubs and my dad  have a good relationship.  My dad is such a great guy, and hubs has so many of those wonderful features.  In fact, the longer we are married, the more peculiar characteristics that are similar to my father seem to pop up.  I guess it is true what they say about marrying someone just like your father.

  

2.  I have done really well with my fitness and running over the break.  I haven't done 10 miles a week like I had planned, but I am pretty close with 9\week. 

3.   I got to spend some time with some old friends this week.  Some of it was rough (more on that later when I can wrap my head around my thoughts), but most of it was a sweet relaxing time.

4.  All Christmasy decorations are put away, but I can leave out my snowman stuff until I can bring out Valentine's stuff in a month. 

5.  Hubs and I have been looking around at houses again.  We enjoy driving through neighborhoods and picking out the ones we like.  We are super excited about the possibility of moving this summer!

Stocking Stuffer Movie Bags

Since my family Christmas isn't until January, I have had a few extra weeks to work on my stocking stuffers.  If you haven't read up on my family's tradition, you can check it out here and here.  To sum it up, I have to create\buy gifts for everyone for under 5 dollars total.

I printed these off the computer. 

Filled bags with kernels of popcorn.

Taped it to the bag, and I am done.  

If you don't have a popcorn popper that uses kernels, you could always use a bag of popcorn. 

Most Favorite Day Ever!

Linking up with Neely

Favorite Thanksgiving Memory:  I love Thanksgiving.  It is probably my favorite holiday by far.  So, I have several memories to choose from...I loved how when I was younger, my mom would always find a way to have us help get ready for Thanksgiving.  It could be tearing the bread for stuffing, or making little turkeys out of ritz crackers and candy corn, or setting the table.  I loved being a part of it!

Favorite Thanksgiving Food:  Just one???  I love dark turkey meat, green bean casserole with lots of fried onion things.  Last year I discovered I really like sweet potato casserole.  Why on earth I have never tried it, I don't know.  Oh, almost forgot, I love stuffing with gravy, too!  See why I love Thanksgiving??

What is a Thanksgiving Tradition you and your family have? We make homemade donuts.  How cool is that?!?!   For breakfast, we make the dough, cut into donut shapes, fry in the back yard, coat in powdered sugar, cinnamon and sugar, or eat it plain.  We are even planning on spending the night at my parents' house this year, so we will be there in plenty of time to make the donuts.  We also always watch the Lions' games.  Not a big deal in my book.  

Something I am looking forward to the most:  Being able to relax with my family.  It is nice to not have to try to impress people but just be yourself.  That's what family is for.

Thanksgiving picture:

This was taken a couple years ago at Eric and Sheryl's apartment.  This year, we have a lot more people joining us: Anthony, Lucy and Kyle (my sweet niece and nephew), and Alex's girlfriend.



***Also, still looking for a few more guest bloggers for next week while I am out.  Let me know if you are interested.  I would love to have you!

Peek-A-boo Soup

I love this soup.  It looks like a lot of steps; however, it really is just dumping one ingredient in after another.   Some of the ingredients look like it would make it spicy, but it is NOT SPICY at all.  If you know me, I have a very low tolerance for anything spicy, but it is very flavorful.  Yum!

Ingredients.  

You will need a large pot for this as there is a lot of ingredients.

I don't know what the original name for this is.  My family named it Peekaboo soup when we were younger because my sister, a picky eater, would always try to peek under the tortilla chips to make sure she wasn't eating an onion or a tomato.  We still laugh about it today!  Isn't it fun making memories around the kitchen table?

I hope this recipe works for you and helps create many memories for your family!

Memorial Day Weekend

I honestly don't know what more we could have jammed pack into this weekend. Here is the rundown of events:

Friday-We get all packed up and drive down to my parents' house in Colleyville. My sister is visiting from Tyler, and we are waiting for Eric, Sheryl, and sweet Lucy to arrive. Being an aunt is the greatest thing ever! It makes me never want to have children of my own. (that was a total joke, but I knew it would make a few people cringe, and I couldn't resist:) This was the first time that we had seen her walking--so cute.

Saturday-This was the only day during my brother's vacation that all of us could be together. We loaded up the car and headed to the park. It was so super windy. I have never seen wind like that around these here parts. My dad cooked for us on the camp stove. Breakfast has to be the best meal ever. Bacon, toad in the hole, pancakes, sausage, orange juice YUM YUM YUM! I vaguely remember going to the park to do this a few times when I was younger. One time it rained; the other time mom forgot the pans. Later that night we hopped on a plane to Grand Junction, Colorado, to watch Ryan, Anthony's brother play in the JUCO World Series. We were the last people in, which we were kinda bummed about, but holler, we got the only car left on the rental lot- a Chrysler 300. It made me stand a little taller and want to wear my enormous, obnoxious sunglasses all the time, even in the dark because we were that fly!

Sunday-Continental Breakfast at the hotel. We would l have liked to have some waffles, but the line never seemed to dwindle and the waffle maker was not shaped like the state of Texas. Clearly, the waffles would have tasted inferior, so why waste our time?

Anthony really wanted to go hiking at the Colorado National Monument. I kinda drug my feet about this because last time we went hiking it was super hot and we had to practically drag Zoey, Anthony's dog, the whole way. This was not the case this time. Since I was the only one old enough to drive the rental car, I got to drive all the way up the windy, steep mountain roads. Anyone ever see the Long, Long Trailer with Lucille Ball??--that is what I felt like. The scenery was beautiful, but it was so so windy. I stayed really far away from the edge because I didn't want to blow off. Later that afternoon, we walked around downtown GJ. Not much happening, but it was a cute downtown. Sunday was our 5 month anniversary, so it was fun to do something a little different.
Later that evening we headed to the ballpark to steak out our seats for the game. The wind was so incredible. I keep mentioning it because I don't think I have ever experienced wind this strong for that long. It was hard to watch the game with sand blowing in our eyes. We were super excited that Ryan got called into the game, so we could watch him play. He is so fun to watch.
The rest of the weekend kinda blurs together. I was vomiting that night, our flight got cancelled, we had to drive 16 hours to get home, we both had to take a day off work, we made it back safe and sound.

It was a busy, busy weekend full of family and friends, and we had a blast! (Minus the getting sick part:)