Thankful for...

...time with my family.

It's Thanksgiving again.  One of my favorite times of year.  This year has been far from easy, but I am reminding myself today that I have so many things to be thankful for.  I have a great husband, a wonderful family, a gorgeous nephew, and a dog that thinks I am the greatest person in the world!  We had a great Thanksgiving meal today, Skyped with the family back in Indiana, and talked to Dad.  Great day!

I made a green bean casserole from scratch this year...first time!  It was really good!  I also made knot rolls from scratch...again first time!  I was quite the gourmet chef this year!

Mom and Mimi liked the Turkey!

Shawn reading to Logan...of course!



Logan was all over the place...as usual!

Our little Indian :)

I also made a Berry Trifle this year...It was delicious!  Mimi has some personal size trifle dishes so we made Logan his own.  He loved it!  Of course he did, it had raspberries and strawberries in it and he would eat fruit all day if we let him!

Overall, Thanksgiving success.  Now we're just killing time before we hit the Black Friday deals at midnight :)

Happy Thanksgiving!

Christmas Cards

Shawn and I (well mostly just me) had high hopes for our Christmas Card pictures this year.  We were planning to get some while we were in Indiana, but the camera battery died.  So I thought about just using the pictures we took while we were there, but I really wanted to get the pictures for the Christmas Cards with Marcie's super cute scarf.  We had a day planned after we got back to Austin and shockingly enough, it rained.  It hardly ever rains here.  It rained all day.  Just my luck.  So we just took some inside.  Not exactly what I wanted but they'll do.  Here are some of the outtakes!  Pictures with dogs (and small children) are always an adventure!

It's really hard to get Marcie to look toward the camera!

She basically just kept looking at me :)  She loves her Momma!

I have no idea what was so funny!

At least she's in the picture...more like a picture crasher though! 

We did get a couple that will work for the Christmas Cards....they'll be arriving in the mail closer to Christmas! 



Eggnog

Eric and I were talking about eggnog the other day (I know...we're weird) and he was asking me about if it usually contained alcohol.  I thought it sometimes did, but I realized I didn't know much about eggnog...which happens to be one of my very favorite beverages!  So I decided to do a bit of research.

Eggnog

Origin is unknown, but believed to be English during medieval times.

Contains milk, sugar, raw eggs, spices (including nutmeg), brandy and sometimes cream.

English aristocrats drank it mainly because the ingredients were expensive.

After the movement to the new world in the 18th century, began using rum since brandy was heavily taxed.

During the Revolutionary War domestic whiskey and burbon were used due to the short supply of rum.

Drinking it cold and without alcohol has only been practiced since the 1960's.

Currently, commercially produced eggnog cannot contain raw eggs.

So, that is my brief history of eggnog.

Not that any of this matters.

All that matters is that it is delicious!

I will take it anyway I can...plain, as a latte, as a Godiva truffle, as IHOP pancakes, as ice cream...I'm not picky!

I know its not the Thanksgiving quite yet, but I bought my first half-gallon of the season today!  Yummmmmmmmm!

Quick trip to the mothership...

Shawn and I decided to make a quick trip back home to Indiana this week.  It wasn't exactly last minute, but we did throw it together fairly quickly (for me - the OCD planner - it seemed last minute).  Shawn's dad lost his job (and would appreciate prayers for finding a new job quickly) and we knew we weren't going to be able to visit them, or them us, for the holidays...so a long drive across the country with our dog began.

We made one quick stop in Indianapolis on the way up to Burlington to visit Theresa (of course)!  Sara came up for a quick visit too.  We didn't get nearly enough time, but that is what happens when we move so far away :(

We planned on taking a bunch of pictures of the fall leaves...I don't think I have appreciated how pretty fall is in a long time!  We forgot the camera battery charger, so we were only able to take a few :(  We certainly saw some really beautiful trees along our drive.  Especially through Arkansas...gorgeous!  We saw a lot of other crazy stuff on the drive too...that's a whole other story though!!

We decided that since we were going to be seeing his family we would bring our new camera and do some family pictures.  The sun didn't really cooperate exactly right, it was really windy, and Patrick didn't want to get his picture taken...but we did get some nice shots.  I know Shawn's parents are very happy with the pictures!

The dogs didn't exactly cooperate in the whole family shot.  Stormy was already pretty tired of Marcie!  Shawn and I were planning to get some pictures for our Christmas cards, but the battery died.  We'll get some in Austin instead...that makes more sense on a card from us anyway!  We did get a couple of cute family pictures though.

We had a nice visit with his family, but we're glad to be home.  Marcie was so out of her routine!  She did great though on the drive and in the hotel.  More so on the way home than the way there, but she'll be a seasoned traveler soon enough ;)  She's the most happy to be home though!