Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving Everyone! We just landed in Texas and are on our way to Jeremy's Uncle Robert's Lake house for the weekend! This is the first year in my entire life that I haven't spent Thanksgiving with my parents, brother & sisters...and I'm already missing them! I will say however that I am so excited to check out Dallas and take advantage of some good ole' southern cooking!!! I hope everyone is settled in with friends and family today and enjoying their holiday. I know that I am happy to be surrounded by so many of my loved ones and I am so thankful to have such a great family to celebrate with!

Gingerbread House

We had a play date last Sunday with Mr. Sam and we made a Gingerbread house! We are in full fledged Christmas Spirit around our house!

Christmas Decorating

Santa and his cute little helper

We did our annual Christmas decorating party on Saturday night, the usuals were there; Chair, Lee, Linz, Zack, Matt, Angela and the baby! This has become tradition around our house and I'm beginning to feel a little lonesome knowing that Linz and Zack won't be here next year to help. I'll try and post some pictures of the decorations in the next few days.

Happy Halloween

Quite possibly the cutest little cow you've ever laid eyes on!

Playing at the park with Uncle Jeremy

Bella next to the pumpkin that I carved of her...3 1/2 hours later! Does she look like she even appreciated it!?!

Jeremy's Pumpkin creation

So after a busy day of pumpkin carving, passing out candy, a party at the park with neighbors and a family dinner with the Days we settled down for a quiet evening at Paigey's and were in bed by 11...pretty nice for Saturday night if you ask me!

Sunday we headed up to Yuba to go to my dad's harvest party. We got up to Yuba, ate a great Mexican feast, visited with friends and family and left just before Turkey's band started playing (yes you got that right, Turkey is his name) and boy do they P-A-R-T-Y! We ended the day with a fun visit at the Fosters and got to meet their newest addition, Sophie (who is absolutely precious), just in time to dash by Grandmas and hit the road for home - only to get stuck in the WORST traffic I've ever seen heading out of Yuba! Gotta love the fact that Yuba can actually draw 70,000 extra visitors for a Sikh parade!

And I leave you with this little treat...

Pumpkin cupcakes with bourbon cream cheese frosting - let me tell you they are delicious!

Cake Mix:

1 package of yellow cake mix

1 package of JELL-O instant vanilla pudding (4 serving size)

1 cup of pumpkin (canned or fresh)

1/2 cup of vegetable oil

1/2 cup of water

3 eggs

1 Tablespoon of Pumpkin Pie Spice

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Mix all the above ingredients together with an electric mixer until well mixed (about 5 minutes). Pour into greased and floured cake pan. Makes a single layer 9x13" cake (bake for approx. 35 minutes or until toothpick comes out clean) or about 2 dozen cupcakes (Bake for about 25 minutes).

Frosting:

8oz. of cream cheese, softened

1/4 cup of butter

1 teaspoon of vanilla

1 16 oz. package of powdered sugar, sifted

1 1/2 - 2 Tablespoons of bourbon (optional)

Beat cream cheese, butter, vanilla and bourbon together until well blended and then slowly add in the powdered sugar. (if you want to get creative and use a pastry bag to decorate I recommend doubling the frosting recipe.

My Fav....

Bandera's Cornbread, I am craving it. I just found this recipe on the web and I am going to give it a whirl (at some point), until then I am going there tonight with the girls to get my fix. I thought I'd share:

1 c. all purpose flour
1 c. yellow cornmeal
1/4 t. salt
4 t. baking powder
1 (15 oz.) can of creamed corn
2 oz. green chili peppers (1/2 small can roasted style)
1 c. butter
1 c. sugar
1/2 c. shredded cheddar cheese
1/2 c. shredded monterey jack cheese
4 eggs
(now this is definitely healthy)

Directions:
preheat oven and skillet to 300 degrees.

mix flour, cornmeal, salt & baking powder and set aside. melt butter and combine with creamed corn, sugar and chili peppers. mix to combine. add eggs one-by one and mix until well blended. add cheese. fold in flour mixture until mixed well, clumps are okay.

carefully remove cast iron skillet from the oven and evenly coat top and sides with canola/vegetable oil. pour in cornbread batter (be careful, it may splatter).

bake 30-40 minutes, or until top is golden brown and toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.

This is why I can only have 1 piece:
Nutrition Facts
Serving Size 1 (95g)
Recipe makes 16 servings
Calories 274
Calories from Fat 139 (50%)

Amount Per Serving/%DV
Total Fat 15.5g 23%
Saturated Fat 9.2g 45%
Monounsaturated Fat 4.2g
Polyunsaturated Fat 0.9g
Trans Fat 0.0g
Cholesterol 90mg 30%
Sodium 352mg 14%
Potassium 107mg 3%
Total Carbohydrate 30.3g 10%
Dietary Fiber 1.2g 4%
Sugars 13.8g
Protein 5.4g

Catching Up

We have been gearing up for the change in seasons around here. For me that means decorating for fall, for Jeremy that means getting in the spirit of Christmas. Yesterday we went to the pumpkin patch and all morning he had Christmas music blaring around the house...living with Jeremy makes me feel like the Grinch; how can I get in the spirit this early, it's been 70+ degrees and sunny and I have just barely started to accept that fall is here!?!

On Friday night we had a nice last minute visit with Sara, she called me on Thursday and was looking to escape Bakersfield for a night so she drove up here and joined Jeremy and I for dinner with some friends. It was such a great visit and way too short as always. We had a fun evening here at the house chatting it up with her and our good friends Mark & Patrick. Jeremy and I bought a few new cases of wine and so we did a Zin tasting and cooked a fall themed dinner...it reminded me of how much I love to entertain, it seems like we've been gone so much lately that we haven't had much time to do things like this!

Here is the menu from our dinner party:

- Roasted Tomato Soup

- Harvest Salad adapted from William Sonoma

- Seafood Linguine

- Spiced Pumpkin Pie w/ Bourbon Whipped Cream

- Wine Tasting:

XYZin 100 Year (My personal favorite), XYZin 50 Year, Rosenblum Cellars 07 Reserve, and last but not least 7 Deadly Zins.

And how cute are Mark and Patrick, they found these wine labels at Michael's courtesy of Martha Stewart:

Sara

So with all that has been going on around here I totally bypassed Sara's birthday. Being that she is such a near and dear friend to me I wanted to make sure that I sent her many happy belated birthday wishes!

Sara, my 10 favorite things about you are:

1) Your friendship, we have grown up together and you are a cherished friend always!

2) Your bubbly personality, you don't know a stranger.

3) Motherhood, you have been presented with some challenges in this department and I cannot ever tell you just how much I admire how you have taken charge of your situation and provided for Carter, he is such a luck little boy to have a mommy like you!

4) You're a fabulous wife

5) Your house, you keep a wonderful and warm house...very comfy to visit I might add

6) Your desire to have fun...I'm not sure that I have been to a wilder or more fun bachelorette party full of funny memories!!

7) Your thoughtfulness, you are always to giving and and sincerely gracious

8) Your determination

9) Your compassion and desire to always help. When I first started Blake's Purpose you were one of the first people who called me and offered a donation and your support.

10) You are such a giving, wonderful and loving friend. I am so grateful for almost 30 years of your friendship! Sorry that this birthday wish is a little bit late, but as they always say "better late than never"! Love you!