Thanksgiving 2013

This year I have countless of things to be thankful for…..but honestly I try to make being thankful a habit that I practice all year, and not just on Thanksgiving! This allows me to focus on the more important matter at hand:food.

This year was awesome!!!! Although I didn’t get to fulfill my dream of hosting a full Thanksgiving dinner in our new home (I’m sure I will someday) I did prepare a couple of dishes for dinner at my in-laws. I bought Danielle Walker’s (author of Against All Grain) e-book Thankful on a whim the other week and decided to try out a few of her recipes. I’ve made a couple of her Paleo treats before and I was a fan. Normally I pick out a few recipes from different places to try, but I knew I wanted to make green bean casserole…and then I saw the Paleo pecan pie and made the decision to try that as well. I’ve never made pecan pie…or even eaten it for that matter. It was a hit! I am planning on making it again for Christmas, but I’ll have to increase the amount of filling and decrease the amount of crust. There seemed to be a lot of crust for the amount of filling that was made. But the flavor was amazing!!!

Rolling out the dough was kind of hard- the almond flour makes it really crumbly. But it worked out!

I also made her green bean casserole, sans the mushrooms and onions to cater to everyone’s tastes. It was also a recipe I’ll make again.

We weren’t planning on it, but I also tried the recipe for homemade cranberry sauce. I have never had the canned cranberry sauce on Thanksgiving….it never looked appetizing to me. This recipe was simple enough. Although we agreed it could have used more sweetener than it called for. I was fine with it since I am used to unsweetened desserts.

The turkey was literally the best turkey I’ve ever eaten!!!! I don’t know what my MIL did but it was so juicy. My plate: turkey, sweet potatoes, green bean casserole, and cranberry sauce. I went back for seconds, obvi. And pecan pie for dessert.

 

And….it looked a lot more like Christmas than Thanksgiving over here. Winter is coming early. Wonderful….

Hope everyone had a wonderful holiday. I feel like a bad blogger as I have been neglecting the blog world since I’ve been on vacation. I promise I’ll get back on track this week!

What was your favorite thing on your Thanksgiving plate?

Wedding: Ceremony and Bridal Party

Basically right now I’m doing everything in my power to avoid writing my thank you notes. So I decided to meander over to the computer and blog more about the wedding.

We left off after the first look- again highly recommended for anyone who’s getting married soon!

Our ceremony was right by the shore of Lake Ontario. It had started down pouring earlier in the day but cleared up and ended up being a beautiful afternoon. Everyone was in awe of how gorgeous it was. It was perfect.

 

My BFF from high school!

 

Our flower girl and ring bearer:

 

I was so nervous!!!!

 

My parents

 

We did some family pictures after the ceremony that took like 10 minutes. I was SO over doing pictures after that. I hardly even wanted to do sunset pictures! I don’t know how people do hours of it. Looking back on it I briefly wished I had more, but in retrospect the day was spent enjoying myself and not worrying about pictures. Plus when I went to print them I realized I had more than enough.

 

 

Looking at these is so fun!!! Next up: Reception and details

Wedding: Getting ready

I’ve been obsessing over my wedding photos for the past couple of days. It’s exhausting looking through everything, posting to Facebook, figuring out what I want to get printed, etc. I just want to do everything at once and it’s a bit overwhelming. I decided to post in sections of the wedding. First I’ll be sharing with you pictures of me and my bridesmaids getting ready/preparation shots.

I already shared that we were to take pictures before the ceremony. When we got to the reception site, it was beautiful out. We were set to take pictures at about 3 pm (ceremony at 5) and it started down pouring rain at 2 pm. I was checking the radar like a crazy woman, and anything I said/did from 2-3 pm that day is a bit of a blur….

Here’s me looking at the rain !

My friend let me borrow her cowboy boots just for the photo shoot. They counted as my “something borrowed”.

We did our first look (I’ll do a separate post) then came back into the room to freshen up. That’s when I cooled down about the weather (the rain was long gone) and we all relaxed by watching Miley Cyrus parodies on You Tube.

My Grandma and I!

I don’t know if I mentioned the AMAZING bridal suite my venue had (as you can see). It was huge with a bathroom, extra changing room, leather couch and large mirror with chairs for the hair and make up. I couldn’t have asked for anything better. This part of the day definitely went by in a blur but it was so nice to relax in that suite with my bridesmaids!

Where did you get ready for your wedding?

White Christmas

Merry Christmas Eve! Hope everyone is having as blessed and happy a holiday as I am. I haven’t put up anything on the blog in a couple of days considering I’ve been traveling home and participating in lots of holiday parties and fun.

We got home Friday and drove into a straight up blizzard white outas soon aswe arrived in our hometown……I have to say it was the first time I was really actually happy to see snow. Looks like it will be a white Christmas after all! Eveyone has been complaining about not having snow…I’m over here thinking WHO CARES!?!?!? But honestly, if it doesn’t affect my driving or ability to get to work..it’s actually kinda pretty.

We went to party after party after party this weekend…and I’ve consumed way too much food to admit on here. I did end up making some yummy recipes that I’d like to share… including

White Chocolate dipped Christmas Strawberries

Nearly overdosed on Christmas cookies but I managed to make more…only ate two while making this batter because my body was literally rejecting any form of sugar by Monday morning.

These were the peanut butter kiss cookies I usually make…modified base made from Dashing Dish’s peanut butter protein cookies! They came out delicious and no one could tell they were ‘healthier’. I’m not going to go out on a limb and say they are healthy…I’ve had way too many cookies in the past two days and none of it could be considered healthy. But hey…it’s Christmas!

Made it to the salon today and got a Christmas manicure. I never get manicures…but I love it!

It’s been a great weekend and holiday. I feel so incredibly blessed for all the love in my life. I really have no words for it .In my thoughts are people that aren’t as fortunate as I am to have such loving family and friends to spend the holiday with. Hope you Christmas is just as blessed! Happy Holidays XOXOXO

can you see someone hiding in this picture!!?!?!