Oh.so.excited!

I am overwhelmed with excitement for tomorrow! I spent the better part of the day preparing tons of great food for our family's Thanksgiving Feast at my parents house--and oh what a feast it will be. I made my pumpkin cake, a Heath bar pie, sausage balls, and four-layer dip! I'm getting hungry just thinking about all the food that we'll have.

I also cannot wait for this! I got my shirt and race number from Lauren today. We're official!

I hope you all have a Happy Thanksgiving!!

My Practical Christmas Wish List

Hello blog world! I'm back from a week full of travel and am so thankful to have another weekend here at home. I love that I have the opportunity to travel for work, but it almost always takes me the better part of two days to recover. I would definitely not make a good flight attendant!

I'm looking forward to a short week at the office next week, and helping my Mom prepare for Thanksgiving at her house. I have a new Pumpkin Spice Cake recipe that I made for our Annual Thanksgiving FEAST at work yesterday and it was a HUGE hit. I am planning to take it to Mom's on Thursday and can't wait to see what the fam thinks! This year I was an Indian at our Thanksgiving FEAST and I had the cutest A&M headdress. I didn't have a chance to take any pictures, but will update with a pic soon. Remember last year when I was a Pilgrim? We always have a blast at the FEAST!

So on to the point of my post...

I feel as though my Christmas Wish List is growing more and more practical with each passing year. Don't get me wrong, I always love a good perfume, frilly socks, clothes, lip gloss, earrings, cocktail rings, belts, headbands, and anything girly you can think of. But this year I have more than a few practical items on my wish list. I'm cooking more and more and I've found a need for the following items:

• Food chopper (i.e. The Slap Chop, Magic Bullet, or something of the sort)--because my knife and cutting board just aren't doing it for me anymore! Seriously though--my life would be so much easier with a good chopper.
• Apple slicer--because cutting your apple with a knife is so last year :)
• Cake Carrier & fun-shaped bundt pan--did I mention I have a new cake recipe?
• Deviled Egg Holder--for the one time a year I make deviled eggs. Wait, have I ever made deviled eggs? Nevertheless, I'm pretty sure I need one.

I'd love to know some of your favorite kitchen gadgets.

Here are a few non-kitchen items on my pwl:

• Set of nice, white sheets. Preferably 600+ thread count
• Bath mats for the master bath--we never decided on a "theme" for our master bath and have been living without bath mats for WAY too long.
• Picture frames and decorations for our master bedroom--so I can finish what I started back in July.
• Gift card to Home Depot or Lowes--for those "around the house" projects I've been meaning to tackle.
• More drawers for my upstairs storage closet

My list may seem silly (or even unnecessary) but I want to know, are any of you asking for more practical gifts this year?

‘Neath the Wreath

This past weekend my Mom and I went to the Plano Junior League’s version of Chi Omega Christmas, ‘Neath the Wreath. I will be traveling this year when Chi-O Christmas will be going on, and was thrilled when I found out Plano was having a similar “canton-like” market. It was just as glorious (if not more) as last year. They had several of the same vendors as Chi-O (who also have a booth in Canton), and had a ton of great, new stuff! Mom and I had a blast checking out all the booths—it took us almost 4 hours to get through the whole thing. I got several Christmas gifts and a few decorations, and can hardly wait to do it again next year! Yeah for keeping this fabulous tradition alive!

Papa Murphy’s

A few nights ago Kelly and I ate Papa Murphy’s Pizza for the first time and LOVED it! Papa Murphy’s is a take-out pizza joint—kind of like Subway, but for pizza. You can pick out the type of pizza you want and then they build it right there in front of you. They use fresh meat, veggies, and cheese and provide you with cooking instructions to you can bake it at home. I was skeptical at first—why would you want to go to a pizza joint, have them make it for you, and then have to take the pizza home and cook it? But let me tell you—that it’s the best pizza I’ve ever had! It was full of flavor and you could taste the freshness in the veggies. Somehow just knowing everything was so fresh made it taste that much better. So next time you have a hankering for pizza, check out Papa Murphy’s. You can thank me later.

Cooper’s going to be a big brother!

No, no. I’m not pregnant, but Cooper’s real mom is pregnant with her second litter of puppies and is due sometime in mid-December. And yes, we’re getting ANOTHER puppy! Cooper is so excited he can hardly stand it! We wanted to get two puppies from Cooper’s litter, but it didn’t work out, so we were thrilled when Jan and Mark decided to breed Abby again. Cooper’s sibling will have the same mom and dad! My cousin, Lauren, is also planning to get one of the puppies from this litter—so we’ll have three brothers and sisters in our family! We’re looking forward to spending another holiday season watching this set of little puppies learn and grow.

Traditions, new and old.

Can Thanksgiving really be next week? It seems like just yesterday I was celebrating my birthday in the hot summer days of July. I guess the heat hasn’t really gone away (except for the chill in the air this morning), but the time sure does seem to be flying by. I’m really excited about Thanksgiving this year for a few reasons. Kelly and I will be celebrating with my family; however, we’ll be in Carrollton this year instead of in Bridgeport at my grandparents’ house. As my grandparents get older and our family continues to grow and move around the country, it makes sense to move the celebration to where the majority of the family will be. So this Thanksgiving I’m thankful we don’t have to travel anywhere (other than to Mom and Dad’s house of course.) I’m also thankful that I FINALLY get to participate in the famous Turkey Trot! I’ve always wanted to run in the traditional race held in downtown Dallas on Thanksgiving morning, but we’ve always been out of town. This year Kelly, Cooper, my cousin Lauren and her fiancé, Chase, and my cousin Amanda, her husband, Justin, and their dog Abby will head to downtown Dallas early on Thanksgiving morning (along with the rest of the crazy Turkey Trotters) to participate in this long standing (but new for our family) tradition! AND I can’t WAIT to wear my long sleeve Turkey Trot t-shirt to the gym like a true, hardcore fitness nerd. See you at the finish line!