Precious

Aren't these just the cutest?

Birthday Party Menu

Sorry to keep bouncing around like this but it is how my brain is operating right now! :) I just realized I never shared the menu for Nugget's birthday party. Since we had a penguin theme, I decorated in black and white with red for accent colors. I used red because I had some Christmas decorations up already and it made things a little easier for me. :) I also carried the black and white theme into the food. We had:

• Black and White Pizza (VERY yummy!)
  
• Black Olive Tapenade with crostinis made from homemade bread
• White Queso with black and white chips (Ralph's idea-he's so good!)
• Birthday cake (red velvet, mmmmm!)
  
• Sweet Tea
• Ice water
  
• Red Punch (provided by my MIL, it was very yummy too, not too sweet and mostly juice)

I was quite pleased with all the recipes. This was, of course, the first time I had made any of them cuz that's what I do! ;-p The queso made A TON! We turned part of it into a soup--added chicken, corn and black beans. That was quite good too. Ralph preferred it that way to using it as a dip. Overall, it was really fun to plan a menu along a theme like that! Try the recipes if you get a chance (just scale back on the queso), you'll love them!

Christmas Decorating

Let's get back to Christmas shall we? For reasons I don't intend to expound on in this venue, we've decided not to have a tree this year. However that does not mean we haven't decorated. Thanks to Betsy, I finally remembered I can do a collage of pics just to keep things interesting! Yay!



I still get to have my lights, which I LOVE, because they are multicolored and have multiple settings. Love that! We brought out some of our favorite ornaments and found homes for them around the house. I also love bringing out my winter dishes and Christmas coffee mugs! One can never have too many coffee mugs (just don't ask Ralph about my love affair with dishes and coffee mugs!). You can see our wonderful "helpers" there on the bottom row. They almost "helped" us into broken legs. :D Nugget was busy recovering from her birthday party so she didn't get to "help." She does love to watch the lights now that they're up. Enjoy some of the little bits of Christmas that our brightening our home. Merry Christmas!

Thanksgiving Prep and Day

I got a little behind on blogging while preparing for Nugget's birthday party. I never got around to blogging about Thanksgiving. We had a nice day and yummy meal with Ralph's parents and an airman from work. I went with an orange, brown, green and white theme this year.

My crust--I am so happy with how it turned out!

My pecan pie

Our tablescape

Grandpa and Grandma with Nugget

Fun family pic

Our little group getting ready to eat!

My smaller layered Jell-O for our smaller group.

The food. :D

Birthday Party

Enjoying her birthday cake!

Our pretty birthday girl

All the fun penguins! I made the stuffed penguins, Kristi made the cake and Lanie made the cookies.

The fun birthday banner I made! I got the idea from here!

Her birthday crown. She didn't want to wear it much this year. Maybe next! Also from here.

We had so much fun at Nugget's First Birthday party! There were so many fun friends who came to celebrate with us. Thanks to Auntie Amanda for taking over as party photographer!