Randoms and a Recipe

This past weekend Curt and I hung out with Todd on Friday.  We went to eat at Edley's Barbecue in East Nashville (super cute area!) and then got some ice cream at a local place called the Pied Piper (also in East Nashville).  It was soo good!! Here is my outfit for the night...it was so cold out! I feel like Pinterest Told Me To.... :)

Saturday morning Curt and I cooked (okay Curt cooked) a tasty breakfast! We had sausage, eggs with tomato, pancakes, and mango! Yum!! Curt did an excellent job! Here is our smorgasbord!

I also read a magazine and found this...not the REAL Housewives but Housewives of Nashville. So excited to see what the rich do in our city, ha!

Starts February 24!!

Saturday night our friends got together and ate some Mexican food and then came back to our apartment to play games!

Todd, Amanda, and Josh

Josh seriously thinking about how to spell a word backwords, haha!

Tonight for dinner I tried a new recipe. I was in the mood for Jambalaya??? I have no idea why. I have never made it and haven't had it in a LONG time but I searched Pinterest, found a couple recipes that seemed pretty easy and combined them to make my own. It turned out to be great!!! A little too spicy, okay probably a lot too spicy but next time I make it I can totally fix that! Here is the recipe

Easy Jambalaya

1 green pepper

1 yellow pepepr

1 onion

2 cups cut up celery

2 tsp minced garlic

1 8 oz can tomato sauce

1 15 oz can diced tomatoes

1 15 oz can chicken broth

1 cup uncooked rice

1/2 tsp Cayenne pepper (Next time totally doing a 1/4)

1 tsp tabasco sauce (Next time 1/2 tsp or less)

1 package turkey sausage

1 package cooked and deveined large shrimp

First saute the green pepper, yellow pepper, onion, garlic, and celery for about 7 minutes. Next add in the tomato sauce, diced tomatoes, chicken broth, uncooked rice, Cayenne pepper (add however much you want), and tabasco sauce (1 tsp was ALOT...). Stir together, cover, and simmer on medium heat for about 15 minutes. Stir halfway through. After 15 minutes the rice had soaked up all the juice so I added 2 cups of water. Then add the cut up turkey sausage and the shrimp. Cover and cook for 10 minutes or until shrimp is pink. Stir frequently.  Let it sit about 5 minutes and serve it up.  It definitely feeds 4 adults!  So tasty, really easy, and not a lot of mess to clean up! 

Yum!!

MLK Day

Curt and I were both off on Martin Luther King Day so we celebrated by taking a walk outside. The weather was beautiful, like 65 degrees. And as I currently write this it is 5. Gross. But back to MLK day. I told Curt I wanted to walk 3 miles but by the end of it he got bored and decided we were going to climb a tree instead. And by we climbing a tree I mean him because I literally couldn't do it. It was soooo hard. I use to pride myself on my upper body strength but I guess that was in fourth grade....  

I got nowhere and almost fell on my butt and then it was Curt's turn. I was looking down at the phone trying to get to the camera and the next thing I know he is WAY UP IN THE TREE!! Who knew my hubby could climb trees.  Just call him Curtniss.

That was as far as I got. :(

Yes, that is him at the very top!

Random...and because I have to post pictures of Brynn and Emory when I see them..

We got back from Dallas around 5 on Sunday and I stayed and hung out with the family before Dad and I left around 7 to drive back to Nashville.  I got to hang out and see Emory attempt to roll over :) and I for sure got in some good snuggle time with Brynn while we watched Frozen on the computer. And then we danced to Frozen for what seemed like an eternity. Too bad I don't have a pic of that. Or a video. 

And a big thanks and shout out to my dad for driving me back to Nashville. I have the best dad! Thanks for staying and hanging out and going to the grocery store with me too. It was so much fun! Love you!

So cute!!!!

She was sooooo into it! She would not take her eyes off of the movie!

She tried to look away... haha

The Fam Goes to Houston

So if you read my sister's blog or my cousin Erika's blog then you have probably already seen a lot of these pictures, sorry!!

Last week was the trip to Houston for the Siesta Sister Memory Verse Conference! All year long ALL of the girls in my family memorized bible verses.  Then if you posted your verses that was your ticket into the conference!  6 out of the 11 of us were able to go and it was so much fun!! 

I flew down earlier than my family to visit Lily.  So then on Thursday Erika and sweet little Bowen picked me up from Lily's apartment.  We ran some errands, Tab (Erika's hubby) took us to lunch, and then we went to Ebby Lee's gymnastics class while we waited for the others to get into town. Ebby Lee was so precious.   Watch out--she might be the next Shawn Johnson...well maybe. :) Once the girls in the fam made it we ate some soup Erika had made and just relaxed. We watched some TV before heading to bed at like 8:30???? And yes all the girls in my family also watch Young and the Restless. It's just something we do.

Sweet Bowen. I said smile and he did! What??? ha!

I see a gold medal in her future.

Watching Young and the Restless :)

Friday we headed to Houston and did a little shopping and ate some delicious meals! Saturday was the conference and it was SOOO GOOD! We had some great music and Beth Moore speaking was awesome.  She is hilarious but also such a woman of faith at the same time.  It was awesome to hear her pray and it was so POWERFUL!  We all had such a great time. After the conference was over we headed back to Dallas and then on Sunday I rode with my fam back to Cape.  I don't even want to count the number of hours I was in a car that weekend! But I also don't remember the last time I laughed that hard.  When my grandma, mom, Aunt Tina, and us cousins get together you never know what is going to happen! Ah!

Such a fun girls trip! Can't wait for many more!

Eating at Cheesecake Factory. Looking at this pic is making me crave that salad!!

Erika, my grandam, and Aunt Tina

Going to the conference!

My mom and Beth Moore, this picture will be treasured forever :)

So awesome! Everybody with their memory verses!

Trip to Dallas to see the Bestie!

So last Tuesday a super sweet friend from work, Mary Hunter, picked me up and took me to the airport so I could catch my noon flight to Dallas to visit Lily.  My whole family was driving down Thursday and I decided to fly down a couple days earlier so I could spend some time with my best friend from college. It. Was. So. Worth. It. We had so much fun just doing stuff like we use to do.  We watched the bachelor, cooked dinner together (well I watched a lot, ha), shopped, and just hung out like old times. It was so much fun!!! 

Classic Lily pose while trying on shoes :)

Are these not ridiculous!! We definitely did NOT buy them!

Taking a walk and looking at houses

Lily's dinner night :)

Lily, me, and Chase 

Thank you Lily and Chase for letting me come stay with you guys! I had so much fun! Love you so much and hopefully see you soon!!

The Cotton Bowl!!!

I got to go the Cotton Bowl!!!! 

So Erika's husband, Tab, is in charge of the chains for the Dallas Cowboys and since the Cotton Bowl was being played at the Cowboy's stadium, Tab was in charge of getting the crew. AND he asked Dad and Ryan if they wanted to do it...uughh duh, YES!! So then Dad said I had to go to watch them. At first I didn't know if I would be able to but he made it happen, thanks a MILLION dad!!  

I flew down ALL BY MYSELF (I've never done this before and was incredibly nervous but I did it..I'm really proud of myself, you can be too :) ) the day of the game and then got to go to the game with Erika, Whit, Mom, Dad, Ryan, and Tab.  It was so much fun!!! We ate some Mexican before hand, yummy!  We had an extra parking pass since they were on the chain crew so we got to give it to strangers at the Mexican restaurant.  And then they SECRETLY PAID FOR OUR ENTIRE MEAL! It was so awesome. Nothing like that has ever happened to us and it was just so special and cool!

The game was great! and WE WON so it made it even better!!  Our seats were pretty high up...as in 3 rows from the top, hahahah but you could definitely see the whole stadium! During the fourth quarter when it was getting really exciting we were able to move down to a much lower section to watch the game so that was fun!

It was such a fun trip! It was great seeing Erika and Tab and their kids and staying at their new house which is beautiful by the way!! Can't wait to see them all again soon when I FLY BY MYSELF again next week for the Beth Moore trip!  Love my family!

I ran into Nicole's family at the Nashville Airport before I even left, such a small world!

So excited!

Ryan, Tab, and Dad before they changed into their uniforms! They felt so cool! hah!

MIZZOU WINS!

They look legit.

Me, Erika, & Whit

The girls :)

New Year's Eve

This New Year's Eve we finally had legit plans well kind of legit...plans that consisted of going to a friend's house to play games, eat food, and watch the ball drop :).  Sounds pretty good to me! I had to work New Year's Eve but I actually got off about an hour early so we got to Josh and Amanda's house around 7:30.  

**Side note** The day before when Josh talked to Curt on the phone, I asked what we were wearing and Curt said that Josh said we were wearing comfy clothes.  Well Curt lied. So we showed up in our sweatpants and t-shirts and the other 2 couples looked cute.  I was so mad at Curt!!! Ok well not really, but kind of!  So I made everybody at least put on sweatpants to make me feel better, ha!

We played some head band game where you had cards on your head and your team had to make you guess what the card said, it was so fun!!

So here are a few pictures from our fabulous, low key, sweatpant wearing New Year's Eve.

Brandon (a pharmacy friend) and Lauren (his wife)

The guys--Curt, Josh, and Brandon

The girls--Me, Amanda, and Lauren

Randoms!

Sunday after Monica's wedding we finally got to relax!! I took just a couple pictures but I wanted to put them on here because I realized Emory wasn't in any of the Christmas pics because she was napping! She has gotten so big!!

Big girl!!!

Then Brynn said "lets nuggle in Grandma's bed" So cute!

And this is Brynn's hair before she took a bath.  She has some awful problems with tangles so Aunt Lindsey came to the rescue, ha!  We brushed it, deep conditioned it, and then I gave her another hair cut to help with the tangles! I think I may have a new hobby, too bad Brynn is probably the only person who would let me practice on them, ha!