Tis the Season for Baking

WARNING: This post will make you drool. You will see many photos of sweets and then you will be hungry! Don't say I didn't warn you. 


Or so it seems in my house! I'm packing on the winter weight. =/

It started on the Friday before the busiest Saturday in my life in awhile. Seriously I never do anything on the weekends and all of a sudden I'm invited to two parties on the same Saturday! 

The first party that I was invited to was a graduation party for Santana, who has been my cousin's roommate and best friend at ODU for forever! The 3 of us have celebrated all of our graduations (all at 3 separate times) together!

The second party was cause for all the baking. I was getting together with a couple of my Dinwiddie Girls for a Tacky Sweater/Cookie Swap party. 


Which led to baking all Friday night! Thank goodness I had the help of my youngest sister because I certainly know how to make a mess while baking!


Leave it to me to choose something I'd never baked before, something that required strange ingredients like light corn syrup and kosher salt. 


I chose Mini Black and White Cookies. 

I was baking until 11:15 p.m. And that icing is super messy!

Ever since that night, the baking has not ceased in this house since. Aspen and Lynn made a ton of chocolate cookies on Saturday night. And I brought home so many sweets from the party!

Then my mom's boyfriend is a track coach and Aspen is an architecture major and this is what happens when you add those two together and the fact that the store didn't have the cookie cutter they wanted. 

Yes, they made that themselves. They used this cookie cutter and several others for a couple of batches of gingerbread cookies. 

Then Dani made peanut butter cookies with chocolate Kisses and Aspen made more sugar cookies!

Needless to say, we haven't been at a loss for dessert at all this week!

What are you favorite holiday desserts?

Happy Thanksgiving!

My Thanksgiving comes with several traditions. This year I woke up super early (no idea why!) and showered! Then I got ready while I watched the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade!

 I kept getting on my mom's nerves because every time they showed Macy's, I'd say, "I've been to the Macy's" or "I've stood in Herald Square." I can't help it! Every time I watch the parade, it makes me want to go back to New York City. Also, it makes me think of the time that my roomies were in the parade with the James Madison Marching Royal Dukes, back in 2008. That was definitely my favorite time watching the parade!

Anyway after the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, my family always watches the dog show! We always root for the West Highland Terrier since that's what kind of dog Rascal is. The Westie came in third in the terrier group! I also learned that the dog show is pre-recorded. Who knew?


Then began the stress of Thanksgiving. This year we were having Thanksgiving at our house, which has it's advantages and disadvantages. Advantage: I don't have to go anywhere. Disadvantages: We have to clean the house in anticipation for our guests that never notice the vacuuming or dusting.


Other disadvantage is that our house is like Bangladesh in relation to population density. I think that's why my family is so close 0r gets annoyed with each other so easily. We practically sit on top of each other at family events.


Thanksgiving this year included my immediate family: Mom, Dad, Dani, Aspen, and Raina (Did you note that? Mom and Dad...that's a first since...well let's just say I don't remember the last time!). We were joined by Hollie, Dylan, Uncle Charles, Travis, Uncle Dale, Uncle Steve, Granny, and David. 


We had to sit in the 2 different rooms as well as setting up a table outside! But the food was great, the company was superb and I got to watch some good football!


Now for the fotos of my gringo Thanksgiving, most of which I took for my guatemalteca, Candace, because the day before Thanksgiving she was tweeting about not understanding cranberry sauce!

Cranberry Sauce right out of the can!

Sliced and ready to eat!

We had an assortment of food at our Thanksgiving! Let me tell you about! Turkey (of course), country ham (my personal preference), stuffing, mashed red potatoes, gravy, corn pudding, sweet potato casserole with marshmallows, potato salad, green beans, rolls, cranberry sauce, pumpkin cake, coconut pie, and lots of sweet tea!

My plate!



The copious amount of sweet tea that is brought to a Southern Thanksgiving!



The cake my sister made!

I hope everyone's Thanksgiving was wonderful! What kind of Thanksgiving traditions does your family have? What did you eat on Thanksgiving?

For my amusement...

I've been super busy lately and for once, it's been fun stuff and not work!

On Friday (the 17th), I went out to eat with my Uncle Dale and cousin Travis in Colonial Heights. We went to Ruby Tuesday's, which I hadn't eaten at in years I'm sure. The last time that immediately comes to mind is sophomore year with the suitemates.

Anyway, they mentioned that they were meeting Devon, Rich, and the kids at Busch Gardens the next day and talked me into joining them.

After Ruby Tuesday, I rushed back to Dinwiddie to Lindsay's birthday party, where I got to spend time with lots of people, whom I hadn't seen in awhile. I had a ton of fun and didn't get into bed until 4:30.

So I woke up at about 9ish with every intention that I wasn't going to make it to Busch Gardens. Then my uncle texted me to tell me that Travis had just woken so I could still make it! So on about 4 or 5 hours of sleep, I went to Busch Gardens.

I had a splendid time. I love hanging out with my cousins! I've been very lucky to get to see Devon, Rich, and the kids a lot lately, which makes me happy since they live almost in Charlottesville, which is a ways away and before that they lived in Oklahoma. Also Lucas and Meredith are two of the smartest, most well-behaved, adorable kids I've ever met!

At the end of the night, Travis and I decided to bite the bullet and upgrade our day tickets to fun cards, so that we can go as many times as we want to until September 5th.

After our long day, I stayed the night in Carson and we slept in! Then we headed to Colonial Heights three times in one day; first for lunch and shopping, second for shopping, and thirdly for dinner. All in all. it was a long fun-filled weekend.

Then on Tuesday, I headed back to Busch Gardens with Tori, Linz, and Elizabeth for a girls' day out! And we rode everything (just about everything); some things a couple of times! Elizabeth and I couldn't work up the courage to ride the Griffon! But in our defense, we did ride the Loch Ness 3 times!

That's what I've been up to lately! What have you been up to? Does anyone else have season passes to Busch Gardens?

Playing catch up!

New site, same me! I've decided to give Blogger a try. I think it will allow me to customize my blog a little differently than Tumblr allows so let's see how this works!

Because of all sorts of reasons, I am so far behind on blogging. So let me try and play catch up!

1. Since my last real post, I turned 23 (on 4/23). I had a pretty low key birthday, but I think that's what happens when you get old! I did get some really nice presents though!
2. I had my interview in Charlotte for the TEACH Charlotte program (5/1). I stayed the weekend with my sophomore roommate, Nikki and had the pleasure of visiting with Daniel, Meghan, Jeremy, and Mike while I was down there.



Bank of America building in Charlotte, NC

3. My cousin, Travis graduated from Old Dominion University (5/7)! I had the opportunity to go to his graduation ceremony and hang out with him, Alicia, Santana, Sam, and Frankie. A good time down at ODU as always.



Travis and I at his graduation



Those are the major things that happened a loooong time ago that I needed to catch up on. Everything else is fairly recent and can probably get its own personal post!

Any advice on how I can be less of an epic fail at blogging? I'm open to all ideas!