A little family time...

Normally Jeff is the chef in our house, although I am able to do some cooking... I just don't find it relaxing. To the contrary, I find it stressful and upsetting, so several years ago Jeff took over in the cooking department. I can't tell you how nice it has been too, because I no longer stress out over meal time (but trying to figure out what to make is a whole beast in and of itself... ugh! the drama). Often, I wish mealtime were like school uniforms, in that you make the same thing every single day because you have to, the only problem with this is that it would be extremely boring. lol But still, just imagine how nice it would be to have a months menu in front of you and then to have all the ingredients to make all those meals...right in your pantry. How easy would that be!? I know. Awesome, right?

Yesterday we did a bit of family cooking and had a great time making a wonderful family meal. We had meat loaf (something we never make).... so I snapped some photos (of course).

fresh green beans are my absolute favorite. i could eat just these for dinner. of course, you have to add some butter and almonds to make the experience really perfect.

like this. yum.

Nicole getting the dessert started... monkey bread. we've never made it. thought it would be fun to try. yes yes, i realize we don't have a "real" bundt pan, well, i said i'd never made this before. lol so we improvised and used an empty glass salt shaker as the hole. :) lol

 

favorite things in my kitchen. my little corner of light and my fiestaware collection. i love all the color. my BFF carie bought me the set of pink bowls while we were at an antique shop. i love them most.

one stick of butter added to mashed potatoes. that's okay right? lol i never said this was a low-cal meal.

my wonderful Scentsy Dandy plug-in. notice the red candle wax on the on/off button? yeah. never try removing the plug-in with hot wax melted in the top. you can only cause a big mess. i've tried. three times. and you can see what happens? wax all over the place. i'm not smart.

monkey bread ready to be baked. doesn't this look wonderful? nic did a great job.

my flowers from three weekends ago. can't believe they're still so pretty. i love simple table arrangements. and i really love my green fiesta pitcher. i snagged this at the pottery barn where they sell the 2nds of fiestaware. this little cutie cost me $11.99. sa-weeet! love love.

we started our collection a few years back when Dillard's ran a sale ($25.99 a place setting with a free soup bowl included). i wish i'd purchased more at the time, but buying 8 place settings was more than i could handle... but i'm glad we got them. now, we buy a lot of the pieces from the 2nds store. you can't even tell. the flaws are usually on the bottoms of the pieces. :)

it was delightful.

and this was even better. the nice thing about it was how we could all "pick at it", pulling pieces off with our forks. we all just sat around the table munching on it. it was simply scrumptious...or "tasty" as Nicole says.

today we're lounging. i love it.

hey, jeff and i watched Up In The Air (George Clooney movie) and i have to say that it was wonderful, except the ending. ugh. had i known it would turn out like that, i think i would have not watched it. ::sigh:: i'm a feel-good-movie kinda girl. what's so wrong with things turning out RIGHT in the end anyway? life can be troublesome enough without having to watch it play out in front of you. maybe that's why i love my vampires and nonsensical characters... but hey, You've Got Mail turned out right in the end and it's a real movie about real people... see? like that. all movies need to be like Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks and turn out lovingly in the end. because i said so.

oh and i won't be seeing the new Robert Pattinson movie either. he dies in the end. what's up with that?

i hope your weekend is going swell (do people still say swell?)

it's cozy here. i love everything about it.

going to make myself some coffee. it brings comfort. love that.

xoxo

laurie