Our Thanksgiving.

I hope everyone had a great and happy Thanksgiving and that your tummies were/are as full and happy as ours! One holiday down two to go!

Were you as excited about yesterday as I was? I loved setting the table, preparing the turkey and all the other goodies we had. I loved the entire day of getting up early, prepping and even cleaning the house a little bit.

We woke up and I made some chocolate chip pancakes and some peppermint bark iced coffee to go with them. Call us crazy but we listened to Christmas music most of the morning. We love love love this CD. If you love Home Alone as much as we do this time of the year go get this one. It has the best of the best classic malt shop songs heard in the movie along with other great ones. We were singing and dancing and Button probably thought we were completely nuts.

I had marinated the turkey the night before and by ten-thirty the next morning it went in the oven to be ready by three.

We took most of the family pictures with a real camera and I don't have any of them! I did however, snap away at my tablescape with my phone. I kept it somewhat simple but pretty and comfortable enough to still be able to eat without having decorations in our way. We needed to be able to get to that food without interruptions ;)

I spent zero money on this since I had all of it already in existence. Well I lie, I did purchase two more of these really cool white candles at Target. So inexpensive but pretty!

I cut some twine I had left over from some other decorations and tied the silverware with it. Everything else was mostly purchased at the World Market including these beautiful napkins we have had for a while but never used! We decided to be fancy and use them in lieu of paper ones. They are fall-ish enough right? I couldn't believe how well my mini pumpkins held, not one of them has rotted!

The house felt so serene as if it were ready for all the festivities. It was such a beautiful day.

Remember those lit branches I got at Target? I went back for more to add as a centerpiece and light up at night. They looked so pretty.



Our family came over early to prepare everything with us and to be able to spend the whole day together. Our menu consisted of turkey (of course) which I marinated with orange juice, lots of garlic, thyme, bay leaves, salt, pepper & olive oil. I also injected it with this marinade and it turned out so juicy and delicious! I also made a salad with a spring mix, strawberries, pecans, jicama & a raspberry vinaigrette. My sister and mom brought jalapeno cornbread, and they made chipotle mashed potatoes (the bomb), queso with the best homemade salsa, I made stuffing from a box, my mother in law brought yams & deviled eggs (the best) and for desert we had pumpkin pie, vanilla ice cream and a jello that my mom makes with a layer of lemon and condensed milk, which takes ordinary jello to a level I cannot even explain.

The food was set up on our kitchen island with a sheet of craft paper under all the food for presentation and easy clean up! And some fun writing on it.

Elliot couldn't wait for us to start digging in. He loved the turkey and steamed potatoes I took out before my sister added any spices for her chipotle mashed potatoes. He is a potato lover and now an official turkey boy! He asked me for seconds!

I had to dress him up for his first Thanksgiving and this is one of the very few shots I was able to get of him in it! It's getting harder and harder to catch this little one still. I got everything on sale at the Children's Place. He looked so handsome. :)



What is Thanksgiving without pumpkin pie? After all of the ruckus of the day, a slice of this goodness was the best way to end the night. I am so thankful to have the best family I could have asked for and the best husband and son in the world!! Elliot loved having all the family around! He had a great time and didn't even want to take any naps and went down hard at the end of the night. This day was all about family, enjoying a day full of laughter and fun and happy bellies. Couldn't have asked for more.

After cleaning up and putting all the leftovers away, Jack and I hugged and thanked God for such a wonderful day. Then high-fived each other for doing such a good job and having everything turn out exactly as we had planned or better. ;)

P.S. I had a major realization just yesterday, I took Elliot's ten month pic with Christmas lights & a Christmas hat. Did anyone care to tell me we are in November and not December? I laughed so hard yesterday at this total and major fail. To Do: retake Button's pic with Thanksgiving gear NOT Christmas. That's supposed to be his eleven month pic! I think I was so excited to put up the tree and decorations that I was so in the spirit and failed to think straight. Ha!!

Happy Friday! :)

Weekend Recap.

Big plans were set for this weekend but they were ruined by the weather! Well, more like us thinking the weather was going to ruin them so decided that was enough to not put them into action? Whatever it was, our weekend was still cool. Pun intended.

When I got home on Friday, I saw this little pumpkin Elliot made for Jack and I at daycare with his little footprint and loved it. I can't wait to buy some cool magnets to put this and all the other stuff daycare does for him/us he will be doing on the fridge. He's so crafty like mama! ;)

On Friday night my sister went over to our house to have a couple of drinks. Since she's not a big fan of the beer I drink (say what?) we decided to make these delicious drinks with champagne and popsicles. I saw these on a morning show one day and the looked soo good and also on one of my favorite blogger's IG and had been wanting to make them forever. These are really cool for a brunch or birthday party. Seeing that I didn't have anything else in my fridge other than my beer, champagne and OJ (which is no fun on a Friday night) I decided to make these for my sister and I. If you're looking for a light refreshing drink, this is it. Try it with your favorite popsicle flavor and you'll end up finishing a champagne bottle in no time. Not the case with us. Or maybe. We also had a dancing party in which only Jack and I participated and my sister thought we were being completely ridiculous. She's no fun.



After she left, Jack and I started decorating the door for Halloween. We are nowhere nearly done but we are getting there! Here's a preview. We made the bats by drawing them onto felt squares and cutting them out which was a pain in the ass but we took turns in drawing and cutting to have a nice variety and to rest our hands from all the cutting.

The letters I got at Hobby Lobby, they are wooden, unpainted letters and I just bought a little tube of paint, some small brushes and painted them black. I still want to add to the wreath but haven't found the right accessories. I did see some pretty cool fabric for a bow so I might just do that. We are also planning on adding a few more bats to the door and other windows in the same diagonal pattern. I also can't wait to buy a thousand few pumpkins for the front door.

I plan on adding this felt garland I bought on West Elm to our mantle and I will leave it there for Halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas. I think it's neutral enough to work for all three. Thanks to Jessica Garvin for the heads up on it!

Saturday we had a whole day planned consisting of an early breakfast, corn maze and pumpkin patch fun. So we started with the early breakfast and noticed it was getting windy and cold (remember the cold front I mentioned?). Yeah it got pretty windy so we decided to skip all that fun. About an hour later after our decision, the weather got so beautiful it would've been the perfect day to pick pumpkins and take cool pictures of Button! Boo to us. It was already too late because we ended up at the AT&T store where Jack finally joined the iPhone family and he's so happy. Like a kid in a candy store ;) We still plan on hitting the pumpkin patch next weekend! 

Sunday was a laundry/cleaning and preparing for Monday kind of day. We also played a lot with this little one. I wish everyday could be like this!

Then we were done. Button was done too. We were in bed sleeping by nine! I think that might have been the best part of the entire weekend. Going to bed early is a very rare occurrence and we needed it.



Are you already decorating for Halloween? Hope everyone had a great weekend!

Weekend Fun-ness.

Naturally, with Fall weather and Fall almost here, the weekend began with a little bit of decorating. Now that we have our very own home, I told Jack there will be an explosion of decorations for every season there is. Tastefully done of course ;)

I couldn't have been more excited to see all the things that stores are coming out with for this season and I couldn't wait to snag a few of them. If you follow me on IG (@shadiabrown) I posted a pic of how I started. I've added a couple more things to it but wanted to keep it simple and somewhat neutral to be able to transition this into Halloween and eventually Christmas.

You know I had to add a button in there somehow. :)



I purchased most of this stuff at Hobby Lobby and Marshalls and used items I already owned as well. I made the banner with tags and twine I got at Hobby Lobby and wrote the letters with a white marker. I also added some dead branches from one of our trees to the white pitcher vase in the dining room. I still need to add a few more things but I'm sure a trip to Target will solve this.

Saturday was a shopping and relaxing day and we really didn't do much since we had to wake up bright and early on Sunday to go to The Color Run. It's a 5k untimed race that is done just for fun while getting showered with colored powder at different stations. It is so much fun. The only downside was that it started right at the time Elliot takes his first nap and he was not a happy camper since there was a guy with a microphone cheering the enormous crowd and there was a lot of noise. He just wasn't having it. Once we were able to move past the start line he fell asleep and was so good during the entire thing. He was happy, looking at everything although we did have to cover him good at every color station but he still got his white onesie along with his toes and hands full of color. He looked so cute. This is the first year I've done this (thanks to Jack's company for paying for it!) and I'm sold. Definitely doing this from now on.

I do have to say that I need to invest in a better stroller, one made for actual walks or for running (hint hint Jack)



I was a little bit bummed because we had to wear Jack's company's shirts and not the actual shirts they gave us for this but I got over it. I can wear it to the gym around the house ;)

It was hotter than a mother that day (after such beautiful weather we had been having) and Elliot ended up with no socks, no head band and ultimately in diapers for the ride home. We still stopped by to get groceries and I was more than exhausted. 5k is no joke. Who am I kidding, we walked most of the way but ran through the color stations to avoid so much color on us but ended up really dirty and not planning ahead. We didn't bring towels for the aftermath (as most people did) so we sat on Elliot's swaddles, changed our shirts and took showers as soon as we got home. After scrubbing for about ten million hours, we were finally clean and relaxed the rest of the day. We even got to watch a movie and have a beer to close the weekend.

Oh and I almost forgot to say that Button can now text ;) Send him your number for a cute duck face selfie! 

Have a great week!