Thanksgiving 2017

This Thanksgiving was a little different this year - we hosted it for the first time! Since getting married, we've alternated Thanksgiving and Christmas with our families and this year it was a Hirst Thanksgiving. My BIL & SIL hosted 2 years ago when our niece was 3 weeks old so Stephen and I decided to step up our game and host before we had kids to deal with ;)

I was nervous about the turkey but thankfully, we borrowed our BIL & SIL's roaster which freed up the oven and Stephen attempted a smoked turkey - both turned out amazing!! I wanted to make sure everything was cooked on time and ready to eat shortly after everyone came over. Everyone laughed at me when I said I was going to make a cooking schedule utilizing a Gnatt chart but let me tell you, it worked like a charm and kept me on track! 

Getting my first turkey ready - we bought a brine kit from Publix and it worked so well for the roasted turkey and Stephen made a custom brine for his smoked turkey breast. Stephen also thinks I look like Tupac with that bandana ;)

Even though we ordered a fresh turkey, it was still frozen so I broke out the hair dryer to melt the inside so I could get the neck out

I was really happy with how the tablescape turned out. I had a thick, plastic table cloth and paper leaf placemats which worked great since our niece was 2 - I didn't have to worry with anything getting ruined. I picked up a bunch of pumpkins on Halloween for dirt cheap at the local patch and left them in the fridge after soaking them for a few minutes in a bleach/water solution. I was really happy that they stayed fresh and I was able to use the small pumpkins as place cards. 

We prepped everything the night before so that on Thanksgiving day, we had some time to sit on the couch, watch the parade and look through Black Friday ads - it was perfect. Everyone came over about an hour before we were supposed to eat so once everything was pulled out of the oven, we were good to go!

We didn't have any toys for Siena in the house so I grabbed her my old iPhone and she loved it!

When we pulled the turkey out and I saw the leg bones sticking out, I panicked thinking it was bad but thankfully, it was fine - just didn't look as pretty (and you can see my schedule on the counter on the right lol!!)

Stephen cutting his smoked turkey breast - next time, we'll get a full size!

Stephen's mom brought all of the pies!

After lunch, Siena took a nap while we cleaned up and watched some videos. It was a pretty rainy day but thankfully, it cleared up later in the afternoon so we went outside and played some football and corn hole. 

After corn hole, Stephen, Lauren and I loaded up and hit a few stores nearby - we didn't find too many deals. My BIL & SIL headed home that night while my in-laws and little BIL stayed the night. The next morning, we had cinnamon rolls and chatted until it was time for leftovers for lunch. 

After lunch, Stephen and I headed out to the outlets while my in-laws headed home. I found a ton of great things at J Crew as well as some other little items we had gone in for. If you didn't see on social media, we were stuck in the parking garage for 1 hour and 45 minutes... and there was no earthly reason why we were stuck!! It super sucked but let's be real, it could've been way worse - we could have a screaming baby in the back and have bad attitudes lol After getting home, we did another big house clean to get ready for Christmas decorations!

Stephen's now having fun and making faces in my mirror pictures

Blazer / Sweater / Button Down / Boots

It was a great Thanksgiving and I'm so glad we were able to have Stephen's family over (and it went really well lol). Although, I don't think we'll be hosting for quite some time haha! Linking up with Annie

Thanksgiving Table Inspiration

I feel like Thanksgiving is coming up on us quicker than I'd like... as in it's NEXT WEEK! I'm not really sure how it's possible but I'm sure grateful some co-workers mentioned getting their fresh turkey ordered so I actually remembered to go order one. Goodness, that would've been bad.

This year, Stephen and I are hosting for the first time ever and we're hosting his family. Thankfully, it's just his immediate family and we don't have a kid of our own to worry about this year. I'm aiming to have everything prepped by Wednesday night so I can just pop everything in the oven the day of (we'll see how that works out ;)) and use my BIL's turkey roaster they got 2 years ago for the turkey.

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I have ideas of what I want our table to look like and as much as I want our table to look as put together as the pictures show, it's just not going to happen. With a 2 year old in tow, I didn't want to go too crazy with the decorations and keep them fairly kid friendly. On Halloween, I picked up a ton of little pumpkins to put in the middle of the table along with using them as place cards. I'm hoping writing names on them will go as smoothly as I'm imaging in my head ;) I can't wait to put everything together and see how it turns out!

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If y'all have any Thanksgiving hosting tips, please send them my way - I'm all ears!! Linking up with Annie

Life Lately

Since I'm all thrown out of wack after Irma, a life lately post was due! Last Thursday, my SIL called to see if my niece and her could stay the night with us. We were so looking forward to spending time with them and getting to hang out with our niece. We had so much fun just hanging out, eating dinner, going on a walk and watching 101 Dalmatians!

The sweetest!!

After reading all of her books, Siena found my manners book ;)

Look at that sweet face ready for a movie!

We went out for lunch on Friday to our favorite trendy, Vietnam restaurant. Of course, I overindulged in my chicken bowl but it was worth every bite ;)

Friday was our first night without guests so what did we do? We went to Target so check out the Threshold sales ;) If you haven't heard by now, Target is getting rid of their Threshold line and slowly, all of their items are supposed to go on major sale. I've been told the stores will have different things on sale but we found some good stuff! We got this lamp for only $17! We will definitely be keeping our eyes out for more sales. After spending wayy too much time in Target, we came home and ate dinner then watched a documentary about one of the wealthiest guys on the internet. It was quite interesting! 

The next morning I went to breakfast with one of my friends to the new First Watch which was decorated so cute! The food was delicious and I can't wait to go back. That night, Stephen grilled us some amazing food. Sometime, I'll have to share the recipe for these out of this world smoked potatoes. 

Sunday after church, we went to lunch with our friends which was so nice getting to catch up after all the craziness lately. And of course, we didn't get the things we actually needed from Target so we went back after lunch and had to get these apple pie Oreos... they legit taste like a fall candle. They're so good!! We also picked up a new puzzle because we're goobers and can't wait to get working on it! If only I had remembered those for during the hurricane lol

We were supposed to have one of our biggest conferences of the year last week at Disney, which I was so looking forward to but Irma had to go and ruin it. She also ruined our first big cookout with all of our friends last Saturday. Even though I'm in Charlotte this week, I'm thankful I had a month off from traveling which gave me time to recover from all of the spring and summer travel I had been doing. I'm also glad this current trip has me in a place where there's actually fall ;)

Linking up with Annie

Coffee Talk

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If I were having [iced] coffee with you today, I'd say...

I still can't get over what's going on in Texas! I'm in utter disbelief of the flooding and how bad it can get. Ashley lives in Houston and has put together a list of ways you can donate. We decided to send diapers to the Texas Diaper Bank - they had a wishlist on Amazon which made it super easy and I don't have to worry about what percentage actually goes to the cause

I am not a fan of the new Taylor Swift song - sure it's kind of catchy but I'm pretty sure it's just the tune to "I'm Too Sexy". Also doesn't help that I'm not a fan of her at any stage of her career haha! However, I will say that girlfriend is a genius with her music video. There is so much detail in it and I want to know how everyone was able to find the things they did. You can find it all outlined here and here.

On Friday, I talked about how I was going to make this salad - well, I made it this week and it was not a hit... Let's just say we ended up having frozen pizza with it and I won't be making it again ;)

I work in the same area that I went to college so every day, I'm driving past my old townhouse/apartment and school. Well, school just got back in session and every time I think about starting a new semester and going to class, I get anxiety... #thanksengineering

I'm so excited because I'm so close to finishing up a big project I've been working on at work. Long story short but I'm putting together packages for our district offices and decided it'd be nice to give it a southern touch by handwriting all of the notes that go inside. I still think it was a good idea but 40 full page notes later and my hand is killing me... which is also the reason why it's taken me so long to get these done lol

Linking up with Annie

Recent Finds

When I was in Tennessee with my family a few weeks ago, I did some great shopping with my favorite shopping partner - my mom. We did some shopping in Chattanooga and at the Pigeon Forge Outlets! One of the biggest deals I found was at the Lennox outlet store - I found my Kate Spade china set on sale for $22... that's right, $22 and originally it was $150 a set!! Anyways, I wanted to share the items I found since they're still available.

I found this adorable skirt from J Crew Factory and loved it instantly. I decided to pair it with a casual chambray shirt and these adorable shoes for work. I found the shoes on clearance at DSW for $12 - I couldn't pass them up!! And to my surprise, they're actually really comfy! I need band aids on the back of my heels but other than that, they're great! I also recently discovered that they are almost exact dupes for these Kate Spade shoes.

I also found this structured, bell sleeve shirt that I really like! I think it's a fun twist on the bell sleeve without being too in your face. 

I snagged these fun, mirrored sunglasses at J Crew too! I love how these are different, yet are still tortoise. I decided to test out the ascot look and love how it turned out! The cutest lady stopped me at Publix to tell me how cute it was. This is my mom's ascot from J Crew earlier this spring but I found one similar here. 

I saw these socks were on clearance and since they had a tacky side on the back, I wanted to give them a shot because the ones I have usually fall down. I was excited when they didn't fall down once while we were at Disney! 

While at the outlets, I decided to pop into J Crew again and found these wedges on sale for 50% off and have been looking for a cute pair of wedges that aren't too high. I got the tan color and not black but I'm really looking forward to wearing them more next spring/summer.

Lastly, I saw tons of pictures of the N-sale cardigan that everyone seemed to be buying. I ran into Old Navy and snagged this one which looks like a total dupe and for a lot less money. I love that it's very slimming, especially skinny jeans and I can't wait to be able to wear it in the fall :) My mom loved it so much, she bought one for herself and my sister!

I got into the habit of not shopping but that weekend had too many good deals to pass up ;) Linking up with Annie