Happy Birthday Nannie!

Tomorrow my Nannie will turn 96!  Since I was planning to be in Norfolk this weekend, we hosted the party the week before at home with a bunch of family and friends coming to join the celebration!

To say I am blessed by my grandmother is a total understatement.  This is the woman who gave me my love for all things crafty and taught me to cook.  It was not unusual when I was growing up for me to spend a night with Nannie.  She would always be up early cooking my favorite, hard boiled eggs, and would then get my Pop to drive us to whatever craft store so we could pick out supplies to work on our days craft project.  She influenced the person I am today dramatically and I am forever grateful for that awesome relationship.  Being close to Nannie was a huge reason for me moving back to Richmond after college and it has been great getting to spend so many Saturday lunches with her over the past 8 years!!!  Not only that, but she is the matriarch of my incredible family, so it was a great pleasure to get to cook for her for her 96th birthday!

My Uncle Jerry & Aunt Gloria

My Aunt Jean, mom, and cousin, Dallas

The birthday girl--she looks quite good for 96!

My cousins Trudy and Sharon

Family friend, Mr. Barefoot

Mrs. Barefoot, and my cousin, Scott!

Everyone needs balloons on their birthdays, even when you are 96!

Make a wish, Nannie!

So here is hoping for a big party to celebrate her 100th birthday in just 4 short years :)

Finding love in the small things....

Although Fall is only my 3rd favorite season, I still like to find things that make me happy despite the quickly dropping temperatures.  And for the past week that little thing has been the sound the leaves on the sidewalk make as I walk into work each day.  It literally makes me giddy like a little 5 year old, some days I might even be caught kick up some with my heels :)  

Let's keep that last part to myself, I have a reputation to uphold.....

A strictly numbers post....

* 3 days until I see my nephews again
* 10 days until I leave for Vacation 
* 16 days until Thanksgiving
* 16.5 books I have read this year so far
* 43 days until Christmas
* 50 days until 2014
* 156 posts so far this year

That is my life summed up in 7 lines :)

Life Update in pictures

Since it has now been about 2 weeks since my last post, I thought a life update would be in order!  So now you get the photos that my phone has been hoarding (plus a few that i got from CJ) :)

Dinner & Game Night with Emily, Kevin, Jeff, CJ, and me

Dinner with two of my favs!!!  Then some halloween shopping

Dinner with Nannie

Then we had some Halloween Party Fun:

Lila & Patrick as Bob Ross and his painting

Charlotte, CJ, me, Anna, & Lila

3 blind Mice (Jeff, Emily, Kevin)

Meagan & Gloria 

Mom & Me

Allison as a pirate

My G's :)

Clark Kent & Louis Lane

Me, Allison & Anna

Then there was that time, I took off two days to go down to Norfolk and spend time with my sister and her kids :)

Lunch date with this cutie!

Oh Hey Holden!!!  The day after this kid decided he was too old for naps--FUN TIMES!

Selfie with little Garrett

Happy Halloween from Garrett

Happy Halloween from Bot, oh i mean Corbin!

Then there was the Saturday that we got invited to Emily's family's fall festival!  

Getting ready to do some shooting

CJ's first time shooting a gun!  

Hayride fun!

All in all, life has been good here lately and the last two months of the year promises to be even better :)

So I spent last night baking.  I finished up my apple butter and then started on these cookies for the Halloween party this weekend.  It is a simply sugar cookie dough recipe (found here), I halved the recipe for this and it still made a bunch of cookies.  Once the dough is made, you spilt it into 3 equal parts.  Keeping one the plain and then coloring one orange and one yellow.  Once you have give it an hour-ish in the fridge, you will layer the dough on top of each other to make a sort of brick.  Orange and yellow on either end and the plain color in the middle.  

The finished product should look something like this:

I stole this picture from the internet, so I obviously did my pattern a little differently.

As you can see above, the idea is to then cut the cookies into triangle shapes to look like candy corn.  Here is my finished product:

Since I had some extra dough, I went ahead and made a cookie for Corbin too....

Looks just like him, huh?

Anyway, I hope you all have a weekend full of fall goodness!  Have a....

(stole this picture from another blog I follow--7th house on the left)

Pumpkins and apples and leaves, oh my!

Well even though I object to it, fall has decided to arrive.  Every year I try to protest the onset of fall/winter and just stay with summer all the time, but every year, the seasons change.  So instead of boycotting it, I decided to embrace the changing seasons and celebrate with friends.  

This weekend, two of my dear friends tied the knot!  Patrick and Lila got married at my church and then had their reception at the Virginian Historical Society.  It was a beautiful wedding and Anna and I had a ton of fun dancing the night away.  

Selfie in the bathroom to show off our matching earrings!

Kathryn and me

CJ, Lila (the bride), and me

After the wedding, we got a group together to hit up Bandito's for a fun dance party.  Needless to say, my feet were killing me by the end of the evening.  On Sunday Kathryn, CJ and I headed up to Charlottesville to get our apple picking on.  I left with roughly 15 pounds of apples, about half of which I am currently making apple butter with!  

While at Carter Mountain, we obviously sampled some of the delicious apple doughnuts, and did our fair share of walking and picking and climbing trees!

 We also made sure to take in the beautiful scenery!

Check out this beautiful view!!!!

Why hello!  I am a worm in an apple here!

 After we finished picking the apples, we had worked up an appetite.  So we headed over to The Market, Charlottesville's best kept secret.  It is a gourmet sandwich shop inside of a gas station mart.  It is sooooo good.  We all got various editions of "The Farmington," and not one of us was disappointed.  With sandwiches in hand, we headed back toward Richmond and stopped at Cooper Vineyards to sample some wine and to have a picnic lunch.  

Cheers!

 It turns out The Market also has super yummy pickles in a barrel like old country stores, so Kathryn and I got one to split.  Turns out if you mix some wine with us girls, we take crazy pictures....

What fall activities have you been doing?

Reading Update--October

Reading Update - October

Books I have read:
1. Because I said So by Ken Jennings
2. Mary Mary by James Patterson
3. The Devil in the White City by Erik Larson
4. When I Don't Desire God by John Piper
5. The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
6. 40 Love by Madeline Wickham
7. The Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis
8. The Happiness Project by Gretchen Rubin
9. She's got Issues by Nicole Unice
10. Wedding Night by Sophie Kinsella
11. Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn
12. The Guernsey Literacy & Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer
13. Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson
14. The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold
15. Private Berlin by James Patterson

Books that I plan to read:
16. Private London by James Patterson
17. The Light in the Ruins
18. The Aftermat


Also, you can now follow me on Good Reads to see what books I have read in the past and what I am planning to read next...my list is under my email (Laking05@gmail.com).  Happy Reading!