Happy Holidays!

Our 2011 Price Family Christmas Card

Christmas Breakfast

This is what I'll be making for our family on Christmas morning!  It is delicious!!

Baked French Toast Casserole (Paula Dean recipe)

Ingredients

• 1 loaf French bread (13 to 16 ounces)
• 8 large eggs
• 2 cups half-and-half
• 1 cup milk
• 2 tablespoons granulated sugar
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
• Dash salt
• Praline Topping, recipe follows
• Maple syrup

Directions

Slice French bread into 20 slices, 1-inch each. (Use any extra bread for garlic toast or bread crumbs). Arrange slices in a generously buttered 9 by 13-inch flat baking dish in 2 rows, overlapping the slices. In a large bowl, combine the eggs, half-and-half, milk, sugar, vanilla, cinnamon, nutmeg and salt and beat with a rotary beater or whisk until blended but not too bubbly. Pour mixture over the bread slices, making sure all are covered evenly with the milk-egg mixture. Spoon some of the mixture in between the slices. Cover with foil and refrigerate overnight.

The next day, preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

Spread Praline Topping evenly over the bread and bake for 40 minutes, until puffed and lightly golden. Serve with maple syrup.

Praline Topping:

• 1/2 pound (2 sticks) butter
• 1 cup packed light brown sugar
• 1 cup chopped pecans
• 2 tablespoons light corn syrup
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg

Combine all ingredients in a medium bowl and blend well. Makes enough for Baked French Toast Casserole.

Thanks Paula Dean! :) Recipe

Busy!

Oh my goodness!  It's been such a busy month...

-Christmas shopping
-Decorating the house
-busy with end of the year work
-being 24 weeks pregnant
-Getting the nursery ready ....(more to come on this!!)
-Gift Wrapping party ...aka give Ben lots of Woodford so he'll help me wrap the million gifts
-Holiday Parties
...the list could go on forever.

I can't believe I'm going into my 6th month...it's crazy! She is kicking like crazy...such an incredible feeling.  Everything is going pretty smoothly.  We've been working on the nursery. It looks great! I'll share photos soon. We are just missing a few things...mattress, changing pad...oh yeah....our baby! She'll be here before we know it!

I'm looking forward to some time off around the holidays!  Ben and I are going to Blacksburg for Christmas to visit our family.  And, we're going to Knoxville next weekend for a little trip!

Enjoy a few photos!!

the truly love each other!

Christmas Tree

cuddling after a busy weekend

Holiday Traditions

The Sunday after Thanksgiving, Ben and I always go to the Christmas Tree farm and cut down our family Christmas Tree.  It is something I always look forward to.  We take Huck, Bailey, and some cider or hot chocolate!  We usually go towards Bent Mountain and stop at a farm in Floyd.  This is our fifth year!  Then we come back to the house and spend the entire day decorating for the holidays.  I usually work on the inside and Ben hangs up all the exterior lights. 

(photos from last year)

Go Hokies!!

Go HOKIES!! :)

Personalized pacifiers

How cute are these personalized pacifiers? Of course I had to order some for Brooke!

personalized pacifiers

Black Friday

Is anyone going to be brave enough and shop on Black Friday?? I haven’t decided yet…I’m going to make a game time decision once I see all the deals in the Thursday's newspaper!  I’m excited for Cyber Monday!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving!!

I hope everyone has a Happy Thanksgiving and a great holiday weekend with their family and friends!

Ham Biscuits

Here is a great Thanksgiving side dish to make.  I actually use rolls instead of biscuits!

Ingredients:
3/4lb. thinly sliced Country Ham
1 pkg of sliced Swiss cheese
2 pkg of party rolls
1 stick of butter
4 tbs. brown sugar
2 tbs. poppy seeds
2 tbs. Worcestershire sauce
2 tbs. spice mustard

Directions:
Slice rolls all at once and layer on the ham and cheese.  In a saucepan, melt and combine butter, brown sugar, poppy seeds, Worcestershire sauce, and spice mustard.  Boil and spoon over already assembled rolls.  Cover and chill 12 hours or overnight.  Bake for 20-30 minutes.

(Thanks Joy for the recipe!)

Happy Birthday Mom!

Happy Birthday to my wonderful mom!!  I'm so excited for her to be a grandmother...Gamma.  I hope I can be a great mom like she is! I hope you have a great day celebrating.  Looking forward to the holiday!

20 weeks!

Sunday was the half way point - - 20 weeks! It's crazy to think that I'm already half way through my pregnancy! I'm definitely starting to show more -- my belly is popping out. I'll upload a picture soon.  She woke me up last night around 1:30am and was full of energy.  I could feel her turning and flipping around.  Such a unique feeling.  We offically decided on a name for Baby Girl Price... Brooke Hope.  Our nursery furniture is supposed to arrive this afternoon.

Have a Happy Thanksgiving Holiday! :)

Virginia Tech tutu

My best friend, Sarah, got Baby Price the cutest gift....a Virginia Tech Tutu! :)

How freaking adorable is this?! Can't wait for her to wear this to the Hokie football games!

Nursery Chandelier

I'm so excited for my new addition to the nursery... I finally found a perfect nursery chandelier. 

We currently do not have any wiring installed in our ceiling so I had two options...

1. Make Ben install all the wiring up in our attic (or hire an electrician) :)
2. Find some type of lighting that doesn't require any wiring

So I found this from Pottery Barn Teen....

I can't wait for it to arrive!! Now I'm searching for an area rug...pink of course!

Happy Birthday!!

Happy Birthday to my wonderful big sister COLE!! :)  I hope you have a wonderful day celebrating! You truly are the best big sister and friend!

Blacksburg: Best Place in the US to Raise Kids

Woohoo!! Blacksburg was ranked #1 by Business Week for Best Place in the US to Raise Kids!! This is so exciting.  Ben and I both grew up in Blacksburg and we love the area! Can't wait for our kids to hopefully have the same experience one day! :)



Virginia Town is Best Place in the US to Raise Kids
"With good schools, an affordable lifestyle, and the Blue Ridge Mountains in the backyard, Blacksburg, Va., is No. 1"

TOMS

My sister, Nicole got Baby Price her first pair of TOMS. They are so freaking cute! I can't wait for her shoes to arrive!

Tiny TOMS

Newborn Hat

I couldn't resist...I had to order this asap!!
Etsy

Peaks of Otter

The other weekend we went hiking at Peaks of Otter.  We love this area on the Blue Ridge Parkway.  The leaves were changing and the scenery was so pretty! 

It's a GIRL!

We had an ultrasound this afternoon and we found out we are having a GIRL!!  We are so excited for our baby girl Price to arrive in April! It was so surreal to see her little feet and toes and all curled up in a ball. She looked extremely comfortable and cozy! She had her legs all the way up near her head! :) ... future cheerleader!!!

Nursery Furniture!

We just ordered our nursery furniture!! I'm in love with it and can't wait for us...aka Ben to assemble everything!

Crib

Changing Table

Dresser

"I Told My Kids I Ate All Their Halloween Candy.."

Such a funny video!!

what a mess.

This is a photo of our washing machine leaking some type of oil from the motor....what a mess.  It clearly doesn't work anymore so we're in the market for a replacement!

The day we found out we were pregnant

I thought it would be fun to share how Ben and I found out that we were going to have a baby! I thought I was a week late and we were at the lake for the weekend.  I started not to feel well on Friday night. I got a horrible migraine headache and went to bed early.  I didn't think much about it since I always get headaches.  However the next day we went on a long boat ride and my head was still hurting.  When we got back to our house, I ended up getting sick twice. Since we were trying to get pregnant, I thought I was late and wasn't feeling well, Ben and I decided we would take a pregnancy test the next morning.  Well Sunday morning I woke up super early around 6:30 or 7am and went into the bathroom.  I took the test and saw a very, very faint pink line.  At this point I was still wearing my glasses so I thought I was seeing things... so I ran back to bed and Ben woke up and saw me smiling ear to ear.  He immediately knew and sprinted to the bathroom.  He saw the same thing I did....a very faint line.  Well we decided to take another test....and another.  All with faint lines.  Long story short...we went and got a digital test and as Ben says... "it was Pregnant with a capital P".  I'll never forget that day...we were so excited to think we'll be parents in 9 months!

Once we found out the test was positive, Ben started to calculate the due date.  He was like "That's perfect, the baby will be due in April... and their birthday will be perfect ....they'll get their licences right before the summer starts....and they'll turn 21 right before the summer!"  I love how he thought about these two things right away!

Finding out that I was pregnant was definitely different than I always imagined.  I thought one day I would wake up and have morning sickness, tender boobs, extremely tired, crazy cravings and consistently starving... Well, I'm not saying none of these happened but it all happened gradually over days and weeks!

I hope you enjoyed our story! The best was sharing the news with our family and friends!

bloggin

So I've decided to have a theme each day for blogging...

Motherhood Mondays

Tuesdays Travels

Wordless Wednesdays

Tasty Thursdays

Friday Favorites

Let me know what you think!! :)

Happy Fall!

Happy Fall!! Every year I enjoy the Fall season more and more. I love the cooler weather, pumpkin farms, apple cider, pumpkin bread, soups, carving pumpkins, hiking, college football….the list goes on!

I hope everyone is having a great fall so far! J

Best Lasagna Ever!

The other week I made Ben and I lasagna for dinner....it was probably the best lasagna I've ever made. I found the recipe on the Pioneer Woman's food blog.  She's amazing!
Pioneer Woman recipe

(I added onions to the meat and garlic while cooking. And I also added some sauce to the meat/sauce mixture.)

17 Weeks!

Sunday marked 17 weeks! We find out next Thursday if we are having a boy or girl. So excited to finally know! Plus we haven't had an ultrasound since 7 weeks...so we are happy to see the baby again! I've been feeling pretty well... just tired and uncomfortable sometimes.

Definitely have a baby bump now! It doesn't look like I went through the buffet line alittle too many times... :)

Baby Price coming in April!

It's official...we are going to have a baby in April.  We found out on Sunday, July 31st. We are super excited for the future!

Proud soon to be Daddy! :)

"Pregnant...with a capital P"...that's what Ben said.  Always go with digital...it's a lot easier to read :)

How we told our parents...

the best video ever...how we surprised my mom and dad!!

Ben's mom reaction

us with Ben's dad ...baby booties ... boy or girl?

us with Ben's mom..."Grandma's little helper" onesie and a Grandma's brag book

 uncle J!!

Dad with his "Gampa" beer mug

Mom with her "What happens at Grandma's stays at Grandma's" onesies and her photo album!

Summer of Love at Smith Mountain Lake

Back in Feburary Ben and I decided we wanted to go 'all out' this summer...so we started our search on craigslist for a perfect summer house to rent at SML. We finally found the perfect little house. It was a one bedroom, full kitchen, washer/dryer, living area, and the best party dock ever! The renters were very cool and didn't care about dogs which is perfect for our 81 pound coonhound, Huck and of course Bailey! We were even able to keep our boat there for the summer.  We had the place from end of April until Labor Day. We had many great weekends together and with our friends and family.  We also found out this summer that we have a baby coming in April! We love SML! :)

A few photos of our time spent on the lake...