thanksgiving place settings

i love holidays and i love place settings, i thought i might as well put those both together for you. i wanted to share a few ideas for your Thanksgiving table. i normally keep it pretty simple when it comes to setting the table. 

here are a few ideas of mine. i put together some ideas without silverware, in case you like to keep your silverware together with your serving pieces and also some ideas with silverware. these are just a few of my favorite ways to display these items and i know you all have your own way of using your creativity as well. 

i love displaying napkins and finding new ways to work with them on the kitchen table. i hope you enjoy these ideas and i would love for you to share your own with me! i am really looking forward to Thanksgiving and spending time with my family. that is what the holidays are all about. 

i have so much to be thankful for each and every day. i can't wait to head to Indiana today! i also get to bring my first sweet potato casserole as my Thanksgiving contribution. i got this great recipe from my mother-in-law and i could seriously eat the entire dish by myself ha! 

i hope you all enjoy your week and have a Happy Thanksgiving!!

french toast casserole

french toast casserole.. enough said! absolutely amazing and so easy. this is the perfect breakfast to fix for when you have out of town guests and you need to whip something up really quick. i made this for us to have a delicious breakfast for a few days, and the guys loved it. 

heres how to make it:

ingredients:

-1 loaf of french bread or Hawaiian sweet rolls

-6 eggs

-2 cups of milk

-3/4 cup of half and half

-1 cup of sugar

-1 Tablespoon of vanilla

-1 teaspoon of cinnamon

for topping:

-1/2 cup of packed brown sugar

-1/4 cup of all purpose flour

-1 teaspoon cinnamon

-3 Tablespoons of cold butter

details:

-tear your bread into small pieces and place them in a greased 9x13 baking pan

-in a bowl whisk together your eggs, milk, half and half, sugar, vanilla, and cinnamon

-pour this mixture over the bread in the pan

-cover and refrigerate for 2 hours or overnight

-preheat your oven to 350 degrees

-in a small bowl combine your brown sugar, flour, and cinnamon

-cut your butter into small pieces and place over the flour mixture

-with a fork, blend the butter mixture until it forms small crumbs

-pour this mixture over the bread in the pan

-cover this with foil and bake for 20 minutes

-remove foil and bake for another 25-30 minutes or until golden brown

-let it cool, and then serve

again, a very easy breakfast casserole and definitely a crowd pleaser :)

i hope you enjoy your day! thank you for stopping by.

diy mud room

we have been wanting to build our own mudroom the moment we stepped foot into our new home. reed and i would compile pinterest ideas of a future mud room and we finally decided on what we wanted and started to build.

this project was really fun and i worked with reed every step of the way to actually learn about the building process and ask questions to learn "key terms" haha! 

we started by buying a ton of wood and supplies at home depot and went to work. you can see our progress and steps above. we built this on one saturday morning & afternoon and finished painting and decorating this past weekend. it turned out exactly how we wanted it to and we are so pleased with our new mudroom. this will be a great selling point when we are ready to re-sell our house one day. 

we installed this new light fixture as well, which we fell in love with. 

i hope you enjoy the pictures of our progress on our new mud room. we have many projects on our to list (who doesn't) and i can't wait to share the next one with you.

enjoy! if you have any questions about the building process, just ask! :)


the decor can be found at:

www.athome.com

(baskets)

www.southernhoneyworkshop.com

 (boxwood wreath)

www.target.com

(pillow & blanket)

www.hobbylobby.com

(hello sign)

www.prettyinpolkadots.com

(love never fails sign)

have a great week everyone!!

midland arts and antique's market

over the weekend reed and i made a quick trip to indy to visit family! we had a great weekend and enjoyed our short trip back home. i always say i need about a week to visit all of my friends and family to actually  be able to spend time with everyone. our boyd girl shopping trip that we take every year for my grandma's birthday was in indianapolis this year, and it worked out perfectly. we shopped all day and then had another  family birthday dinner at my aunt and uncle's in greenwood that night.

i truly cherish every moment i am able to spend with my family. we always have such a great time no matter what we are doing. on sunday, reed and i ate lunch with my family at one of my favorite spots downtown "scotty's." of course we had to have dessert! the picture above is all of us devouring a cookie sundae. then, we walked around downtown and made a trip to midland antique's before we made the drive back to nashville. 

midland antique's is a great place to go for one of a kind pieces and unique finds. we loved looking at all of the furniture and decor. i took a few pictures of the decor with my iPhone (sorry for the yellow tones in the pictures). i didn't find as much as what i thought i would this time, but did walk away with a cool wire basket for the house. 

if you live in indy or visit, make sure to head to midland antique's for a few good finds :) 

we had a great weekend, and i hope you did to! back to a busy week and ready for the weekend already haha! 

have a great one :) thanks for stopping by.

www.midlandathome.com

family feature: aunt carri's sugar cookies

exciting news, i am starting a new family recipe addition to my blog each week! each week, i am going to feature a family member of mine and share one of their dessert recipes. i will also include a picture of the family member for you to get to know some of my many family members(big big family) haha! 

this week the spotlight is on my aunt, carri howard. carri is known for many great recipes just like all of the gals in my family, but her sugar cookies are always a hit!!

aunt carri: thank you for letting me share your amazing sugar cookie recipe! i tried to make them as good as yours haha!

ingredients:

-3 sticks of butter softened

-4 tablespoons of milk

-2 eggs

-1 teaspoon of vanilla

-2 1/4 cups of sugar

-3 1/2 cups of flour

-3/4 teaspoon of baking powder

details:

-cream together your first five ingredients

-add flour and baking powder to the mixture

-chill your dough

-roll your dough out with a rolling pin about 3/4 inch thick. you will need to add more flour until your dough is no longer sticky.

-cut into shapes using a cookie cutter (i also used the rim of a cup/glass)

-place them on an ungreased cookie sheet.(i used parchment paper this time)

-bake at 400 degrees for 5-7 minutes

-let them cool for a few minutes before removing them from the sheet and then sprinkle with sugar.

* i wanted to add icing to my cookies and i mixed almond extract, milk, and powdered sugar for my icing*

they are so delicious for any occasion, i will also be using this recipe for holiday cookies as well. i hope you enjoy and thank you to my aunt carri for participating in my blog post for the week:) love ya!

 my aunt carri and uncle moe