1 visit, 2 birthdays, and lot of snow flakes

This was a busy busy weekend with a visit from one of my favorite out-of-towners, birthday celebrations for both Donnie and Chris, and a lot of snow (lots for us anyway) on Sunday!





Friday night my friend Yalitza (who we affectionately call, Yatzi) came up from Huntsville, AL for a long over due visit! She brought a friend with her who had never been to Nashville, so of course we had to show him some of the hot spots!!







We went to eat at Big River - Yatzi's request! This in on 2nd avenue - pretty hoppin' place on a Friday night. Then we headed down the street to Buffalo Billiards to shoot some pool and hang out! FYI, I'll never be a professional billiards player... I stink! lol

After dinner and some friendly competition we were ready to head out of the touristy zone and kick it over in Printer's Alley! We headed to Bourbon Street Blues and Boogie Bar... so fun.

And... the best part... Burning Las Vegas was playing! They are like my FAVORITE local band - they are SOOOOOOOOOOOO good! We danced the night away. It was so much fun! They play retro 7os, 80s, and 90s hits... it was great!

Saturday I slept in and did a whole lot of nothing. That too, was wonderful! And then Saturday night we geared up again to celebrated Donnie's and Chris' birthdays!!! (Donnie's was Saturday the 28th and Chris' was the 26th!)

We went to Fuji's, a Japanese steak house! It's always a favorite! Hibachi grill - chicken and fried rice - and YUMMY sushi!!

Here's the whole gang! There were 15 of us... we hardly ever are able to get ALL of us together in one place on the same night, so that was pretty fun!

After we were all stuffed, we drove out to the farm (aka Moo and Web's house) for game night! We played 3 rounds of catch phrase and 2 rounds of trivial pursuit. Unfortunately the boys came out on top this time, but that is a RARE occasion! :-)

Here are the birthday boys, Donnie and Chris (standing) with Gary and Scott (Skinney)! We had SO MANY good stories and laughs... it was so much fun!!

And a shot of the three amigo's of course! We always have a blast together! (La - I can't wait until tomorrow!!!!!) (Moo - thank you for hosting - your home is amazing and I had THE BEST time!!)

We had so much fun, none of us realized the snow had arrived and had been falling for quite some time! The roads were icy and white and we had to drive home SOOOO S-L-O-W! We made it safe though - Chris is a great snowy weather driver, he never once got in a hurry!

This morning we awoke to 4 inches! That's a pretty "big" snow event for us! I just hate it wasn't on a school night, ;-) But it's still pretty to look at!

Overall, it was a very fun, full, and satisfying weekend! I hope yours was just as great!

Pass the Crescent Rolls please....

With all the parties and socials and functions I have had over the past few weeks, I have made quite a few appetizers, snacks, and various other culinary creations.

I have SO MANY great recipes that use Pillsbury Crescent Rolls.... allow me to stop here and say - YUM!

Anyway, my latest trip to the store to get Crescent rolls for a yummy recipe brought a fabulous discovery! Do you have a recipe that has you unroll Crescent rolls and press the seams together? I have several recipes that require the dough to be cut into square or rolled up as one sheet like a jelly roll. I always get frustrated trying to press the seams together and get them to stick. Imagine my delight when next to the "original" (aka BEST) Crescent Rolls, I found "Pillsbury Crescent Rolls: Recipe Creations." That's right folks, the smart people over at Pillsbury now sell a roll of Crescent dough with no seams! YAY! Hello fun, yummy, and not-so-figure friendly recipes!!!!

This might be old news to some of you, but I was ecstatic (it doesn't take much) and I thought this would make a good, albeit unconventional, Tasty Tuesday post!

FYI, in my culinary adventures I have learned that all Crescents are not created equal... I'll stick with Pillsbury! :-)

Where did it go...

I am trying to figure out where my week went!! Here I am looking back over another week... I can't believe it's been a week since my last post! I have got to get on top of things!

My week was pretty ordinary! I rested a lot.

Wednesday night I went to live trivia at Buffalo Wild Wings! It's really fun and something we used to do a lot... now that basketball is over, we are getting back into the swing. You can go and eat and then if you want to play, your table is a team. You name your team and get little answer sheets. They ask trivia questions out loud over the sound system and you write your answer on a piece of paper and turn it in. There are different rounds and different point values... they play songs and you have to finish the lyrics or name the artist, they ask all kinds of questions from sports and entertainment to politics and current events! At the end of the game, the first, second, and third places are awarded gift cards for Buffalo Wild Wings! This week the final question (where you can bid up to all of your points) was, "what is the third language on the Rosetta Stone?"! WOW... it pays to be a geography teacher!!! Do you know the answer? I do because I just taught it a few weeks ago! It's Greek! :-) We came in 3rd place... I got the gift card. :-)

The rest of the week flew by!!! The weekend was here before I knew what happened and it was a big weekend because...

I hosted this months bunco!!! My theme was Bunco For Breast Cancer - Pink Pajama Party!!! I cooked individual size ham and cheese quiche, cream cheese sausage bites, cheese grits, and caramel pecan sticky buns!! We ate, talked, laughed, shared stories, and then played bunco, of course!! Everything was pink... pink candy, pink gift bags, and all-pink gifts including a domestic diva pink polka-dot apron, breast cancer awareness travel coffee mugs, and the movie 27 dresses (among other things). So fun!

I asked each of my guests to go to buncoforbreastcancer.org to make a donation to support our theme! You can get online as well to make a donation if you would like! Or... think about hosting your own Bunco for Breast Cancer night! It was really fun.

The only hitch in bunco night was that I made the neatest and yummiest Parmesan spinach swirls and forgot to serve them! I had them on a platter and put the platter in the microwave to get it out of the way until it was time to put them out... only I forgot about them and found them the next morning sitting on their pretty platter, ready to go! Have you ever done that before? I thought, "I am losing my mind!!"

Friday night after everyone left I woke up with a raving fever! I knew instantly what it was going to be... I get it every single year... tonsillitis! One word... EW! I made myself get up Saturday morning and go straight to the doctor for a Z-pack! She gave me a different antibiotic instead because she said the Z-pack hasn't been as effective this year as it has been in the past. That was fine with me, but turns out the new stuff she gave me hurts my tummy! Great!

Nothing could keep me from my girlz though! Saturday we ate at Newks - YUMMY new place at the Avenue! Then we went to see He's Just Not That Into You! *cute*

That was my weekend in a nutshell because as soon as I got home from the movie I hit the couch! My fever made another appearance and I am spending every second of the rest of this weekend resting and relaxing and just "being sick" on my couch! I don't like the sick part so much, but I have to admit I am enjoying the "being home sick" part - relaxing on my couch and having a good excuse to do whatever I feel like and nothing at all! Shhh... don't tell! ;-)

The long and the short of it...

Well, it's been a long time since I have posted, so I'm going to give you the short of everything that's been going on!!!

Monday I had Junior League. It was a good and productive meeting. Moo couldn't attend, but La did and we, of course, had lots of fun and laughs!

Tuesday I hosted my book groups first official meeting! I prepared spinach stuffed pork chops, prosciutto wrapped asparagus, loaded smashed potatoes, and a from scratch pineapple upside down cake! We had THE BEST time eating, drinking wine, and discussing our book... which led to all kind of over discussions. I am really excited about our next book... stay tuned to find out what it is... I'll post soon.

This past week was FULL of tournament games. My school hosted the girls sectionals, so I had to help with that Monday, Wednesday, and Friday and our boys played in the boys sectionals at LaVergne on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. So that sums up most of my week - busy! The good news... Our boys won all of their games and so can now be called State Champs! They had a perfect season - undefeated!! (We actually have three sectional championship games... each grand division of TN hosts their own... Middle TN, East TN, and West TN and we won Middle TN... there is no single state champ, but if we did, I just know it would be us!!).

Deep... DEEP... breath.... basketball season (and thus cheer leading) is over!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Can you sense my giant, stretching off my face, grin? I enjoy every second of it, but it is such a time obligation... I am SO ready for a break!

With such a busy week behind me, I must confess my weekend was not too productive. I rested... a lot. And took myself to see New In Town - cute! And today? I tutored, my cleaning lady came (yay), and now I am resting some more!

I hope with my time opening up again, I'll do some things for me and have some more blogging time! :-) I hope y'all all had a great week. I'll be catching up on my blogs now!

Another Birthday Weekend...

This weekend was full of birthday fun!



Friday night my mom drove up to have a birthday weekend with me. Our birthdays are exactly a week apart (mine last Wednesday, hers this coming Wednesday), so we always celebrate together!

Friday night we went to Miller's Grocery in Christiana, Tn (just up the road about 20 minutes).


Here is what it looks like inside. It used to be a grocery/general store for 75 years! It sits right beside the railroad tracks and reminds me SO MUCH of the Whistle Stop Cafe in Fried Green Tomatoes!

They have some country cookin' and live bluegrass music on the weekends! It was a great dinner!

After dinner mom and I ran to Hobby Lobby and to Target and then home to relax and watch the movie The Lake House.

On Saturday morning we got up and went to Megan and Web's new home to visit. Then we had a wonderful lunch at Olive Garden and ran to the Avenue for a bit. With me not being 100% healthy, I petered out pretty quick and we came home for a nap before we went to the Rutherford County Basketball Championship game where my boys won!!!! The Central Tigers are #1 in the county and next week participate in the Regionals! This means extra work for me with cheer, but I am so proud of our team, so I don't mind!

Mom headed home Saturday after the game and a pizza at Ahart's and I spent the rest of the night resting up. Saturday night was the firts full night of sleep that I got in 3 nights, so that was WONDERFUL and I was so thankful to sleep long and hard! I woke up this morning feeling like a new person, and that's a good thing because I had more birthday to tend to!!

At 1:00 I hopped on over to the Discovery Center here in town for Vance's 2nd Birthday party!

It was so much fun! Here is Vance blowing out his birthday candles...

And here he is opening gifts! His sugar rush kicked in just in time and he got SOOOO excited!

Vance was precious! After each gift he would say, "Woah!!!!" "OOoooo" or "WoW!!!!" Then he'd squeel and hop up and run around with the gift until we could get his attention back on another gift!

The Discovery Center was the perfect place for a birthday party! There is SOOO much to see and do there! The kids had a blast running around...

Above: Me and D-word... he was such a big boy and had so fun exploring!!!

Chris and Lily... she had a great time painting, playing in the water exhibit, and running around! She even got to pet a snake!

The three amigos (plus D-word). :-) Moo looks adorable with her baby-bump! These are my two favorite mommies in the whole world! I hope to be half the mommy they are one day!


Here's a group shot of Megan, Web, Vance, Chris (who Vance is named after, by the way) and Lily!

It was a WONDERFUL birthday and GREAT day all around!!!!

How was your weekend?

sort of...

I had a slow week, sort of!

A couple ball games.

A birthday...

This was what my kids left on my board for me. They are not allowed to write on my board unless they have asked. Typically I only let them write on the board during a lesson, but this was a special day! The sweet thing is, even with the board like this, most of them still asked, "Ms. Stiner, can I write on the board too?" So sweet!

I got sick, sort of, too! So I, sort of, took two days off work! :-) I mean sick "sort of" because I fight a fever at night and therefore don't sleep, and I have a slight cough, but during the day I seem okay... just a little head-achy and body-achy every now and then! All I can figure is that I am fighting something off. So it doesn't seem I am sick sick... just sort of sick.

So that was pretty much the recap of my sort of slow week!

Happy (early) Super Bowl Birthday to... Me!

Sunday evening as I "celebrated" the Super Bowl, I also celebrated my "birfday" with my nearests and dearests! Although my birthday doesn't actually come until Wednesday, we have made a tradition of celebrating on Super Bowl Sunday since they always fall so close together!

Here are some photos from the big day...


La and D-word... can you believe how big he is getting! He's WALKING!!!! Lauren was so precious to open her beautiful home and the best bonus room in the 'boro to me and my favorites for the celebration! She also baked a FABULOUS coconut cake - holy cow it was good! Thanks La, you are the best friend girl could ever hope for and truly the sister of my heart!

Webster and Vance! I could NOT catch him smiling, but I assure you he laughed and smiled and played all night! This was as they were leaving... you can see how thrilled he is! lol.

Jules, Chris, Me, and Skinny... how lucky am I to be surrounded by these amazing people! And, we work together! SO-MUCH-FUN!

Of course, the standard three amigos shot! :-) These girls are my favorite and they know it!

It was a WONDERFUL birthday celebration! Football, fun food, lots of laughs, and my most fabulous friends... I couldn't ask for more!!

p.s. I'll be celebrating all week... it's the only way to do a birthday!!