Bridal Shower Brunch

When the three of us were getting ready, we thought we would try on our old dress up clothes. Doesn't Molly look so sassy! I love it.
Then we put our real clothes on and headed off to the shower.
The food was delicious (please overnight the rest of those grits to me, PLEASE!) and all of Bailey's sweet high school and college friends did such a lovely job. I leave you with pics of the decorations, food, and hostesses.

Silver for the Grands

Over the years, my Nana has collected china, crystal, and silver pieces whenever she came across it. When I got married, she gave us an entire china and silver set, which I LOVE. She has a china and silver set for each of us granddaughters, but there were a ton of miscellaneous pieces. Since Molly and I went to Brandon this weekend for one of Bailey's bridal shower, Nana wanted to go ahead and divide up the pieces. We girls had the BEST time choosing which pieces we wanted, even when we weren't sure what you use some of it for.
Here's my new collection. I have everything from a pie server to a pickle fork and sugar cube tongs. I am ready to throw a fancy party! Oh and one other fun tidbit, many of the pieces had engraved initials on them, and some just happened to have a "B" on them!
Here's Molly with a dinglehopper, I mean an "Angel Food Cake server." Molly has always wanted/needed a utensil solely to cut and serve angel food cake.
Other fun pieces were a lemon fork, a tomato server, and a "master salt spoon." Yep.

I am lucky to have a grandmother with such fine taste (and a generous spirit)!

Spring.... all things new....

...or not. Why do I continue to hang these dead ferns on my porch, you ask? There is a nest of baby birds. The mother flies into us every time we come home. Those baby birds better learn how to spread those wings fast, though, because new (green) ferns are on the way.
In another anti-spring message, here is a look at our carpet, merely 30 minutes AFTER I vacuumed:
Thanks PJ for dragging in millions of pollen thingies.

Here's something fun. I tried a new dish! It's a spanikopita AND it was in Martha Stewart's mag, meaning it is super fancy. It involved filo dough which I have never used before, and now after making the meal and seeing how super easy it was, I am hooked! You can pretty much stuff anything in filo dough!

Brie so far this month...

I made the stuffed chicken recipe from Martha Stewart. I was a little intimidated going into it, but it turned out to be one of the easiest and fastest meals I've ever cooked! All I did was:
-flatten the chicken
-spread dijon mustard on it
-put some spinach on it
-place some brie slices on it
-roll it up and keep it together with some toothpicks.
-salt and pepper, then broil for 8 minutes

Hello. So easy. And the chicken was really moist:
So on to my evaluation of the brie, which is our Cheese of the Month. I was totally disappointed. I will do chicken roll-ups again, but I'll probably do spinach, roma tomatoes and goat cheese or maybe feta. So my problem with the brie is that I can taste the rind and it grosses me out. Yet, I don't want to spend the time meticulously picking off the rind.

I still have about 9 oz. of brie left, so I'm going to be trying something else and hopefully it will be better.... How has everyone else's brie experience been?

Busted.

But look how comfortable she is... with her head resting on the pillow..... how spoiled.

Buzzing Success!

So we were going to be really lazy and fatty today in celebration of Fat Tuesday, but then we remembered we were Southern Baptists. I quit watching TV and got the faithful dog trimmers off the shelf... it's that time of year again!

And for the first time EVER, I declare it a SUCCESS!

Here is the legendary picture of my first attempt, two years ago:

Now here is a Before pic of PJ Joey with her wolf-like curls:
And now, after merely an hour to buzz AND wash:
I know. She looks amazing. I think I'm ready to open up my own Dog Grooming Salon. It will be called PJ's Palace. If I can wrangle this 80 lb. beast, I can do anything.

Back to Mardis Gras news, we decided not to venture back downtown for another parade. I got my fill of swag, and I'm good until next year. It is nice getting three days off from school though! During his one day break, Caleb has:
-fixed the dishwasher
-fixed the vacuum cleaner
-put out flea stuff in the backyard (VITAL!)
-cooked yummy cinnamon rolls
-put up all of our laundry, including sheets on the bed
-fixed the trimmers so I could perform miracle mentioned above
-much more. He's very handy!

Mardis Gras so far

So far, so good. I do love free snacks.

We joined the Penningtons downtown for two parades last night: Infinite Mystics and Mystics of Time. WHATEVER THAT MEANS. I don't care, they threw some tight swag (when have I EVER said the words "tight swag" before???)

We're going back today for the actual Fat Tuesday parades which I've never been to before! Hopefully we'll come back with even more goodies!

Tornadoes can't keep us from the Outlet Mall.

Caleb is off at work for the day, so I went to the OUTLETS! Whoop Whoop! There were 7 of us gals who loaded up and made the drive to Foley despite the Tornado Warning being issued. We had a lot of fun and even managed to pick up a few items:

In our defense, Ann Taylor Loft had several $4.99 racks.

We then moved on to Lamberts, one of the best restaurants on the coast. I don't have any pictures, but just trust me when I say there was some type of Jersey Shore Family Reunion going on. At first, I thought it was a joke. It wasn't. There were seriously about 8-10 delightful families meeting up together that came straight down from "Dirty Jersey." They were fit, tan, and wore everything Snookie and The Situation would have on. It took all I had not to stare.

But here's a pic of my Chef Salad:
And finally, going home... full as a tick and no money in my pocket, haha.
Yes, they shared a seatbelt...

Oh how I love all these girls. We have been so blessed to have such wonderful friends in Med School.

Weekend at The Grand

Another great perk of living in Mobile is that in our backyard rests Marriot's #1 ranked hotel/spa IN THE WORLD: The Grand. It is awesome. My friend Lindsey had her wedding reception there a few years ago and I've been smitten with the place ever since.

Enter PAOF Conference. I don't know what PAOF stands for, but I know they invite med students and residents to this for a free night at The Grand. They even gave us gas money to get there. All 20 miles worth.
Here's the group in Caleb's Med School class that took advantage of this wonderful weekend. They are all so cute.

Here's some teriyaki skewers. This was all part of a social held after the Job Fair.

Blackened shrimp and grits: YUM!
Further proof that the food was delicious: (have you ever seen so much sauce for just two shrimp?)
I had plans of taking a picture of all the candy, pens, pads of paper, band-aids, hand sanitizer, highlights, and other cool swag items I swiped/took/stole from the booths at the Job Fair, but I've eaten most of the candy already (and it was a lot of candy), plus I'm kind of embarassed now about how much I took. Why did I think I needed 47 new pens?

A brief update on the Med School journey.... Caleb just finished his surgery rotation and he really seemed to like it. Now he's on Pediatrics- he just started this new rotation yesterday. All that's left of this year is Peds, Psych and then Neuro. Maybe not in that order, but those are the last ones. It's hard to believe he is almost a 4th year! It won't be too much longer until he starts interviewing for residency programs.... aaagggghhhhhh!

Cheese of the Month for MARCH

BRIE, YIPPEE!

I am so very very excited about this month in cheese! Those of you who are on this cheese adventure with me, please go pick up your wedge from the grocery and check out some of these brie-filled recipes. I haven't tried any, but they look good. If you have a great recipe involving brie, or if you have a fun story involving brie, let me know. You can be a Guest Post Writer.

Spinach and Brie Chicken with Tomato Orzo

Baked Brie (a.k.a. what I want so bad right now)

Quesadillas with Chutney and Brie

May your March be filled with Brie!