Life Lately: November 2016

I’m not sure how it’s possible today is the last day of November. As much as I love sharing my travels, fashion picks, and favorite reads, I realized I haven’t shared anything about our life lately on the blog in the last month. Today, I wanted to share some highlights of our month.

November was such a fun month filled with family and friends. The month started out with two fun parties: a make-your-own pizza party with the residents in Christopher’s program, and a girls’ lunch put on by a friend. Isn’t this cake from the girls’ lunch adorable?

Date nights with Christopher are my favorite. I am always looking up Groupons and other restaurant deals, so we can go as much as possible. Some favorites this month were Village Burger Bar, Café Madrid, and Peggy Sue’s Barbecue.

When we aren’t going on dates, we have been cooking together from the new Skinnytaste Cookbook. We love that Skinnytaste Fast and Slow features both quick recipes and delicious crockpot meals. Our favorite meal so far has been the baked fish and chips with slow cooker strawberry and peach cobbler for dessert. When I was flipping through the categories, there were so many unique dishes I wanted to try. We are slowly going through the cookbook, but I can already tell it will be one of my favorites!

I received a free copy of Skinnytaste Fast and Slow through Blogging for Books, but all opinions are my own.
We loved going to a focus group for new brunch items at Taco Diner. It was so fun to try ten different options and share our opinions. My favorite was their new eggs benedict.

After the focus group, Chris and I went on a blate with Emma and her husband, who were visiting from London! It was so fun to get to know them, and I can’t wait to visit them in England sometime!

Christmas came a little early for us this year when we decided to go to ICE! at the Gaylord Texan. A full recap of our visit is here, but we had the best time seeing all the stunning ice sculptures.

Thanksgiving was the best this year. I loved seeing all my Red Army girls and my little brother (more on that here) at our big Russian Thanksgiving. On Friday morning, we headed out of town to visit my in-laws. We had Thanksgiving with them on Friday and had a family Thanksgiving with his dad’s side of the family on Saturday. Chris was able to get Monday off work, so we stayed till Monday afternoon. It was the best to have an extended amount of time with them and not have to rush home quickly!

What was your favorite part of November?

Linking up with Kristen and Gretchen.

Thanksgiving Tag

Happy Thanksgiving, friends! I saw the Thanksgiving Tag on Biana and Ashley’s blogs, and I thought it would be a fun way to celebrate the holiday! I’m taking Friday off from blogging to spend time with family, so I’ll see y’all on Monday!

Favorite part of the Thanksgiving Day meal:
My favorite part of Thanksgiving in general is seeing all my close friends and family. Since only my immediate family lives in the United States, we have always had Thanksgiving with our extended Russian family from church. Growing up, I had a close group of Russian friends (we were nicknamed the Red Army). They came to visit us in Chicago in March, but other than that, it has been years since we have all been able to make it to Thanksgiving. (Usually one or two of us is missing. I didn’t go last year because Chris had to work on Thanksgiving.) This year, all of us will be there, and I’m super excited!

Thanksgiving 2014

As far as my favorite part of the meal, it’s the pecan pie! My mother-in-law makes an amazing chocolate pecan pie that I look forward to every year.

Favorite side(s):
I’m going to be super honest and say that, in general, I don’t really like traditional Thanksgiving food. I will eat the tiniest piece of turkey you can imagine to feel like I participated. The one side I really do love, though, is corn casserole.

Have you hosted before?
No, and I don’t think we will until we move away from Texas. We do like to bring dishes, though. For Russian Thanksgiving, we are bringing an American side (corn casserole), and for Thanksgiving with my in-laws, we are making pumpkin bread and bringing a Russian side (a Russian potato salad. I have thought about putting the recipe on the blog if anyone is interested!).

Favorite decor for Thanksgiving:
I just want Thanksgiving to feel like fall, so no Christmas decorations, please! I like pumpkins and cornucopias.

Tree up before or after Thanksgiving (if you celebrate):
Always after, but I like to get it up as soon as I can!

Smooth or chunky cranberry sauce:
Neither. I’m really not a big fan of cranberry sauce.

Pumpkin pie or another:
I feel like some of y’all might disown me as blog friends, but I really don’t like pumpkin pie. The texture bothers me. For Thanksgiving, I love apple pie and pecan pie. In general, my favorite is cherry pie.

Biggest thing you're thankful for this year:
My health! It has been a hard year for my health, and I am so thankful that I ended up with the best-case scenario. I am also so thankful that Chris has Thanksgiving off! This could be the last year he has it off for a while, so I am going to enjoy it as much as I can.

What's your favorite part of Thanksgiving?