Gnome Garden Update

Gnomes are scary little creatures but sometimes scary could be a fun thing.  I have a little gnome garden.  3 of these guys have been moved around throughout my yard.  Their last place they loss their tree in a storm.  They are at a nice place protected in the backyard at a nice tree.  The last gnome I received was a zombie gnome back in August for my birthday.  

Now an update:

The guy in the middle is new.  My older sister, Natalie saw him and got him for me for Christmas.  He's so little and actually kinda cute.  :)  

Here's my zombie gnome.  His paint is coming off.  :(  I hope I can fix him.

Here's all the gnomes hanging out in their little garden.  I still want to get a wooden door for the tree.  Maybe a little fencing area too.  It's a garden that you don't really have to maintain.  :)

Christmas Eve Ziti

Last month, at Wegmans I came across Christmas Tree Pasta and knew just what I would do with it.  I thought it would be fun to make on Christmas eve for dinner.  So, I made ziti with the noodles.

Cute little Christmas tree noodles.

Cook up your pasta and cook your meat sauce.

Mix well together once everything is done.  And you got Christmas eve ziti with awesome noodles.

Meatball Rigatoni

For dinner tonight, I made Meatball Rigatoni.

What you need:

*Meatballs

(You can use any type of meatballs you'd like.  I had frozen turkey lean meatballs that I were fully cooked.  They just needed to be heated through.  So, I heated them up in the microwave).

*Rigatoni noodles

*Sauce

Nate added water to a pot and put it on the burner to get the water boiling, then once the water was boiling he added the rigatoni noodles.

While the meatballs were heating, I put the sauce in pot and added Italian Seasoning, Black Pepper, and W sauce.  After the meatballs were finished I cut them up and added them to the sauce to simmer together.

While everything was cooking, I mixed up some Garlic Cheddar biscuits and baked those so we could enjoy   them with the meatball rigatoni.

So, yummy.  :)

Birthday Brunch for my sisters

Today, we (Mother, Natalie, Ashley, and Kristen) went to 'The Fan' district of Richmond to enjoy brunch at the Strawberry Street Cafe.  We were celebrating my sisters, Ashley and Natalie's upcoming birthdays.  Ashley, and my brother, Billy were born on December 19th, 1985.  Yep, they are twins.  And Natalie, was born on December 20th, 1977.  My brother, had to work so we kept it a girly day out.  :)

We all ordered the bathtub brunch.

Yep, the bar is on a bathtub.  It's kinda weird to think you're eating out of a bathtub but then it's cool.  :)

More food....  :)

My first plate.  I got some scrambled eggs, bacon, potatoes, cinnamon roll, biscuit, strawberries and pineapples.

My second plate, I got a pasta salad, salad, hard boiled egg, strawberries, pineapple and some apple dish with oatmeal, raisins and grapes.  Natalie said it was good.  I didn't like it.  I gave it to Natalie.

My third plate.....I can't believe I went up again.  haha  I got a apple turnover, biscuit and more fruit.

There was several chalk boards through out with advertisements.  I saw this one with the Grinch.  It was advertising the brunch specials for Christmas Eve and New Years Day.  The Grinch was drawn with chalk so well.  :)  I also saw a chalk board with the Chihuly Exhibit advertising for the VMFA.  I'm so going there before the exhibit ends next year.  Now, I just gotta find some time.

Next door, we looked around in Strawberry Fields Flowers & Finds.  There was some cute stuff in there.

Then we went to Cary Town to Sweet Frog, b/c Ashley wanted us to try a new flavor, called Cookie Cake.  Ashley said it's like those big cookie cakes from the mall.  We were all in.  :)

Here's the Cookie Cake Yogurt.  It's cake batter and cookie mixed together to make Cookie batter.  It does remind you of a cookie cake.  It was good.

I was too full to get my own cup so I got a little sample cup.  After, I ate my sample I decided to get another little sample just so I could be sure I liked it.  haha  :)  

Then we walked next door to Murphies.  Cary Town, has some of the best unique shops.  This place had some awesome Christmas Ornaments.  I especially, loved a little Chinese food box ornament.

We had a fun day.  Happy Birthday, Ashley, Billy and Natalie.  :)

Kristen's Birthday Brunch

To celebrate Kristen's birthday, Ashley and I thought of surprising Kristen, with going to a place she's always wanted to visit and that none of us had been to.  We went to the Hanover Tavern for Brunch.  This place was so cute.  We can't believe we'd never been there before.  Melissa joined us.  It was a lot of fun.

Here's the entrance into the building.

This was the name of the room where we ate our brunch.

The seating areas were comfy and cozy.

The waitress handed Kristen a birthday card.  When I made the reservations I mentioned we were celebrating a birthday so they surprised Kristen with a card.  Very kind of them.

Here's a picture of the menu.  It was hard to decide what we wanted.  haha

The waitress brought us some warm raisin bread with cinnamon butter.  OMG....the butter was sooooo good.  I asked for more to use on my biscuit.

I ordered the A La Carte where I chose my plate of 2 eggs, bacon, biscuit and fresh fruit cup.

Melissa ordered eggs benedict with crab cakes and a side of grits.

Kristen ordered grits....They are from the Byrd Mill that's down the road from the Tavern.  I tasted them.  They were very cheesy.  Kristen really enjoyed them.

Kristen ordered the Western Omelette for her meal.  With a biscuit and grits on the side.

Ashley ordered the pumpkin pancakes.  She let us all try them.  They were delicious!

Here's a view of Kristen's and Ashley's food.  :)  After we filled our bellies we had Kristen open her gifts.

Sign in the waiting area.  We were bummed that the gift shop was closed.  We want to go back so we can visit the gift shop and maybe see a show since there's a theater there.

An ink quill.  Melissa & I thought this was really cool.

As we were ready to go, Kristen, wanted to get a quick picture of all of us together.  Kristen, asked a older woman to take our picture.  She hesitated at first because she said she was bad at it.  She goes to take the picture and she said "Say.....SEX".  ahahahahaha....totally took us off guard.  She was funny.

We walked around the grounds and took some pictures.

I walked across the street and stood in what was the original Hanover Courthouse.  This is where in 1763 Patrick Henry lighted the torch of Liberty in the Parsons clause.  Source

Love old bricks...

Next to the courthouse was an old jail.

Good times!  Happy Birthday Kristen!  :)  Some of the pictures are from Kristen.  She has the better camera.  :)

Agnes turns 1

Yesterday, we got together to celebrate December birthday's with our friends.  Agnes turned 1!  Where has this year gone?  It just flew by.

Here's the birthday girl.  Such a big girl.  I can't believe she's walking on her own.

Sharon and Joe got Chinese Food.  We all selected what we wanted from the menu and we put everything on the table as a buffet.  It was awesome.  We all got to try a little of each.  And who knew Tofu was good?  Crystal ordered something that had tofu in it and Kristen and I tried it.  It was like the texture of scrambled eggs.  It was good.  :)

Agnes is finally over her allergy of Cow's milk.  She had her first taste of cake.  Sharon got a cute little cupcake for her to dig into.  :)

And she loved picking up the cupcake and squeezing it in her hands.  It was EVERYWHERE!  :)

After Agnes was cleaned up she opened her gifts.   Here Agnes is opening her jammies we got her.  They are like the ones she's wearing.  It's a 1 piece jammie.  They are so soft and comfy looking.  

Sharon and Joe got her a Little People farm set.  Agnes got in the box.  She looks so cute sitting in there.

Sharon made a cake.  :)

We also celebrated Dave's birthday.  Dave turned the big 4-0!  He's Agnes' birthday twin.  Kristen made cupcakes with a Star War theme since Dave loves Star Wars.  They were yummy.

We also had Kristen, Nate and Dave open their gifts.  :)