A Chilly Chili Weekend Recap

Another weekend bites the dust and I am sitting here wishing it was still going on. In my mind I am still here:

1. Hot chocolate to warm me up on Friday when I got home from the game.
2. One of our newest additions to the back porch.  Yeah I was shocked when I came home to find these bad boys in the carport.
3. Pumpkin Spice Cheesecake Pudding Cookies....fall in my mouth
4. Pootie's Ninja Turtle Birthday Cake!
5. Me with the birthday girl!
6. The best tacos ever.
7. I had to break out the chili recipe on Saturday....
8......and this is all that was left Saturday night (which Eric ate before he went to bed).
9. My latest pinterest-inspired Cricut Creation.

Winter fall decided to show Alabama what football season is like up north on Friday night, and threw near freezing temperatures at us.  I went to the game prepared with lots of layers, a blanket, and a thermos of hot chocolate (That stayed cold the entire game....that cup above is the last of my hot chocolate that I didn't even have to heat up 4 hours after I made it!).  Unfortunately the boys played terribly.  The other team literally ran all over us.  The score ended up 35-21, but they completely out-physicaled us. I hate that it was senior night, but there is still a chance we'll have another home game if we can win our first-round play-off game.

Saturday morning was super chilly, so I opted to stay inside and put something warm on the stove.  I went with my Dad's chili recipe.  It it my favorite chili in the whole wide world, and it was perfect for a cold day.  Since I was not sure how many to cook for (as usual) I doubled the recipe to include 2 lbs of deer hamburger and 8 cans of diced tomatoes, which almost completely filled my stew pot.  Apparently everyone else liked my chili, too, because we had ONE small bowl-full along with ONE hot dog left at the end of the night.  Eric polished it off before we went to bed, so there was not a drop left for the football coaches the next day.  Sorry guys.  I also whipped up some Pumpkin Spice Cheesecake Pudding Cookies for dessert...no worries the recipe will be shared later this week.  It seriously tasted like fall exploded in your mouth.....sooo good!  Before the football games kicked off Saturday afternoon we headed to our neighbor's Ninja Turtle Birthday Party.  I still can't believe she's 4.  I remember when we met them and she was a teeny tiny baby who was barely crawling.  Now she's the funniest, craziest kid I know.

Saturday afternoon was spent football game surfing.  It was still cold, but we opted to entertain in our outdoor space and could because of the addition of our new heaters.  They look like the ones you see at restaurants on patios this time of year.  They work like a charm!  We were a little concerned that they would be too tall and the heat would warp the ceiling, but we flipped the fans so they were blowing up, and the ceiling stayed cool all  night.

Sunday we slept in because we stayed up waaaaaay too late on Saturday, and it was glorious!  This little girl even opted for late church we slept in so late. While Eric was breaking down this week's game film I got my craft on and worked on a new fall decoration. I found a cute "gobble til you wobble" sign on pinterest and decided I needed one.  I just happened to have a piece of wood that was perfect for it laying around, and a few hours later had the cutest little sign! Sunday evening we did more laying around, but got to indulge in homemade tacos for dinner.  They are Eric's family's version of tacos and OMGness are they delicious.  I could eat 1,000 of them.  They're fried, have melted cheese slices stuffed in them, and you eat them with homemade salsa...nuff said  I have only had them 3 or 4 times in my entire life, but let's just say they've made quite an impression.

I have another full week ahead with dance, basketball (3 weeks til our first game!!!), work, and oh yeah there's that whole Halloween thing happening this week!  I am hoping that we are able to CARVE out a little time to continue our annual pumpkin carving contest this year (pun intended). I will leave you with pictures of the puppies because they just make me happy to look at.  =)