Bo's 21st and NCSU Homecoming!

We had a great time celebrating Bo's birthday over the weekend at the NCSU tailgate. All of the food I prepared was delicious and we had soooo much leftover. I was excited to catch up with so many people that I hadn't seen since college. I completely forget to take pictures, but stole a bunch from my Mom's camera.

Yum Yum Pasta

This pasta is SOOOO good and SOOOO easy! The only thing it's missing is the healthy part... oh well!

I add mushrooms to mine just because I like em! I also used whole wheat penne and about 3 tablespoons of flour because the sauce just wouldn't thicken.

Creamy Chicken Penne

Rated: Submitted By: Taste of Home Prep Time: 20 Minutes Ready In: 35 Minutes Servings: 4

"This quick-to-fix pasta dish has all the right ingredients to become a family favorite - chicken, pasta and a flavorful sauce that gets its velvety richness from cream cheese. Reduced-fat cream cheese could be used."

INGREDIENTS:

2 cups penne pasta, uncooked 3/4 pound boneless, skinless chicken breasts, thinly sliced 1/2 cup chopped onions 1 tablespoon olive oil 1 (6 ounce) package snow peas 1 small red pepper, chopped 2 teaspoons minced garlic

2 tablespoons butter 1 tablespoon flour 1 1/2 cups milk 4 ounces PHILADELPHIA Cream Cheese, cubed 1/2 cup DIGIORNO Grated Romano Cheese 1 tablespoon finely chopped fresh parsley

DIRECTIONS:

1.	Cook pasta as directed on package. Meanwhile, cook chicken and onions in hot oil in large skillet for 6-8 min. or until chicken is done, stirring frequently. Add snow peas, red peppers and garlic; cook and stir 1 min. Remove from heat; cover to keep warm.
2.	Melt butter in medium saucepan. Stir in flour until well blended. Gradually stir in milk. Bring to boil; cook on medium heat 2 min. or until thickened, stirring constantly. Add cream cheese, grated cheese, salt and black pepper; cook 1-2 min. or until cream cheese is completely melted and sauce is well blended, stirring constantly.
3.	Drain pasta; place in large bowl. Add chicken mixture and sauce; toss to coat. Top with parsley.

NCSU Homecoming!

Yay! I'm just so excited about homecoming this weekend. NC State is playing Wake Forest in the "family bowl" (both of my sisters when to Wake Forest). My whole family is tailgating together to celebrate my sister recently turning 21. We've planned a yummy menu centered around various dips. Here's our tailgate menu:

Hot Dips

• Rotel's Sausage Dip (a Sadow family favorite)
• Spinach and Artichoke Dip (a new one from food network)
• Buffalo Chicken Dip (borrowed from Miss Mary Clare)

Cold Dips

• Yummy Dip ( I don't know what its called but I got it from Jennifer and its yummy!)
• Veggie Dip
• Hummus (recipe from The Food Network 50 Tailgating Dips)

Hot Stuff

• Tailgate Casserole (a new one from this random website)
• Meatballs (a Keske (my Mom's fam) family tradition)  

Lots of pictures and reviews to come! Have a safe & fun weekend!

First Baby Purchase!

So no, we're not pregnant... yet, but I'm still going crazy looking at cute baby things. One of my requests has always been an antique high chair. I would definitely forgo the convinence of a highly functional plastic-y modern high chair for the look of a wooden antique that would fit in well with our decor. I've put off buying anything baby related until we see that + sign until today.


Now, here is how my no baby things rule was broken. The other night, I was over at my parents house and my mom and I were talking about baby things. I told that I wanted the rocking chair that is in the guest room at my parent's house to put in a nursery. The rocking chair is the one that my mom rocked all of her babies in and I would love to have it. I knew she had used it for all of us but didn't know how it came to be a part of our nurseries. I learned that when my Grandma would ask my Mom when she was having children, she would reply, "when you see a rocking chair in my house". So my Grandma went out and bought my Mom a rocking chair. I was born shortly after. 


After telling me this story my Mom said to me that she ought to buy me a high chair in hopes it would work like the rocking chair did. The following day, my good friend Lauren (who is awesome at antiquing. We share many emails back and forth from our desks at work with links to various craiglist items) sent me an email with a link to the most adorable dark walnut stained high chair and it was a steal! Only $50! I quickly forwarded it my Mom who loved it and decided that it should be ours. Not wanting to jinx our luck, my Mom is planning at keeping it at her house until we are sure a baby is on the way! Look at this adorable little thing! I can't wait until I have something adorable to put in it! 

Redecorating!

So I've been itching to redecorate recently. I'd like to incorporate more antiques and vintage items in my "pottery barn-esque" style of decorating. I'd decided to work on the foyer and the dining room.

Our foyer is grey and small and has horrible lighting (love the environment, hate the way the energy saving lightbulbs look. My wonderful handy husband recently titled the floors for me and his latest project is adding picture frame molding underneath the chair rail. I love how its coming together. My problem is decorating the rest of the room. We inherted this picture from my mother in law and while I love the picture, I'm not sure if I love it there. Any suggestions? Also, I'm not sure if I want to paint the lower half white or leave it grey and keep the picture molding white.

A few looks I like...
 
Image via Worthington Mill Work

We're also planning on doing the same thing to the dining room. I'm thinking of repainted the dining room also. The colors didn't turn out the exact way I wanted.

So here we are

I've just realized its been o almost two months since the last blog post.