Friday, April 7, 2017

5 for Friday ~ Catching up on 2017

Since I'm working off a year long hiatus from blogging, I thought I would use my 5 for Friday to give you the highlights of what we have been up to in 2017.

We took advantage of the MLK long weekend and made a trip to NJ. Aiden and I had not been since last spring and it's been even longer for Jonathan. As always, it was a jammed packed weekend with family but I loved every minute of it! Aiden got treated like he was in first class on the flight, everytime the flight attendant walked past she brought him a snack and even gave him a shout-out during her arrival announcement.



As a Christmas gift, we took Aiden and his cousins to Monster Jam. These boys could not have been more excited!





Since Aiden is into cars, especially muscle cars, we thought it would be fun to take him to the NC Auto Expo in Raleigh. While he enjoyed looking at the new models and tried hard to get me to but one, he was most excited about the class cars! Jonathan and I were surprised to see cars from the 1980's in the classic car section but we learned a car is considered classic after 25 years ... made us feel old!










For Christmas, I surprised the boys with tickets to the NC State/UVA basketball game. Ever since he attended Camp Kesem NC State, Aiden has developed a love for the Wolfpack. While camp and his counselors (all NC State students) are amazing, our purple and gold hearts can barely stand it! I think my heart broke a little while purchasing Aiden a State t-shirt for the game.


Aiden has been asking to visit Battleship NC for a while now so we took a trip to Wilmington. We visited the Cape Fear Serpentarium just in time to see the feeding show. The knowledge Aiden has for snakes amazed me; he had an absolute blast! Even more exciting, it snowed while we were there! Wilmington got over an inch of snow that morning but it was blue skies by the time we made it back to Greenville.








When you add in work, school, cub scouts. basketball, and the other 1,000 things that come up, it's be a jammed packed start to 2017 for us.






Monday, April 3, 2017

Best Ever Pecan Pie Bars

One of my absolute favorite things to do is bake.  Jonathan can throw different ingredients together and end up with the most amazing dishes but I think it's the exactness needed in baking that speaks to my personality. No surprise there, huh?!?!

As much as I love baking, I don't do it often. I just can't keep sweets around the house. Besides, having a horrible sweet tooth, I have ZERO will-power!

The baking bug hit me hard this weekend as I was planning for our Easter meal. I'm always looking for something new to try and came across the Best Ever Pecan Pie Bars from the Slow Roasted Italian.  These really are the best ever!


 This crust was incredibly easy to make and tasted just like a cookie!


 It doesn't get much better than homemade caramel sauce!


These pecan bars were a hit - I sent the extras to work with Jonathan - and will be making an appearance on our Easter table!