Who Spiked the Eggnog?

Straight No Chaser just released their first ever music video! It’s holiday-themed, which obviously pleases me to no end.

Here’s the video for “Who Spiked the Eggnog?” a song off their latest Christmas CD, Christmas Cheers.

I love this acapella band and own both of their Christmas CDs (highly recommended). The happy, upbeat music always ups my Christmas cheer.

Straight No Chaser: Christmas Cheers

Lunch

Lunch today was a ginormous salad featuring lots of random veggies, fruit and cheeeese.

Tuesday's Lunch

I topped a bed of fresh spinach with leftover green beans and broccoli from last night’s dinner, mushrooms, homemade cranberry relish, feta and goat cheese. I used Annie’s Naturals raspberry vinaigrette dressing for added sweetness.

Annie's Naturals

All Tossed Up

I’m on track to meet my veggie-quota for the day!

A Rare Appearance

Today I randomly snapped a pic of my elusive morning snack. As you may remember, I usually do not take pictures of my snacks, but today I was feelin’ pic-happy.

'Dilla

I made a quick microwavable quesadilla. I just placed a stick of string cheese on a whole wheat pita an microwaved it for 45 seconds until the cheese was melted. Easy, warm, delish ‘dilla!

Tonight

I will be leaving work early today for yet another Invisalign appointment with my orthodontist. I  actually don’t mind these appointments (I have to go once every six weeks) because my orthodontist is amazing and is engaged as well! I love all the wedding talk! 🙂

After my appointment, I am hoping to make it home early to take Sadie on a walk with Ryan before dinner. Then I’m hosting our weekly girl’s movie night! We’ll be watching Elf, one of my favorites.

"I'm Buddy the elf! What's your favorite color?"

My sister and I quote this movie year-round. It’s the best!

What’s your favorite holiday movie?

My top three holiday favorites are:

• Christmas Vacation
• Elf
• Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer (you know, the T.V. classic!)

Click here for MovieFone’s list of the top 25 holiday movies. Somehow How the Grinch Stole Christmas, A Charlie Brown Christmas and Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer didn’t make the list! I’m confused.

Meatloaf Monday

I think we all get random cravings for certain meals sometimes. Yesterday Ryan had a hankerin’ for meatloaf, so that made tonight’s dinner decision an easy one.

I turned to Cooking Light, my favorite recipe resource, for a yummy yet healthy meatloaf recipe.

We started with lean ground beef, bread crumbs, chopped onion, BBQ sauce, spices and egg whites and mixed everything together before placing it in a loaf pan and letting it cook for an hour at 350 degrees.

Raw Meatloaf Mixture

While the meatloaf was cooking, we took Sadie on a quick 30 minute walk. She’s loving the cool Florida weather and was quite the energetic puppers.

"Walk Me!"

Helloooo

When we arrived home from our walk the apartment smelled fantastic! The meatloaf was ready for eatin’.

Meatloaf

I fixed myself a plate and included lots of green veggies to make up for the several days I severely neglected their existence.

My Dinner Plate

Tree Time

After dinner it was tree decorating time! Since tomorrow is officially December 1, I needed to have our tree up for the kickoff of Christmas month.

Ryan got the tree out of storage while I set up festive holiday music and did the dishes with Sadie’s help.

Dish Licker

Our tree is pretty teeny since our apartment isn’t too big, so it was up in a flash.

Our Little Tree

Last year Ryan and I were nervous to leave Sadie alone with our sparkly little tree, but she made it through the season without breaking any ornaments (though you may be able to see the blinds she attacked when she was a puppy last year in the above picture… grrrr).

I hope we have a successful repeat of no broken ornaments this year. I may have to bribe her to steer clear of all the holiday decor with some Snausages.

BBQ Meatloaf Recipe

Ingredients:

• 1 1/2  pounds  ground beef, extra lean (raw)
• 1/2  cup  dry breadcrumbs
• 1/2  cup  chopped onion
• 1/3  cup  barbecue sauce, divided
• 1  tablespoon  prepared mustard
• 1 1/2  teaspoons  chili powder
• 1  teaspoon  garlic powder
• 1/2  teaspoon  salt
• 1/2  teaspoon  freshly ground black pepper
• 2  large egg whites
• Cooking spray

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350°.

Combine the beef, breadcrumbs, and onion, 1 tablespoon barbecue sauce, and remaining ingredients except cooking spray in a large bowl.

Shape meat mixture into a 9 x 5-inch loaf or a broiler pan coated with cooking spray. Spread remaining barbecue sauce over top of meat loaf. Bake at 350° for 1 hour or until a thermometer registers 160°. Let stand 10 minutes. Cut loaf into 12 slices.

Nutritional Information:

(Recipe yields 12 slices, two slices per serving)

Calories: 203 (24% from fat)

Fat: 5.4g (sat 2.2g,mono 2.2g,poly 0.5g)

Protein: 27.3g

Carbohydrate: 10.5g

Fiber: 1.1g

Cholesterol: 61mg

Iron: 3.2mg

Sodium: 517mg

Calcium: 26mg

Don’t Forget

Tonight is your last chance to enter the Pumpkorn giveaway. The winners will be selected bright and early tomorrow morning. 🙂

Second Thanksgiving Meal a Success

The second of my four Thanksgiving meals was, in a word, delicious!

Ryan and I headed over to my friend Laurel’s boyfriend’s house for a Thanksgiving potluck party. Everyone brought traditional Thanksgiving dishes and we had tons of food!

Potluck Platter

Friends and Food

Within 10 minutes of our arrival we were diggin’ in.

My Plate

I went back for seconds of the sweet potato casserole, macaroni and cheese and stuffing… apparently carbs and I are lovers today. 😉

The dessert options included brownies, cookies, pies, a pumpkin roll, whoopie pies and more. I brought my two pies and the turtle pumpkin pie was a hit! I really enjoyed it and it got good reviews from other taste-testers. If you’re looking for an easy, tasty Thanksgiving dessert, you may wanna give it a go.

Turtle Pumpkin Pie

Yummy Nuts and Caramel

Yummy Pie

It was a fun time with wonderful friends. I’d say Thanksgiving meal number two was even better than round one. Round three will kickoff tomorrow at my work Thanksgiving potluck lunch. I can already feel my food baby growing.

Dusting and Decorating

Though I managed to gather up the fall decorations into a pile yesterday, I didn’t get around to transforming our apartment into a winter wonderland.

When we got home from the potluck party I got to work cleaning (as in vacuuming, dusting, scrubbing) because moving picture frames around to make room for holiday decor revealed just how dusty and dirty our apartment truly was… ick. I was on my feet cleaning and decorating for more than two hours, but our place looks ah-maze-ing!

Sadie was happy because her little Santa bear (in the form of a free Victoria’s Secret PINK beanie baby) resurfaced. Fun for all!

I also totally forgot I packed up some Christmas CDs with my decorations and enjoyed listening to Mannheim Steamroller and Straight No Chaser.

I LOVE Straight No Chaser. I think acapella music is unbelievable and this group is so talented. I know this video was very popular on YouTube a couple years ago, but if you haven’t seen it, you HAVE to watch. They’re amazing!

I got my whole family hooked on their Christmas album. They just released a new CD for this Christmas and my mom already bought it for us to enjoy over Thanksgiving. Woop, woop!

Week Ahead

Another weekend bites the dust. I’m looking forward to this work week… only two days… and tomorrow will be fun since we’re having our Thanksgiving potluck lunch. I am bringing one turtle pumpkin pie and some cupcakes.

I would be bringing two pies, but look what happened when I was moving stuff around in the fridge:

Fallen Pie

Pie down, pie down! What a bummer. Not only did I lose a perfectly good pie, but it also fell on the kitchen floor which I just cleaned. Luckily Sadie’s super-fast tongue licked up a lot of the crumbs and made vacuuming round two a breeze.

I will only be working two days this week. Ryan and I are heading to St. Pete after work on Tuesday to begin the Thanksgiving fun. My family and I are flying to Gettysburg early Wednesday morning to spend the holiday with my grandmothers, aunts, uncles and cousins. I love family fun and can’t wait to see everyone.