Hey there! I hope you had a wonderful Thanksgiving full of delicious food and fun times with friends or family members. November flew by, and I can hardly believe it’s already December 1st. I started sharing these highlight posts a couple of months ago, and they’re fun for me to write to share a little bit of my life with you. Here are last month’s highlights!
Blog
Last month, I posted my favorite apple crisp recipe, 6 tips for cooking for one, balsamic roasted carrots, and one-skillet baked ziti.
I was excited to finally post a pasta recipe because it’s one of my favorite foods and something I cook all of the time, but in the past, I’ve shied away from posting it on the blog because I think it’s tricky to photograph. I’ve always found fresh veggie dishes with lots of colors easier because they naturally look pretty. This month, I was excited to finally conquer pasta photos.
As always, I’d love to post more often but I think just posting whenever I get some creative motivation and some free time is what works best for me at the moment. I appreciate everyone who continues to follow along and keep up with my sporadic posting. 🙂
Life
Thanksgiving
Last month’s biggest highlight was Thanksgiving! My grandparents, cousins, aunt, uncle, sister, and sister’s boyfriend all drove in or flew in for the big day and it was so much fun to have a full house.
We celebrated my grandpa’s 80th birthday on Wednesday night. My mom & aunt worked for the past couple of months to collect letters from people in my grandpa’s life and ended up with 90 letters! My aunt bound them into a book and my grandpa seemed to really enjoy reading them.
Thanksgiving started off with a run with my sister. She was only home for about 24 hours, so we had to make every minute count. We started out planning to run 6 miles…which turned into 10…which turned into 13.1….which turned into 14 when I forgot to check my watch at the 6.5 mile turn-around point.
The weather was perfect, I had lots of energy, and we were catching up on each other’s lives, so the miles flew by. It was one of those runs that just felt really great, and it was so fun to have one of my best running buds with me.
P.S. I love running, but every run definitely does not feel that good, which makes me appreciate the awesome ones that much more.
We were gone longer than we’d planned so we missed some of the cooking, but we got back in time to help with a few things before our Thanksgiving lunch. Cooking was a team effort with lots of different people in and out of the kitchen working together on different dishes. I ended up helping with the mac ‘n’ cheese, sweet potato casserole, roasted carrots, and apple crisp.
My favorite side dish this year was the sweet potato casserole. Sadly, we didn’t have a lot of leftovers but I’ve been thinking about making it again soon, just because. 🙂
After Thanksgiving lunch, the whole family, dogs and all, headed to our neighborhood park to play our annual kickball game and take a few quick family pictures.
We all wore our college sweatshirts to represent our schools for the grandparent picture. 
After kickball, we headed back for dessert, which we usually eat around five or six instead of dinner. We had apple crisp with vanilla ice cream and luckily, we tripled the recipe, so we had leftover apple crisp for a couple of days. 
One of our Thanksgiving traditions is sharing what we’re thankful for, and this year, we wrote down something on a card, passed all of my cards to my dad, and had him read them out loud one by one. We had to guess who said each thing, which made it a little extra fun. The only rule is that people couldn’t write down anything that’s a given (family, shelter, etc.), so we all had to think a little bit outside of the box.
All of our family members left either Thursday night or during the day on Friday, so by Friday night, the house was quiet again. I enjoyed a relaxing day at home on Saturday before driving back to school early Sunday morning.
Room Redecoration
Another highlight from November was redecorating my room at home! Pink’s been my favorite color probably since before I could even pronounce color names, and my room was a dream come true for my 16-year old self, but I started feeling ready for a change. I knew I wanted mostly muted colors like grays, whites, and tans, and I wanted to paint the walls a light gray.
I met my mom a couple of weekends ago at a mall halfway between our house and my school and I picked out my pillows, bedding, etc. at Pottery Barn and a few other places. Since I’m away at school, my parents did lots of work on it, including painting the walls one day.
Here’s the before:
And here’s the after:
I love how calm the room feels, and I really, really love my new bedding. Soft, fluffy blankets are one of my favorite things in the world and these are perfect. I have a queen bed now for the first time ever and it feels like heaven. I still need to add a few more personal touches, like lots of picture with friends and family members, but it’s just about done!
So tell me…
How was your Thanksgiving? What were your favorite foods you had?
Does your family have any traditions?
Decorating: fan or no?
Liv always prepares the most delicious meals for us, although because she didn’t get home from the University of North Carolina until later, her mom was a big help in fixing these delicious dishes. Thanksgiving traditions always involve television movies, kickball, shopping, and sharing for what we are thankful, plus delicious food at every meal.
I love our family traditions 🙂
Liv!! Looks like you’ve had a great month! your thanksgiving meal looks so nourishing and delightful! I could go for a plate for lunch right now! Also- I’m OBSESSED with your room makeover!! It looks straight out of a magazine!! And for sure- it’s so calm! I’ve been wanting to redo my room-but it’s such a mess! That’s my winter project! Have a great day love!
xoxo Cailee!
I had lunch with my brother today at our dining hall and we were talking about how Thanksgiving was exactly a week ago and our lunch today just didn’t quite compare haha. Hope you’re having a great week, Cailee!
What a great month you’ve had! Your room is GORGEOUS! <3
Thanks so much, Kristy! I’m so excited to go home again for Christmas to sleep in my new room again!
Your family is so adorable! And 90 letters to your grandpa?! What a special man, that’s so sentimental. And I love how your dad read things out loud, how fun. Love those runs where it just feels good!
After a week of extra tired runs lately, I had another one of those awesome runs today and felt SO good after. I just love when that happens!
Wow your room redecoration is SO beautiful, and I love and appreciate so much when we have those amazing runs. It is definitely not every run, so you are SO Right when you say that they are wonderful when they do happen. I think the good company of your sweet sister seemed to have something to do with it? Praise God from whom all blessings flow! And your grandpa is so loved and honored and cherished; that fills my heart with gratefulness.
You’re so sweet, Emily! I think having my sister along with me definitely had something to do with such a great run! And you’re right, I hope my grandpa felt as loved and cherished as he is 🙂
love your room! I like redecorating as well- I think it’s fun to switch things around every now and then. loved your recipes from this month too girl! hope you have a happy Friday
Thanks, Lyss! Hope you have a great weekend!
I took your idea of guessing what everyone was thankful for and used it at my friendsgiving! Everyone loved it.
That’s hilarious that you just casually ran a half marathon with your sister. Having company definitely helps things go by faster 😀
Ahh I love that you ended up using the same idea for what people are thankful for!! So awesome. And I know, right? I guess time really does fly when you’re having fun!
your room is gorgeous! i’m rarely home now, so i brought a lot of my stuff to school. at my mom’s house, my room was purple and black (with grey and white). it was litterally my DREAM room <3 and i loved it so much, but my step dad/mom didn't get around to painting it until my senior year of high school, then moved this summer while i was in italy, soo i didn't get to use it much. i cried for about a week after they moved, haha.
at my dads house, my room is painted from when i was in 5th grade. it's bring pink and blue with a bazillion posters, super girly and young yet i love it for the memories 🙂
Aw, man! Bummer that you didn’t get end up getting to use your room at your mom’s more. And your room at your dad’s house sounds like so much fun because of all of the memories you’ve had there 🙂
too funny, i saw the first picture of your pink room and i was like I LIKE THAT A LOT. hahahaha. because pink is dope. but OMG you naileddddd the redesign. it looks gorgeous and so homely! lots of good picture taking will be done in that room, i’m sure 🙂
also definitely going to make this baked ziti, i lervvvv pasta. might have to sub in some veggie beef tho, i’ll let you know how it tastes haha.
Love your new room! i love the clean look of whites and grays- sooo cute! I love getting to spend time with my siblings over the holidays as well, and I especially love those long runs that feel easy and fly by 🙂
Thanks, Kerri! Hope you get lots of great sibling time over the holidays this year!
hello sister your room is so awesome great color matching everything is wonderful nice post