Life Away From The Office Chair

This weekend I attended a birthday party for my grand niece. She turned two. Her party was Elmo themed. This was perfect for her since shes at that age where its all Dora and Sesame Street.
Her party was held at an old school auditorium which was great for all the little party goers to run around and scream. Everyone seemed to have a wonderful time.

Can you find the birthday girl?

Her party was complete with a four foot Elmo balloon that followed everyone around, a real live Dorthy fish,

Elmo and friends cupcakes from Yi Ya's Sweeties and veggie trays made by the Mom (my niece).

and of course lots of presents. Including the big surprise, A Schwinn tricycle from her Nona and Pop Pop.

The party favors for each guest were made up of gold fish and crayons with tags that read "Elmo loves his goldfish and crayons too. Now here's both just for you. Love........."

She was just a little ball of fun.

Happy Birthday Brinklin!

Ive shared this on:
creatively-tuesday at therusticpig.com

Happy New Year to all of my readers! Hope you can put behind 2012 and make 2013 a better year for you and everyone around you.

I start each new year off with a traditional family dinner with collard greens, black eye peas, pork, mashed potatoes and crock pot macaroni & cheese. My husband worked hard to fix the greens and meat while I did the rest. If you know me, you know i'm all about the sweets so I made two fruit cobblers. For the first time, I made a chocolate pecan cobbler! Read on, I posted the recipe at the end.

Ever wonder what this lucky meal means? Here is a little run down....

Pork: Usually consumed in Italy and the United States, where thanks to its rich fat content, it signifies wealth and prosperity.

Collard Greens: Their green leaves look like folded money, and are thus symbolic of economic fortune and believed the more you eat the more wealth you will have.

Black Eye Peas: Symbol of money. Their small, seed like appearance resembles coins that swell when cooked so they are consumed with financial rewards in mind.

Now the mashed potatoes and macaroni & cheese are just thrown in the mix for good eatin'. That's how we do it in the South.

My husband cooked the collard greens outside. We do eight bundles.

If you have ever cooked collard greens, you'd know why.

Then he grilled some BBQ Pork loins on the grill.

I cut up ten pounds of potatoes.

Here is the black eye peas, mac n cheese, and potatoes cooking.

I always do a half and half cobbler. This was the cobbler before I cooked it.

I never got a picture of "after". That's how fast it got gone.

Before we began to eat, my sweet daddy had a short family devotion.

He left his paper here so now Ill share it with all of you.

Then everyone found a place at the tables and dug in.

It's hard to get everyone in one picture but we had fifteen!

This is where my front living room turns into a dinning room.

OK now for my favorite part. Chocolate Pecan Cobbler.

This is the first time I made it and thought I'd give it a try. It turned out wonderful and I will probably have to add this to the menu every year from now on. I was lucky to snatch a piece for this photo. It was gone in no time.

CHOCOLATE PECAN COBBLER.

Melt 2 sticks butter and pour into 9x13 dish.

In bowl mix:

1 1/4 cup sugar

1 1/2 cup self rising flour

1 tsp vanilla

3/4 cup milk

Pour the batter mix into the melted butter ( Do not stir)

In separate bowl mix:

1 cup sugar

6 Tbls cocoa powder

2 cups chopped or half pecans (optional)