Growing up, slow cooker recipes were reserved for winter.  My mom would make huge batches of Chili in the slow cooker for those cold winter days.

In my Pinterest adventures, I’ve found that the slow cooker can be used year round for absolutely everything!  Before Pinterest, I never knew you could make a cake in a slow cooker!

Last year I shared my “slow cooker recipe” board on the blog, which contained about 100 recipes at the time.  Now, it has over 340 pins, with a total of more than 700 recipes!  To make things easier to navigate, I’ve put the recipes in text form right here on my blog.  Be sure to bookmark or pin this page to have these mouthwatering recipes right at your fingertips!

Aaand it’s Christmas time!  In the past 9 years, we’ve put up our tree maybe 5 times.  Most of those times also involved throwing it up like a few days before Christmas.  This year, we already have our old tree up in the loft area and are going to pick up our Habitat ReStore tree this weekend to put up downstairs.  We’ve bought stockings for the fireplace and put up wreaths on the door. I honestly don’t know who we are anymore!  Before this year, our Christmas decorations literally consisted of that tree and one bag of ornaments.  I’m just excited to actually have room to put things up and store things until next year!  Our old place was so small and had absolutely zero storage.  This year, we bought a 9ft Christmas tree!

We’re also hosting Christmas this year for my parents.  It’s going to be overwhelming and fun at the same time.  I’ve never made Christmas dinner before so I’m totally unprepared!  I should’ve taken better notes at Thanksgiving dinner!  What recipes should I make?  Are cold cut turkey breast sandwiches out of the question?!

Here’s what I picked up last week at the Habitat For Humanity ReStore:

I’m a huge wreath fan and I found 3 wreaths last week.

I picked up two of these wreaths with the bow to put on my front doors.  They’re simple, yet elegant!

I put this wreath outside on the house.

I found another photography board!  For 75 cents, I couldn’t pass it up!  The glass was also purchased from the ReStore earlier this year.

We also purchased our Christmas tree last week, but are going to pick it up when the ReStore is open again next week so no pics yet!

Past ReStore Finds // 01 // 02 // 03 // 04 // 05 // 06 // 07

We’re finally here!  It’s Thanksgiving eve and the last of my drink recipes! 

I raided the liquor cabinet for this set of recipes.  While they definitely won’t be winning any awards for originality, I used my ingredients from the past drink recipes to create some incredibly easy cocktails!  They’re an easy last minute addition.

To make each recipe, I took a shot of alcohol and poured it into a solo cup.  Then I added my second ingredient and finally finished with a splash of the third ingredient.  Feel free to mix up the amounts according to your taste!

Jack/Coke/Cranberry Juice

Seagram's 7 /Cranberry Ginger Ale/Cranberry Juice

Bacardi 151/Vanilla Cream Soda/Apple Cider

Seagram's 7/Vanilla Cream Soda