Oh, Christmas Tree

Yesterday was such a great family day and I will tuck it away in my memory forever.  We went to buy our first real Christmas tree and it was a beauty.  After the guy helped us put it on the roof of the Explorer, John and I realized that neither of us had cash to tip him.  He was obviously disappointed.  We told him that we would come back and he just walked off.  We ended up dropping the tree off at the house and placing it in the den.  Harper Anne and I decided to light the tree while daddy ran back to the tree place to tip our helper and then run by the liquor store.  What's a day of Christmas decorating without liquor?  We didn't hang any decorations until daddy got back so we could all do it together.  Harper Anne especially loved the Christmas tree skirt my MeMe made for me several years ago.  It was one of the last ones she made and I was explaining to her how very special it was. 

I showed Harper Anne how to hang the decorations on the tree and she did an awesome job.  The lower portion of our tree is heavily decorated.  :)

Last night after a long, first annual tree decorating event we we  hongry.  That's right.  Hongry is far past your average hungry.  John said that he wanted chicken spaghetti.  I can promise you one thing: my husband did not want chicken spaghetti.  Early I mentioned that this was the type of day where my mom would have made that dish and that I thought it sounded good.  He's so sweet.  Chicken spaghetti takes a while but we wanted something quick.  We took out one bag of the cauliflower/cheese sauce.  Since John doesn't eat a lot of meat I didn't want to shred the chicken and him decide that he'd eat around the chicken.  I pan seared some chicken in Italian bread crumbs and threw some pasta in a pot.  Don't worry, I did all of this while sitting down.  :)  Once the pasta was done I threw the sauce in a bowl and heated it in the microwave.  I got Harper Anne to help me stir in two of her tiny hand-fulls of cheese because well, we like cheese.  Also I thought if she helped me make it she just might eat it.  We stirred in the pasta and topped with the breaded chicken.  Best dinner in a very long time!  I felt odd not having an extra vegetable but was so tired and convinced myself that it was ok since the sauce was itself a vegetable.  HIGHLY recommend this sauce.  I still can't get over how excellent this dish was.