The holidays are upon us!

And that only means one thing:  I will go crazy with the baking!  So be prepared for a whole slew of updates in the coming weeks as I have many holiday parties to attend and will obviously be baking some ridiculously awesome stuff!  In the meantime, I've been terrible about updating so here's some stuff:

 We smoked a turkey for Thanksgiving and it was pretty awesome!

 We also helped my parents remove their old hot tub in preparation for the new one.  We are serious about relaxing on holidays ;-)

 The chef and our turkey!

 I made a pumpkin pecan praline pie that was pretty awesome

Moving on...

 When we got our counter tops replaced, the installers accidentally broke our backsplash.  We weren't too heartbroken as we planned on replacing it at some point anyway.  Well, I finally decided to tackle the grimy backsplash

 I removed the massive spice-rack and found even grimier tile...gross

 And the underside of the cabinet had a thick layer of goo on it...

 Most of the tile came off relatively easily except for the spot where the drywall is currently missing.  The tile took the drywall with it so I had to patch the wall.

I have the wall all patched, mudded, and primed.  It's ready for tile!  Alex has swapped out all the old, grimy, discolored outlets for me.  We hope to tile this weekend!

and a cute picture of Strauss for good measure ;-)

So check back soon for baking updates...the baking will begin in a few days