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Sunday, October 13, 2013

Southern Sliders

Our last few tailgates have been just as much fun as the ones I posted about here. In fact, a couple of weeks ago, when our Auburn University tigers played Ole Miss, we went all out with a southern themed tailgate.
Our menu included fried chicken, macaroni and cheese, hashbrown casserole, green bean casserole, and brownies with pecans on top. Don't worry we did have fresh vegetables to offset the potential heart attacks caused by the rest of the menu.
There is one thing in particular on our menu; however, that I want to share with you.
While enjoying great food, we've also had a blast spending quality time outdoors with friends and family the last few weeks.

During our southern food themed tailgate we served these little tasties as appatizers. I'm calling them southern sliders. They were so delicious that I wanted to highlight their goodness and share them with y'all here on TLP.

Southern Sliders

Ingredients:

  • French bread
  • Pimento cheese
  • Conecuh sausage (cooked)
  • Pickled green tomatoes
  • Toothpicks

Recipe:

Slice bread into thin pieces. Place bread slices flat on an ungreased jelly roll pan. Toast in a 350 degree oven for approximately 5 minutes.

Spoon your favorite store bought pimento cheese over the top side of your toast pieces. Or, if you have time, spoon homemade pimento cheese over the top. ;)

Cut your cooked sausage in half to create a flat side. Then cut it in 1-2 inch pieces. Rest 1 piece of sausage on top of each piece of pimento cheese covered bread.

Slide toothpicks through wedges of pickled green tomotoes, one piece per toothpick. Place a piece of green tomato atop each piece of sausage making sure to press the toothpick all of the way through to the toast layer.

The pickled green tomatoes we used were canned by my Uncle Frank. In case you don't have an Uncle Frank, I suggest you can your own or try to find some store bought pickled green tomatoes. I think pickled okra would be great with this as well.

These southern sliders were a crowd pleaser. They pleased me too because they were easy and delicious.

Enjoy! Who knows, you might eat so many that you will feel like this.

 

Saturday, September 28, 2013

The Dr. Diva Days Of Our Lives

I am so thankful for the friends in my life. In particular, I am glad to know these women, the Dissertation Divas.
I mentioned them in this post a while back. 
 

From left to right, Dr. Langham (me), Dr. Carter, Dr. Greer, Dr. Searby (our mentor), and Dr. Zimmerman-Brown.

We all saw each other through the absolute most difficult years of our lives both personally and academically. Amazingly, the four of us, under the leadership of our Dr. Diva mentor, were able to graduate together a whole year early with our Ph.D.s while also working full-time. That is a VERY rare accomplishment.

We have not all been together since just after our commencement ceremony in December 2013. About that time, I moved to Auburn, AL to accept a new position at Auburn University. Our mentor, Dr. Searby, also took a job at AU.

Luckily, we were able to enjoy some time together this weekend. It was so fun to catch up with each other. The three Divas still living in Birmingham, AL came down to Auburn for a Diva weekend. We ate delicious food at Acre and Ma Fia's, drank good wine and yummy cocktails, shopped, and enjoyed special fellowship. It was a fantastic weekend!

Our toast at dinner on Friday sure was so much sweeter than the toast I wrote about in this post from when we were still in school. It is glorious to be finished!!!

 

Earning our doctorates together was truly a bonding experience. It was such a special time to be with friends who can commiserate with one another about such a challenging time.

We had a blast! Thanks for a great weekend, ladies!

 

Sunday, September 22, 2013

Tailgating Langham Style

 
Football and tailgating have been big successes so far this season. Our Auburn University tigers have won their first 3 home games of the year. Home games mean that we get to tailgate with our friends and family. We love it.

We tailgate at our home which is literally across the street from campus. We have enjoyed delicious food such as smoked Boston butt, fresh from the Gulf of Mexico oven roasted BBQ shrimp (thanks to our friend Tripp from Southern Fish & Oyster), burgers and hot dogs on the grill, and lots of brown drinks. We've also had some really great fellowship.

We even got to tailgate with our precious brand new nephew, Landry, and his proud parents, Judd's brother, Colby, and our SIL, Brenna. Landry was about a month and a week old in these pictures. We are so glad to have been the destination for Landry's first road trip.

The very first tailgate took on an unexpected theme - tailgating Langham style. Look closely at the pictures on these cupcakes. Our friend Katie made toppers with pictures of Judd's face photoshopped on Si's body doing the Gangnom style dance. Get it, Langham style?!?! Ha! She also included pictures of my face, our dog's face, Judd's face when he dressed up as a rockstar for Halloween, and Barry Gibb's face because Judd does a good Bee Gee's impression. She is so creative!
We hope you're having a great time cheering for your favorite teams this season!

War Eagle!

 

Saturday, September 21, 2013

Introducing Landry

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If you follow my SIL, Brenna, on her blog, Instragram, and/or Facebook then you might already know that we have a new nephew.  Brenna and my BIL, Colby, are proud parents of little Landry Read Langham.  We are all smitten with him.  He is a perfect, blonde-headed, angel.  He is also a mini me version of Judd’s dad, Terry.

Landry was born on August 5, 2013.  He was born on a Monday.  Judd and I thought we were going to  have to miss his birth because I had meeting that day that I was not going to be able to postpone; however, when I arrived at work that morning, I noticed an email that someone else had delayed the meeting.  Woo Hoo.  It took me all of about 3 seconds to notify my colleagues that I was leaving immediately in hopes of being there for my nephew’s birth.  I went straight home, packed a bag, and grabbed my camera.  We hopped in the car as soon as possible.  Judd and I still were not sure we could make it in time.  After all, Brenna was already in labor and we had an approximately 3 hour drive ahead of us.  Landry was born in Milton, FL and we were driving from Auburn, AL.  We did make it just in time.  Landry was born about a half hour after we arrived.

We all waited anxiously at the hospital.  A few weeks prior to his birthday we created a pool for Landry’s birth.  To help the time pass, I awarded the birthday award to Terry.  He sure was proud to become a grandpa that day!  The prize was popcorn since we were all guessing when Brenna was going to pop.

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All of a sudden, Judd got a text message from his brother.  Landry had arrived!

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We could not wait for Colby and the doctor to walk down the hall to retrieve us.  We rushed in to see this sweet moment.   We were so glad to see a healthy mommy and baby!  Brenna sure did look great, too!  I’m amazed!  Bloggers, meet Landry!

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We had fun showing the new mom and dad the winners of the baby pool.

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We, of course, all could not wait to take a turn holding him. 

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He was such a good sport for his first bath and check-up.

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Brenna and Colby chose to keep his name a secret until his birthday.  We all knew in advance that his initials were LRL.  My sweet Mother-in-Law couldn’t stand the suspense.  She took drastic measures.  Smile  She went through the Mobile, AL phone book looking for names that started with “L”.  She is so funny.  When we got back to her house after his birth, she went back to her list to see if she “guessed” it.  She came  close to his name but didn’t have it exactly on her list.

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We could not take being away for too long.  We all went back to the hospital after dinner.  We took them a seafood dinner and snapped a few more photographs. 

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Unfortunately, duty called and Judd and I had to drive back to Auburn to go to work.  It was hard to leave.  We came back to visit the following weekend.  By this time, Brenna, Colby, and Landry were home from the hospital.

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We couldn’t wait to get a few more snuggles in with that sweet baby.  We love you, Landry!

Sunday, July 21, 2013

"That's What Boys Are Made Of" Baby Shower Invitation

Our extended family is growing by two. Judd's brother, Colby, and his wife, Brenna, are expecting a baby boy any day now. Additionally, my brother, Bryan, and his wife, Laura, are also expecting a baby who is due in December. As a result, we have participated in lots of showers and baby fun lately. In fact, my in-laws, Judd, and I had the pleasure of hosting a family baby shower for Brenna and Colby a few weekends ago.

The theme was "Frogs, Snails, and Puppy Dog Tails - That's What Boys Are Made Of". The location of the party was supposed to be at the Langham family farm; however, there had been so much rain at the farm prior to the shower that we had to relocate the party to my MIL's church fellowship hall. Just imagine a farm setting for all of the pictures in this post. :).

We had a blast even with the change of venue. One of my favorite parts of it all was the invitation my husband, Judd, created for the party.

Are you interested in hosting a shower with this theme? If so, this invitation design could be yours for $25. The invitation is 5 1/2” x 8 1/2”. The invitation will fit in any envelope that is 5 3/4” x 8 3/4".
Because our business, The Langham Project, is designed for do-it-yourself printing, we offer our clients the opportunity to print their invitations with no minimum or maximum quantity for their order. They simply receive the final order of their invitation design and are then free to print the invitations any way they prefer. Additionally, our business approach allows our clients to print on the paper/cardstock selection of their choosing. Once we send the final design to the customer, he or she can print the order on his or her own or have a professional printer do it. If the client decides to have a professional print shop print their order for them, all they have to do is take the file to the print shop.
The final order can be sent in two ways. It can be emailed to you, the customer, in its exact size or we can send it to you designed to fit two invitations on one piece of letter sized cardstock/paper. We recommend that you purchase cardstock from the vendor of your choosing that will be the exact size of your invitation so that you do not have to do any cutting. In this case, you would just simply change your printer settings to fit the exact size of your invitation and feed each piece of cardstock through your printer. However, if it is easier for you to print two invitations per one regular 8 1/2” x 11” page that is also an option. If you request your order this way, we will include a very faint guide line down the center, between the two invitations, to assist you when cutting.

We plan to get an Etsy shop started to sell our one-of-a-kind invitations and stationery very soon. For now, if you are interested in ordering the "What Boys Are Made Of" invite design, please leave us a comment on this post or send us an email to langhjm@gmail.com.

Since the invite's hand-drawn sketch did such a good job of establishing the type of decor we needed, decorating for the shower using things we already had at the farm was a breeze.

The food was yummy and the fellowship was even better. It was fun to host this event for Brenna and Colby.


Brenna also did a post about the shower. Check it out at By God's Southern Grace.

And, just in case we want to relive the event after the baby arrives, Judd's daddy captured it all on his video camera. Ha!