Bacon/Ranch Balls
Regular sausage ball mix (the bisquick kind)
add chopped up bacon (pretty small)
ranch dressing mix (powder kind)
*these may need to be cooked a few extra minutes

BBQ Balls
Regular sausage ball mix
add your fav. bbq sauce
we added extra chopped up white cheddar cheese and spices

MexiBalls
Regular sausage ball mix
extra texmex cheeses
LOTS of chopped japs. yummmm….

Maple Balls
Regular sausage ball mix
maple syrup (go on and get the good kind, it’s worth it)
brown sugar

They were great!! I don’t really have exact measurements or cooking times, but you can free ‘ball’ it! (tehehee) The idea is, think of some awesome things that YOU would like and go great with sausage. Cook them until they look “done”. I promise you’ve never ‘sausage’ a great finger food for the holiday! {disclaimer: that corny but funny joke was brought to you by SniperBen}.
*editor’s note: somehow i don’t have a pic of the epic balls! doh…

Not just 1 or 2, but 3 dancing machines!

Our week of thanksgiving bliss was trucking right along. I had good food and traditions with the Turner’s and lots of rest and cooking in Dwood with the boys, so the only thing left was turkey time with the Birney’s (Sniperjess’ family). For those of you that know us…the Birney house is always an interesting experience. It’s untraditional, and slightly unorthodox…but it’s always a good time with genuine intentions from all. My growing time in Dwood lately lead to what I would call a “catch up” session when we got there. The adult beverages were poured and we chatted about the previous week and just life in general. SniperBen had leftovers, but I was somewhat tired of turkey so I passed (which I would later regret…aLOT). SniperBen got yet another look into the life I grew up in. Our holidays are about celebration and believe me…we celebrate. There was laughing and jump roping and Madonna tunes blaring and dancing. I won’t sugar coat it…things get a lil crazy. It’s a lot for a person to take in if they are not accustomed to the Birney house, but SniperBen held his own. (and later held my own….blegghh). I will admit I may have over done the turkey day festivities, but I was still very thankful to have my guy there to load us up and take us home at the end of the night. (Sorry you had to tomtom your way back to my apartment babe…I owe you one! ..or two.)

Aww, we found our perfect tree!

The next morning (after some much needed Tylenol on my part), we had plans to get our tree! Going to the tree farm and cutting down the perfect tree is tradition I have always had and I could not wait to share with the boys. Believe it or not, this was the first time SniperBen had experienced this tradition! That made it all the more exciting for me. Chase ran around pointing out his favorites, and we scoped the place for the best tree. Of course…we found it! Ben cut down his first tree like a pro and we headed home to watch some football and trim the tree…sounds simple, right?

Um… no. We got to my apartment and fought with the #$*& tree for about an hour (at least). We put it in the stand, everything looks great, let go and…wait for it…lean. Try again! Loosen this part…tighten this part..wait for it..it looks great!…wait…lean! GRRRR! This is a classic scenario where SniperBen’s patience is just what I need to keep me from throwing the damn spruce out the back door and getting another one.

Merry Christmas from the Snipers

A deep breathe, and big ol’ hug, and that smile of his and I was laughing about it with him. He suggested dinner and a new, snazzier tree stand. While we were at it…I decided to switch up my boring ol’ theme and have a multicolored party tree!! And that we did…in addition to jazzing up the outside of the apartment too! I love our Milner tree and I love the decorations. We finally rested that night in a warm, cozy apartment filled with the glow of our hard work from the day. It’s the first Christmas I’ve had in a few years now that hasn’t felt like a chore. It’s an absolutely awesome feeling and I can’t wait to make more Sniper adventures this holiday season! (and believe me…stay tuned b/c they are coming!!)

You know we can’t do anything with out taking a ton of photos. So here’s the rest of the photos that help tell the tale of our very first Thanksgiving week together.

Maybe YOU should relax

It all started with a trip to Burger King for some New Moon paraphernalia. I got Jess’ place and we got ready and headed off for some sushi, time with friends, and a gaggle of tweens and/or begrudgingly happy boyfriends and husbands. The movie was ish at best. It was better than Twilight, but then again, Twilight was a pretty terrible movie. There were some decent fight scenes, a fast car or two, some sparkly “vampires”, enough emo looks to make a rainbow cry, and and then some credits. That pretty much sums up the movie, or at least what I recall of it. The night wasn’t a total wash however. On the way to Milner, Jess got word that one of her friends was looking to unload some UGA tix. We jumped at the chance, I stopped by the ATM, got some cash and in exchange, we got tickets to what would be our very first GA game!

UGA vs. KU tickets

Saturday was spent kinda laying around since we were up late on Friday. With this being our first game, we decided that we needed some GA gear so we’d fit in with all the other Athenites. In addition to the new shirts, we went ahead and picked up a new camera. No sense in lugging around the big camera the whole night. The ride out there was pretty quick and after finding a good parking spot, we made our way to Sanford Stadium. The game went as expected, with GA bending over for Kansas and the echo of “Cox’s pass is incomplete” on loop throughout the night. After witnessing a girl getting vomited by a drunk guy hanging over the ledge of the upper level and our asses being frozen off, we decided it was time to head out. The game didn’t get any better after we left, but that’s all good. Jess’ put on a show with some cartwheels on the way to the car.

Sunday was more of the laziness factor of vacation setting in, only this time we went ahead and got all the stuff we would need for the week (dinners, breakfasts, lunches, Thanksgiving, lots of snacking, drinking, etc). Jess had to go pick up Chase that afternoon, so while she was gone, I made up a batch of my soon to be world famous OTP chili. It’s the kind of chili that people ITP can only dream about. The rest of the night was spent enjoying dinner, couch time, iCarly, Sponge Bob, iCarly, Sponge Bob, Suite Life of Zack and Cody, iCarly, and then some non-Nik TV. The first weekend on what was already becoming an epic Thanksgiving break had come to a close.

Chicken Florentine Lasagna

Monday was spent making lists, laying around, playing video games, watching cartoons, napping, cleaning, just being together. For dinner the plan was to make some awesome lasagna. Dinner did not disappoint. Jess whipped up a stellar Chicken Florentine Lasagna that pretty much blew all our minds. Well, it would’ve blown our mind some more had it not been for the inedible “garlic” bread that I made. I my overly zealous ambition to make something that could equal her dinner, I threw enough garlic to kill all the Cullen’s PLUS give Jacob a heart attack. Needless to say, we just at the lasagna and salad (and drank the wine). After dinner, we started in on the makings of the Thanksgiving desserts. Jess started in on her Apple Cake and I got to crackin’ on my Everything Fall Cookies. The cookies and cake took their toll on us and we were worn out. I mean, there’s only so much cooking one can do at like 8pm at night before you just need to sit down and watch iCarly or Sponge Bob.

"Big City" haircut

Tuesday morning was all set for some breakfast then off to get fancy haircuts in the “big city”. I had an appointment for 12:30 and since Chase needed to get a haircut, we got him squeezed in for noon. This was the first time he or Jess had been to one of them fancy hair cuttin’ places. So rather than an old man in a white coat bustin’ out some clippers and a comb from some blue liquid jar and giving you two pieces of double bubble gum after you hair cut, we got Cortex. After getting our hair did, we headed out. We popped in to El Azteka for some Mexican foodstuffs then decided it would be a great idea for Jess and Chase to be introduced to Ikea! As it turns out, it WAS a great idea. We got some really good ideas of some things we want in our apartment when they move in. We found a dining room table, some desks, a spring form pan, some paintings, a few pillows, and all and 6 insanely huge cinnamon rolls. Well, since the cinnamon rolls would’ve gone bad by the time Jan. 15 rolls around, so we decided to go ahead and nom on those. The rest of the day was spent enjoying each other’s company and prepping more food for Thanksgiving. Actually… now that I recall, the apple cake was made on Tuesday night. Either way it was a grand evening and just what we both needed.

Check out that cannon!

Wednesday was spent getting MORE things ready for what was turning out to be the Thanksgiving meal to end all meals. We did some prep work in the morning, then headed to the park. We took Chase’s bike so he could ride around and not be so cramped up. The day turned out to be perfect. The weather was just right, there was no one there, we found some balls and tossed’em around a bit, and generally had a great time. It was exceptionally nice to just spend some time with Jess and Chase outside, not in front of a TV getting frustrated at Boom Blox or watching iCarly. After the park, we loaded up the car with all our fixin’s and headed over to my parents house. The plan was to stay there Wednesday night so we could get up early Thursday and get to rockin’ on the lunch. This turned out to be a great idea. We got there that afternoon, and started in on the prep.

All that for 1 turkey?!

As I got started on gutting the turkey, Jess went to town on chopping up the veggies. She sliced like a ninja and cut like a razor blade through onions, celery, carrots, butter, herbs, and all manner of things. We got everything we could done and all set for our first official Thanksgiving together. All the pots were put away, the lists were double checked, the cookies had been nommed, and it was time for bed.

Next up is the adventures of our Turner Thanksgiving day, including decorating the fence, the most epic plate of food ever, and so much food that it would have been a pleasure to fall into a coma.

SniperBen Edit:
This is what she meant by “cartwheels down the streets of downtown Athens”

Click here to view the embedded video.

first. jojo knows hwo to press appleA. which mean he cna select all on the comoputer. he is the smartest cat on this planet. truth.

second. these fuckers on rockbandd have been clapping for like…decades. i know we rock. you can stop the applause now you stupid ass people@

also. this weekend was the shitznit! ben and i ran for 4 MILES! it was an really awesome run. the weather was perfect..the leaves were falling and the air was chilly. we found a new troute on the nike plus sitebut we thought we missed a road but how about i don tthink we did miss the road. we eneded up exactly where we wer e supposed to be and it was ssssssuch a good run! i think i miay have experience dhrunners high for the first time ever. ther ewas a time around mile 1.5 when i just felt like i could fly. we hadnt stopped to walk yet and somethign abut the music and the run and the waether and all of it  just gave me juice. i took off sprinting  and it was only for a few dozen feet or so but i felt awesomse. peeler rd. hill got me later in the run though. that hill kicked my ass. KICKED  my ASS. dude…it was bad. but i’m gonna dominate that hill soon. DOMINATE that mf hill. just wait

ok. so we also had a date night this wekened. we went to strip on friday night and it was soooooooooo good. best steak everah/! and we did some more stuff but i dont really remember what. oh! wiat…we went to j. christophers. for breakfast. it was deeeelish. except i really with i could eat eggs. dammit that make me mad! i had the saugage bisctuits though. and they were good. oh and we took pics of sppooky town tonight. i know halloween is over but we had to take asome pics of it before all the halloween decor is gone. so we’ll put that wawy tomorrow and get ready for thanksgiving and christmast!  we tried watching twilight too but we both passed out and woke p and it was over. boooo on that. it’s actually a really reallyb ad moive though\. and that kinda sucks. in case you didnt know i am pon day 14 of being smoke free. and also…jojo likes to eat my hair. wtf is up with that? really jojo? dont eat my hair…cmon.

i love you all. goodnight.

Jess isn’t the biggest fan of horror movies. In fact, she pretty much refuses to watch them. However, over the past year I have slowly warmed her up to the idea that they are where it’s at. They are my jam, and will be her’s one day as well. So with fall and October here, what better movie to get things started than with the original Halloween! She was rather apprehensive at first, but once it got going she really enjoyed herself and the movie. I mean, that movie is a classic and it’s just a lot of fun. So she was really excited after and actually wanted to see the second one. That will have to wait for this weekend…or sooner, depending on what all is going on.

On Saturday, we got up, had a stellar breakfast then pretty much just farted around the house. Jess slept most of the day on the couch, despite the UGA game (though it was a rather boring and disappointing game). That afternoon we grilled up some burgers and then set off to Fun Bowl!!! It was a hike to get there and Chase dozed off in the car, but once we got there, everyone perked up and we had a blast. We knocked out three games and it was a total blast. Jess did great for 1 of the games, I dominated one, and the other we kinda were on par wit one another. I reckon that’s how it usually goes with awesome families like ours. All equal parts.

Back home, we were all tired and I helped put Chase to bed, then Jess and I headed off to bed. Sunday was going to be a packed day. After breakfast, we set off to my folks house so Chase could meet my mom, Jess could see the house I grew up in, and we could get my Halloween decorations. We ate a quick lunch, then loaded up the decor and headed off to my apartment. Jess and I set up Spooky Town (pics coming soon) while chase helped and played on the couch. The house looks great and it finally feels like Halloween in here. I can’t wait to get all the candles lit and the lights going and have some people to enjoy fall here.

We headed home and by that time the rain had started to come down pretty hard. We were both exhausted from decorating and driving around all day so we called it an early night. I have to say, that her bed right by the windows that were open with the rain and the freshly cleaned sheets and the cool fall breeze, made for one of the best night sleeps I’ve had in a while. I didn’t want to get out of bed this morning, but I did. Dems the breaks.

So yeah, that was a pretty low key weekend, but damn if it didn’t turn out to be totally epic. I mean, it seems everything that she and I do, from washing dishes to making burgers turns out to be the most awesome thing on the planet. Maybe it’s the “new love” that all relationships get in the early stages, or maybe this really is that true love that most couples strive for. I’m gonna go with the latter because this feels like nothing I’ve ever felt before. This woman, this child, this family that I have in my life now, this is what I want, this is where I want to be, this is what makes me whole.