Family coming to visit

I love when family comes to visit, once they get here and we all say our hellos and I can take that deep breath and relax. The week prior is like a military regime in my house trying to get the kids to clean their rooms and get everything in what I call "company order" It's not hard and my house isn't that messy, its' just ME and my panic mode. I don't know why I worry so much about a magazine being left out or the kids room looking messy. It makes me crazy and I want my home to look perfect when visitors arrive.

Now that today is the day I'm on the panic mode of what to do to entertain them. Do they even want to be entertained or do they want to sit around and relax. I never know and try to offer up suggestions either way, but do I sound like I'm trying to push one way or the other? I hope not, I'm just trying to be a gracious host.

Living so close to Atlanta there is a plethora of things to do with visitors or just with the family. It's almost overwhelming all the things that are around that are fun and entertaining. We live in the North Georgia mountains and just visiting areas around here can take up more than a weekend. I love where we live, its so central to culture and scenery and within two hours we can be in another state looking for their fun activities as well.

My hopes are that this weekend goes well and everyone has a great time, including myself if I can relax a little bit, and I have some amazing photos to show off on my blog.

I'm going to make something yummy that will feed a large crowd and the kids love and that's spaghetti. It's my traditional visitors dinner when I know I'm going to feed an army. I used to work all day putting together my sauce, but have streamlined it down to as Sandra Lee says "Semi Homemade". The best thing about my sauce is that I always get rave reviews as if I had slaved over it all day!

Jaymie's Spaghetti Sauce:

4 cans Hunts garlic and Herb spaghetti sauce
1 can Hunts Italian style chopped tomatoes
1 can Hunts tomato paste
1 beer, any kind will do
2 lbs ground beef
2 small cans mushrooms,(I use one container of fresh sometimes)
1 small onion chopped
1 teaspoon garlic powder
1 teaspoon onion powder
1/2 teaspoon Italian seasoning (I go light on this it can be overwhelming)


Brown the ground beef and chopped onion together and drain off fat. Place the ground beef, sauce, tomatoes, tomato paste, beer, mushrooms and seasonings into the pot. Let simmer for one hour on low heat. Serve over cooked noodles of your choice (spaghetti, angel hair, vermicelli)