Fabulous Fridays

Another week down! Ever since I can remember Fridays have always been my favorite day of the week. I remember being little and being excited about a weekend where you can do whatever you want! As a teacher you are still living the school week life, so of course I still love me some Fridays!

Last night was a chilly one and after getting my stuff organized for next week, I headed home and stopped at Super Target. I absolutely love the new one by our house and I took my time looking at all the fun Valentine stuff. This year I've really gotten into Valentine's spirit!

On my way home I picked up our favorite fast food (aside from Chick-fil-a). Delicious!

When I got home my baby schnauzer and his daddy had the fire going and the DVR ready to catch up on another of my guilty pleasures...

Some shopping, takeout, and trash TV with my boys. I love me some Fridays...

This morning we woke up and took our boy to get his hair did. While we waited we went to Lowe's and ordered two more sets of shutters for our master bedroom and upstairs game room. We also went and looked at a few furniture stores until he was ready. He came back looking fabulous as always!

Next up: nap time! Happy weekend everyone!

Busy.

That pretty much sums up our past three weeks! Tony's been working crazy hours to meet a deadline for the highway 290 project his company's designing. I turned 25 on Wednesday while he worked the longest day+ of his career (a whopping 33 hour day!). Before that there were bachelor parties, a rehearsal dinner and wedding in Dallas where Tony was a groomsman, ice castles, and lots of cold weather!

On our calendar this past weekend was to do nothing except have a date night. The past two weekends have been non-stop movement and the majority of the time we've seen each other during the past two work weeks have been while we're brushing our teeth and eating breakfast. On Friday after we had a dog training session for Einstein we had at home date night with Freebirds burrito (Tony) and Taco Cabana (me). We caught up on our DVR (which makes me very happy to go from 20+ recordings to 1) and relaxed. We've been watching Giuliana and Bill and it's become one our guilty pleasures (along with the Real Housewives and Operation Repo).

It's a fun show to watch with Tony because we're pretty ridiculous together like they can be.

Saturday night was date night out on one of my students thanks to a birthday gift card. It was just what we needed! I'd say part of my New Years goals of more date nights is going well!

Today Tony had to work, but I kept busy visiting a friend who had a baby on New Years. I brought her dinner and hung out with her and her beautiful boy. Afterwards it was back to relaxing and cooking with Einstein!

I haven't shared many recipes on here in a while, but we have been cooking up a storm! Last night we spiced up our go to easy penne pasta dinner by adding roasted veggies as done here. It was fantastic and we'll definitely be eating our go to dinner like this from now on. Talk about an easy and delicious way to get extra veggies!

Tonight we'll be having King Ranch Chicken via a great church cookbook I've mentioned before. It's actually the same recipe my mom used to make when I was growing up.

King Ranch Chicken

1-2 chicken breasts cooked (we grill)

1 large onion cut up

2 ribs celery, cut in medium pieces (we skipped this b/c we were out of celery)

1 can cream of mushroom soup (campbell's healthy request version to make us feel better)

1 can cream of chicken soup (ditto)

8 oz Cheddar cheese, grated

12 corn tortillas

1 large bell pepper, cut in small pieces

1 can Ro-tel tomatoes

Chili powder and garlic salt

salt and pepper

Directions:

Cook chicken according to preference and shred or cube. Mix soups and grated cheese. Spray large casserole dish and spread 4 tortillas on bottom of casserole dish. Spread 1/2 of each of the following on top of tortillas: chicken, bell pepper, and onion and sprinkle with garlic salt and chili powder. Add 1/2 soup mixture. Cover with 4 more tortillas. Spread remaining 1/2 of ingredients left in same order as above (I put the soup mixture first before the chicken and bell peppers because it's easier to spread this way). Apply 4 tortillas across the top. Pour can of Ro-tel tomatoes (don't drain) over top.

Bake, uncovered, at 375 degrees for approximately 30-35 minutes.

In our house we serve it simple: with ranch style beans and corn for my country boy. You can dress it up however you want. If you make it let me know how it went!

Today I also prepped several meals for the week. I pre-made taco meat and Mexican rice for tacos this week as well as Chicken spaghetti to re-heat at some point this week. I also washed, diced, and stored lots of veggies and fruits for things I'll be making this week.

This makes it easy just to throw in a blender for a smoothie for breakfast or add to a salad or pan in no time. I learned this lesson from a fellow teacher I work with who premakes lots of her meals on Sundays so that cook time is next to nothing during the week. I like! I can imagine this would help so many people save time during the week if they just gave it a try. It's a pretty cool rush to know that Sunday at noon I have two to three meals done and other parts of meals prepped for the week ahead. Score!

Oh, this is a cute little bowl a little girl in my class gave to me for my birthday. She made it at one of those pottery stores and painted it and wanted me to have it for Einstein. She said it could be a food or water bowl, but in my head I knew it was way too small for that. On Friday we had a session with our dog trainer and he showed us how to train Einstein to go to his "place" when someone rings the doorbell or comes over. In the beginning you have to train him with treats so I thought that bowl would be a perfect and cute way to store them by his "place."

There's our baby in his place. So far so good!

Happy New Year!

First post of 2010! Woo hoo!

I hope everyone's New Years Eve was great! We were very happy to have a night in and just relax and enjoy spending time together.

Yesterday we took down all the Christmas decorations and cleaned our house. It didn't take us as long as we thought, and even though I was sad to see the decorations get put away, I was happy to have a clean and organized home!

This is where Einstein hung out as we took down all the decorations. The noises scared him, so he managed to find a warm spot where the sun was hitting on the stairs. He looks like he's in puppy prison!

Here's what 4 Christmas trees, garland, 3 wreaths, and many, many ornaments look like when they're ready to go back in the attic. So long guys until next December!

The staircase is back to clean and simple. Bye bye garland!

Tony's office no longer has a Christmas tree in it. We're excited to start working on this room in 2010!

From this view of his office it was so pretty to see the two green wreaths we put on the doors that had clear lights. From here you could also see the lighted garland. Can't you have clear lights up all year long?

Kitchen sparkling clean! Nothing on the island, just how Tony likes it! :) Stainless steel cleaned and Christmas towels put away. What you can't see also makes me happy: tons of tupperware washed and stored that used to be taking up space in the fridge. Bye bye holiday leftovers!

No view of our other Christmas tree from the door. Back to normal!

2009 was a great one career wise, as homeowners, and as a married couple. In 2009 we settled into our new home, began decorating and collecting furniture, took a fun trip to Cancun, kicked up our investing, joined a gym, had my family move to town, and overall just became more comfortable with being adults. It was our first full year out of the apartment life and man have we enjoyed it!

We don't have any resolutions for 2010, but rather just a few goals. Tony and I both think it's easier and more feasible to work towards a goal rather than to keep up with a resolution. We're more goal oriented people, but whatever works for you as long as it works! This year we want to increase our saving and investing, continue to practice living below our means, take a fun vacation (maybe two!) somewhere new, have more date nights, decorate a few more rooms in the house, and continue to stay active and eat healthy. When I look at these goals I get excited because I think they are realistic and achievable. That and who doesn't want a fun vacation or more date nights?

Happy First Day of the Year! I hope it's a good one for you!

Catch Up!

Wow, it's been a long time since we updated! December is officially the busiest month of the year! Since our last post we finished decorating the house, went to McKinney for Tony's company Christmas party, finished Christmas shopping and wrapping, hosted Christmas and caught up on lots of naps and good food! With all the food we've eaten we also managed to fit in some exercise! I'll try to catch up on what's been going on. It may be a long post...

Before the break our kids made a Rudolph t-shirt to wear on the last day of school before winter break (or Christmas break as I call it). It turned out really cute!

Tony and I also made some yummy treats to give to our co-workers before the break started. We made white chocolate covered oreos and chocolate & smashed m&m covered pretzels.

They are so easy and we had fun making them while listening to Christmas music!

On Christmas eve we went to Christmas eve service at our church. It was beautiful and such a great way to welcome in Christmas. Afterwards we came home and ate delicious lasagna and then went out to look at Christmas lights. Great night!

Christmas this year was different for us because we had both of our families at our house that morning for gift opening and lunch. I was in charge of lunch but we had our mom's bring in sides and a couple of desserts. Lucky for me one of the gifts we won at Tony's party was a Honeybaked ham for Christmas! It was absolutely delicious and came fully cooked! I wish I would have taken a picture of the food setup because we had sooo many delicious things! A pot of homemade beans, homemade stuffing, Tony's delicious mashed potatoes, green bean casserole, fried corn, wild rice salad, rolls, two pecan pies, punch bowl cake, and of course the ham! We ate until it wasn't safe to eat anymore and then a few hours later we did it again!

The day after Christmas Tony and I got up early and went to the after Christmas sale at Target. We were blessed to have received so many Target gift cards both from our families and my students at school so we were able to get everything we wanted for next year! We got storage tubs, outdoor lights, tree skirts, more ornaments, decorative things, fancy wrapping paper, candle holders, and wreath storage tubs.

At first Tony wasn't 100% sold on going so early on one of his days off but when he was loading up our truck he was so pumped at how much of a great deal we got on things we really wanted but weren't going to buy them at full price. He told me he wanted to laugh when he pushed the cart to the holiday section and saw that there were nothing but women back there digging in carts and displays for the best deals. I was proud he came and we made a great team dividing and conquering! I'm excited to decorate our house next year! It will be fabulous!

Tony had to go in a few days during his vacation to help with some deadlines so I kept myself busy reading and watching movies. I loved Julie and Julia. It's based off a woman who started a blog and cooked her way through Julia Child's the Joy of Cooking.

While I couldn't see myself cooking every single recipe in one particular cookbook, I did relate to one of the quotes in the movie:

"You know what I love about cooking? I love that after a day when nothing is sure, and when I say nothing, I mean nothing. You can come home and absolutely know that if you add egg yolks to chocolate and sugar and milk, it will get thick. That is such a comfort."

Watching the movie made me realize how far I've come since the first time I watched the Food network in college while home for Christmas break and made my first recipe. I remember going to my hometown HEB and spending a fortune to get all the ingredients and then only half liking the dish when it was finished. I still have lots to learn about cooking and baking, but I do love that when Tony and I are working in the kitchen, the deadlines and meetings and parent emails just disappear and I could care less about anything going on at work. It's really nice to sit down and enjoy something that's not takeout or from the freezer.

I also finished up the book Firefly Lane by Kristin Hannah. A few teachers at my school are starting a book club and this was the first book to read. It's not a book I would ordinarily pick up and read but I thought I'd give it a try. I was really surprised how much I liked it and how close I felt to the characters by the books end (which I had a lot of time to do this because the book's close to 500 pages long).

It's a great story about the friendship between two women that spans their lives. I found myself thinking of many different friends I've made as I read this book. I definitely recommend it and I'm waiting for Mary Ruth to read it and let me know her thoughts (now you're bound to reading it!)! If you read it let me know what you think!

Anyway, when the family left we went back to ordinary life and started on the mountain of laundry that comes with having people stay with you.

As you can see from the picture in two days we went through lots of towels!

Finally, I'll leave you with a recipe that's in our two-three week rotation. I found it in a church cookbook passed on to me in my senior year at A&M by a wonderful lady I worked with at the vet school. You can tweak it, leave out the chicken, substitute beef or fish, and add in some tomatoes. Enjoy!

Sour Cream Chicken Enchiladas

Ingredients:

• 1 cup chicken, cooked and diced
• 1/2 cup chicken broth for dipping tortillas
• 12 corn tortillas
• 3/4 cup onion chopped
• 1/4 cup butter
• 1/4 cup flour
• 1 1/4 cup chicken broth for sour cream sauce
• 1 cup sour cream (we use light to make ourselves feel better)
• sliced jalapenos (or not)
• 1 bag of shredded Monterey Jack cheese or favorite cheese

Directions: In small fry pan, place chicken broth and heat over medium heat. Dip tortillas, one at a time, in hot chicken broth. Remove and place 2 tablespoons cheese, 1 1/2 tablespoons chicken, and 1 tablespoon onion on each tortilla. Roll up tortilla; place seam side down in a single layer in a 9X13 inch casserole pan or lasagna tray.

In saucepan, melt butter; add flour stirring to blend well. Slowly add 1 1/4 cups chicken broth and cook, stirring until mixture thickens. Stir in sour cream and peppers; continue cooking until heated through, but do not boil. Pour over tortillas and place in a 350 degree oven for 20-30 minutes. Remove from oven, sprinkle remaining cheese on top, and return to oven for 5 minutes to melt cheese. Ad jalapeños on top. Serve with Mexican rice and beans if desired.

Our Christmas Tradition

The first Christmas Tony and I started dating we realized that we both really loved the Christmas season. We went to Santa's Wonderland in College Station, played Christmas music in our cars all the time, went shopping at the Galleria in Houston the night they lighted the big tree near the ice skating rink, and just altogether enjoyed every part of the Christmas season. That year I decided it would be fun to do an ornament exchange that would represent something that happened in that year between us. Tony was game and with that we started our own Christmas tradition. It has become the most special part of the holidays for us because each year we hunt for the perfect ornament to give each other that is representative of our year together.

Here is a look at our ornaments over the past five years together...

Our first Christmas together I bought a puppy named Ranger. I then realized my roommates didn't want a puppy, nor did I have the time as a full time college student and part time worker to take care of one. Don't worry, we found him an excellent home where he is living large, but this is a reminder of that little guy. This was my ornament to Tony that year.

This was Tony's ornament to me the first year. On our first official date, Tony came to pick me up with a red rose in hand

These were Tony's gift to me the second year we were dating. In that year, we both graduated from A&M.

These little guys cooking were my gift to Tony that year. When Tony accepted a job in Georgetown we spent a lot of weekends in his tiny apartment kitchen cooking up new recipes to save money instead of going out to eat. We had a lot of fun that year making due with his small set of cooking utensils.

Year 3: Tony's gift to me that year was actually two ornaments. The first being the ring as this was the year we got engaged.

He also got this ornament to mark our wedding date.

The married couple was my gift to him for year 3.

Last year's gifts to each other was slightly comical. We were both so excited to be getting into our new home that we both searched for the same theme of ornament online. With tons of options out there who would have thought we'd pick almost the EXACT SAME ONE! This was mine to Tony...I think.

And this was Tony's to me. The only difference is the wording and the placement of the year. Wow! We tried really hard this year to make sure this didn't happen again!

This year we were relieved to find out that we hadn't picked the same ones for each other. Tony gave me the one on the left. It's an ornament to represent my mom selling her home in Victoria and moving to be closer to us. That was her old address and funny enough she had a red door on her home. It was very sweet of him to mark such a special time for our family. Mine to him is the bear grilling on the right. This year Tony got a new grill and spent so much time outside cooking for us! Because of him we've had many, many delicious meals that he and I had never shared together before because we didn't have a grill in our apartment living days.

I love this tradition and I can't wait to look back after 30+ years to see all the ornaments we've collected along our marriage. Every year it is really special to take these ornaments out and reminisce over the years we've spent together and the fun we've had. I'm so glad we started this tradition and I hope that one day our children can see the love we have for each other when they see these up on one of our many trees around the house.

Holiday Fun

Last night we had my mom and grandma over for dinner. After dinner we made smores in the fireplace. It was funny to see my grandma make her smore because she was so afraid her entire marshmallow would be burned completely. We sat around and watched the football game and enjoyed our treats.

My grandma smiling but slightly nervous to light her marshmallow.

Her saying "Hurry, hurry, take the picture before my whole marshmallow burns!"

She had a captive audience just waiting for her to drop something!

Einstein the other night when the cold front came in. He slept so warm and cozy!