Numero Dos

I am going to cut right to the chase because I am just so darn excited about it.....

We got our second win last night!!!  

The girls played so hard and really deserved this one.  It was back and forth for most of the game until the last 2 minutes or so when we pulled away to win 49-40.  It was nights like last night that remind me of why I love coaching as much as I do.  Seeing how excited the girls were after getting that win makes all of the headaches and frustration worth it.  Looking at our record you can tell we've had a less than stellar season, but we've chosen to focus more on the little battles as opposed to the big picture.  With such a young team it's hard (we're basically a jv team going up again seasoned varsity teams every night). But we are a completely different team than we were at the beginning of the year, and our experience is beginning to show.  These girls are going to be a force to be reckoned with in a year or 2 with 4 freshman getting as much varsity playing time as they are.   

Have we had disappointments this season?  Yes.  Have we lost a couple of games we should have won? Yes.  But that's sports. You win some and you lose some.  But as long as you can learn from your mistakes and improve because of them you're doing something right.  We still have 2 regular season games this weekend before our tournament starts, and I truly believe that we can win one of the 2.....if we play like I know we can and if the girls BELIEVE they can win.  For now we're going to celebrate because it just feels so darn good to win!

"It's the little details that are vital. Little things make big things happen."

~John Wooden

Sunday Night Recipes

Since Sundays are the only day I am home most of the day and have time to think about making dinner, they have become my new cooking nights.  The past couple of weeks I have decided to try out  new healthy recipes that we can eat all week.

These recipes were the ones I cooked last weekend.  I actually picked the recipes out and got all of the ingredients the weekend before but never got a chance to make them.  Thankfully everything was still good, so I got to cooking while Eric was out hunting.

For our entree I went with one of my standby thrown together chicken dishes.  We'll call it Italian Chicken Bake (for lack of a better term).

Italian Chicken Bake

4 boneless, skinless chicken breasts (thawed)

1/2 cup Italian dressing

1-14oz can diced tomatoes, drained

1/4 cup shredded mozzarella cheese

1/4 cup parmesan cheese

1/2 tsp Italian seasoning

Marinate chicken breasts in Italian dressing for at least an hour. Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees. Spray a baking dish with non-stick cooking spray.  Place marinated chicken breasts in a single layer in the baking dish. Pour can of diced tomatoes on top of chicken, and top with cheeses and Italian seasoning.  Bake for 30 minutes or until chicken is done. It's always delicious and EXTREMELY easy to make!

I also made a Tortellini Salad with Asparagus and Basil Vinaigrette.  The recipe on Pinterest called for homemade basil vinaigrette dressing, but my fresh basil is non-existant right now, so I used pre-made basil parmesan vinaigrette dressing from Kraft.

Tortellini Salad with Asparagus and Basil Vinaigrette

Tortellini Salad with Asparagus and Fresh Basil Vinaigrette (original recipe)

My Recipe

1lb asparagus spears

1-18 oz package cheese tortellini

1/2 cup Kraft Basil Parmesan Vinaigrette Dressing

1 pint grape or cherry tomatoes, cut in half

1/2 cup grated parmesan cheese

Cut asparagus spears into 1 inch pieces and steam on stove for 5-7 mins. Place asparagus in strainer. Return pot to stove and bring water to a boil.  Cook tortellini according to directions on package in pot. Drain and mix tortellini, asparagus in a bowl.  Toss with dressing and chill in refrigerator for at least 30 mins. Right before serving, toss with tomatoes and parmesan.

It was delicious!  I would make it again.  It was a nice twist on your classic pasta salad.

For our "bread" I really went out on a limb for us. I've seen Cauliflower Breadsticks recipes floating around on pinterest from time to time, and thought I would try them one day, and last weekend I decided I'd take the plunge and make them.

Cauliflower Breadsticks

crispy edges.....yum!

1/2 head riced (grated) cauliflower

1 whole egg, plus one egg white, lightly beaten

1/2 cup 2% shredded mozzarella cheese

Dried basil, oregano, garlic powder, etc

marinara or pizza sauce for dipping

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Mix all ingredients in a bowl and then spread and flatten mixture on to baking stone (if using a regular pan, be sure to grease it) with about 1/2 inch thickness.  If you want to get fancy you can shape it into a square or a circle.  Bake for 40 mins until the cauliflower starts to brown and dries out. Remove pan from oven and flip cauliflower.  Return pan to oven for another 10 mins.  Serve with marinara or other dipping sauce.....garlic butter and ranch would be fabulous but kinda defeat the purpose.

These were interesting.  I could definitely tell they were not bread, but they weren't all that bad.  Eric loved them which shocked me completely.  We may be adding this when we eat pizza now.

Now that I have my recipes from last weekend up to date, maybe I can get close to getting this weeks up before the end of this week?  I hope!

Weekend Recap

So I promise when I looked at the calendar yesterday it was Tuesday, and low and behold it's actually nearly a week later.  Where did the time go?! I am still not exactly sure.

Let's see...what we did this past weekend....I will give you 3 guesses and the first 2 don't count. It starts with Basket and rhymes with Mall.  We played games 6 and 7 of our 10 games in 3 weeks on Friday and Saturday night.  We played well but are still chasing our 2nd win. I have complete confidence that we can get our second win this coming week if we do what we're supposed to do.  Think happy basketball thoughts for us please!  Since last week was our last home games of the season our girls decided to do something special for us.  On Friday night they gas a cake and presented it to us at halftime of the boys game.  It was so sweet of them!  (and completely unexpected!)

It was a Costco cake so it was DELICIOUS! One of our girls designed it.  

Of course this came maybe half and hour after we finished telling them that if any of them even thought about getting involved in a fight after the game they would not be playing Saturday night....LOL.  Yeah about that fight....we heard before our game from students and a couple of teachers that there was supposed to be a fight between some students at our school and the school we were playing, so there was extra security at the game.  There was a fight at the game, but in was 2 girls from our school fighting each other in the stands in between the girls and boys game.  The fight came right at the beginning of a dance performance from a local studio.  They had to stop the performance, haul the 2 girls out and the dancers were able to start over.  Thankfully that was the only altercation at the game. I am not sure why these kids are incapable of behaving like civilized human beings.

As if I could not get enough basketball, I went with my SIL to see our Alma Mater, Huntingdon College play a big conference game on Saturday before our game, and they smashed the other team by 25 which means they are now tied for 1st place in their conference.  It was so great getting to see some of the girls and watch them play.

Going back always makes me miss it so much!  This was the first game I'd been able to make it to this year, but I am hoping to make several more before the end of the year, once our season is over.

And Eric?  Don't worry....he had a blast this weekend.  It was the last weekend of duck hunting season so he took full advantage of it, hunting both Saturday AND Sunday mornings....which meant he did a lot of sleeping during the day. But they had success and Hawk the Duck Dog did an excellent job "fetching up" the ducks!

Such a handsome boy!

Don't worry, the 2 little ones (Peanut and Hollow) got their fair share of action, too.  Since it was so pretty this weekend I made sure they all got walks...shorts in January?  Yes ma'am!

I am proud to report that I am still going strong with my Insanity workouts.  I am only one day behind (surprisingly) due to my busy schedule.  My plan is to do every workout (not stick to the days), so I may not finish in 60 days, but hopefully close to it. I am anxious to see if the soreness I experienced last week with the workouts subsides the second time I go through them this week....I am guessing no, but that's ok! If anything I will be in great shape for snowboarding next month!!!

We did manage to spend some time together this weekend.  He came to my game on Saturday (but I didn't get to see him much since I was coaching), and we had a movie night last night.  We rented The Watch.....funny movie but extremely bizarre.

I guess it's time to get this week started.  It's going to be another doozie with 3 away games, late practice, and out of the office meetings, but I am ready for it (and I WILL do insanity at least a couple of nights!)!

Happy Birthday Eric!

Happy happy birthday to my sweet, handsome hubby!  

I hope that last year of your twenties is the best one yet!  

Love you!

Weekend Recap

Every once in a while I don't mind Monday coming, but that only happens on Mondays like today that I have off from work =) Happy 3 day weekend to me!

These 3 have enjoyed me being home so far this morning. 

On my agenda for today....finish Eric's birthday cake, practice, birthday dinner for Eric (his bday is tomorrow and I have a basketball game), walk the pups, and squeeze in an insanity workout.

DUN DUN DUN....we've decided we'd give the workouts a try to see how we like them. I knew I was in for a challenge when I took the Fit Test on Saturday.....my legs were shaking while I was doing it, and I could barely hold my head up when I got done.

This was a good 10 minutes after the cool down.

My Initial Fit Test Results:

Switch Kicks: 110

Power Jacks: 42

Power Knees: 69

Power Jumps: 35

Globe Jumps: 10

Suicide Jumps (burpees): 13

Push-up Jacks: 15 (if you can call what I did "push-ups")

Low Plank Obliques: 48

I guess we'll do it again in a couple of weeks and see if my numbers improve.  Good news is it can't be any harder in a couple of weeks. I hope!

The rest of my weekend was pretty typical..... basketball games on Friday AND Saturday, cleaning, laundry, watching a little football and basketball, and spending some time with the pups.  It was nice enough again to take them on a walk on Sunday.  I also got around to renting Pitch Perfect....hilarious!

Sunday afternoon I spent a little time in the kitchen.  I found a cake recipe that I wanted to try out for Eric's birthday so I decided to get started on it. His birthday is not until Tuesday but I have a basketball game (of course) and he is going hunting, so I'll be lucky to get to see him and wish him a happy birthday on his actual birthday.  We're celebrating today so I went ahead and made the cake last night. If it's good I will definitely share it!  I also finally got around to trying out the other recipes I tried and I WILL be posing them later this week.  They were delicious!

Snowy Thoughts on a Thursday

To say this week has flown by is an understatement.  I had check my calendar to make sure it was actually Thursday this morning. Perhaps it has something to do with the fact that the earliest I've gotten home so far this week has been 7:30......7:30PM.  That's nuts! And it's not going to get any better because it looks like the only day that I will be home before 7:30 the rest of this week will be Sunday.  Awesome.

So far we've played 2 of our 4 scheduled basketball games which were the reasons I got home late Monday and Tuesday.  Yesterday I went to Mobile for work and had a late afternoon meeting which had be leaving the city by the bay around 4:15 with a  3 hour drive back.  Thank goodness for my Blue Collar Comedy and LaughUSA Comedy stations.....they kept me going on the way home.

I just love this bridge....don't know the name of it but you have to cross it to get into Mobile.

As you can see from the picture above it was a pretty dreary day yesterday.  In fact, it's been a pretty dreary week.  We have officially gone 7 days without any real sunshine and I am about to lose my mind. I realize a sunshine less winter can be par for the course up north, but that is NOT the case down south.  I need some sunshine in my life STAT.  However, I am going to let today slide because we have an actual real life chance of SNOW!

Real live snow chances in the forecast today!

Will all of the grocery stores be out of milk and bread by 10AM this morning?  Probably.  Will people stay home from work today in anticipation of the chance "snowpocolypse"?  Probably.  If there are flurries will I have my happy freezing butt outside playing in it?  Absolutely! I hope I hope I hope we get some snow!  If it gets talked up enough they might even let us go home early!  Fingers crossed!

I will be thinking snowy thoughts the rest of the day!

New Year, New Recipes

Along with 90% of the rest of the world, Eric and I said we were going to eat healthier.  For the most part we do well in this department (during the week), but since I am not home in the evenings during basketball season we tend to fall off the band wagon....add in all of the goodies that come with the Christmas season and the train has been completely derailed.  There's still another month left in the season so cooking healthy meals at home is going to be a challenge, but I am willing to try. I received several new cookbooks for Christmas and have found a TON a delicious-sounding and (mostly) good-for-you recipes, plus there's a million and one healthy recipes popping up on my pinterest feed, so I and going to take advantage of both.

I tried out several new recipes this weekend.  My plan was to cook several things on Saturday/Sunday that we could eat on throughout the week.  With 4 games, late practice on the days we don't have games, dance class, and a late night for work, I won't have ANY time to cook.

I talked about my new favorite snack on Friday.....since the remaining balls were eaten by Eric's buddies who came over for a fish fry on Friday night I made another [double] batch this weekend so we could have healthy munchies for the week.

No Bake Energy Balls

In the South chicken salad is a summer time (all the time at our house) staple.  But I don't make it as often as I would like, mainly because of all of the mayo.  I know there are lots of alternatives, but it just doesn't taste the same without the full fat mayo.  I was perusing pinterest on Saturday morning (because that's what you do on a lazy Saturday morning, right?) and came across a chicken salad recipe made with avocado.  I LOVE guacamole and avocados on pretty much anything, so I figured I'd give it a whirl.  I was a bit concerned because by themselves avocado do not have a TON of flavor, and the only additions were a little bit of onion, some fresh cilantro, and a dash of salt and pepper.  I was banking on it being good and decided to make a double batch...brave I know.  When Eric came in from fishing I had him taste test it.  When it comes to food, he is brutally honest, so I was anxious when he tried it.  Much to my surprise, he started going on and on about how delicious it was, so much so I asked him if there was enough flavor to it.  He said there was a ton of flavor, so I tried it, and it was AMAZING!  The flavor was fantastic.  The onions and cilantro give it just enough flavor, and the avocado....oh man does it make it good! The texture freak in me was happy, because the avocado gave it a perfect chicken salad texture.

Avocado Chicken Salad

I pulled the crock pot out on Sunday so I could make a dinner we could eat on for a few nights.  I was planning on making a chicken with mushroom sauce.....until I read the recipe and saw where you had to cook the chicken in a skillet BEFORE putting it in the crock pot.....ummm I thought the while crock pot recipe meant I throw all of the ingredients in and it does the work for me.  I canned that recipe because defrosting chicken breasts and cooking them in the skillet was too much work for a Sunday and started flipping through pinterest boards.  I settled on a Beef Tips recipe that my Mom highly recommended.  We are usually a chicken and turkey household, but every blue moon I get a beef craving.  Plus lean stew meat  was on sale this week at Winn-Dixie, so I threw it together and and put some brown rice in the rice cooker (best invention ever), and we had a delicious meal!

I had a few more recipes that I was planning on making, but decided to take the puppies on walks instead, so hopefully I'll be able to make them soon...as in before the stuff I bought for them goes bad in my fridge!

Weekend Recap

Heeeelllllllooooooooo springtime!  Ok it might be a bit early for that, and it's supposed to come to and end next weekend, but oh man was it pretty here over the weekend.  I am talking shorts and t-shirt weather all weekend long. It was a nice break from the chilly weather we've had this "winter"--not that I am complaining....I appreciate having "cold" temperatures so I can wear jeans a cute boots!

Our weekend was pretty typical....basketball on Friday for me ....all night long.  The game was 2 hours away, and the one time they scheduled an hour and a half (it's usually just an hour) for the boys jv game they got done early.  We were ready to go 20 minutes before our game was "scheduled" and the referee said we'd have to wait because if someone were to check on the referees then they'd get in trouble.  Because I am sure the referee association wanted to drive out to the middle of no where to make sure they did not start the game early so the other team could get home at a decent hour. After looking around we realized the actual reason they did not want to start early....we only had one referee there. I guess he didn't want to do the game by himself, which I don't blame him....but he could have just said we're waiting on the other referees.  But that's neither here nor there.  After all 3 games, and stopping to eat on the way home, we finally made it back home around 1AM.....WAAAAAAAAAAAY past my bedtime.  I attempted to sleep on the bus (I got pretty good at it when I was in college), but school buses don't offer the same level of comfort as a charter bus and the only way I could lay down involved my butt falling asleep...it was awesome.

Saturday and Sunday I had absolutely NOTHING planned so I spent a little time experimenting in the kitchen.  Between pinterest and the new cookbooks for Christmas, I found some great new recipes (post on those coming soon)! I tried to make several things that we could eat on this week since I won't have a lot of time to cook, along with some buffalo chicken dip at Eric's request to take with us to some friends' house on Saturday night where we watch the NFL playoffs---I'm pretty sure it was the first bit of NFL football I've watched all year.

I watched the Miss America Pageant when we got home (which meant I got to fast forward through the commercials and fluff and watched it in about an hour).  I was happy that Miss New York won.....she's actually from Alabama and has only lived in NY for a few years.  My favorite part was that 3 of the contestants--Miss NY and Miss OK who came in 3rd--tap danced for their talent.  They were amazing!  I really hope some my dancers were watching because man could those girls tap!



Did I mentioned they were amazing?



Since the weather was so nice, I made sure to get the puppies outside for a walk both days, which was a bit pf a challenge with all 3 of them. Saturday Eric took Hawk on a run so I only had the 2 little ones to take, but Sunday I ended up taking them in shifts....little dogs first then Hawk.  Not surprising, it took me twice as long to walk the little dogs the same route that I took Hawk, because Hawk wanted to run the entire way.  Being the nice doggie mama I am I let him drag me around the neighborhood.  I've been wanting to get back into running, why not start out with a sprint around the block?  Since we didn't have a game on Saturday (1st one this year and last one til the end of the season), I went to church Saturday night and got to sleep in on Sunday. I guess all of the exercise the dogs got worked like a charm because they were knocked out too, until I started stirring around 8:30. I guess it worked again this morning because all three of them were sound asleep when I left this morning which NEVER happens.

The only "scheduled" event I really had to make it to after Friday was a basketball shoot around Sunday evening.  We play this evening so we wanted to get the girls in the gym and shoot around for a little while to get them ready to go. On the way home I picked up MIB3 for us to watch. Eric's been on a movie kick lately, so we've been renting a lot of redboxes.  I am not much of a sci-fi movie girl but I love the Men in Black franchise, and I really liked this one.

It's time to get this week going.  I hope that I am still vertical after this one...it's going to be a doozy!

Yay for Friday and My New Favorite Snack

I am happy to report that we made it to Friday )barely) after 11 days away from the office and only a 3 days week last week I was a little concerned about how long this week was gong to be.  Surprisingly it was not to bad.  Now all I have to do is get through half of a work day, and an away basketball game tonight. After that I am footloose and fancy free for 2 days! I plan on enjoying it too because next week we have FOUR games.

Now onto the good stuff.  And by good stuff I mean good stuff to eat. I have seen recipes for energy balls floating around Pinterest for some time now, and while I was always intrigued, I always had visions of "bird food" floating in my head when I thought about eating them. The other problem? Almost every recipe contained coconut.  My mother taught me at a very early age that coconut was disgusting in anything and everything, so I naturally took her advice and avoided it (until college when I discovered coconut rum...YUM!).  I still avoid the non-liquid variety because of the the texture.

With the beginning of the new year came an onslaught of healthy recipes on my pinterest feed.  Those energy balls popped up again, and I found myself opening the recipe to see if I could stomach the ingredients.  I'd heard of (and liked) every ingredient, except for ground flax seed. After a little research I learned that ground flax seed was a powdery consistency without a lot of flavor, plus there was only a half a cup of the stuff in the recipe, so I probably would not notice it anyway.  I swung by the grocery store the other night to pick up a couple of things I needed for them (I had about half of the ingredients already), and made them the other night.......

No-Bake Energy Balls

What you need:

1 cups oates

1/2 cup peanut butter (creamy or crunchy--I used creamy but crunchy would add a little something to it I think!)

1/2 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips

1/2 cup ground flax seed (I found it by the bread mixes at my Publix)

1/3 cup honey

1 tsp vanilla

How to make them:

Dump all ingredients in a medium bowl and mix until combined.  Chill mixture in the fridge for about 30 minutes so it will stick together.  Roll mixture into 1"-1.5"  balls. I ended up with about 30 balls rolling them this size. Refrigerate for another 30 minutes for balls to harden, and enjoy!  I've been storing mine in the fridge but there is really no reason to.

I can't get enough of them!  They are sooooo good (and husband-approved)!  They're a perfect sweet treat that fills me up! They do look a little bit like the lard/peanut butter/birdseed treat my mom makes for her birds, but I can over look that after tasting them!  I believe these are going to become a snack staple in our house. =)

Happy Friday!

Seashell Frames

When I was at my parents' house over Christmas I found a bunch of seashells I had saved in one of my [many] boxes. Our bathrooms are beachey themed (thanks to the borders that I can't convince Eric to take down) so I did not mind bringing that box home to add to my collection.  There were several decent sized and still intact shells in the box that I did not want to just put in a bowl, so I decided I would do a little DIY project with them and some frames I had leftover from another project.....and ended up with these!

I took silver 4" x 6" frames and painted them sage green.  Then I cut 3 pieces of scrapbook paper to fit in the frames. Then I hot glued my sand dollar, starfish, and seashell to the scrapbook paper and VIOLA! instant wall art! I ended up putting the glass behind the scrapbook paper because the frame backs were too loose without it.  I love love love it!

Dog Pee in my Shoe

We are almost a week into transitioning Hallow into an inside dog, and it certainly has not been with out its challenges. However, it's gotten a little better every day, and the accidents are getting fewer.  Bless his heart he's had to learn to be potty trained during a week when Eric's been out of town and I have been coaching, so that means holding his baby bladder for nearly 11 hours during the day.  I don't think he quite understood the concept the first couple of days....which is explains why he peed twice and pooped in the office on Friday night after I had taken him out and walked him around the yard for a good 10 minutes.  Awesome I know.  He's only had a couple since then, and most of the time it's obvious that he is just "marking" things like the table decoration that he tore up yesterday (way to give your self away Hollow....rip it up and then mark it so I know you did it).

He snatched this from a side table. 

But this morning took the cake.  I was getting ready for work and went to put my shoes on.  When I slid my foot into my shoe I felt wetness.......that *#&@ dog PEED IN MY SHOE.  I pulled it off my foot and turned it over while a trickle of puppy pee ran out of it.  Don't worry, he got popped for that one.  All I could think of was the movie Beethoven when Beethoven pees the the dad's shoe.  That was me this morning. I guess I never thought a dog would actually do that......I was wrong.  On the bright side he did not chew it up which really would have gotten him in trouble.

As mad as I have been with him for the little things he doesn't stay in trouble all of the time.  He spent the first  year or so of his life as an outside dog so it's somewhat expected.  He does have his hilarious and sweet moments, too.

A couple of days ago I came home to find all of the "favorite" dog toys in a pile on Hallow's blanket (AKA the blanket I made Eric for his birthday).

When I picked up the toys to put them in the dog toy basket I found the bone he had "buried" using the rest of the toys.  Hilarious!

He is also quite the snuggler.  He loves to fall asleep up against someone/some dog. He and his sister used to do this all the time which explains it.

Curled up against Peanut, and sound asleep with his paw on my face.

I think another week or so and we should be good to go!  (I hope!)

#15

via

It took Alabama roughly 3 minutes to let the Irish know they were in waaaaay over their heads last night.  And it only got worse for the shiny-topped leprechauns as the night went on.  In case you did not stay up to see the end (there was really no point), the game was an Alabama route with Bama winning 42-14.  Even Hawk said he had enough in the second half......

I think the facebook status updates I saw during the game were more entertaining than the actual game itself. Among my favorites:

"Elephants are legends, Leprechauns are myths."

"Why is everyone is being so hard on the Irish? Notre Dame HS is playing a great game."

Coach Kelly's comments at halftime when asked what they can do in the second half to win the game, "Maybe Alabama doesn't come back out."

Love it!

RTR!

Weekend Recap

Once again I find myself wondering where my weekend went. I could have sworn it was just Friday afternoon and BAM...it's Monday. But it's not just any Monday.....it's BCS National Championship Monday! Tonight at 7:30pm the Notre Dame Fighting Irish will square off against the Alabama Crimson Tide in Miami for a classic battle of football powerhouses. I CAN"T WAIT! I am rocking my red skinny jeans today in honor of it!

My weekend was a bit of whirlwind of basketball.  We had a week and a half off over Christmas and apparently in that short amount of time I forgot how busy back-to-back game days can be.  We played Friday and Saturday night this weekend and our Saturday night game was an hour and a half away.  All 3 teams had tough games and then the trip got worse.  While we were gone, the middle school principal who is also the father of one of the kids on the boys varsity was killed in a car accident.  Someone drove up to get him and got there right before the boys game ended which is how we found out about it.  My heart breaks for the kid and his brother as well as the faculty and staff at the middle school who are due to report back to school this morning.  It won't be easy.  Please keep them in your prayers.

Little Hallow has been doing well in his transition to being an inside dog.  We've gone through some potty training growing pains, but I expected that. It hasn't been too bad.  Aside from him "marking" my garbage can in the bedroom it was not too bad.  He'll either learn not to do it or end up with a raw backside.

1. Our giant dog bed that doubles as a couch for humans when they are not on it.
2. Hallow and Peanut checking out the neighborhood.
3. Peanut the enforcer scaring Hawk away from his (Hawk's) food bowl.  

On Sunday I finished de-Christmasing the house....at least the outside.  I still have a few things to put up from the inside, but I just don't want to take my Christmas cards down just yet.  I think I am going to do one of those books to keep all my cards to display each year (like the one I did with our wedding cards).

Since it was a chilly (by Alabama standards) weekend so I made a big bowl of crockpot potato soup which hit the spot and was perfect to eat in front of the fire during the season premier of The Biggest Loser!!!! I missed it so much this fall and I am beyond pumped that Jillian Michaels is back on the show this season!  She's my fitness hero and would probably not approve of my potato soup dinner, but that's ok because it was sooooo good!

Oh....and 

ROLL TIDE!

Christmas 2012 Recap: Part 2

The day after Christmas I headed to Memphis to visit my parents and brother with the inside puppy dogs since Eric was headed on a duck hunting trip for the weekend.  It was sooo nice to be able to just get in the car and be there in a few hours, as opposed to having to fly there.  They are still getting moved in to the new house, but I have a feeling that it's going to go much smoother since my brother and I cleaned out all of our boxes (mine took up 2 whole rooms!).

We found all kinds of gems from our childhood in our boxes.  I was a journaler as a child and had several different journals (all half filled of course) that cracked me up.  The pictures I saved were pretty great, too.

My BFF and I doing our best bug eye impression?  Yeah I see now why I didn't have a boy friend in high school.  Bowls on your eyes = boy repellent. 

While opening up picture boxes with Mom, we came across my life sized replica poster.  Yes I have one of myself.  Doesn't everyone?  For Senior Day at my high school they made these for us.  I did not think it made the trip to MI, much less a trip back to Memphis.  We cracked up when we found it.  Naturally I posted this picture of myself with my replica on facebook, and apparently my friends like life-sized replicas.  I got even more comments about the picture  from people I saw over the holidays.

All 5'10" of me in my high school basketball glory. That cutout is officially 10 years old this year. 

We spent the majority of the trip inside working on the house, but I was not complaining because it was cold and wet, and even snowy while I was there.

SNOW on the bushes!  I asked my brother if there was still snow when I was driving up there and he said NO, but in my book this counts as snow!

We went out to get things for the house and to eat...and did we eat.  I got to eat at almost every one of my favorite Memphis eateries, which made me a happy girl!  Queso Dip from El Porton, a turkey sandwich and bowl of soup from Bogie's Delicatessen  and a ginormous burger and fries from Huey's all as fabulous as I remembered them. I did not eat any BBQ (surprisingly), but I will make sure to have some next time.

The puppy dogs seemed to enjoy the new house as well.  It has a big backyard for them to run in.  Since we have a 1 story house they were a little unsure of the steps at first.  Hawk ran right up them when we got there, but then he would not come down.  I tried everything I could think of from attempting to pull him down, coaxing him with a big piece of leftover prime rib, to walking away for about 5 mins.  Nothing worked.  He stood at the top of the stairs and whined.

Big baby

I finally called Eric to see if he had any suggestions, and he reminded me that Hawk had slipped down the steep wooden stairs at the river last summer which is why he was so scared.  I finally had my brother pick him up by his chest from behind while I pulled his collar and paws from the front.  It was quite a struggle for all three of us, but we finally got him down.  It was like a light bulb went off in his head.  He started jumping up and down and ran right back up the stairs so he could come back down by himself   It was precious!

It was a wonderful trip and I can't wait to go back! Did I mention how excited I am to have them closer?!

On a sad note, we lost our sweet Cricket Girl yesterday.  She got hit by a car right in front of the house by a kid that plays football for Eric.  It was an accident.  At least he was kind enough to call Eric and let him know.  Eric said he was pretty upset about it.  We were afraid something like that was going to happen since the puppies developed a habit of chasing cars a couple of months ago.  Her brother seems to be doing alright.  We've kept him inside for the most part since it happened and he has done well.  I think we are going to transition him into an inside dog with Hawk and Peanut mainly because I refuse to leave him outside alone.  I know we've only had them for a few months but it still hurts. Now she's running around chasing squirrels in a big back yard in the sky.

We miss you sweet girl

New Years Dinner

I am still working on getting caught up due to my posting hiatus over the holidays.  I got a few new cookbooks for Christmas so I decided to start out 2013 with a few new recipes.  Growing up Mom always made corned beef, cabbage, and black eyed peas on new years.  I decided to forgo the black eyed peas since I don't like them and have no clue how to cook them (hopefully I won't regret it), and focus on the corned beef and cabbage.  One of the cookbooks I received is Slow Cooker Quick Fixes by the editors of Southern Living and it had a Cranberry Corned Beef recipe that looked delicious, so I tried it.

Cranberry Corned Beef with Horseradish Sour Cream

What you need:

15 baby carrots

1 large onion sliced into 6 wedges

1 3-4lb corned beef brisket

seasoning packet from corned beef

1 can whole berry cranberry sauce

1 can jellied cranberry sauce

2 packets dry onion soup mix

1/2 cup sour cream

4 tsp prepared horseradish

Place carrots and onion in the bottom of a 5 quart slow cooker.  Cut excess fat off of corned beef brisket and place brisket on top of carrots and onions.  In a bowl, mix both cans of cranberry sauce with soup mix. Pour mixture over corned beef.  Cook on high for one hour, and then on low for 8 hours.  While corned beef is cooking, mix horseradish and sour cream in a small bowl and let chill for several hours.  Serve with corned beef.

Oh man was this good!  The horseradish sour cream was the perfect match for the cranberry sauce.  Eric decided to put his corned beef on an onion bun and top it with Slawsa and was very pleased with his decision.

For our cabbage I decided I wanted to try something new.  I am not a huge cabbage fan since it does not have a lot of flavor, but Eric loves it, so I googled "best cabbage recipe" and got this one from Emeril.  Let me just say the man knows his cabbage.  It was not the healthiest recipe but it made for some dang good cabbage.

Yes there's bacon involved.

Emeril's Favorite Cabbage

What you need: 

1/2 pound bacon, coarsly chopped

4 cups thinly sliced onions (since I used my onion in the corned beef, I re-hydrated some dried minced onions and used them instead)

1 1/4 tsp salt

1/4 tsp cayenne pepper

3/4 tsp freshly ground black pepper

1/2 tsp sugar

3 bay leaves

1 head green or white cabbage, cored and thinly sliced

1-12oz bottle beer (I used MGD 64 since that's what we had in the fridge)

Cook the bacon in a large heavy pot or Dutch oven (used my large frying pan since I halved the recipe), until browned and slightly crispy, about 5 mins. Add the onions, salt, cayenne pepper, black pepper, sugar, and bay leaves. Cook, stirring, until onions are soft, about 5 mins.  Add the cabbage and stir to mix well. Cook, stirring until the cabbage begins to wilt or soften, 3-4 mins. Reduce the heat to medium-low, and add the beer.  Stir to mix. Cover and simmer, stirring occasionally, for 1 hour. Remove the bay leaves. Remove from heat and serve warm.

I halved the recipe and it was plenty for the 2 of us.  Eric asked me to hang on to this recipe to make again, so I must have hit a winner!

For dessert Eric opted for the same thing he ate for breakfast.  Muddy Buddies in milk.  He said they tasted like Cocoa Puffs.  Who knew?

I have got to get back on the cooking band wagon....let me rephrase that.  I have to get back on the HEALTHY cooking band wagon.  It's going to be difficult with basketball this month, but I am going to try!  If anything I can put together some recipes and meal plans to start using in February.

Christmas 2012 Recap: Part 1

....a week late on my Christmas recap is not too bad, is it? I think we are technically still in the 12 days of Christmas so I think it's acceptable.  I guess today would be the 9th day ...so 9 Ladies Dancing.

via

We had Christmas with Eric's family on Christmas Eve since his brother and his wife were going to be out of town on Christmas Day. I really enjoyed "hosting" Christmas at our house. We stuffed ourselves silly and had a great time!

For dinner we had fried turkey, twice baked potatoes, asparagus casserole (my favorite!), green bean casserole, deviled eggs, chicken salad, cheese ball, cocktail weenies, and crescent rolls.  Needless to sat I was in a food coma way before we started dessert which consisted of pecan pie, buttermilk pie, ooey gooey pumpkin pie, sweet and salty cookie truffle bars, and a ginormous cookie plate. Don't worry, I made sure to sample EVERYTHING.

I guess since his camo has green in it you can call it Christmas-y? =)

Our beautiful tree, SILS, and the whole family!

Christmas morning we slept in a bit.  By a bit I mean 7:30am, which is a lot later than I used to wake up as a child. I popped a couple of casseroles in the oven (which I almost did not make because I was so full after dinner the evening before), and we had ourselves a Merry Little Christmas!

Breakfast Casserole and Hashbrown Casserole
I used the same recipes I used last year but tweaked them a bit.  I put ranch dressing mix in my breakfast casserole and used southwestern hashbrowns in my hashbrown casserole.  They were small changes but added a TON of flavor!

We had a wonderful Christmas, and yes all 4 puppy dogs had a stocking full of goodies! I got a space heater for the bathroom (can you tell I was a little excited when I opened it?), a back seat cover so I could haul the puppy dogs in my car without ruining it, and some new Costas (sunglasses)!  He bought me a pair 6 years ago and I still wear them to this day.  That pair is a bit worn out so he got me some shiny new ones that I love!  (Although I did exchange them for a turtle brown pair the day after Christmas....I don't think I am quite rock star enough to sport white sunglasses--but they were cute!). I got him a Scent Blocker Camo suit, which he was pumped about.  I also got him a few other little nicknacks like a camo fleece blanket I made, the book about the Navy Seals that captured Bin Laden, and the shirt he is sporting above.  It says "I'm here because you broke something." Since he does appliance repair it was perfect!  He said he is going to get that put on the back of all of his work shirts from now on.  I think it's precious!

The puppies enjoyed their bones and balls, and of course naps!

The day after Christmas I headed to Memphis to visit my parents and brother with the inside puppy dogs since Eric was headed on a duck hunting trip for the weekend.  It was sooo nice to be able to just get in the car and be there in a few hours, as opposed to having to fly there. I am going to save rest of the Memphis trip for another post since this one is already a mile long, but I promise it's coming later this week!  And in that post I will explain this:

That would be a life-sized cardboard cut out of myself.  Nice, right?