HAPPY THANKSGIVING! WE HOPE EVERYONE HAS A WONDERFUL HOLIDAY WITH LOTS OF FAMILY, TURKEY AND PUMPKIN PIE! WE ARE OFF TO ABILENE TO CELEBRATE WITH MY FAMILY AT ALLISON'S NEW HOUSE. WE WILL BE THE LAST TO ARRIVE THIS EVENING. SHOULD BE NICE AND COLD!

pumpkin...

Last night, I made these iced pumpkin cookies to take to work. Let me just tell you... delicious! Some of them I dipped in the icing and they are super sweet and the rest I just drizzled icing. They are a definite make again. I also made pumpkin bread to take to my sister Allison's house for Thanksgiving weekend. I followed a few of the suggestions and went ahead and used the full 28 oz of pumpkin (1/2 cup extra) and used unsweetened applesauce instead of vegetable oil. It looks and smells really good and I am sure it won't disappoint.
Are you enjoying your pumpkin this season?

what I did today...

Added to our garage freezer stash. Today I made chicken spaghetti (we had one of the 8x8's for dinner tonight- yummy...), lasagna, and verde chicken enchiladas (2-8x8 casserole dishes of each). I enjoyed adding it to the freezer with the Beef Stew, Chicken Tortilla Soup, Cabbage Rolls, and Spicy Sausage Pasta. I went to BB&B to get 4 more 8x8's so I could add more to the freezer.

...excited for easy dinners to come...

flowers just because...

he loves me...

Master Shams...

Our house is a work in progress, to say the least. The ultimate plan is to build a master bedroom, second bathroom and laundry room in the existing garage (which will involve bringing the front of the garage out about 8 feet). Needless to say, this is going to be quite the undertaking. We originally thought we would be pretty far into that project by now, but we ran out of cashola with the addition of the rent house. So, we will be a 3-1 for awhile it seems. All that to say, when we painted the room that is our current bedroom, we planned on that shortly becoming a guest bedroom and chose colors and curtains that way. Therefore we can't use any of the bedding we used in our Dallas master bedroom. I finally decided to make some pillow shams and got a new Ralph Lauren sage green combed cotton blanket (if you don't have one, you should- my red one from fish year at A&M is still my favorite!). I really like the way the shams turned out and I think they look really nice with the green blanket and white dust ruffle. It helps make the far away move to the garage feel more planned... and i like things planned :)

the back
blow up of the front- red, dark brown, white and sage green freehand circles

the front (you can also see the green blanket on the sides)

guest bedroom...

I started this post the week the Slack fam and Megan came to visit in late October... I am finally posting it with pictures...
Finally we are done with the guest bedroom (well sort of, I still have a lot of closet organizing and unpacking to do). My dear friends Lori and Megan are coming into town and we needed the bedroom so it was a good deadline push for us. Phew, that was a lot of work... and Ray will laugh at this because I don't even know the half of the work since he is the one who did the worst part, well him and my dad... You can't tell from the before pictures but this room had the heaviest texture on the walls I have ever seen. It hurt when you leaned your arm against it it was so heavy. We had the same texture in the kitchen/ living room. So my dear, sweet father and Ray skim coated the wall with sheetrock mud and sanded, patched, sanded, patched... until we had *LOVELY* smooth walls. The only texture is the paint, which Ray did a fabulous job of rolling, by the way. I was the cut-in painter girl this week. I really love the color we have chosen for pretty much all of our walls. It is such a nice tan-grey color. So soothing, unlike the mustard yellow that was in this room before- eek!

"after" picture... I really love the way it turned out- so calm and soothing

"after" picture- I love the picture I found on clearance at Target

before picture- I didn't do a good job of these before pics... this is the window that is barely in the 2nd "after" picture- it is hard to see the texture on the wall, but you can see the lovely mustard color :)

marmelade roll's visit... weekend update...

Karen (aka marmelade roll-ML, don't ask 'cause I don't even know anymore :) ) came to visit last weekend. I picked her up in Dallas since I had a doctor's appointment in the afternoon on Friday. We had a lovely lunch at Cafe R+D (if you live in Dallas and haven't been, it is a MUST- yumm!) Then we went to DSW, man I miss that place. After that we got a Sprinkles Cupcake, which I had heard about, but never tried... pretty a-ma-zing! Went to the doctor, which was the fastest visit EVER (ML must be good luck!). Finally, we had some tasty treats at Royal Thai... again, if you live in Dallas... Then the 3 hour drive home- we were SO TIRED at the end, both depserately trying to keep our eyes open.

Saturday Ray made pancakes and ML and I ran some errands in the morning, including a trip to Readfield's for some tasty steaks to grill that night. We also went to Target to get The Office Season 4 since we have the other seasons and ML had not hardly seen any of last season. We got home, had lunch and sat on the couch the rest of the day with Jim, Pam and Dwight. We took a break to make a tasty dinner of steaks on the grill, crash hot potatoes, and corn on the cob. Then it was back to the office. We watched all of season 4 save about 3 episodes. It was so nice and relaxing- what we all needed!

Sunday we slept in and then watched 3 episodes of The Office Season 5. Then it was off to Houston Hobby for the flight out. Pretty uneventful, but oh-so relaxing and such a good visit- lots of good talk time, esp. in the car!

love you Marmelade Roll and so glad you are a flight attendant so I can be spoiled by frequent visits! Also, I got the lovely pedestal bowl yesterday that you bought me for a belated bday present- LOVE IT!

beanie...

Saw this the other day at HEB, reminded me of my friend Lori...

so happy...

Karen is coming to see me tomorrow! I haven't seen her since we moved and I can't wait for her to see the house (she saw it before renovations when we first moved in), and more importantly to see her! Hip Hip Hooray!

vegan, gluten and milk free dinner...

So, Saturday night we invited our next door and across the street neighbors for dinner. Our next door neighboor, Crystal is allergic to wheat gluten and the Polish neighbors across the street are vegan and their daughter is allergic to milk. Wow... that really limits the options. I ended up sauteing carrots, onion, red, yellow and green bell pepper, and two kinds of zuchini in olive oil with salt and pepper. Then I added two jars of Bertolli organic spaghetti sauce and simmered until we were ready for dinner. I also made Spaghetti squash for the noodles. If you have never tried it, you should, it is VERY cool! and now is the time as it is a winter squash. All you do is cut the squash lengthwise and bake it at 375 for 30-40 mins, rind side up. Then you flip it over and take a fork and run it through the flesh and it shreds up just like spaghetti. When you put sauce over it you don't even really notice that it isn't pasta. Crystal brought dessert that I know we will make again for sure, so easy and light. All you do is heat up a can of peaches on the stove and put a few in a dish with a little scoop of vanilla (she brought over soy ice cream because of the milk allergy), then sprinkle corn flakes and cinnamon on top. It was really tasty, and something you could pretty much always have the ingredients for on hand.

It was really nice to have them over for dinner, exp. the Polish neighbors (we have gotten together with Mark and Crystal before). We had a really nice time talking with them about Poland, this is their first time to the US and they arrived in September. We took over some brownies last sunday which is when we found out that they were Vegan. I learned a good lesson that day about bringing new neighbors a potted plant instead of food. I felt bad for taking them something that I don't think they could eat. I hope that they will feel comfortable asking us if they need anything...

I love being called "hon" by clients... love it...

yesterday...

Well, looks like it happened like I thought it might- Obama was elected. As Christy said, The Lord is sovereign, thankfully. I am glad that the Bond for a new City Hall in CS did not get passed... at least that vote went my way... we are also getting some work out of Iola based on their voting, so that is good. I guess that is all I have to say about that- we shall see what pans out!

hb halloween girl!

This is a little late, but Happy Birthday Megan! I hope you had a wonderfully Halloween-ie birthday! After living with someone born on Halloween, I must say I enjoy Halloween more, for your sake!
Happy Belated Birthday Megan and welcome to the 30 club!

multitalented Ray...

Saturday was a very productive day (actually morning) at the Thomas house, thanks to my very capable husband... He said how this stage of the house stuff is really nice because you can get so many things done in a day... So, this is the list of his "checks" on our house list from the weekend.
1. Replace the fan in the kitchen, for some reason the fast speed had slowed to a crawl
2. Replace the hall light fixture
3. Replace the shower head
4. Install 2 smoke detectors
5. Replace the front porch light
6. Hang lots of pictures for me; in the kitchen, living room and hall
7. Hang up the Kuckoo clock in the living room

Still to do for our existing house to be completed (not including the new master, bath, and laundry in the garage addition, that is still to come).
1. Wall repair and paint the bathroom a lovely dark sage color
2. Paint Ray's office
3. Paint the exterior of the house (that will be a chore!)
4. Still need Gerald, the wood floor guy to come back and install the quarter round in the kitchen and fix the spot on the floor that was marred when we installed the oven (need to call him and get back on his list!)

I must say at times I am jealous of my little sister that just moved into a brand new house that they built... nothing to do to move in except landscaping... but yet I know that Ray and I much more enjoy doing it ourselves and seeing the finished product- It is just such a process, that I wish was over at this point.