Thankful...

Thanksgiving was a wonderful time or shopping, eating, fellowshipping, football, driving, etc. Allison and Andrew's house is beautiful and she had quite the full house for the extended weekend, well almost a week! It was nice and cold and fun to see where she has been living the past few years. Sadie, their dog is getting so big (still small compared to Frannie) and we enjoyed loving on her since our sweet puppy didn't make the trip this time. The girls did a bit of shopping on Black Friday and found some good deals, but we did none of that 4 am craziness. We went to see "Four Christmases" on Saturday and it is really good and really funny! We laughed a lot- you should go see it!

This past monday Mom, Dad, Ray and I went to see Rockapella at MSC Opas. Mom got tickets for Christmas from a teacher-friend. It was not something that we would have necessarily picked to go to, but it was entertaining. I wouldn't necessarily want to see their regular show, but the Christmas one was fun- They are pretty entertaining and one of the guys is a beat-boxer- AMAZING! He sounded exactly like sleigh bells for several songs. He basically could do a full drum set wtih the microphones on his neck for the base drum- pretty impressive.

Unfortunately, we had a little cold bug that got spread around Thanksgiving weekend- so that has been fun for me this week... thanks rebs!

Hope your families had a wonderful holiday-

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.

overalls for Drew...

The night before Lori, Tucker and Drew were coming in town we were at Target and I decided to pick up a little surprise. It was SO hard to get the overalls to fit on the embroidery hoop (because they are small and so thick)! They turned out cute though- Little boys and overalls are so adorable!

slack family and megan visit...

My two best friends from A&M came to visit last weekend. Lori, Tucker and her little boy Drew came in for a wedding in town and Megan decided to come down too! It was so fun and really nice to be the midway point (we have plans of doing this WAY more often!). It was such a *BLAST*! Drew is just about the cutest, sweetest little *almost* 1 year old that I have ever met! He stayed with us while Lori and Tucker went to the wedding (first time they had left him except at church). On Sunday we went to the Bonfire Memorial which was really meaningful for us all to go to since that tragedy happened while we were in our Junior year at A&M and Lori, Tucker and Megan had not been to the Memorial yet. Drew especially enjoyed running around and trying to eat rocks, much to Lori's delight. I sure wish we all lived closer that 3+ hours away! Lori and Tucker are one of the most encouraging and uplifting couples to be around, I know they touch many a life over in Nederland!eatin' rocks

sweet baby Drew

Love you girls!

seattle baby girl...

My dear friend Amy had a baby girl last week- Congrats Amy and Danny! I sent some goodies up with her mom that I hope she will enjoy. I was also going to add her name to a sleeper onesie, but my machine decided to eat a hole in the front instead of adding "lizzie". Boo... hopefully I can still salvage the sleeper and do something with it. I really love making baby gifts- so cute!

A few burp cloths... So weird, I bought some light peachie orange thread to use with the hot pink and peach polka dot ribbon (far right), but the embroidery machine didn't like it for some reason. It was the exact brand of thread I used for the green on the left, so not sure what that was all about, but the hot pink turned out cute...

A little lovie- Pink softness on the front and brown satin on the back with freehand hearts quilting it together. It is about 18 in square.

Andrew's bday...

Allison and Andrew came in from Abilene two weekends ago for Andrew's birthday. We had a nice time getting together at Andrew's parent's house and Frannie finally got to enjoy a larger puppy friend. I know they will have much fun in the future together. I didn't get any pictures when they came over on Sunday of people, I was just trying to get a picture of Frannie with puppy Sadie. Next time I will get people pics, I just forgot- I am so glad the Tech game wasn't too bad (although I must say I didn't watch hardly any of it- busy busy with mom and Allison)...

The good Ags are looking better and better!
Not like my sophomore year, of course, but better and better none the less- For some reason I can't get the text above the first pic... So, above is Sadie hoping not to get noticed on the window seat- She is sneaky and was told to get down repeatedly...

sharing Frannie's bed, although Frannie looks less than thrilled...

I need to get in the practice of having out my camera more- I was really good at that in college and then... not so much...

so busy...

Well, there will be several posts to come soon. Work and home stuff is keeping us really busy these days. The things that I will hopefully be blogging about soon include: my baby sister and brother-in-law's visit last weekend (including fun with Sadie and Frannie), our guest bedroom is finished, the reason our guest bedroom is finished (my best friends from college, Lori and Megan, coming into town), my new office, and some more projects that I have been doing (sewing wise). That reminds me, I need to go pick up my sewing machine from being cleaned today. Well, I am off to do that and get a lamp for the guestroom. more to come...