Cooking Adventures

With the cookbooks I received for Christmas, I have decided I must try new recipes. One of my first recipes was quite optimistic...I mean, I've never even eaten a scallop before, let alone cooked one! But oh well, at least I tried...and I must say, it was quite good! The Basil Scallops with Spinach Fettucine recipe from the Cooking Light Superfast Suppers cookbook seemed quite easy. Just 17 minutes total prep and cook time! Well, let's just say that wasn't quite the case for me...more like an hour! But it was delish, and pretty much worth the time. The scariest part was trying to figure out if the scallops were cooked enough...but we lived, so I'm assuming they were fine :)

Shoulda Been a Wedding Planner

I love trying to be creative, so with the recent engagement of one of my best friends ever (Congratulations to Christa & Jay!), I eagerly volunteered to help with her wedding planning. First things first, you gotta pick a color scheme, right?! Thanks to co-worker buddy, Katie, and her own wedding planning, I made a wonderful little "Inspiration Board" for my Christie...

Do You Hear What I Hear?!?!

Christmas was wonderful with the fam down in Katy! We ate lots of sausage (baked ziti, summer sausage, sausage balls, etc...). I was very thankful that we were all (almost all) able to be together. At the Christmas Eve candlelight service, they played one of the funniest videos ever! Do You Hear What I Hear? "People get mad when you sing about baby Jesus with a tail!"

Davy and my family spoiled me rotten with too many gifts :) I got lots of new cookbooks, Anthropologie aprons and candles, a mini-muffin tin and an adorable cupcake tree! I also received my new favorite perfume, Very Hollywood, and a beautiful jewelry stand (along with a few new pieces of jewelry!)...and of course some new clothes!

This was the year of book giving for us...we gave Granny P. the final two Twilight books!, we gave Dad a new Bible, and Neil the last Harry Potter book. Vampires, God, and Wizards...hmmmm.

I made the new favorite dessert of the family - Chocolate Peanut Butter Cake. It's a homemade, from scratch, layered chocolate cake with peanut butter-cream cheese frosting and a chocolate-peanut butter glaze...so delish! (And it only took me 2 days to make! lol) Definitely worth it!

Coincidental Birthday Presents

Happy birthday to Mom! (Dec. 5th) The "Hillbillies" came up to the Big D for shopping and birthday celebrating . My sis-in-law and I each separately and individually picked out presents for Mom. "I got your Mom some really pretty earrings," she says. "I got her earrings, too!," I say. . . The ones she bought are in the catalog picture, and the ones I bought are sitting on the page (the francesca's ones). To this day, I'm still speechless that we picked out earrings SO similar! Oh, and this is the yummy birthday cake I made: