Happy Birthday Hubby!

This year we celebrated Malek's birthday with Jeff Dunham tickets (the shows not until Feb) and dinner at Hudson's on the Bend.  The food was AMAZING!  Malek ordered the elk, I had duck with scallops, and the lobster bisque was to die for!!!  Happy Birthday hubby!  I love you!

Perfect card

Jefuh-fuh DunHAM...dot com tickets!

Hudson's on the Bend - and lots of hanging apples...

Elk!

duck and scallops

lobster bisque - oh my mouth is watering!

chocolate torte dessert

Happy Birthday! 12/29/2011

The Wurst Time

Everyone had the wurst time at Wurstfest.  Can you tell?  :)  Ry was just too cool for school and stole the show wherever we went.  My parents said it was much different now than the last time they were there - 25 years ago!

Salute to Sausage! 11/5/2011

Yum - potato pancakes!

Watching the dancers in the wursthalla

Daddy please!

I can drink this year!

Such a ham!

22nd Annual La Dolce Vita!

We didn't attend last years wine and food festival as we missed the early bird special and I was preggers, so this year I made sure to buy tickets early (in June).  It was my parents first time attending the event, and they loved it!  The wine was flowing, the food was aplenty and we left feeling like little piggies.  :D 



10/13/2011



Ready and waiting for the gates to open

Bring on the grub!

How's that wine tasting?

Holiday Recap

I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas/Holiday vacation and New Years Eve!

We had a wonderful 2 weeks here at the Malek household. 

My brother and sister-in-law arrived Monday evening (12/20) just in time for dinner.  We took them to our favorite pizza place, Maggiores, for football, beer and pizza!  They also brought their puppy Bowser, Josie and Bowser became fast friends and played/cuddled together throughout their stay.  My parents arrived the next evening and we celebrated their 36th wedding anniversary at home with steaks, potatoes, salad and our family cheese torte (cheesecake) which I had made the day before.  The next day we baked our traditional Christmas cookies, watched movies, wrapped gifts and enjoyed chicken and dumplings for dinner.  Thursday we drove to Copperas Cove to visit my grandmother on my dad's side.  We managed to take a nice family picture of all of us!  It was the first time we'd all been in town in over 5 years. 

 

Finally Christmas Eve had arrived!  It was a nasty, wet, rainy, cold day but we didn't let it spoil our mood.   Steve and lil' C made sugar cookies, we watched Funny Farm, had a nice standing rib roast for dinner and then went to the midnight candlelight service at our church.  After church we came back home and warmed ourselves up in front of the fireplace, enjoyed some eggnog and each opened one gift.  I think we were up until 1:30am!  Christmas morning we were awake by 8am and ready to dive into the presents.  After the gift unwrapping frenzy it was 11am and everyone was ravenous, time for our traditional breakfast of eggs Benedict!  I ate 3 of them myself.  :D  I managed to fit in a quick workout later that day before making jambalaya for dinner and watching The A Team.

 

Sunday the kids arrived and we opened gifts with them before Malek's family showed up for the Malek family Christmas.  We hosted this year and grilled chicken, ribs, sausage and veggies.  Steve and lil C left Monday morning for home and I went to San Antonio with my parents to meet up with some old family friends for lunch. The next day mom and I ran some errands and went to buybuy BABY to register!  I was like a kid in a candy store scanning items onto the registry, I had so much fun!  I think the hubby was happy to get out of that activity.  :P  Wednesday marked Malek's 40th birthday!  We made him breakfast, opened gifts and cards, took him to Chuy's for lunch and for dinner he requested my mom's schnitzel.  We followed it all up with an awesome cake from HEB.  Happy Birthday Hubby!

On Thursday mom and I ran yet more errands and went back to buybuy BABY and HomeGoods (I love that store, awesome home furnishings at an affordable price).  Dad and Malek stayed home to put the crib together and various other home projects.  Later that night I took down the Christmas tree and inside decor.  Finally New Years Eve had arrived!  My parents went back to Copperas Cove for the day while Malek and I stayed home, cleaned house and prepared for our NYE/40th birthday party.  We had a wonderful time with family and friends ringing in the new year.  Hello 2011!  New Years day we hung around the house and recovered, we finished a couple home projects (easy stuff) and then took my parents out to dinner at Maggiores.  I also found a great deal on craigslist for a glider and ottoman for the nursery, which we picked up after dinner.  Oh and can't forget we each had a spoonful of black-eyed peas for good luck.  Mom and Dad left early Sunday morning (1/2).  The house is very quiet, which feels strange.  But I know that won't last long as our baby will be here in 3 months!

How things have changed; last year mom and I were working on wedding stuff (dresses, invitations, etc)...this time it was baby stuff (registering, nursery, etc)!  :D

Here's to a wonderful New Year! 

   

Cookie Exchange

Posting this one a bit late.  On Monday 12/6 the girls decided to partake in a cookie exchange.  I spent Sunday making 5 dozen snicker doodles (for the 1st time!) and chocolate crunchola (bite-sized balls of peanut butter, choc chips, raisins, coconut - childhood fav!) for the exchange.  I was very happy with how they turned out.  We all met at Mimi's Cafe for dinner and passed out our cookies.  It was pretty cool receiving 4 dozen different cookies to enjoy.  They didn't last long at our house.  :)

Tasty Tuesday!

Awesome cupcakes at Red Robin!  Yummmm!

I really liked the freckled lemonade cupcake.

the last supper

I managed to make one more meal before my 101 ends.  ;-)

Lasagna!  And it was oh so good.  I tell yah, adding cream cheese makes everything better.

#15 - Cook at least one home meal(s) a week [i.e. eat out less] (103/143)

Eating In!

#15 – home cooked meal(s) (102/143)

I baked/cooked/fried/sautéed several home-made foods this week:
Thursday - Evan and I cooked my favorite chicken w/ wine dinner, accompanied with rice
Saturday - Made homemade Mexican Wedding cookies and a 7 layer bean dip for the housewarming party.
Sunday - Grilled cheese sandwiches for lunch.  Yes, I know it's just a simple grilled cheese...but I still made them vs going out to eat!  Of course we did end up ordering Pizza for dinner.  :-P

It's Italian!

Last night I made Macaroni Grill's creamy basil parmesan pasta with sun-dried tomatoes.  I was impressed by how good it actually was, especially since it came from a box, and it was easy to make.  Yum!

#15 - home cooked meal(s) (99/143)

Odds & Ends

#15 – Home cooked meals  (98/143).   I made breakfast on Sunday (sausage patties, biscuits, coffee) and spinach ravioli last night.  Granted these are 2 very easy things to make..and all I really had to do was defrost them...but darn it I'm still claiming them because we ate at home and stove top flames were involved.  :-D

Malek and I have been spending A LOT of time (and $$) on our house in preparation for our house-warming party.  I must say I'm super excited on the progress we've made.    My wonderful friend Jenn R sent me free decorating ideas and let me use her designer discounts (she's an interior decorator), and I MUST say she's EXCELLENT!  I LOVE everything she's suggested and the 1st floor of our home looks spectacular!  I can't wait to show it off to our friends and family.  I don't want to spill the beans yet on everything we've done (I'll blog about all our house projects after the party), but I must say it's been extremely entertaining listening to Malek hang curtains.  ;-)  We have yet to tackle the game room...right now it's a hodgepodge of all our miscellaneous furniture.  Unfortunately that project will have to wait until next year.

#44 - Work out 3x's a week (IP).  Still going strong!  I run 2x's a week in the mornings, and have been going to the gym on the other days for weights and elliptical.  Plus I'm still playing volleyball.  Softball has been put on the back burner since I took a nice line drive to the chin.  Ouch! 

#45 - Weight management (IP).  I managed to lose ~10 lbs for the wedding and have since been maintaining.  It fluctuates a little, but I'm happy where my weight has come to rest.  I feel GREAT!  I'm happy with my body and my life.   

#16 - Bathtub time.  Major FAILURE.  I guess I'm just a shower girl.  We have this great jacuzzi tub in the new house and we still haven't touched it!   I did chill some of our wedding champagne so we could enjoy the bubbly while taking a bubble bath...alas the champagne is still sitting there forlorn in the fridge. 

Can you tell I had fun with the smiley faces today?

What leftovers?

#15 - home cooked meals  (96/143).  Man...I thought I was further along on this item.  :-/  Guess I need to step up the cooking (Chef/Grill Master Malek tends to make most meals).

Last night I made swiss enchiladas and refried beans for dinner.  Everyone loves this meal, it went like hot cakes!  Nothing leftover.  :-D

Celebrate Independence!

Hope everyone had a Happy Independence day!



This year was a bit more low-key.   ;-)
Friday - Malek and I stayed in and watched a couple of episodes of TrueBlood Season 2.  Since I had a race early the next morning, I was in bed by 10:30pm.
Saturday - Amanda, Jenn and I ran the Nelson Scholarship 5K in Georgetown early Sat morning.  "Holy humidity batman!"  You could cut the air with a chainsaw from all the rain we had received the past 4 days.  Despite that, it was actually a really nice race course, as long as you survived the gunshots.... Yup, that's right, gunshots!  We were all waiting at the starting line as the singer finished the anthem when one of the guys dressed up in colonial garb shot off his riffle!  There was no warning, no "ready, set, go", NOTHING!  We were all so startled we just took off running, running away from the noise!  Amanda was even like "well, I guess we should go?".  During this interchange I had managed to scream before gathering myself up and running after Jenn and Amanda.  It wasn't even 20 seconds later when yet another shotgun was heard (apparently the first shot was a miss fire)...and I screamed again (sigh).  I could  hear the other runners behind me laughing.  Oh well, at least I'm entertaining.  :-P  I finished in 28:26 with a 9:10 pace.  Not bad considering I almost had a heart attack at the beginning of the race.  Once home I showered and took an hour and a half nap.  Nice!  For lunch, Malek and I enjoyed Texadelphia, and apparently so did everyone else that day who bought the Groupon.  The rest of the afternoon consisted of some household projects followed by dancing at GCS!
Sunday - We slept in!  Followed by yet more household projects, cleaning and making food for a BBQ later that day.  I must say the house is coming along swimmingly!  Around 5pm we headed over to our friends house for a BBQ and fireworks.  It was a nice relaxing evening with good friends and good food.  Plus we had a really nice view of the fireworks from the golf course in Blackhawk.
Monday - Slept in again!  After some coffee and breakfast we finished a few more things around the house, ran errands, ate a very late lunch at Pluckers, then finally back home to rest and relax.

Whew, what a busy weekend!  We managed to accomplish a huge chuck of our to-do list for the house and enjoy play time as well.  :-)