Merry Christmas!!

I'm so sad to see the Christmas holidays and our little vacation come to an end. I head back to work tomorrow and Trey heads back Tuesday. All our Christmas decorations are back in the attic and the house looks like it did all year round. We spent just about a week in The Woodlands at my family's house and it was wonderful! Jude was finally old enough this year to be excited about opening presents, but unfortunately was struck with a nasty cold and fever that day. =(

Jude (pre-fever and still happy!) LOVED that Uncle Trey set up the train for him! "Choo Choo"

Mom and Jos

Sadie under our tree (she needs a haircut...)

The Polands - dinner in Katy with the family

Jos and Jude got matching superman outfits for Christmas - so cute!

Bruce was in town (Kim's pup), so Sadie got worn out quick

Notice the dogs insisted on sitting on my lap together.....

Jude was sick, but Jos was a happy baby!!

Kim and Jos

When I was little and saw the Polar Express, I asked for a bell from Santa's sleigh for Christmas. Which I got - along with a hand written note! My mom thought this Christmas she'd pass the bell along to me to keep at my house only she wrapped the wrong bell...

Jude helped decorate the tree

Wood Group Christmas Party!

Trey and I got to go to the Wood Group Christmas Party last weekend and it was really fun! I enjoyed introducing him to all the crazy people I tell him stories about. By crazy, I mean awesome! I work with some of the greatest people (minus one, maybe...)!

A Few Thanksgiving Pictures....

I'm been a blog slacker so I thought the least I could do was post a few pictures my mom sent me from Thanksgiving....

Green Chile Stew - HEB Jars

Ever tried this stuff? I could eat it like candy...seriously. HEB sells these jars near their cooking stations and ran a fabulous deal on them this week which filled my cart with two jars + a bunch of free stuff (2 jars of the chili version, 2 lbs ground beef, and 2 bags of cheese). I told you it was good. They aren't super cheap ($8.99), but a really great easy meal to have on hand for "one of those nights". And delicious. The jar has some recipes on it though I'll admit I've never tried them. I tend to stick to the one below. I dare you to try it.



Ingredients:
1 Jar of Green Chile Stew Two Step Mix
1 lb Chorizo Sausage...comes in beef or pork near the breakfast sausages
1 can of rotel tomatoes
1 can of corn
Queso Fresco (Mexican cheese)...comes in a wheel near the regular cheeses (freezes good too)

Steps:
1. Brown the sausage in a pan and drain any excess grease
2. Heat soup, adding sausage, rotel and corn at the end
3. Dish out the soup, sprinkling with queso fresco

Love/Hate - Stock Market

I have quite the love hate relationship with the stock market these days. After the bad press Halliburton has received recently, I watched the stock price drop. Fast. And then drop some more. I had to close my browser when it was down more than 8% in a day. Resisting the urge to sell. It's natural to want to sell - - I'm human and losing money (virtual or otherwise) is NOT fun. So, yesterday was a welcomed change and a stock market love day. Today may well be another hate day. Women are too emotional for the stock market.

Houston Polo Club

You are thinking exactly what I was thinking when the idea of a Polo match was suggested a couple weeks ago. And the answer is yes, people play it other than in the movies. This field used to be a couple miles from our old apartment and we always joked about going so when there was a sweet offer online, we jumped on it and headed to the fields with the Hales. The weather was amazing and I even picked up more on the game that I thought I would. Such a great day!

This is halftime - they give you free champagne to go walk around the field and stomp divots.

One of three referees

Walking through the stables was by far my favorite part. =)

This was Shareef....she was pretty.

Weekend of Favorite Finds

I'm scrambling to get some cooking done this morning - we have such a busy weekend! I'll leave you with some of my favorite "clicks" from the week.

Choosing Foods for Your Freezer Cooking - Life as Mom - Gosh, I get so many ideas from this site especially when everyone links up for the monthly freezer cooking day. And like I said from a previous post, freezer cooking keeps me sane during the week.

Death of Discernment - Shaun Groves - This one made me laugh at work

Top 10 Ways to Give This Holiday Season - Happy Brown House

S'mores Brownies - Giving Up on Perfect - Must try these.

Enjoy the beautiful weekend weather!!

Chicken Shawarmas

Cooking Light is one of those magazines that I love to flip though, but I mostly look at pictures. Some of their recipes can be intimidating - mostly because they are long. And lets face it, I work all day...there's no time for that. So I clip then and they end up in our "miscellaneous drawer" (we have a couple of those). Then every couple months, the drawer starts busting at the seams and I attempt a never ending weekend project like this -


See Sadie's red chew toy? Her favorite thing is laying in all the clippings...or trying to steal them.

The one good thing about this projects is that it reminds me of all the recipes I just "had to try". Sometimes I wonder what was thinking. This week I attempted the Spicy Chicken Shawarma recipe below. It was delicious even with a few ingredients left out. Highly recommend trying it.

Spicy Chicken Shawarma
Cooking Light - April 2010

• 2 tablespoons finely chopped fresh parsley (I used 1 tsp to 1 tbs conversion w/ dry)
  
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon crushed red pepper (I would use more next time)
  
• 1/4 teaspoon ground ginger (Didn't have it so I left it out)
  
• 1/4 teaspoon ground cumin
• 1/8 teaspoon ground coriander (Also left this out)
• 5 tablespoons plain low-fat Greek-style yogurt, divided
• 2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice, divided
• 3 garlic cloves, minced and divided
• 1 pound skinless, boneless chicken breast halves, thinly sliced
• 2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
• 1 tablespoon tahini (a sesame paste - find this in the "international" section of most stores)
  
• 4 (6-inch) pitas, halved (I had naan in the freezer that worked just ok)
  
• 1/2 cup chopped cucumber
• 1/2 cup chopped plum tomato
• 1/4 cup prechopped red onion

1. Combine first 6 ingredients in a large bowl; stir in 1 tablespoon yogurt, 1 tablespoon juice, and 2 garlic cloves. Add chicken; toss to coat. Heat oil in a skillet. Add chicken mixture to pan and cook for 6 minutes or so until brown and done.

2. While chicken cooks, combine remaining 1/4 cup yogurt, remaining 1 tablespoon lemon juice, remaining 1 garlic clove, and tahini, stirring well. Spread 1 1/2 teaspoons tahini mixture inside each pita half; divide chicken evenly among pita halves. Fill each pita half with 1 tablespoon cucumber, 1 tablespoon tomato, and 1 1/2 teaspoons onion.

The Apels Take on Malaria!

I'm quite a sucker for cute kids. The ones in this video take the cake. Consider helping my dear friend from college and her beautiful kids raise money to fight Malaria. $10 a day can buy a mosquito net for a family. See her post with more details here. And their fundraising page here.

So Special.

I felt so special yesterday. I am certainly blessed. Thank you for your emails, messages, phone calls - they meant more than you know. =) Some highlights -

My department toilet papered my office. And had cake. Chocolate.

My sis came down with the boys and treated me to lunch.

My husband brought home my favorite meal on the planet - Pai Thai from the best place ever

Eeeeeeeeekkkkkkkkk - I got an Ipad!!!!!!!!

And to look forward to - a quiet weekend at the lake and dinner at Michelangelo's to celebrate our anniversary.

By the way, if anyone is a fan of Bennihana...if you sign up to receive their emails, they will send you a $30 gift certificate on your birthday that you can use the ENTIRE month!

I'll leave you with the quote from my corny card that Trey got me:

Everyday is a gift.
So pretend tomorrow is from me.

Thanks for today, Trey.

27 Years of Life + 3 Years of Marriage

I've learned a lot of things in 27 years. One thing I've learned lately is that high school students think that when you are 27 that you are OLD. Ask my intern. I wonder when you start to feel old? Maybe when I have to start dying me hair...or maybe when McDonald's starts catching up with my backside....or maybe when I can no longer run without my knees hurting. I used to think it's when you start getting a "real" paycheck or paid all your own bills or have a wedding ring. Been there, doing that. I look at my grandmother and she still feels young. She's 80+ but still goes "out" dancing, wears red leather pants, and dates men. Yes, she dates. I hope I still feel young even after I've celebrated way more than 27 years....

And being married? Well, that's the best thing that's happened so far in my 27 years. I remember starting this blog leading up to the wedding. In fact, my first post was 128 days before I became a Walker. I still like to read those old posts too. It makes me miss St. Lucia. We will be back someday (even if The Bachelor ruined some of our favorite "secret" spots). And to my dear husband - you make me laugh more then you did when we walked to Breakaway back in 2002. I love you more each day, and I can't wait for the surprises life will bring us.

We Survived Canton! (Part 2)

Canton is not the easiest place to describe to someone that's never been. All I can say is to think of the most unbelievable shopping experience you've ever had and multiply by ten. It's THAT good. And you can't do it in 1 day. We attempt to cover "the best" in one long day (7am - 6pm) and then one shorter day (9:00am - 2:00pm). We still couldn't finish, but gave up knowing we had to make the drive home and my feet were burning.

Canton started as a flea market over a century ago, and has grown into something so much bigger. There are some inside venues that I can only describe as being similar to The Nutcracker Market in Houston but much, much bigger. The outside area tends to be less crowded since it's more of a garage sale/flea market style with tables set up in a large field. Some people would say "stick to the Arbors" (those are the best buildings if you are looking for Christmas presents). This weekend though, I liked the outside area just as much - especially since the weather was incredible. I've been collecting classic children's book but refuse to pay full price. I found a lady that had brand new books for $2 a piece. Remember Harold and the Purple Crayon??

We left at 4:15am to make it there before the crowds...crazy

And we couldn't leave without our Kettlecorn.

We Survived Canton! (Part 1)

We have started a new tradition. Canton. I took Trey the first year after a visit to the State Fair in Dallas - he said he didn't need to go back...Ever. It's just not a guy's place. So I enlisted my mom to make the trek with me. I took off from work Friday and headed home Thursday night to be spoiled with a night of the most incredible, unhealthy, greasy foods I could imagine. I love this stuff. Here is just a taste of the meal...

Beer battered Fried Avocado Wedges dipped in salsa

Stuffed Jalepenos

Happy Halloween!

By Don Hankins

Week of Favorite Finds

I'm headed to Canton for some good shopping with my mom this weekend. No, I won't be bringing home this again. Trey made me promise. Pinky promise. In the meantime, I thought I'd leave you with some links I found interesting this week.

Cones & Holes - Shaun Groves - LOVED this article. He writes some pretty great stuff.

10 Common Thrift Store Finds & Ways to Use Them for DIY Projects - Re-Nest

Puffy Paint Pumpkins - Young House Love

An Easy Way to Bless Someone - (In) Courage - So simple and so true!

Lean Ground Turkey vs. Ground Beef

On our quest for healthier eating (we've had multiple quests....and multiple fails), I have been cooking a lot more with ground turkey. I've substituted it for meatballs, taco soup, meatloaf, chili, etc, and most of the time we hardly notice a difference. So I was thinking we deserved a pat on the back - until my mom knocked my off my high horse (gently, of course), reminding me of one important thing I ignored.

I was naive to think that turkey meant healthy. Turkey doesn't always mean healthy. What I should have been buying..."ground turkey breast". Moral of the story is check the packaging. "Ground turkey" could mean any combination of dark meat (with skin!) and white meat.

Some interesting stats I read in an article recently -

- A 3-ounce cooked portion of this kind of ground turkey has about 200 calories and 11 grams of fat

- A 3-ounce cooked portion of extra-lean ground beef contains 218 calories and 13 grams of fat

- A 3-ounce cooked portion of ground turkey breast contains 100 calories and 1.5 grams of fat

We tried turkey burgers recently and they were a bit dry - I think next time I will try it with a gravy or a mixture of dark and white turkey. Oh, and by the way. I bought turkey breast and it was $6.99 a pound. A POUND. Insane. I hope our bodies appreciated it. Possibly by repaying us with infinite youth.

Mercy House

So I'm not sure who has noticed the little Mercy House button on the left hand side of the screen. I encourage you to read about this family - about their journey to start this ministry, about their love and dependence on God through this process, and about what they are doing for women in Kenya. Check out their etsy site too - all proceeds from the sales go to The Mercy House.

Here's their flyer with everything you neede to know (sorry the embedded file wouldn't show up....)
MercyHouseKenyaB&WFlyer

Trey = Handyman

Our house came with a fireplace. A fireplace with none of the "fixins". Our first winter came and went and we still hadn't decided on the logs/glass/remote/etc. I never expected Trey to be so selective. He doesn't like logs that looked charred. He doesn't like the glass rocks. He doesn't like if the fire burns blue. I just wanted a warm fire to read by. After the first two places we visited, he volunteered to make some stops on his own. This weekend was the first step - - he picked up and installed the glass doors! Wahoo! Next up is the logs!!

Trip Down Memory Lane

The moment we moved into our house we started getting boxes of our childhood "stuff". Every time I saw my parents, we would get a new box, an old homecoming dress, or handwritten cards/letters. They all went in the same place - - the junk room. For boxes that end of up in the junk room, all it means is that we can't throw you away (yet!), but we are exhausted at the thought of sorting through you.

This weekend it was time. I dragged out the boxes and attempted to sort. And it was just as exhausting as I originally suspected. I found some interesting things, most of which I just can't throw away.

This one is proof I grew up in the 80s. Mom sewed it. Classic jean purse. haha

Does anyone else remember making these things? I have no idea what grade this was, but everyone took a woodworking class. We made these cars and raced them. Trey kept his too. Upon the discovery of mine his response was, "Yea, that's cool but mine actually won." This was probably 10+ years ago and he's still bragging.

And who didn't love arts and crafts with beans? (To clear up any name confusion, I was "Katie" until around 8 or 9 at which time I changed to Catherine since it "made me sound older".)

And my ballet shoes - I traded these suckers in for cleats and never looked back.

50% off Outerwear at Old Navy

New jacket here I come! Click "like" for Old Navy on their facebook page and you can print a 50% off any outerwear coupon good Oct 26-28th. I needed an excuse to get back there. =)

Loving Our Little Visitors

Jennifer and the boys came out to Katy to visit on Saturday. I was a bit nervous about how Sadie would be around the babies, but she was wonderful! Her and Jude chased each other around all day. We visited the park, took a long walk to get a diet coke at the gas station, and even squeezed in a trip to Home Goods and Target. Jennifer is in a decorating mood since she may be moving into her new house soon - fingers crossed that inspections go well next week! =)

Trey was on baby duty most of the morning, while I chased Jude all over the place

Sadie was quite interested

Jude loved to throw the ball to Sadie and let her sniff his hair

Little Jos is getting so big -- I just love his little ears!

Uncle Trey let Jude crawl into the kennel

He loves to water the flowers and makes a "Pssshhhhh" sound to make up for the fact that it was empty

Fun at the park