Wine Dinner, or Pretending We Are Grown-Ups for the Night

This post is crazy overdue - I just keep forgetting to write it. It also straddles the fence between wether it belongs here or on my work blog but it's going here so that I can have more commentary freedom.

Last month (yes, month, I'm behind) Jon and I went to a wine dinner at Hardscrabble with John and Amanda. The food was 7 or so courses of heaven and the wine rep on hand made sure we had a great selection of libations to wash it all down with.

I headed over to the club early to snap some pics of the set up for Amanda to have for her work blog (althou I think she's just as behind as me).

Maybe you eat with this many forks on a regular basis, but I assure you the Hardins do not.

I think this is the sign of a good evening, friends and an overabundance of wine glasses.

A shot of dessert, because it was just so so SO pretty.

In case you are a 'foodie' I snapped 2 legible pics of the menu, take a gander, you're going to be jealous!

I'm ultimately glad I am documenting this outing as there is no telling when the next time we will get dressed up and go out will be. The amusing thing is I am at the club looking presentable quite often but that's what I get paid for as it turns out, not how I relax and have fun.

Colder Weather & Good Things

I had such high hopes for what this blog post would be. A photo montage of a gorgeous weekend filled with friends and events ... yeah that was pretty much a fail.

Friday, Jon and I headed to Mulberry Mountain to meet Leigh and Tim for a MUCH anticipated Zac Brown Band concert. Having never been to this venue, I was completely unprepared for the mud field that it was thanks to the previous night's storms. The situation worsened when we realized the 30 mph winds and freezing mist was not going to let up for the entire night. ZBB finally got on stage 2 hours late (the production company had some major issues - should have hired an event planner - I know one haha j/k) and put on an amazing show. I'm pretty sure it was cut short because they couldn't feel their fingers to play but it was still fun to see one of our favorites live and spend time with Leigh & Tim.

There's no way I was taking my precious camera out in those conditions but here is the pic ZBB posted on their site.


Zac Brown Band on WhoSay



My arthritis is still screaming at me for this concert choice ugh


Sunday we headed to Nicole and Zac's couples shower in Sallisaw - well we tried. Just a note to shower hosts in general, if Mapquest doesn't recognize the road your event is on, a direction card is called for.

Jon and I spent the 2 hours we meant to spend with Nicole and Zac driving around lost as can be. I finally resigned myself to calling Nicole and leaving a message stating that we were sadly giving up. Nicole actually had her phone on her though and got us (finally) to the shower (YAY!). As soon as we pulled up to Zac's cousin's place where the shower was being held, we were totally glad we made it. This place was a DREAM. Jon and I quickly dumped the shower gift off and gave ourselves a tour (we had to be fast as most guests were already leaving haha). I snapped some iPhone pics and didn't even feel bad about it as everyone else was doing the same thing, we were all in awe.

The second pic is in the bathroom people, the bathroom!

Anyways, so while our luck this weekend was questionable, we got to see some great friends and had a great time overall.

The products in today's Good Things are kind of contradictory but oh well.

I am loving these sandwich thins that my parents discovered at Sams recently, they are healthy AND Grant will eat them, score.

Saturday, Grant and I headed to my parents' and made these edible eggs - they were delicious, easy, and cute. Mainly they were easy as you've all seen what happens when I try to bake :) 

I can't wait to put together and snap some pics of G's Easter basket for next week! Have a lovely week and welcome to all my new followers!

Why Grant May Soon Look Like A Girl and Our Tiny Trip to Texas

First let's take a moment to look at how cute the new blog design is! Yay! Thanks to A Mommy's Sweet Design for making it for me! Now on to my ramblings...

Well we attempted the first professional haircut last week ... fail.

Despite John's (of Mr John's and long time family friend) best efforts to win over the testy toddler, Grant was having none of the 'stranger touching my hair' bit. The meltdown was pretty epic and I'm thinking we won't be trying this again anytime soon.

It started out with so much promise ...

but soon G started looking concerned ...

the pictures end there because we ran out of there before we scared off all of the other customers (and Melissa who is the fabulous make-up artist that works there who is pregnant with her own Grant!)

So we went home and searched for Easter eggs in a new book. Who needs haircuts - he can be a 'granola' kid.

We have added a new toy to the ever expanding backyard haven. Grant is a fan - and it serves a purpose as G gets overheated very easily.

What else is new you might ask - well let me tell you, a carry over from last week's post about my internet shopping addiction that's what. This arrived in the mail and I LURVE it.

Ordered it from THIS etsy shop.

(pretend a sensical segue happened here)

One of both Jon and my favorite sights is this ...

and it's been far too long since we've seen it lately. Pre baby we ran down to Fort Worth for the weekend or to hang out at a horse show all the time. Post baby, we've done that once. Saturday we made a crazy fast trip down to horse country however so that we could drop one of the not-so-baby-anymore horses at the trainers. She now gets to reside here while she learns her stuff.

We got to see two of our oldest friends while we were there and I meant to take a zillion pictures of them but we got talking and I just forgot. We already have big plans to go back with more time for fun in the near future.

We were inspired to make Texas at least seem like it lasted through the weekend so we enjoyed some Texas beer (mmm tastes like college) and wine once we returned home. (We bought several TX wines I've never tried, this is the first we've opened. It was ok - for $20 a bottle it could have been better, I'll review the rest as well)

Jon and I miss Texas like crazy but can't wait to start taking Grant when he's old enough. Jon's got his fingers crossed G won't be horse crazy like we are but who are we kidding?

Take a look around the updated blog and enjoy!

White Pizza, Why I Don't Bake, & My 'Problem' with Online Shopping

First, a recipe! Yay! I know I've been slacking in this department lately and I blame work really. I am not someone who has enough 'pantry staples' to throw together a blog worthy meal at a moments notice. I also tend to forget to defrost my proteins when I'm running around in the mornings, that's a whole other issue.

Anyways, I digress. A couple of weeks ago I blogged my homemade pizza recipe that is perfect for chowing down with a beer in hand. Today's pizza is more wine-worthy. This is another super-easy everyone makes it meal, but I had my camera and I made it thus you get to read about it.

Key #1 the thin pizza dough - it makes a TON of difference

Key #2 - the light alfredo sauce - it's super flavorful and low in calories

Everything else you can play with

1 - Pre heat oven to 350 (or according to package directions)

2 - cut chicken (I used tenders about 1/2 a pack) into bite size pieces and place in saute pan with sliced mushrooms and thawed frozen spinach (I would have added sun-dried tomatoes but I discovered that mine we sadly a bit too dried out) - saute until chicken is cooked through

3 - your pizza dough will instruct you to precook it for about 5 min. This is really important so do it. Before you do though, sprinkle it with garlic salt and italian seasoning.

4 - after it's precooked, spread about 1/4 of the jar of sauce on the crust (I've found the key to homemade pizzas is that you don't need nearly the amount of sauce you think you do)

then cover the sauce with chicken mixture

cover that mixture with low fat mozzarella and parmesan cheeses

5 - Bake about 8 min more and enjoy with a glass of vino!

Second, why I don't bake .... sigh

My mom stopped by with this super cute Easter cookie decorating set, now what I should have done was taken it straight to my friend Michelle who is a baker extraordinaire and let her use it. Instead, I baked.

Do you see the cute cookies on the package?

Well there's a recipe on the box to make these cookies but I thought, eh, I'll just get pre packaged cookie dough ... this is the aftermath...

bunny ... (the stamping completely vanished when baking)

egg ...

for some reason the teal one's worked a bit better

eventually I gave up ...

In my defense, the bug thought they were tasty if not adorable

Ok, well now that my inability to produce baked goods is out there, let's talk about my inability to resist internet shopping. Do you have amazon mom? It's crazy good deals plus free 2-day shipping ... on EVERYTHING. yeah. And Zulily? please, if I had a girl, I wouldn't be typing this because we would be cutting the internet to try and pay my credit card bill.

Here are some recent purchases -

the first I need opinions on, I got this purse for like $40 on Zulily and the color is quite a bit brighter than I expected, and than I can capture in this photo - thoughts?

Plates from Zulily

Lunchbox from Amazon (what? he's starting preschool in the summer - oh wait until you see the back pack from Etsy I ordered!)

cookie cutters to make lunches 'fun' - the interwebs promise me if his sandwiches are shaped like dinosaurs he is much more likely to eat them *shrug*

Ok - finally - my husband ROCKS and now our screened in porch serves a purpose! As of Saturday, it can contain the big dogs! YAY! And as soon as that small section at the end is finished it will contain the baby and Corgi. I'm super psyched (can't wait until it also keeps bugs out - small details)