Girls Weekend

This past weekend I went to Little Rock to spend some time with my friends. I left Andy at home and drove down on Friday after school. A lot has been going on and I just needed to get away! I was going to stay with my friend Carly but she got sick and I decided I didn't want to stay at her house since she had a fever. I stayed with my friend Cat on Friday and Saturday night. Friday night Cat and I went to dinner at Bravo at the Promenade in Chenal. Cat introduced me to this restaurant back in November and now I have to eat there AT LEAST once when I go to Little Rock. It is so yummy!! After dinner, we headed to her parents house and stayed up and watched the movie The Backup Plan. It was really cute!

Saturday I woke up and headed to Charming Charlie. It's one of my favorite stores!! I LOVE all the jewelry, clothing, sunglasses, etc. I bought a military black jacket, new sunglasses, set of black and gold bangles, and 3 pairs of earrings! Not too shabby!! I then drove to Bryant to eat lunch with my sweet friend Amanda. She and her husband moved to Bryant back in December and I was sooo excited to see her! We had lunch and then I drove to Benton to see Carly. She had scoped out some new shops for us to go to (she was feeling much better...but still didn't want to stay at her house!!) We went to some shops on Kavanaugh and then headed to dinner at Buffalo Grill. I had never been there and it wasn't too bad. Carly and I went to see a movie before I headed back to Cat's. She wanted to see Black Swan but I declined..SO..we saw 127 hours! Ummm...let me just say this..if you can't handle sawing, breaking of bones, or blood you might not want to see it! I really wasn't looking forward to seeing it just for those reasons! However, it had a great story behind it!

After the movie, I drove back to Cat's house. We stayed up and watched Shutter Island then I went to bed. I woke up Sunday and talked with her and her parents before heading to lunch. I met my friend Brandi at Texas Roadhouse for lunch before driving home. It was good to catch up with her! I hate that they don't live up here anymore! After lunch, I drove home. When I got home I went to the grocery store, made dinner, and went to bed at 8:00. YES..I did say 8! I don't know why I was so tired but I slept from 8 until 6:15 this morning and I was still tired today at school. I had a great weekend with great friends! It was so good to see all of them and catch up! Can't wait to do that again!

Snow Days

This past week we got 2 snow days. I was so excited about having these days off. However, if we have to go to the middle of June I will not be happy. I took no pictures of our snow but we did get a lot! I begged Andy to not go to work on Thursday and Friday so we could go sledding but it didn't work. So needless to say I was pretty bored on my snow days. I did some cooking, reading, laundry, picking up the house, got my Valentine bags ready for my kiddos, etc. I have no pictures to show of what I did. It was a much needed 2 days of relaxation. I was lazy and enjoyed every bit of it. Maybe we will get some more snow??

Tasty Tuesday

I have never made a homemade lasagna before and I wanted to try it. With the help of Pioneer Woman I was able to make a lasagna from scratch. Her recipe was super easy to follow with pictures. It turned out really good and not as hard as I thought it would be.

I love this cookbook and hope to make many more of her yummy recipes!

Here is the recipe for the lasagna...I know you can't see it so here is the recipe:

Ingredients:

1 tablespoon olive oil

Salt

10 ounces of lasagna noodles

1 pd mozzarella cheese

1 1/2 pds hamburger

1 pd of hot sausage

4 garlic cloves, finely chopped

2 14.5 oz. cans of whole tomatoes

2 6-oz cans of tomato paste

10 to 12 basil leaves

1/4 cup chopped flat leaf parsley

3 cups low fat cottage cheese

2 eggs, beaten

1 cup of grated parmesean cheese

Steps:

1. Preheat oven to 350

2. Bring large pot of water to boil, add oil and salt, cook noodles until soft

3. In large skillet over medium, saute hamburger, sausage, and garlic until brown

4. Add the tomatoes with their juice, tomato paste, 1/2 teaspoon salt and freshly ground pepper

5. Stir together well, simmer over low heat for 45 minutes

6. Use half of basil leaves and parsley and mix into meat mixture, set the rest aside

7. In medium bowl, combine the cottage cheese, eggs, 1/2 cup of parmesan cheese, and the other half of the herbs

8. Stir together well

9. Begin by layering 4 lasagna noodles in the bottom of baking pan. Noodles can overlap

10. Spoon half the cottage cheese mixture over the noodles, spread evenly

11. Sprinkle half of mozzarella cheese on top of cottage cheese mixture

12. Cover half of meat mixture on top of cheese

13. Now repeat the process beginning with a layer of lasagna noodles....

14. Followed by cottage cheese...

15. Followed by mozzarella cheese..

16. Ending with meat mixture layer

17. Sprinkle remaining 1/2 cup of parmesan cheese on top. Bake in over for 45 minutes or until lasagna is bubbly.

It was so good and not as time consuming as I thought. Pioneer Woman did not disappoint. Tonight I'm going to make her twice baked potatoes! YUM!

SNOW DAY

Well...I finally got my first snow day of the year!! I was so excited to be able to stay home today...even though I have no clue what I'm going to do. Surprisingly, Fayetteville was out yesterday and none of the other big schools were out and today the other 3 big schools are out and Fayetteville isn't. Strange! Oh well..all that matters is I am out! It is snowing a little bit right now and the ground is mostly covered. I wish we would have gotten more snow so we could go sledding but that didn't happen! RJ doesn't like the snow...he will run around in it but not sit or lay in it. So trying to take a picture with him was quite difficult. I think Andy was able to get a decent one. I hope everyone that has a snow day enjoys it!!

Andy's new toy

Andy and I both got money from his parents for Christmas. He of course saved all of his until he could really figure out what to buy. I, on the other hand, spent half of mine on who knows what. He hardly ever mentions anything that he really wants so when I heard him mentioning a PS3, I knew he really wanted one. We had many talks about this new game system..where to put it, how often we would use it, etc. So...yesterday we decided to go and buy one. I agreed to put in the rest of my Christmas money so we could buy it. I think he was pretty excited...if you can believe that! We decided that we are going to move our cable box and now the PS3 to an end table in our living room instead of on the mantle. I am super excited about this!! However, that is going to take a little time and won't be done right away...I can be patient! We ended up buying the PS3, 1 game, and 2 Blu-rays! We came home and Andy set it all up and we watched a movie. After the movie I went to bed and Andy stayed up until 1 or 2 playing his game! I have a feeling that is going to be happening a lot! I am excited about being able to watch movies on it!!

Highlights from 2010

I have been seeing a lot of blogs that have the best of 2010 or top 10 of 2010. SO...I decided I would recap our lives of 2010.  2010 was a year of firsts for us! We had our first anniversary, first NASCAR race, first road trip together, first time to Chicago, first time to paint, etc. So here goes:

1. In early January I realized that I had an unknown talent and began painting canvases with my neighbor Whitney. We started a little business called dazzled designs and sold some canvases and frames to teachers at my school. However, we haven't painted much lately. I also painted rugs with some of my friends. 

2. In April, Andy and I went to Dallas for the NASCAR race with my family. My dad is a huge NASCAR fan and we have gone to several races but this time it was Andy's first race. He loved it and we will probably make this a yearly trip.

3. In June Andy and I celebrated our 1 year anniversary by taking a trip to Chicago and St. Louis. I have a friend that lives in Chicago so we stayed with them downtown. This trip held many firsts for us. First time to Chicago,  road trip with just the two of us, Cubs game, eat a Chicago dog, ride a subway, and eat Chicago style pizza. We had a great time and hope to go back to this wonderful city soon!

4. In August, Andy had an amazing opportunity to go on a mission trip to Haiti with some people from our church. I, on the other hand, stayed home and worked in my classroom. It was a great experience for him! He would love to go back!

5. In October, we went to a pumpkin patch in Tontitown. Again, another first for us. We hope to make this a tradition and go every year. 

6. December held a big event for us. It was our turn to host Christmas for my mom's side of the family. It was so much fun to plan and prepare for this big day. It was a wonderful Christmas!

Those are just a few of the "firsts" we had of 2010. I can't believe we are in 2011 already! Everyone says as you get older the years go by faster and faster and I'm starting to agree. I hope 2011 is as great as 2010.