Members-Only

Tonight we kicked off my birthday celebrations with a fancy schmancy dinner at the Crescent Club (courtesy of Travelzoo). Kelly, Joe, Matt and I had a long email exchange about 3 months ago trying to determine if this "crazy awesome discount" was worth it. Verdit...it was! After months of not scheduling our dinner, Kelly suggested we wait until this week and use it as a "pre-birthday dinner" excuse! Loved every minute of it!

I didn't realize the Crescent Club was an actual Members-only club. Makes sense - I just hadn't thought it through. I guess the Travelzoo deal was very popular because they had a seperate menu for it! Keeping it classy was tough, especially when I was trying to take this picture, for the blog of course. The flash went off, in the dark, quiet room -and I started cracking up. I believe Matt's exact words were "I can't take you anywhere!"

 Pardon the photo quality - my camera died so we were working off a camera phone!

Good times, good news, good friends!

This past weekend Heather and her...FIANCE Joe came into town. They had a wedding to go to Saturday night, and were able to come in a bit early to hang out. Heather flew in Thursday and I took Friday off so we could have some pre-birthday celebartions! (We have the same birthday!!) When I picked her up from the airport she got in the car and said "wow I really need a manicure" and threw her left hand in my face. I grabbed it, probably even touching the ring, and said "wow you really do." She screamed "WOMAN" and I realized that I was staring at a beautiful diamond ring! Much screaming and a few tears later she got the story out - hiking just the two of them. A really sweet story and a beautiful ring! So happy for them.

So Thursday night she and I went to Fireside Pies - one of our favorite places. We came home, had a glass of wine and opened some bridal magazines while baking cupcakes.

I was making a cupcake-cake for Ryan's birthday party. This will get its own blog post later!

 Friday started with a massage followed by lunch and some time at the pool! We both noted that pool time is so rare these days!

 After cleaning up from the pool we snuck in a manicure followed browsing bridal magazines at Barnes and Noble.

 Friday night Joe made it in and we cooked some steaks and had a private backyard dinner party!

 Yes Joe lost. Fortunately this time he didn't have to go out in 20 below to clean the snow from the airvent.

 Saturday started with strawberry-cream cheese stuffed French toast followed by coffee at the Pearl Cup (rated best latte in Dallas).

 Followed by introducing Joe to top golf. Small perk - getting to see Chris!

 And ending the afternoon with Chuys!

Health Nut Oatmeal Cookies

A work contact shared this recipe with me. She said she eats one every morning for breakfast (along with an egg and fruit or yogurt). The real world has not been great for my morning breakfast (or lack there of) but hoping to improve.  I have started making these as a breakfast treat with coffee - and I must say...I love them! This is the first time I actually made them into cookies. I typically cook the mixture in a casserole dish and then cut them up into bars. As I'm looking at the recipe to share online, I notice that the recipe makes 3 dozen. Clearly I did not read that part before balling the dough onto the cooking sheet - as I only got 11 cookies out of it! opps! Matt and I are both looking forward to breakfast tomorrow!

The Recipe: (With my alterations in red)


Ingredients

                                 

                                  2/3 cup butter, softened

·                                 

1 cup brown sugar

·                                 1 egg

·                                 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

·                                 1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg  (I didn't have this in my cabinet so I just added a bit more cinnamon)

·                                 1/4 teaspoon cinnamon

·                                 2 cups rolled oats

·                                 1/2 cup all-purpose flour

·                                 1/2 cup whole wheat flour (I didn't have this in my cabinet either so I used all regular flour)

·                                 1/2 teaspoon baking powder (I'm not sure the difference bt baking powder and soda so I just used all baking soda...again..that is what I had in my cabinet)

·                                 1/2 teaspoon baking soda

·                                 1/4 teaspoon salt (Important to note - Matt and I added salted almonds...and if you do as well - no salt needed!)

·                                 1/2 cup chopped hazelnuts (Substituted with almonds, crushed)

·                                 1/4 cup sunflower seeds (Replaced this with crasins - although put in more like 1/2 a cup)

·                                 3 tablespoons flax seed meal (Yuck - I don't even know what this is but it doesn't sound good. I replaced with 1/2 cup mini chocolate chips)

After looking at my "edits" to the ingredients, I'm feeling like these might just be cookies that I think are healthy. So maybe my healthy breakfast behavior still needs work! But hey...it's a start!

Directions

1.                       Preheat oven to 375 degrees F (190 degrees C).

2.                       In a large bowl, cream together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Beat in the egg, then stir in the vanilla, cinnamon and nutmeg.

3.                       In a separate bowl, combine the oats, flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, hazelnuts, sunflower seeds, flax seeds; gradually stir into the creamed mixture.

4.                       Drop by rounded spoonfuls, a couple of inches apart, onto cookie sheet(s).

5.                       Bake for 8 to 10 minutes in the preheated oven. Allow cookies to cool on baking sheet for 5 minutes before removing to a wire rack to cool completely. (If you make my triple the size cookies - it takes closer to 20 minutes)

6. Store in the fridge and heat in the microwave for 30 seconds before you eat them (with coffee). You won't be disappointed.

Let me know what you think!

WI in July

Matt and I spent this past weekend enjoying the beautiful Wisconsin weather. We got to spend time with the Lundes and the Domachs - and Laura, Chris and Ryan make the trip up to see us as well!

Getting to see Franey and Jared at SPIN - a ping pong bar. I hope they get one in Dallas soon! (Jared is growing his hair out for locks of love!)

Friday night we had some pre birthday celebrations for me and post birthday celebrations for Laura at Fred and Karens! They have a paradise of a backyard with a cabana so we cooked out and enjoyed just sitting and relaxing in the cool weather. 

Saturday the boys went golfing and the girls went for a Starbucks run followed by exploring Cedarburg. They have some of the cutest gardening stores! We ended the afternoon with lunch - where I think everyone got the buffalo chicken sandwich. Delicious!

Saturday night we went with Denise and Dan to Jose's (surrised with some Flan and birthday hats) followed by a trip to Bastille days. We thought we were going to a French festival - although there was very little French to be found! lol!

So fun to get to see Jared - Best friend and realtionship introducer!

$20 bucks and the boys convinced Ryan to get his face painted. The highlight of the night! He stayed in character all night!

B is for Bella

This little cutie is turning one in a few days...and while Matt and I won't be able to attend her 1st birthday party - I was able to sneak in cute bday present!!!

 Me, Bella and her sweet mom, Jena!

 Jena mentioned to me the other weekend she was trying to find a "memory box" for some of Bella's keepsakes and just couldn't find anything she loved. So I took a black 12x12 box, scrapbook paper, one wooden letter, paint and some of that glossy glaze paint! Everyone involved loved it!

When the boys are away...the girls will play!

This past weekend Matt was out of town for Lucas' bachelor party (and yes, he did come back in one piece)!! So my instructions were to relax and not do any projects...I failed at both of those! But if doing projects is relaxing to me...then does it count?

So Friday night a few of us with hubbies at the lakehouse with Lucas got together for a girls game night! Tracey was quite the host with yummy treats, games and wine! I have a newfound appreciation for the game Apples to Apples. And it was so much fun to spend time with her 2 month old Max. I believe I hogged all of his holding time! So sweet when he fell asleep in my arms!!!! Heart...melting!

Saturday I woke up and starting some small projects - including a home depot run AND a trip to Starbucks. I decided while Matt was away that I was going to paint the laundry room by myself. Everyone has those random things that bother them more than maybe the average person...I think for me that thing is dirty/scuffed up walls. As you might know, from the blog post below, our last paint project was the garage. Well the laundry room was the last room left to be painted and I couldn't wait any longer. I was SO proud of myself - finishing it in under 3 hours. 

My excellent taping job! 

It is hard to really get the feel for how messed up the walls were - but you can just trust me. Also, take notice of the floor. ONE day Matt and I would like to retile or put slate in. Just a pipe dream :-) Painting is an easier project...and definitely cheaper!

 This is the wonderfulness that is my final product. I was seriously SO proud of myself. My first official paint job. 

 And similar to the garage project - I had to take it one step further. After finishing my paint job I quickly got ready and headed over to babysit Sam for a few hours so his mom and dad could have a date night! I got home around 11pm, opened up a bottle of wine, turned the music on full blast and decided to attempt to paint the trim. Most of you are probably laughing because that is so not like me. Usually I would have just snuggled up in my PJs and gone to bed so I could wake up early and be productive. Not this time! I had a little party with myself and loved every minute of it!

 The painting of the trim part of my experiment was successful. The new white trim is fabulous. No idea how we are going to paint the rest of the house - but since the laundry room is pretty separate I figure it doesn't matter if the trim is a different color for awhile. 

What got dicey was trying to paint the door. Now, to be fair, it wasn't the wine's fault that my door turned out so horrible. And I wouldn't have attempted to paint the metal door (that leads to the garage) if I knew Matt and I had plans to "redo" it. So I went for it. 

 Big fail. Not sure if you can tell but the paint just did not have any chemistry with the door. Another day we will test out our "make the door look like wood" project. So we can just scrape this paint off or put the "wood grain" stuff on top of it. 

 Me getting to use the power tools! Matt always hogs them when we work on projects together. lol!

 My finished laundry room! I am still beaming with pride!

Side note about our/my painting philosophy. I think everyone views it a little differently, and all opinions are valid. But Matt and I talked about having painting the walls be something I would like a little bit of room for mistakes on.  I.e. if we pick a color and end up hating it, we can just paint over it, no tears shed. So far I love all the colors we have picked...but the door - well that will just have to be a lesson learned. Hopefully soon we will be able to blog about our fantastic improvements to it - making it look brand new and fabulous! What are your thoughts on painting? Do you paint all the walls regularly - or are they still the same color as when you moved in! Like I said, both ways are great!

The Garage

We tackled revamping our garage in two parts/2 different days. When we first moved in we focused all of our efforts on the inside and just we utilized what shelving and space was already up in the garage. About a month ago we did a "reorg" and started taking down some of the old shelving that had seen better days. That in and of itself was a huge success. But I had to take it one step further and this past weekend convinced Matt to paint the inside. The walls just felt so gross with random scuffs and marks everywhere. So we picked a light greenish-gray thinking that it wouldn't show dirt and marks quite as much as white. Although the entire process, both parts, were exhausting....we love the end result...a clean, organized garage! (To be fair, I think I love it more than Matt - but he likes it too!)

What we started with! Those white plastic drawers used to be Matt's "dresser" at our old apartment. Now he has built in shelves in the closet! Hello progess!!!

 In this corner are two shabby shelves left by the old owner. You can tell that in their prime they were really nice shelves. But they had to go. Matt and I enjoyed taking the hammer to them! We may or may not have accidentally slammed a hole through the drywall. For phase one we covered it with duck tape. Phase two, was only slightly more classy and I'm embarrassed to even write it on our blog. It is spackled and painted tho! ha!

 This side had it's own problems. The bikes made it almost impossible to get in and out of the car.

 So here is a shot of our newly organized garage. You will note that we bought some of those awesome rubbermaid strips that you can hang anything from. For phase one we just hung the one. Also, after damaging the wall we only took down one of the two large white shelves (far right corner). It might not look much different, but trust me...HUGE progress! (You can barely see it, but the ducktape covering our hole in the wall is directy above the far left side of the white plastic drawers in the middle of the picture.)

 Onto painting. I dove right in Monday morning while Matt was still asleep to take everything off the walls. Luckily my superman came out right in time so I didn't hurt myself trying to take down that beast of a shelf!

 I'm not sure if you really get a sense for how clean the walls are here. But it is a beautiful site! Plus we got a few more things hung, one of the bikes up and each drawer/shelf is organized with a purpose!