shrimp and floaties

sunday at vovo's house. dafne loooooves the pool. and vovo made shrimp and corn and salad. it was super awesome and yummy!

mother's house again

flowers from mother's day (i made pie)

this was my plant in college, she now claims it as her own, pffft. i can take it back whenever i want, i have a key!

weird heads that my mother collects. this is so my mother. so.

shepherd's pie

i made a shepherd's pie based on gordon ramsay's recipe. made some adjustments mainly added a lot of spice to the potato topping (ancho chili). i love that the top gets crispy. i also used beef instead of lamb. i made it for mother's day as well with venison. both delicious.

done

birdies in the windah

this is my mother's house. she won all those awards. she's real cool. she doesn't ever read this blog, so just in case you see her in real life: she's really short. you should tell her about the fact that she's short. she'll think it's funny.

happy ♥day!

luuuurve to ehrvraone!

happy christmas!

i miss everyone i'm not currently with. especially you. you know who you are.

ps yes, i changed the picture...

happy christmas

the infamous scones. here they are.... enjoy! these are on their way to jim jam. chocolate chip english scones. matt says, "why do they like them so much?" i don't know matt, i don't know.

turkaay

we had an excellent thanksgiving (barring the dog trouble). we went to houston where we had cajun turkey and other wonderful things jane and robyn made. most notably the corn casserole (i've never had it before) and the sweet potato casserole. it was all good and everyone seemed to like my desserts. we ended up taking some pumpkin rolls and some carrot cake balls with us to houston. we had fun with robyn and mike's kids too... michaela (matt's 4 year-old niece) had a bit of a cold and an adorable cold accent. we were talking about halloween at one point, she was a princess pretty princess and she said nadja (matt's older niece) was a scary "manpower." i couldn't figure out what that meant and she insisted i was saying the wrong word over and over. i was in agreement but i couldn't think of what she was saying. i finally figured out she was saying vampire. and then i made her say "manpower" a few more times because it made me giggle. "wait you were a vampire and nadja was a princess?" "no! i was not a manpower!" (or mad cow depending on where your imagination took you). she also told me that nadja was six, i think she made this executive decision because she obviously doesn't have 12 fingers.

besides the delicious foods, we got to see a christmas carol and hang out with dafne (gotta find the silver lining). it was really fun and ended waaaay too quickly. jane sent us home with a turkey that i cooked the day after we got home because it was already defrosting on the way home. i made stuffing and gravy, above you can see an entire turkey two containers of gravy and two containers of stuffing. we've been eating leftovers all week and they are wonderful. i looooove turkey and gravy and stuffing!!! yay!

we came home saturday to my vovo's housewarming party slash katie's graduation party. my mother took care of all the dogs while we were away (thanks!) and had a very full house with my brother and his wife, tiffany, staying through the holiday (tiffany had to leave friday so we missed her). at the party we had fajitas from christina's, a lot of neighbors, and a lot of family (my dad was the bartender). we also got to play catch phrase with my brother, sister and her two friends. my team, jimmy, me and jon, won(of course!). matt's team with katie and tiffany brothers lost!!! neener neener! all in all the whole holiday was fun, fabulous and fast. we packed in as much as we could, thank goodness we were done with our colds!

scarf

so, dafne needed a scarf, her neck is all shaved because of the ouchies. and she's just so cute. i think the color really brings out her eyes. can you tell she hates it? after this picture, she climbed on my lap and stared at me, no doubt using her formidable mind powers and subtly whined until i removed the offending material. she doesn't mind when we're outside in the winterness surprisingly. at least her neck is small, i don' know how people make blankets!

surprise!

karenann's birthday was almost a month ago... buuut we'll do a post about her anyway. because she's so greatness. my sister set up a surprise for my mother at salerno's italian restaurant. we had various dishes, i think the most talked about thing was the lobster bisque and the garlic bread. here she is being surprised. we invited some "denton friends" who were a big hit. thanks martha lynn and peggy! of course the family came, (even dad, the often discussed and rarely seen about town) joanie brought some of her friends and katie brought that girl who always follows her to all family functions (hi tiffany bro!).here she is talking while the candle is slowly covering the cake with wax. mmm wax.and here is the yummy crispy garlic bread. mmm it was so great. they served it with balsamic vinegar slash olive oil with all sorts of herbs floating in the bottle (at least i hope they were herbs).