Breakfast of Champions.

Cup of coffee, banana, and cocoa krispies. Yum.

Proud to Be a Longhorn.

I would be lying if I told you that I wasn't a little disappointed that Texas lost to Alabama in the national championship game. But frankly, I have never been more proud of our team.

(photo: chron.com)

Basically the worst thing that could have happened to our team happened -- Colt McCoy was injured early in the game. This sounds immature, but it's not fair. He deserved more. Colt is an amazing player and a great person, and I was looking forward to seeing him shine during his last game, which also happened to be the biggest game of his college career. I can only imagine the disappointment he felt when he couldn't return to the game.

Here is a great story about him and the new QB, Garrett Gilbert. The imagine of Colt trying to throw the football to his dad again and again to no avail is heartbreaking, and not one I will soon forget. Here is a video clip of Colt's interview after the game. Maybe I am a softy, but I still tear up when watching that. What a class act he is.

(photo: texassports.com)

Our team gave it their all in the face of their worst nightmare and came pretty close to beating Alabama. And Gilbert was impressive considering the fact that he is true freshman and hasn't played more than a few minutes this season. I definitely am looking forward to seeing him play next year. Above all, our team showed great character and strength. While we didn't win the
game, there is a lot our team has to be proud of.

Hook 'em horns!

Happy Birthday, Mom.

I am a couple days late posting this, but happy birthday to my mom! Like Justin, her birthday celebration consisted of watching UT football. (more on the national championship game later.) Thankfully, she was a great sport about it (pun intended!).

Christmas Recap (finally).

Excuse me for not going in chronological order recapping the holidays here. You get the idea.

We had a wonderful Christmas with lots of family. I won't bore you with the details of present opening and lots of over-eating, but here are some pictures from Christmas day showing the crazy amount of presents for only seven people (all of us adults).

and since we ran out of room under the tree, we moved to in front of the fireplace . . .

The day after Christmas, we had a party at our place. It was great to visit with our friends and see people who were in from out of town. I was terrible about taking pictures that evening, but my brother-in-law snapped a few shots of all the food before the shindig began (excuse Justin and me in the background).

I have numbered the food I made and linked to recipes (click picture to enlarge):

1. Chocolate cupcakes with vanilla buttercream frosting. I cheated and used boxed chocolate cake mix (shhh, don't tell anyone) and then made homemade frosting. The frosting was so delicious and very easy to make.

2. Ginger cookies. Easy to make and very tasty. I would recommend refrigerating them for a bit before rolling them into balls. I used my new silpats Justin gave me for Christmas to bake these and they worked like a charm!

3. Semi-sweet and white chocolate covered Ritz peanut butter sandwiches. I took another shortcut and used the pre-made Ritz peanut butter sandwiches.

4. Pretzel turtles. Rolos work best for these. I could only find the Dove chocolate covered caramels and they seem to be more gooey. I did half with pecans and the other half with M&Ms. These are so easy to make and very addicting.

5. Ham and cheese in puff pastry. We made two of these and they were almost all gone. These may have been one of my favorite items. We used swiss cheese instead of gruyere to save a little money. I will definitely be making these again.

6. Spinach and artichoke dip (not pictured because it was still in the oven). This recipe is supposed to be the same as the one from Houston's. It is not exactly the same, but regardless, it is still very tasty. We copy Houston's and serve it with salsa and sour cream.

7. Bacon wrapped dates stuffed with goat cheese (not pictured because they were still in the oven). These are one of my new favorite appetizers. I love the sweet and salty combo. The recipe called for blue cheese, but I used goat cheese because (1) I like it better and (2) I already had some in the fridge.

All of which lead me back to number 8 on my resolutions list!

J. Crew = Evil Temptress.

I told myself I wasn't going to "need" anything from J. Crew for a while, but then they have to go and get new arrivals. The following are my faves:

The scalloped petal top.

Vintage latticework popover.

My favorite of the bunch: the ruffled gamine jacket.

Seriously, ruffles and pleating in the back? I am pretty sure I could find a way to wear this everyday.

And last but not least, the crosshatch cotton blaine jacket. Love the layered look. And, it's in gray!

I am hoping Gigi will have a review of these items any day now. In the meantime, I am just thankful there are no shoes I can't live without!

New Year's Eve.

I hope everyone had a happy new year! Ours was extremely low key. We went out to eat at the Black Lab with Meagan, Jeremy, and Kevin and then came back to our place to ring in the New Year. (Because Meagan and Jeremy are so popular, they had to leave to attend another party.) I quickly threw together Annie's Eats seven layer bars so we would have something to snack on until midnight. For as easy as the bars were to make, they were pretty tasty.

Along with the seven layer bars, the boys had Chimay (a Belgian beer made by monks). According to the label, we were total rule breakers by thinking about serving it in regular drinking glasses. Instead, Justin and Kevin decided it would be better to serve it in wine glasses since we don't have dedicated Chimay glasses.

Kevin was very excited about his Chimay find at Central Market for a good price. The bottle was huge (1.5 L) -- compare it to the 2 normal-sized sparkling wine bottles.

Justin tried to use the timer on our camera for the first time. As you can see, it took some trial and error to figure out how it worked.

There we go!

Happy New Year!

Sarah's House.

I have caught Sarah Richardson's Room Service on Fine Living before, but now the show Sarah's House is on HGTV. Her style has always appealed to me (both in decorating and her clothes).

I looked through her website trying to find pictures to include here, and it was very difficult to narrow it down to just a handful. Definitely head over to the website and view her portfolio and prepare to be amazed. Why do her and Candice Olson have to be in Canada only?

(all images from Sarah Richardson Design)

I can't wait to watch the remainder of the season to see how the house comes together. Her website and HGTV have pictures of the finished house online, but I am not looking because I want to be surprised!

New Year's Resolutions.

My firm is a big believer in creating S.M.A.R.T. goals and writing them down. What better time to think about what I want to accomplish than at the start of a new year. Hopefully by sharing my goals (not all of them SMART ones), I will be more apt to follow through. In no particular order:

1. Wake up earlier on a more regular basis.

2. Watch the first 3 seasons of 30 Rock.

3. Drink more water every day.

4. Do yoga for my back at least 3 times a week with my new yoga video.

5. Get more involved with the Tahirih Justice Center (and increase awareness around my office).

6. Start eating/cooking more at home.

7. Attempt to be less critical of and more patient with others.

8. Get in better shape. (whose list is this one not on?)

9. Learn how to take better pictures.

10. Get back into painting/drawing/crafting.

House Related Goals / To-Do List:

1. Paint the sitting room by February 1.

2. Paint the master bathroom by February 1.

3. Hang pictures in the entry way.

4. Accessorize our bedroom.

5. Organize the 1st and 3rd floor elevator closets by February 15 (the date the Container Store Elfa sale ends).

6. Clean and organize the study.

7. Change the knobs in the kitchen to drawer pulls.

8. Look around the house frequently and be reminded of all the things we have already accomplished.

Salon Wall.

I love the following pictures for some salon wall inspiration. Now if I could just find the perfect wall in my house to do such a thing . . .







Southern Living has a great article on how to easily hang a salon wall here.

P.S. I'll be back with a Christmas recap soon. Tonight is my first night in over a week without company over or being at the in-laws. I am thoroughly enjoying relaxing and having some quiet time at the house with Justin (and Riley).

Christmas Decor.

For some reason, I was behind schedule this year for decorating and presents (buying and wrapping). I am still trying to figure out where the month of December went. The Christmas decorations this year are not too much different than last year (see last year's pictures here).

Here's our tree (sans presents). Thankfully, I am happy to report that since I took this picture, we have wrapped a bunch of presents, so our tree looks much more complete. I was just too lazy to take an updated picture.


The mantel decorated with Ikea vases, the lumiere candleholders from CB2 (what a bargain those are), and a fun ribbon wreath from Michaels.


This is a bad picture, but you can see my cute twig reindeer on the buffet! There is a bowl (washed out by the sun) full of silver ornaments. I also wrapped thick red damask ribbon around the upholstered chairs and tied it in a bow. Please excuse my coffee cup (it is not part of the Christmas decor).


And my favorite Christmas Target find -- the red sequin tree. Those little blocks (also from Target) say "merry christmas." You can also see our new devon mirror from Z Gallerie. Love it!


There are a few other decorations in the kitchen and entry way, which I will (hopefully) post soon!

Tasty Hot Chocolate.

I recently saw a post over at Annie's Eats* about a hot chocolate mix recipe. It looked delicious, and I needed a little something extra for people at work, so I decided to make it this past weekend.

For quality control purposes, I had to sample a cup to make sure it was tasty enough to give out. It was so rich and delicious. Really, what's not to like? It's vanilla sugar and chopped chocolate bars!

Frankly, it was so good, it was hard to package it up and give away! I love hot chocolate! But I certainly don't need that much of it around the house. I packaged it up the mix along with marshmallows and Williams-Sonoma Peppermint North Poles.


* I have made several different things from recipes I got from Annie's Eats (including peppermint mocha cupcakes this past weekend too). All of them have been wonderful. Definitely check out her recipes!

Hot Chocolate Mix

Ingredients:
2 vanilla beans
4 cups granulated sugar
1½ lbs. good quality semi-sweet chocolate, coarsely chopped
9 oz. good quality bittersweet chocolate, coarsely chopped
2 cups Dutch process cocoa powder*

Directions:
Split and scrape the vanilla beans and combine in a large bowl or jar with the sugar. Work the vanilla seeds into the sugar with your fingers. Bury the pods under the sugar, cover tightly and let stand overnight (or up to months) at room temperature. Remove the pods when ready to use.

In the bowl of a food processor fitted with the metal blade, combine the sugar, semisweet and bittersweet chocolate, and Dutch process cocoa powder. Process in 4-second pulses until the chocolate is very finely ground and the mixture is well combined. Store the mix in an airtight container for up to 6 months.

Serving Instructions:
Combine 2 tablespoons cocoa mix with 8 oz. of very warm milk and stir to combine until well blended.

Say Yes to the Dress.

I recently watched Say Yes to the Dress and fell in love with a dress. I am not gonna lie, I like the show even though I am not in the market for a wedding dress. If I was getting married again (to Justin, of course), this dress would be a top contender.

I asked Justin if we could renew our vows so that I could go buy this dress. Obviously, he wasn't entertained. My dress was simple and understated, and I still find myself drawn to that same style.


My second favorite part of the dress is the half bow in the back (not pictured above). I have a weakness for bows.


My favorite part of the dress is the POCKETS! Pockets, people! The dress has pockets! How awesome is that? You don't know what you have been missing if you haven't worn a dress with pockets. I don't know why, but it's delightful.

Then I started thinking . . . my dress (from 5.5 years ago) had similar qualities, except for the heavenly pockets.

It was also simple, understated, strapless, a-line, no beading, no lace:


And, it had a fun detail in the back (which was somewhat bow-like when bustled):


I guess my taste in wedding dresses hasn't changed all that much over the years.

Dining Room Updates.

I recently snagged some new wall art for our dining room at High Fashion Home. I wasn't looking for anything in particular, but as soon as I saw these, I knew they had to come home with me. And, the decision was even easier since they were 50% off!


Here is a close up (click to enlarge to see the detail):


We also found some great new buffet lamps at Z Gallerie (they are the constaletti lamps). The other lamps I had were too much with the pearson chandelier and the other one was too short (see this post). These are just right. I wasn't crazy about the color of the lamp shades at first, but I like them now (and their shape is perfect). You can also see the new art in the mirror!

Holiday Party.

Since so many of you provided input into what I should wear to my firm's holiday party (are you sensing the sarcasm?), I thought I would do an update to my original post and show what I actually decided to wear.

That's right, I disregarded the only comment that I got (thanks, Meagan!) and went with the light pink/shell horizon line dress. Hmm, maybe that's why people don't give me feedback -- because I ignore it!

I just felt that dress was more me, and that I could get more use out of it than the red/orange one. I tried to "winter it up" a bit by wearing tights and a cardigan. It worked out well (I think so, at least). It was the perfect "dressiness" for the party, conservative enough, and the pockets were great!

5 things . . .

5 things I am loving right now . . .

1. My wonderful husband who worked very hard around the house this weekend. Thank you, Justin.

2. Organics Banana Vanilla Yogurt.

And to the person at work who removed it from the fridge (either for their own enjoyment or during an overzealous fridge clean out), thanks for nothing. I was planning on having that with my lunch today, jerk.

3. Having our new lighting installed. It looks great! The installation took over a week longer than expected thanks to workers who showed up late every time they were scheduled to come out (at least they gave us a discount to make up for it). I will post pictures soon.

4. Our Christmas trees and other decorations. Again, pictures to follow. It's looking Christmas-y around the house!

5. This blouse from Anthro: