Beef Barely Soup

I made this soup last week. It is from the new Barefoot Contessa book. I know it seems that I am obsessed with her, but I love her cooking and I love that there usually are not 85 techniques involved to get a super yummy dinner on the table. This one used oxtails for the beef flavoring. I think Jon was a little disappointed there was not more actual meat, but such is life.

I also made the Italian Wedding Soup this week. I loved it, but I am not sure if anyone else did. The meatballs were a little extensive to make since they are so small, but it was delicious. I forgot to take a pic because it was a post soccer rushed dinner. The natives were restless:).

Luke and Mommy's Excellent Adventure

Jon and Evan are off on their first Adventure Guides campout this weekend....hopefull Jon will get some pics I can share. They seem to be having a great time...they left Friday and get back tomorrow.

Lukey and I are having "girls" weekend...teehee.

We got pizza and watched Shrek the Halls last night. Today we went for a run, went to lunch and saw Tangled. We are going to go to dinner with friends this evening.

I got all my Christmas cards done last night and watched one of my favorite movies, Love Actually.

Jon was out of town for part of the week, so Luke misses him. I am used to solo duty, so one less kiddo=a lot easier. I am not going to lie, all male peoples are hard to clean up after, take care of, etc. They are generally messy, not extremely grateful, smelly and they loathe cleaning up after themselves. So, though I miss them, being down to 1 boy has made keeping the house intact, MUCH EASIER!

It's been a month...

Evan doing his perfromance at Granparents Day

Grnadma and Evan weaving a vest

Cutie Evan

Papa and Evan

since I have posted. Lots of interesting happenings here, but mostly we had a fire at the house on Friday, November 5th. Everyone who reads this already knows the details, but it took us a few weeks to get everything taken care of, cleaned up and mostly back to normal. All of a sudden it was Thanksgiving, so that's my excuse.

Grandma and Papa came for Thanksgiving and were here for about a week. The boys love having them around and for the most part, I think they enjoyed themselves.

The pics above are Evan at Grandparents Day with Grandma and Papa. I think they all had a FABULOUS time!

I have absolutely zero pictures of my food...not sure why. The Barefoot Contessa Truffle Butter Turkey was a huge hit.

Jon, Papa and I headed out to do the turkey Trot in the morning. It was cold, but we were all happy that we did the race.

We have so many thing to be thankful for and we were very blessed to have Grandma and Papa join us for Thanksgiving!:)

Bridget's Pedicure

Bridget got groomed this week. They LOVE her there and they had some extra time so she got her toenails painted purple and pink. Who needs a daughter for all the frilly girl stuff!;)

Luke's Birthday Part 3

A little soccer and silliness after dinner.

Evan being a little gross.

Having birthday cupcakes....he was feeling a little embarrassed about us signing to him.

Look at that sweet baby boy.....very Ermilio looking in this picture;).

Birthday boy is very tired after a very busy and fun birthday.

We had a nice dinner and then celebrated with cupcakes....his Star Wars cake will be for his party on Sunday. Hard to believe that my little tiny guy is 3!

Happy Birthday Luke Halas!

Luke's Birthday Part 2

Having a little rest time with Dad watching Empire Strikes Back

Checking out the Dallas Aquarium with Mom.

Snooze after lunch to regain some stamina before hitting the Dallas Aquarium with Mom.

Lunch with Dad at Jimmy Johns....this is the best pic he would allow me to take.


These are in reverse order...I was too lazy to fix them. Daddy worked from home so he could go to lunch with Luke on his birthday. Luke chose Jimmy Johns. After lunch we dropped Dad off and headed to one of our favorite places, The Dallas Aquarium. We had a ton of fun and he was particularly fascinated with the sloth today. He went home for a "rest". This meant snuggle time and a movie with Daddy.....Star Wars of course.

Luke's Birthday Part 1

Playing with his Batman Cave

His yummy birthday donut...the boy has not met a donut he doesn't like!

Sharing his new toys with his brother.

Driving the new Riddler car that brother picked out for him.

His new Buzz Ligthtyear Gun.

Luke is a little camera shy these days, but I did the best I could to document his birthday. He got up a little early so he could open gifts before Evan went to school. Mommy picked up a birthday donut yesterday and he was VERY happy....totally has the Hutcheson sweet tooth!

No school for him today, so we had to come up with some things to do...