Pretty, Happy, Funny, Real -- flashback to June

Pretty: At the beginning of June I went to Dauphin Island with Kelly and Val.  It was so pretty and peaceful while we were there.  I can't wait to go back! :)

Happy: I had the amazing fun of introducing Rissa to Broadway Musicals year ago with Suessical in Sherman.  Then she saw Tarzan in Sherman.  This year, I decided to take her to see Cinderella at Fair Park.  I honestly can't tell you which made me happier -- the show itself, or watching Rissa watch the show.  Guys -- she AUDIBLY gasped when they brought out the glass slipper. And she was so excited when they got married.  (And the quick changes on stage....people!!!)  The experience was made even better by the opportunity to share it with my good friend Kathy and her daughter.

Funny: These dogs!  It is our routine to get Starbucks coffee and pastries for dinner on Sunday night.  When we get our drinks we order each dog a 'Puppy Latte'. (A cup full of whip cream.)  They have come to expect it...and they LOVE it -- as you can see. (Sorry for the fuzzy pic of Lily...it's just too funny!)

Real: What most mornings look like at my house in the summer....

Pretty, Happy, Funny, Real - flashback to May

Continuing with my PFHR flashback -- here's May:

Pretty: It rained A LOT in May.  (See 'Real').  That meant many a pretty morning and evening...

Happy: For our birthday this year, Allison and I decided to do a Painting with a Twist party.  We invited all our friends to come out and create with us.  We had a BALL!  Afterwards, Tana, Kelly, and myself drove down to the Winspear and saw NEWSIES!!!!  We literally sat on the edge of our seats for the entire time.  LOVED it! :)

Funny:  Oh Ally girl! Over the summer she took to covering her head when she wanted to rest in the car.  She is such a silly kiddo!

Real: Rain -- lots and lots of rain...so much rain you could take pictures of the sky dumping it...

Up next: June!

Pretty, Happy, Funny, Real -- flashback to April

I know -- I am a super bad blogger...but I decided I would do a little flashback where I do a P,F,H,R for the past several months....eventually I should catch up! :)

Without further ado -- April:

Pretty:  For my birthday each year my sweet hubs sends me flowers...this was my birthday bouquet this year!

Happy:  My former student, Courtney, was married last October and now has a sweet baby girl. In April she had a baby shower and after some Facebook chatting I found out that they were doing a lady bug theme...so I jumped on board and made her this little lady bug dress and a lady bug blanket.  I hope to someday see her in the dress on FB!

Funny:  Oh, Lily!  (I think this speaks for itself!)

Real:  Shortly after we got our new monster huge sectional sofa we had the fam up for dinner.  At one point I looked over to see everyone scattered along the monster huge/long couch and on their devices.  Ah technology...whatever did we do before thee?!

Pretty, Happy, Funny, Real

There were loads of pictures I could have used today...but I decided to keep it simple....

PRETTY

Last Thursday I went to the Dallas Arboretum with Mom, Allison, Thomas, and the girls.  The flowers were just stunning!  This is my favorite of the day -- and it is pretty!

HAPPY:

Wednesday the girls came to stay overnight and we played in the backyard because it was GORGEOUS outside!  They were laughing and running and having so much fun.  This picture exudes happy!

FUNNY:

My face in this picture cracks me up!  I was so excited to meet 3.5 week old twins, Luke and Levi.  They came to visit my office and I got to hold both of them!  So sweet...

REAL:

Real? Pictures of furniture?  Come on Leanne......

No really -- last week Alan and I went to 'look' at couches.  We recently looked at beds and didn't buy anything so I went with Alan to look at furniture and we came home having purchased a new sectional sofa, a coffee table, 2 end tables, and a new kitchen table.  Wait - what?!  You read that correctly!  The top picture is a (bad) picture of our new sofa and coffee table.  (The end tables match.)  The bottom is our new table.  The table should deliver around the beginning of April and the living room furniture around my birthday.  Admittedly I am somewhat sentimental in this journey.  The table we have now was my Grandmother's. The coffee and end tables we have now my sisters and I teethed on.  But it will be so nice to have OUR furniture!  (Everything in the house is a hand-me-down except our bed - which I bought when I graduated college.)  Can't wait to see it in our house! :)

HAPPY ST. PATRICK'S DAY!

I love this day!  It just makes me happy! To commemorate I thought I'd show you me and Alan through the years, since we (re)met during Spring Break in 2009.

While the first picture doesn't show his face - it is one of my ALL TIME FAV's that he is IN.
That's James Like on the left and Alan on the right.  I'd spent a week with the 2 of them and this is how I felt! :)

Here is one of him playing the accordion that year.  It was the first time I experienced an Irish Ceili with lots of music and fun...hence our Paddy's Day Party's now!

2010 - Paddy's Day Parade in Galway, Ireland.  Alan and I were part of the drama team.  He was the Sheriff and I was a prairie girl.  We dance through the streets of Galway with the drama team.  Good fun!  (Look how young we look!!!)

2011 - This year I didn't go to Ireland over Spring Break. Instead, Mom and I went to Georgia to visit Amy, Paul, Andrew, and Christopher.  This is me with the boys in the Ireland shirts.  They were real into the picture - as you can see.

2012 - Our first Paddy's Day party.  I think we had 25-30 in attendance.  We had such a fun time.  Paddy's Day is also our 6 month anniversary so on this day we'd been married for 6 whole months!!!

2013 - Party number 2!  

2014 - Party 3 (Apparently this photo surprised Alan!)

2015 - Ok - so this is not what we look like today.  Alan has on a solid green shirt today and I have on one that says "Keep Calm and Sure, it's Grand".  This is from Sunday...and isn't great...but it's the most current one of the two of us.  :)

 Let us remember on this day - which I love because it's just fun - that it is about a man and the wonderful things he did for Ireland.  St. Patrick taught a pagan land about our Lord and Savior through a simple 3 leaf clover.  His love and dedication to a small island nation turned the tide in it's history.  May we be so bold, loving, and dedicated to our land.  Now - go enjoy your corned beef, shepherd's pie, potatoes, and Guinness...and have fun! :)

Pretty, Happy, Funny, Real

I decided to do this one this week instead of telling you about what we are eating.  Though I will say we have cooked at home every night this week and have yummy leftovers and I feel quite accomplished when this happens! :) But without further ado (we all know people read blogs for pics....)

PRETTY:

Valentine's Day flowers from my husband.  I had recently gotten some new clothes so I wasn't expecting anything...but I got these.  Aren't they lovely?!

I got some new things from Stitch Fix.  This is an online shopping service.  They send me 5 items (skirts, shirts, pants, bags, jewelry, coats, etc) at the frequency I request.  This fix I asked for ALL GREEN and got it!  There were 2 shirts (the one above and one that didn't fit), a skirt (seen above), a clutch, and a coat (that didn't fit).  I kept the skirt and shirt...and LOVE THEM! I think they are pretty -- and I think I look pretty in them!

HAPPY:

This guy -- he makes me happy.  If you look at the one above and this one you will see that we matched last Sunday.  It wasn't planned - but we looked good! :)

This one isn't so much my happy, but Alan's.  Look at how happy he is using his grown-up Valentine's Day gift!  He was so excited! :)

This kid!  He had a birthday this week -- can we stop the growth?!

FUNNY:

I got us these shirts from Zulily for St. Patrick's Day.  They crack me up....for real!

REAL:

This is what Mercy looked like at our house during our 1.5 day ice-in.  Catch the theme?!  Yesterday when I went back to work she pouted while I got ready -- she loves having her mommy home!

There ya go! :)

Weekly Menu's

Last week we did pretty good!  This week has been hit and miss...and I forsee it being that way the rest of the week too.

LAST WEEK:
Monday - Persian Chickpea Salad with Chicken and Quinoa
 Our friends, the Hoover's, recently had a sweet baby boy join their family.  On Monday I had the privilege of taking them dinner and loving on sweet baby J.  The Hoover's tend to eat more 'naturally' that we do (think organic and gluten free), so it was a bit of a challenge for me to come up with something.  But, one of my friends reminded me of the Persian Chickpea Salad and it was all set!  This is one of the easiest meals to make - and EVERYONE loves it!  Some cucumber, tomato, onion, and chickpeas with a spicy dressing.  I add quinoa and chicken to make it more of a MEAL and less of a SALAD.  This time, since I was feeding a family, I got some greens to go with it and discovered that if you take the SALAD/MEAL and eat it on salad...yummmmmy!  At least, I'm assuming it was -- there isn't any left!

Tuesday - Fend for Yourself Night
 Usually this is Thursday night and Alan has to, but last week was close week so it was mostly fend for myself.  I made myself a yummy sandwich and had some granola to go with it.

Wednesday - BBQ Chicken
 Wednesday nights we go to church.  We usually meet there because of Alan's drive home, so I try to have something quick and easy that stays warm and is ready when we get home.  I did BBQ chicken in the crockpot and we had some plain old white rice to go with it.

Thursday - Leftovers
 Usually, this is my girl's night with Kathy, but her hubby was under the weather so I stayed home with my puppies.  I had leftover Chickpea Salad and it was still yummy!

Friday - EAT OUT
 We used to eat out on Sundays, but I've decided I prefer our one night out on Friday or Saturday because then I can rest!  We went to San Marcos grill here in Melissa and I had Street Tacos.  SOOO good!

Saturday - Tacos
 An oldie but a goodie.  We used ground turkey and wheat tortillas again.  This time I made our salsa.  A small onion, a jalepeno, a garlic clove, some cilantro, 4 roma tomatoes, some salt, and some lime juice....in my pampered chef manual blender and VIOLA!  Yummy!

Sunday - Leftovers/Microwave meals
 Normally I would cook something or we'd grab fast food.  However, we knew that the church was leaving at 2:30 to go to Plano's Haggard Park to worship with Church Under the Tree.  We knew we wanted to eat quick and rest a few minutes so we played the fend for yourself method.  Alan had leftovers from Friday night and I ate a Lean Cuisine Lasagna.  Then we napped for 30-45 minutes and headed on.

THIS WEEK:
Monday - Sweet and Sour Meatballs
 I got this recipe from mom and tried it out.  You can do it in the crockpot or stovetop.  Because I had Theatricks Council Meeting I put it in the crockpot.  I used turkey meatballs, 2 jars of sweet and sour sauce, 1 red pepper, and 1 green pepper.  Next time, I will use regular meatballs and maybe a third jar of sauce.  Otherwise, serve with rice and it's pretty good!

Tuesday - Cranberry Pork Chops
 Another recipe from Mom.  This is another one that could be done in the crockpot, but since ours had meatballs in it, I used the deep covered baker from Pampered Chef.  You mix one cup of catalina dressing with a can of cranberries (or cranberry sauce) and a packet of onion soup.  Pour over chops.  I baked them at 300 for 1.5 hours and they were good - but I think that they might have been better in the crockpot.  Either way - we had a pasta salad and some corn for sides and they were mighty good.

Wednesday - Subway
 Again, we have church tonight and my 'Get up and go" went without me....so, Subway it is!

Thursday - Leanne's Night Out/Alan Fends for himself
 I am hoping tomorrow night I get to go see Kathy.  When you are used to going weekly and have to skip one it feels like ETERNITY!  If I don't, then I will make a Shepherd's Pie.  If I do - that'll get booted to another day!

Friday - EAT OUT
 We are going out for Valentine's Dinner on Friday night to beat the crowds.  I'm better we go to San Marcos Grill because they have a fajita dinner deal!

Saturday - Chicken Casserole
 The girls are coming over on Saturday and they love this...as does their Uncle Alan.  We will have Fruit Salad and Green beans with it.

Sunday - Shepherd's Pie/Pot Roast
 If I don't make this tomorrow I will do it here.  If I do make it tomorrow I will do a Roast while we are at church.

There ya have it -- it's a plan anyway!