What I Ate for Thanksgiving

On our way out of Austin on Tuesday we drove through Wendy's and got a light lunch. I had a baked potato. We snacked on Yogurt Burst Cheerios while we were on the road. When we got to my mom's we had a cookie and dropped off the boys. Then Mat and I went to the Kyoto Japanese Steak House in Rockwall and had sushi for dinner. It wasn't bad. Then we went to Plano and saw the movie "No Country for Old Men." I don't think we ate anything there surprisingly. Wednesday morning I ate more cheerios, we went shopping for awhile, and then had Mexican food (tacos) at a place called Cristina's at Fire Wheel Mall which is (I think) in Garland. Wednesday afternoon I ate some of this delicious pecan pie/cookie thing that my mom made. Wednesday night we went to Dallas and had a traditional Thanksgiving meal at Mat's Aunt Margie's house. Turkey, dressing, mashed potatoes, some other stuff I didn't try, and a delicious mango jello mold dish followed by pecan pie.

Thursday morning we drove to Sherman to have a non-traditional Thanksgiving brunch with my mom's family. Lots of yummy casseroles, pastries, ham, a variety of granola and yogurt, pies, and more. Thursday afternoon we drove out to Mat's mom's lakehouse in East Texas and had another turkey dinner topped off with chocolate pie. Friday morning...um...let me think...oh yeah, donuts. For lunch I had leftovers and cheesecake. After lunch we went out to the Christmas tree farm and cut down a tree. We worked off a few calories walking around out there, but not many. We also had some hot cider at the farm.

Friday night Mat's Aunt Susan and I were in charge of dinner and we made Mexican food with tortilla soup, quesadillas, pulled pork, refried beans, black beans, Spanish rice, guacamole, sour cream, cheese, tortillas, salsa, chips, pico, etc, etc, etc. Sounds like a lot, but it was all really easy except the soup which I think Sue spent a lot of time on. It was very, very good. What am I forgetting? Dessert. Hmmm. Well, we opened our Christmas presents and stockings and ate some chocolate. Surely I had more sweets, but I can't remember.

Saturday morning...eggs with sausage and leftover rolls with jelly. Lunch...buffet of snacks including baked brie (two kinds), crackers and spreads, chips and dips, leftovers, shrimp gumbo, and pie. Snack...Christmas cookies with cream cheese icing. Dinner...BBQ ribs and chicken, pinto beans, corn casserole, garlic bread, chocolate chip cookies, and more Christmas cookies. Sunday morning...cereal and one more cookie for the road. Sunday lunch...blackened Tilapia at Razzoo's in Mesquite on the way home. (We stopped to see my sister Becky who has just returned from Spain.) Sunday supper...Wendy's again. I got a salad. It was pretty gross. Sunday night...more chocolates from my stocking.

I'm on a diet.

We tried a new restaurant...

Have you been to Tino's Greek Cafe over at Brodie and Slaughter next to Randall's? It's really good. We went there last night since Doreen recommended it, and we practically wanted to go back again tonight. The floor was so destroyed after we left, though, that I think we will give the employees a chance to forget us before we return.

Friday at the Mall

Something happened Friday at the mall that is a possible contender for most embarrassing moment. Well, I should clarify before my brother chimes in again with a comment about how he can reveal a far more embarrassing moment from my childhood than I would ever post on here.

Now that I'm a parent there's a new category of embarrassing moments that consists of being embarrassed by your children. My parents have this great story about going over to a friend's house for dinner. In the car my dad (who is a big eater) complained that he felt like he never got enough to eat at their house and always went home hungry. When they walked in the door my brother promptly informed the hosts that my dad didn't like to come to their house for dinner because he never got enough to eat. Mortifying.

I've had a few of these moments like Jackson playing with brown play-dough during church and yelling "It looks like poop!", screaming "Don't spank me!" all the way through a crowded restaurant, not wearing underwear on the first day of school, etc. But what happened Friday at the mall left me speechless.

We ran into a friend of Jackson's from preschool (Nema) and his mom (Nusha). They were there with another lady we didn't know and her daughter, and they didn't speak any English. I didn't really know any of them at all, but the boys were happy to see each other so we decided to hang around with them for awhile. After we rode the train, I got the kids a smoothie and we went over to that game by the movie theater where the projector shines an image onto the floor and the kids jump around on it. It was pretty crowded and there were lots of kids and people all around.

So while Jackson was jumping around with his smoothie he dropped it, and the cup broke a little and the smoothie splattered on the floor. I grabbed the cup because it was full and quickly took it back to the smoothie store to get another cup, and Nema's mom followed me to get some paper towels. We came back and cleaned up the mess, no big deal. Nema's mom was talking to her friend in the other language for awhile and they had strained looks on their faces and kept glancing over at me. Finally Nusha came over and informed me that her friend said that when we walked away, Jackson got down on all fours and tried to lick all the smoothie up off the floor. That's right, he licked the floor...OF THE MALL! She said she tried to stop him, but he was very determined.

He must have thought I took the cup to throw the smoothie away, and I guess his 3 and a half year old brain panicked and thought he might never again get anything so good. So he licked it up...off the floor...of the mall. I didn't even know what to say I was so embarrassed. Here these nice people are hanging around with us for the first time, and my kid (who up until this moment I thought was pretty smart) starts acting like a dog at the mall.

I'm sure there will be more embarrassing moments to come, but right now this one is up there close to the top of the list.

Funny Commercial

Mat and I saw this commerical on TV last night and laughed hysterically. Then we looked it up online and laughed again over and over.

Last Weekend at the Hollows

Last week was super busy, so I'm just now getting caught up on the old blog. We knew we were in for a hard week at work so we decided to take off to the The Hollows last weekend and spend some time recharging our batteries to get ready for it. (The Hollows is the neighborhood where Mat's dad's cabin is near Lago Vista.)



We grilled some steaks and spent a lot of time outside in the beautiful weather. Here we are waiting for The Tram and riding it down into the hollow where there's a paved walking path to the lake.





This always reminds me of the movie Jurassic Park because they have this theme-park-like sign at the The Tram, and when you're riding it down it kind of seems like those jeeps in the movie that were on a track. Remember those jeeps, and how they broke down during the big storm on the island? The first time we had a big family weekend at the cabin The Tram broke down and we had to haul five little kids, 2 dogs, and a couple of strollers up the extremely steep hill to get back to the house. Luckily we weren't attacked by dinosaurs.





Anyway, The Tram worked like a charm on this visit and we had a good time exploring.





I had to remind Mat to think of it as a nature walk instead of a hike. The boys just have these short little legs and can't move as fast as we'd like sometimes. Once we learned to slow down and just enjoy the quiet and the unhurried pace, it was really nice. We looked for bugs, threw rocks into the lake, picked up acorns and leaves, and even sang a few songs along the way.






We went to the Beach Club Saturday night to roast marshmallows and make s'mores in their outdoor fireplace. Lukey was energized by the sweets that night and was just walking around in circles and talking for the longest time. So cute. We also went to the marina on Sunday to look at all the huge boats. Jackson kept calling it either a tamborine or a ramina all weekend. haha. I think this was his favorite activity. I guess we forgot to take pictures...

We planned the weekend around getting to stop in Marble Falls on the way home to eat at the Bluebonnet Cafe. David Walker and Derek Reaves had told Mat about how good it was while they were on the camping trip, so we were really looking forward to it. Here's the line to get in to be seated.




It was worth the wait. Yum! And guess who we saw there? The Walkers!! They were on their way home from a weekend trip and had the same idea.




We stopped at the pumpkin patch at Sweet Berry Farm after lunch. Most of the good parents took their kids there before Halloween! haha. We were a little late this year, but they didn't really care. We did the corn maze and climbed around on the pumpkins.





A classic Lukey face.



A classic Jackson face.



Our pumpkins.

We have a new favorite word...