Where Have All the Cowboys Gone?

They've all gone to Willbern Elementary!

Friday was Rodeo/Go Texan Day here in Houston. All week long I taught the kiddos everything I knew about the rodeo and all things cowboy/cowgirl. On Friday the kids had their Square Dancing day and we had sooo much fun dancing with them! I will post pics as soon as I get them back from some of the parents!

On Friday we stayed in because I had a migraine, but on Saturday morning we woke up bright and early to go to Austin with Casey's parents. They hadn't seen the venue yet so we drove up to Austin to have a look and start thinking about some of the details. The weather was absolutely stunning and even with everything dead and brown because of winter, the venue still looked amazing. I am so excited that we are getting married there!

After seeing the venue we headed over to The Oasis (surprised?) where we had a lovely lunch in the perfect weather. It was so nice to get to hang out with Casey's parents in a new setting, plus they had never seen that part of Austin so they were very impressed by the landscape. Here's yet another gorgeous photo from our table at the Oasis.

All You Need is LOVE!

This was my first Valentine's Day as a teacher and as a fiancee. I had NO idea how serious Kindergarteners took Valentine's Day and I can't believe how many gifts I got! Here are a few of the adorable gifts I got.



Friday was our Valentine's Party at school and the kids had so much fun exchanging Valentine's and getting to eat cake at school. I love how excited kids get over the little things. This year I will try to also get excited over the little things. :)
Also - Casey sent these roses up to school on Friday - I felt so special!


Last night Casey and I celebrated Valentine's Day by going to Shogun in the Vintage Shopping center in Cypress. We really miss living over in that area and it was nice to get out and go somewhere other than The Woodlands. Here we are - semi-dressed up to go out to eat. I am borderline obsessed with these tights and completely obsessed with these patent leather oxfords I got for Christmas. It felt good to dress up a little!



I was really happy with the way my makeup and hair turned out tonight so I took a picture of just my face. I am not quite sure what I did differently but I liked it!


And now for something a little different... here is a video of what the little red devil that my precious Jalen (kid in my class) got me for Valentine's. His mom said that he insisted on buying it for me - how sweet!

Oh when the Saints, go marching in....

GEAUX SAINTS!! Yay for the underdogs winning the super bowl! As I said in a previous post, I fell in love with New Orleans when I went there in October and I guess that is what led me to being a pseudo Saints fan. Last night we went to Chris & Jessica's annual Super Bowl Party and had a great time hanging out with friends and watching the Saints win the game. Although I generally don't really care for pro football, I almost always enjoy the Super Bowl.

Here are some of the treats I made for the party!

7 layer dip

Superbowl Cupcakes

Now that football is over on to BASEBALL SEASON!!!

Hooray for 100th day!

Yesterday was the 100th day of school! I cannot believe I've been a teacher for 5 months now - it's a pretty crazy feeling. Yesterday was allllll about the number 100- we made 100th day hats, wrote stories involving the number 100 and counted all day long. It was really fun and the kids had a great day- here are some pictures and a video clip!

Cake, Cake and more Cake!

This week was pretty hectic with trying to fit in time to work out and spend time with friends as well as spend as much time with my Daddy (who was in town for work) as possible and also not to forget Casey! Monday, Jennifer and I had the day off and feeling jealous, Casey took the day off as well. Jennifer and I have been going to the YMCA to do fitness classes and well, I'm pretty much obsessed. I really love the Y and I've found that group fitness classes are a perfect fit for my competitive nature.

Now on to why the title of this post is "Cake, Cake, and more Cake!"....

Tuesday was lovely Jennifer's 27th birthday. That day we went out to eat at the new little Mexican place right across from our neighborhood and boy was it yummy! After a few margaritas and embarrassing Jennifer with a birthday song and sombrero at the restaurant, we went home to have cake. If you have never had an ice cream cake from HEB you are MISSING OUT! They have the absolute best ice cream birthday cakes have I have ever had. I think by now I have eaten at least half of it all by myself. You just can't leave me alone with ice cream cake in the house. Unfortunately I didn't take any pictures of Jennifer and the cake (because again, I was too excited about the cake!) but I did take this at the restaurant:

Ole!!
Now... on to more cake.

Yesterday Casey and I drove up to Austin for a couple of cake tastings. First to Michelle's Patisserie. We tried plain wedding cake, italian cream cake, cookies and cream cake, and finally Tiramisu. O. M. G. As a cake connoisseur this is hard for me to say, but hands down this was the BEST cake I have ever tasted. It was moist, it was crumbly, it was delicious. Perfect texture, flavor, everything.

After Michelle's, we took a detour over to our new favorite Austin restaurant.. the Oasis. The food is delicious, but what we go there for is the amazing view. The Oasis sits on top of a bluff overlooking Lake Travis and is absolutely gorgeous. We are looking into having our rehearsal dinner there if the price isn't too high. Here are a few pictures of Casey and I at the Oasis.





After leaving the Oasis we drove to Pflugerville where we met with Brittany of Cr8tive Confections. Brittany does her tastings a little different than other bakers in that she give you 6" taster cakes as opposed to small slices of each flavor. We chose 4 different flavors and had her incorporate them into 2 cakes. Her chocolate fudge cake with cookies and cream filling was amazing! Here are our two cute little taster cakes.


After talking it over and thinking about the overall flavor of the two cakes, we have decided to go with Michelle's italian cream cake and white cake (alternating) for the wedding cake tiers and a tiramisu grooms cake. Both bakers we tasted with were SO nice and had such great ideas, but it came down to flavor with us and we just couldn't get the Tiramisu cake out of our head. It was very refreshing to meet both of them and see their passion for their artwork. For those of you coming to the wedding - I can't WAIT for you to try the tiramisu cake!!

Lunch and Dinner

Being on a low-carb diet, it can sometimes be difficult to come up with creative meals. I was feeling creative for lunch yesterday so I made chicken salad over baby spinach leaves. Here is my recipe for chicken salad (today, it varies depending on my mood) and here is a picture of lunch! I don't measure out portions because I just add things as I like them.

Shredded chicken from leftover chicken thighs I made in the crock pot
Mayo - the real stuff - no low fat here (low fat or fat free actually has more carbs)
Slivered almonds
Diced baby gherkins (dill pickles)
1 - sliced up boiled egg
a few diced up pickled jalapenos (jalapenos in the jar)
kosher salt (it makes anything taste 10 times better)
fresh ground black pepper

I mixed this up and put it over a bed of baby spinach leaves and then sliced up some avocado to put on top. My room mate Jennifer also loved this!


For dinner I decided to try out a meal that my friend Sarah Beth posted on her blog. It was REALLY good and pretty low carb as well. Here is our version of Pesto Chicken with sweet potato fries and roasted asparagus. YUM!

The glass of red wine is of course optional, but I love a good glass of red with dinner. Wine makes everything feel more formal!

Nothing to blog about...

I have really been having the urge to blog lately, but when I think about it I feel like I don't really have anything interesting to share with everyone. A lot of my friends and fellow bloggers are doing amazing things right now (Alyson has started an awesome fashion/sewing blog, SB is blogging about her new cooking endeavors, other friends are blogging about pregnancy or kids) and I feel like the things that I am doing really aren't that interesting. Having said that- I will now blog about all of the uninteresting but "important-to-me" things I am doing right now - ha!

1. I found a wedding dress! Actually I found three and it was a super hard decision to make, but I finally made my decision and this past Thursday, my mother ordered my "dream dress" for me. Email or facebook if you want to see pics because I obviously can't put them on here for fear that Case might see.
2. I found bridesmaids dresses! They are from Jcrew and are freaking adorable. I have never shopped at Jcrew, but I found these in the magazine Southern Weddings and fell in love. Here is the picture from the magazine that inspired me to choose them.
They will be grey (like in the picture) and Casey and his groomsmen will be wearing grey suits with black ties also inspired from a photo in Southern Weddings:
I know the grey sounds very dreary and not very summer like, but our accent colors and flowers are so bright and cheery I thought having a basic, elegant color for bridesmaids would be perfect and also something that the girls will WANT to wear again!

3. We secured our photographer! I have been stalking Lauren Clark for about 4 years now and I am obsessed with her style of photography. If you are in need of a wedding/engagement photographer - I definitely recommend her. I know several people who have used her and absolutely love her.

4. My friend from high school, college, ZTA, and also a fellow CFISD teacher Jennifer moved in with us this month and Casey and I are loving having a room mate! Jennifer's fiance got transferred to San Antonio in December, so Jennifer had a tough decision to make- quit her 3rd grade teaching job mid December, or stay with us through January to finish up the 9 weeks. She obviously chose the latter and we are so excited to get to spend some time with her before she officially moves to SA. Yesterday she and I had a girls day where we went to Boot Camp at the Y at 7am, then came home and made breakfast, then got our nails done, then went to David's Bridal, then went to get a spray tan, then went shopping and FINALLY got home around 6. That's almost 12 hours of running errands, but we had a lot of fun hanging out. Unfortunately I wasn't thinking and took ZERO pictures while we were out. Probably a good thing since we had no makeup on and looked like spray tanned thugs in our loose clothes (couldnt mess up the spray tan!). Casey and I will be sad to see her go at the end of the month, but it was definitely fun having a room mate one last time.

5. My wonderfully talented next door neighbor, Krissy Alexander took our first round of engagement photos. You can catch a sneak peek on her website and on my facebook wall! We are so excited to see the whole collection. I will post some as soon as we get them!

6. I am back on Atkins and have already lost 3 lbs. As hard as it is to adhere to eating so few carbs or sugar, I have enjoyed feeling the way this diet makes me feel. I am also working out several times a week now and am SO sore from boot camp today. Seriously, more sore than I have ever been in my entire life. Today Jennifer and I are going to the Y to work out and then a yoga class at 4. I am so glad we are off tomorrow!!

7. I have stuck to most of my New Year's Resolutions, but one that I am really trying to stick to is cooking more and cooking more advanced meals. Lately I have made the following: pizza frittata (amazing), slow cooker mexican chili soup (also amazing), seasoned chicken thighs in the slow cooker (not that amazing, but still good), garlic chicken with sauteed spinach (my new signature dish- no recipe!), and tonight Jennifer and I are going to try to make SB's pesto chicken, asparagus, and sweet potato fries - yum! We can't wait!

Today is lazy Sunday and laundry day. Hopefully I will remember to take more pictures this week! That is my goal - someone please keep me honest!