Trying Something New

If you're not familiar with The Pioneer Woman Cooks you should definitely check it out.  I've only made one thing off her website and it was DELISH (Olive Cheese Bread, my father-in-law was in love with it).  I've been waiting to make this new recipe I saw on it a few weeks ago.  Waiting for just the right day when I had a few hours at home in the afternoon and had time to prep such a long dinner.  I took today off work just because I wanted a longer Thanksgiving vacation and decided to make it.  The Braised Short Ribs recipe with Creamy Polenta.  It's actually kind of pathetic how much I've been looking forward to this meal.  Anyways, I made it and yes, I took a picture of it.  I'm a loser, I know (Hey, one thing I love about allrecipes.com is how people put pictures of what the food actually looks like on it)!  By the way, Austin put the parsley garnish on it, not me.  Ha! 

So, I have to say, I followed the recipe word for word and it turned out pretty good!  Next time I make it I will just add more salt.  The Pioneer Woman isn't lying when she says it's "Heaven on a plate" because it's TASTY!  You should try it (just add a tad more salt)!

Anyways, 4 thumbs up from Austin and me.  :)

So, You DON'T Love Elephants?? Interesting....

This week Liz asked me if I would make a birthday cake for Chris' 28th bday party.  She had one request, that it look like a little kids cake.  I asked her to be more specific and she said she wanted an elephant cake.  You ask for an elephant cake, you GET an elephant cake!  I had to do some searching and realized that you can't really find an elephant cake pan so I got a bear cake pan and made a huge cookie and cut out the ears, trunk and hat. 

Here is the end result!

Kids cake  - CHECK!

Elephant - CHECK!

Me & Beth (preggers with her BOY!!)

Beth & Lindsey

Me, Beth, Lindsey & Liz

  Funny story, when I showed up the FIRST thing Chris said to me was "Whats up with the elephant?!"  I said "You don't like elephants??" He said "Umm..no" so we asked Liz why she requested an elephant and she said "because they are cute".  SOOO, hope you liked your elephant cake last night Chris!  Happy birthday!

Birthday boy blowing out his candles!

Turkey Day

Thursday we went to my parents house for Thanksgiving, we had a great time! Here is Aunt Janet with Leah, the 1st of MANY Leah pics for this post!

This is the Thanksgiving placemat that Leah's daycare sitters made for her. So cute, they love her there!

Tracy, Leah & me

Yeah, Leah's not ready for the hat yet, it was so big she looked like she had on a Russian hat instead of a little knit hat.

The Josefovsky clan

This is a little blurry and dark but it's so cute! Leah loves her Lainey & Pops

Me & Leah hanging out with Emily, she's moving to Chicago at the end of the year! Can't wait to go visit! :)

Leah posing in her pretty Thankgiving dress that her Uncle David & Erin got her. She spit up all over it shortly after this picture was taken....

Moving onto the family pics
All of the Houston Autrey cousins. We're a huge family! ;) Yeah, not so much...

Ross, Uncle Jeff, Aunt Janet & Emily at the "spot where we take family pictures and/or cousins take pictures" according to Jeff!

There should be a picture here of our family but even after me trying to get us together for the picture we still ended up forgetting. Oops!

So instead, here is B worn out from all the turkey we ate

Leah and Ryan playing flying baby! She LOVES it! She's about to drool all over her Daddy

Leah chillin' in her Bumbo with her fancy placemat

Leah & her Daddy watching the Aggies

Uncle Austin teaching Leah "Gig Em!"

Austin teaching Leah some Aggie yells! So funny!

I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving! Off to decorate for Christmas!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving everyone! I hope you all have a great day with your families & friends. I'm thankful for so much this year! A wonderful family (ALL of the Autrey's, Townsend's & Horton's), a great husband, the best friends I could ask for, pretty good health, a job and all the "regular" things in life!

Like my little gobble-gobble guy? After Halloween I was wondering what to do with my fall pumpkins and I found these cute little "turkey parts" for one of my smaller pumpkins!

The others I turned into floral arrangements for my Mom's house! Tracy found this idea online and I just copied it. I think it's cute and it wasn't too difficult to do. I did learn one thing, I'm NO GOOD at cleaning out a pumpkin! It's all about recycling, right?! ;)

Have a great Thanksgiving!!

Go Aggies!

Saturday we headed up to College Station to watch the Aggies BTHO Baylor (38-3) and it was COLD!

Katie & I tailgating, I got to wear the shoes I made! 

Cindy, Austin & I about to head to the game

The football players coming out following Reveille

The famous Fightin' Texas Aggie Band!

Austin's boss was nice enough to invite us to watch the game from his suite.  He has this quilt that I always admire, it's his some of his Corps shirts from his college days.  I have always wanted to have one made with some of my sorority shirts (Kappa Kappa Gamma), anyone know a good person who can make one for me?!?  Or know of a good tutorial I can find?

Amanda, me & Katie trying to stay warm inside!

I wish I had taken more pictures but I forgot after the game. :(  If you've never tailgated at a college game it's quite the experience, so much fun!

Show Us Your Life - PETS

This Friday on Kelly's Korner is all about Pets!

You KNOW that's the best topic in my opinion!  ;)  Our sweet little Brussels Griffon Brody (aka Mr. B, B, Buddy, Stinky B) is our baby and we just love him sooo much! I laugh all the time when I see Austin cuddling with B and I say "I bet you NEVER thought you'd have a 7 lb. girly little dog like Brody!".  He laughs and agrees but B is a total Mama's boy.  Tracy says I need to hurry up and have a baby so I will quit taking pictures of Mr. B.  Ha!  I have to say that since our niece Leah came along I actually HAVE taken less pictures of him!

But anyways, here are some pictures of sweet B.  :)  I think he's the cutest!

Here B is stuck in between the back of the couch and pillow.  I'm mean and I had to take a quick picture before helping him out.  ;)

This picture cracks me up!  It was during our Hurricane Ike evacuation and I just caught his yawn right at the perfect moment.  He looks like he's smiling!

B and his Daddy napping

Trying SO hard to get his baby that was on the stool!

B hanging out in the bluebonnets

Sleepy boy sitting on his Daddy's lap

When Brody is sleepy he sticks his tongue out, it's so cute!  Sometimes I swear, it's almost 1/2 his tongue sticking out. 

Sleepy B

Happy Friday!  Have a great weekend!

I Heart Projects

So...Austin was in California last night and I was bored.  I was looking online at randomness and came across a cute website that was a DIY dream (I can't for the life of me remember the site I was at but if I find it again then I'll link it here)!  One of the projects involved Mod Podge shoes.  I love Mod Podge, it's like a glue/sealer and I already had some at home so I thought I'd give some shoes a try for the big A&M v. Baylor game this weekend!  After a trip to Wal-Mart to buy some super cheap shoes ($8) and search for some A&M fabric (which I couldn't find so I used a t-shirt) I was ready to start my project! 

I took pics of my project step-by-step so if you want to see that just let me know, otherwise I'll just leave the before and after pics here. 

Anyways, here is the final product!  B wanted to get in the picture too.  :)

I have a few spots I need to touch up but they are pretty much done!  Aggie football player on the left shoe and school name and symbol on the right.  It took a while and some careful placing to get all that set up just right but I'm pretty happy with the end result! 

What do you think?

Here's the step-by-step of my project.  This is for my girl Angela who's on bedrest with her TWINS!!!  :)
Keep in mind this is the 1st time I've done this with shoes so it's not perfect, it's just the way I did it, I'm sure there is a much better way out there somewhere.

Start with a pair of cheap or old shoes, some Mod Podge, fabric and sponge brush. 

Cut fabric (or tshirt in my case) to cover the shoe.  Position the fabric how you'd like it to appear on your shoe before you cut it if it has a pattern like mine. 

Cut a slit going from the back of the fabric almost to the front top part of the shoe

Apply a generous amount of Mod Podge to the front of the shoe and smooth out the fabric.  You don't want any creases at the bottom where the shoe meets the sole.  Continue on to the sides of the shoe. 

Tuck in the back part of the fabric just a bit so that the frayed part isn't showing and Mod Podge it to the other piece in the back.  Then cut slits in the curved part so that it lays flat under the top of the shoe. 

Using the Mod Podge, tightly tuck in all sides.  I'm sure this could have been neater but I didn't think about that at the time.  Next time I will make the inside a little more nice looking....   Oops!

Using an exacto knife or something similar and sharp, trim up the bottom of the fabric so it's right at the edge.

Then Mod Podge the heck out of that thing!  I saw somewhere that there is an Outdoor Mod Podge that would be good because it's water resistant but I didn't have that so oh well. 

Finished product!  This morning when I put them on after drying all night they were pretty stiff so I'll have to see what they end up like tonight.