Adorable Animal Pictures

A friend of mine forwarded me an email with these pics and I just thought they were too cute not to post!

Hope you enjoyed as much as I did!

Front Door - one of Doyle's home projects

Doyle had mentioned to me about wanting to do something with our front door. We think the previous owners had stained it and the weather had just done a number on it. So he went to Home Depot and bought a wonderful colored stain called Bombay Mahagony. He also bought a new lock for the door. It's called Satin Nickel. It looks perfect with the new electrical outlet plates we bought with some Christmas money we had received. Those were made out of brushed satin nickel. It still smells like he just painted it and hasn't completely dried yet. But here it is. I absolutely love it and think he did a great job of picking everything out. We both have exactly the same taste! Here are pictures of the outside and inside.

The pets were crying around and looked like they wanted their picture taken today too. So here they are in all their beauty...

While I was busy taking pictures, Doyle took his GTO out for drive. I got a couple of pictures of him when he got back.

And here he is putting it back in the garage. Now you can see where we have to store our 9 foot Christmas tree! There really isn't any where else to put it!

I did go into work this morning and felt like I got a lot of accomplished. So now I get to relax for the rest of the weekend. I did find out I'll be traveling to San Antonio, TX for a software conventnion at the beginning of March. I'm REALLY looking forward to getting away from the office for a little while and hopefully getting up to Austin to visit. I can't wait!

Our Valentine's Day

We had an absolutely fabulous Valentine's Day! I had to work (of course) but did my best by getting off work at 5:30pm. I came home to find Doyle had gotten me some white roses and THE sweetest Valentine's Day card. I gave him a card too and a bunch of different varieties of Dark Chocolate candy. I'm not a big fan of dark chocolate and don't really ever buy it. So he's very well stocked now. We had actually already bought our Valentine's Day present for each other a couple of weekends ago. Here is that picture. Snickers thinks this is his new crash pad. Because the cushion is light colored, we decided to put a towel down to try and collect the black pet hair. I don't know that it's really going to help that much, but I figured it wouldn't hurt to try. The left side is open for us to sit something in and the right side is a shelving unit with a mirror for the door. That is actually a picture on the wall on the other side of the front door.

We pretty much kept to our tradition on what we do for Valentine's Day. We grilled two New York Strip steaks and made Old Bay shrimp. It was really good...

After dinner we listened to some of our favorite slow songs. Then for dessert Doyle surprised me and bought chocolate for melting. So we made our own chocolate covered strawberries. The chocolate came in a tough cardboard container. We weren't sure how good it was going to be, but it ended up being absolutely wonderful. I was shocked it tasted so good! We will definitely buy it again.

So all in all, we had a very romantic evening. I know I'm an extremely lucky girl to have such a romantic husband. He's the BEST! We hope you enjoyed your Valentine's Day too! :)

Kit with his steak bone

Here are a couple of pics of Kit eating his Ruth's Chris Steakhouse bone. He was in heaven eating it!

The last weekend in January

Okay, so last weekend I did a bit of cooking. Just thought I would show the yummy pics. You’ll have to let me know if you want the recipes. I’ve started this update at work on my lunch break. I’ve found that if I at least start writing it at work, then I’m more apt to cut and paste it into the blog than if I wait till I’m home and try to start it there. I think if Doyle weren’t home every night, then I wouldn’t mind spending more time sitting in front of the computer.

So Saturday I made really yummy Beef, Bean and Cheese enchiladas. I would have preferred to make burritos out of them, but I didn’t have any tortillas large enough to fold. And in my food lingo, it’s an enchilada if the tortilla is open at both ends and a burrito if it has been folded. I almost always make enchiladas because I always have the smaller soft tortillas on hand.

One thing I’ve decided I want to do is buy a software program to make my own recipe collection. It’s amazing I don’t have one already. Years and years ago a friend (Brett) gave me the software for “Mastercook”. In it you could add your own recipes. Amazingly enough, I still have this software! Over the weekend I just tried to load it onto our home computer and found it wasn’t compatible with XP. I shouldn’t have been too surprised. I think I got that software around 1997! I used it a ton on my first couple of computers. The last computer to bite the dust (which is when I always end up buying a new one) was the one that worked in Texas but after I got it here, it really went crazy. I had a couple of places work on it and I think what happened is it ended up getting several viruses that would have cost more to try and fix than just go out and get a new one. So we bought the Dell last year, which we both just love. Anyway, to get back to the main point… is that I need a new recipe software program. I did a little surfing on that subject on Sunday. I haven’t seen anything that really floats my boat just yet though. I got to download AccuChef free for 60 logins. It didn’t look too user friendly though and I’m looking for something that is very user friendly but with lots of extra’s. Like changing the number of servings and getting all of the nutritional analysis. I also want to be able to attach the picture to it and print it out for my own recipe book. Which is why I started taking pictures of the food I cooked this weekend. I figure I’ll start my photo collection and then get the software later.

This was a sausage lasagna with a jalapeno kick!

I always use a recipe out of "The all new Good Housekeeping Cookbook" as my base for any lasagna. Then I just change the ingredients for whatever flavor I want it to have. We froze half of it and will probably pull it out of the freezer in a couple of weeks or so. Doyle really liked this version.

Chicken & Spinach Pasta with Sun-Dried Tomatoes

Doyle actually made this dish for me after I supplied him the with the recipe. He did a good job making it. It was SO good! I got the recipe from Cooking Light's Annual 2002 Recipe cookbook.

Beef & Bean Cheese Enchiladas

I've made so many versions of enchiladas. I don't have any one recipe that I follow. This time I used browned beef and spicy beans and mexican flavored cheese for the filling. Then I poured a can of Campbells southwest cheese soup with half a can water over it. It was definitely cheesy and yummy!

I hope you like the pictures and it didn't make you too hungry! :)