Thanksgiving Recap

I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving!

We had a great time, and a small gathering this year. My mother and my brother Eddie came to our house this year.


We had these cornbread muffins (I'll post the recipe later). Half of them have cranberries in them, just to be a bit festive.

Here's Rominal carving the turkey. It turned out fantastic. We always use Alton Brown's turkey brine recipe. You can find that here. We cooked the turkey according to the recipe as well, and it was so good.

Rominal loves it when I take pictures of him doing things. (Not really)

Here's the mashed potatoes.

And my cornbread dressing. Yum!

And for Rominal, I made green beans with (gag) mushrooms. He loves this, and I really don't like it, but I made it for him.

Here's me, getting stuff ready. Notice the cute apron.

Here's the sweet potatoes, smothered with marshmallows. Another yum!

Mom made this corn pudding and brought it over to my house.

But hey, what's this I see? I think a bite is missing! I'm telling!

Mom also made a yummy salad with pears and walnuts, and my homemade cranberry sauce is in the background.

We are still eating the leftovers, which I am quite pleased to do.

I hope everyone had a wonderful time.

High School Football

This morning, we loaded up the car and took these two critters out to see a high school football game.

You might not be aware, but here in Texas, apparently high school football is a big deal.

As this was a playoff game, our high school played in a pretty big stadium.

This one.


Yup - that's the Cowboy's Stadium.


I had never been to the stadium before, so I was quite pleased to get the opportunity to go. Rominal and Bailey had been on a tour there before, so they were familiar with it.

Here's me and Tiffany, my "sometimes daughter."


And Bailey and Tiffany.

Rominal is taking in the sights.

It's hard to believe how big this place is. However, it didn't feel too big. I think that's because during the first half of the game we were sitting pretty close to the field. I imagine I would have a different opinion if we were way up in the highest seats.

We played Cedar Hill today. The last time Guyer High School played them they beat us by 1 point.

It was fun to get caught up in the excitement.

I also love to people watch.

Here's some action shots. I'd like to be able to tell you what's going on here, but I couldn't pull that off.

I think they were chasing the ball.

Guyer High School scored first and maintained the lead throughout the game.

This made our side of the field quite happy.

See how happy we are?

The cheerleaders were cute. This spells, "GHS" in case it's hard for you to see.

Oh - and if you think for a minute that Texas doesn't take their football seriously, let me present this to you.

Several high school games were going to be played at the stadium today. While our game was still going on, the team that would play next came in and sat down.

Notice anything strange or different in the picture below?

The football players had all dyed their hair blond.

Wow. That's commitment.

Time for the half-time show.

And another banner to run through.

At this point we decided to get something to eat and walk to another part of the stadium. This area is behind the seating. It was huge too!

And that TV screen that you have probably heard so much about?

Well, it's big.


Really big. And I have to say, I was surprised at how good the picture was.

Rominal was just so happy to be in the stadium.

Guyer ended up winning, 48-35. Everyone shakes hands after the game.

And we take these two critters home.

A new purpose!

We have a front room that we don't use very much. It's purpose has changed throughout the years. When we first moved into this house, it was the piano room, because Bailey was taking piano lessons and that's where the piano was.

It's always been where we put up the Christmas tree, because it's in the front of the house and I like to leave the blinds open at night so that people can see the tree lights as they drive by.

This is an old picture, obviously right after Christmas. I can tell by all of the wrapping paper still on the sofa.

Here's another picture. Note the piano on the left - we got that one for free about 10 years ago. It served us well over the years.

More recently, we acquired the electric one you see on the right from my Dad & Bonus Mom. The electric one doesn't require constant tuning, so it's a keeper.



Well, recently we gave this room a new purpose. It's now become my office. This means that Rominal has his own office directly above this room. He can keep his room as messy as he wants.

He prefers to call his room his fortress of solitude. We haven't cleaned it up yet, so no pictures of that room right now. Honestly, you'd thank me for no pictures if you ever saw it.

But, back to my room. Here's my new office!


This room is right by the front door and here I'm looking into the rest of the house.

What you can't see in the picture above is our formal dining room, which is directly to the right. The reason I'm not showing that right now is that there is currently a love seat shoved into the room along with our normal dining room table. We plan on donating that to a charity.

Isn't this nice! My friend Melissa helped me accessorize the shelves.

I have no ability in that area at all, so it's a good thing she helped me out.

We gave away the old piano, but we kept the electric piano. You can see it on the left in the picture below.

Someday I want to have bookcases and a window seat built around the windows in this room. And we'd like to yank out the carpet and put in wood floors as well. That's our future plans.

I'm loving the new room and my new clean desk area. I'm not sure what we will do with the Christmas tree this year, but I'm not worried about that right now.

Chicken Tortilla Casserole

I used to make this dish all of the time, and for some reason I guess I just stopped. The recipe came from my Grandmother and it is quite adaptable.

This was the perfect recipe for this adorable set of baking dishes that my friend Melissa gave me for my birthday! Aren't these adorable?


I think this is pretty adorable too.

Ok - back to the food. I poached 3 boneless, skinless chicken breasts in chicken broth.

Then I added these. The thing about this recipe is that if you don't like these soups, you can use cream of celery, or cream of potato. My Grandmother used cream of mushroom, but that's not allowed in my house because mushrooms are gross, so I used cream of onion and cream of chicken soup. Also add 1 can of chopped green chiles.

Chop up your corn tortillas into bite size pieces.

Then spray your dish with cooking oil and put one layer of tortillas down.

Chop up your cooked chicken and mix it together with your soup mixture.

Here's where you can have fun. I've been known to add black olives, black beans, cans of chopped tomatoes even some sour cream. It's a good time to empty out your pantry or fridge. You can add whatever floats your boat.

I kept it simple this time - chicken, soup and chiles.

Mix it all together.

Then spread a bit on top of your tortilla layer.

Then sprinkle with cheese.

Repeat the layers and end with tortillas and cheese on top.

I cover it with foil and bake at 350 until it's bubbly. About 45 minutes. Remove the foil and bake 5 more minutes until the cheese is browned.

Let it set for a few minutes before you cut into it.

Enjoy!

And one more cute kid picture - because it's my blog.