V for Valentine's Day! V for VICTORY!!

I hope everyone's Valentine's Day was spectaclar and super sweet!! Mine was simply wonderful! Emphasis on SIMPLE as we enjoyed an incredibly relaxing evening!

VALENTINE'S DAY VICTORY #1:

I made shrimp farfalle with a salad for dinner with only a little help from Thomas............ Which is so perfect because as I said in a previous post, he is the chef of the house! BUT, dinner came out wonderfully! Thomas kept saying how good it was and even went back for seconds! It's wonderful because Thomas usually just moves the food around his plate and claims to not be hungry!!

SIDEBAR: We watched Life As We Know It after dinner and it deserves 10 thumbs up! Absolutely DVD purchase worthy!

VALENTINE'S DAY VICTORY #2:

I made chocolate covered peanut butter balls for everyone at work and they were an absolute hit! I even made more balls this morning with leftover peanut butter at the request of some employees!!

I am VERY proud of myself and have totally been bitten by the little cooking bug!!

Here's a little glimpse at the treats I made for my coworkers!

I am ashamed to say....

I have never gone grocery shopping for the house. EVER. UNTIL TODAY.

Thomas is the chef of the house. He does the grocery shopping, he does the cooking. Until recently, I've had no desire to cook or grocery shop. I HATED the grocery store. I had no idea where anything was located. It annoyed me to even have to pick up a meat for dinner. I did, however, do my fair share of Target shopping with not an issue!

I said "... up until recently..." because all of a sudden, I've had much more of an intrest in my kitchen. I've wanted to whip up meals and bake fun little snacks like I've never had before. I've been pretty excited and have looked a ton of recipes to try out!

So..... fast forward.

This morning, we wake up and Thomas and I get my grocery list together. I head out to get my eyebrows threaded and then book it to H-E-B with my grocery shopping app in hand and READY!

My shopping experience took about an hour and went quite smoothly! I picked up everything on my list in addition to a few extras and left spending less money than expected!

I called Thomas on my way out to let him know that my trip was a SUCCESS and that I really had a great time rolling down aisle after aisle... and, sometimes an aisle more than a few times! All in all... it was a wonderful trip! I'm sure the stores cleanliness and employees friendliness helped a lot!

The most exciting items I picked up today were the ingredients of the cookies and chocolate covered peanut butter balls I plan to make for my students and fellow teachers for Valentine's Day and needs for the meal I plan to make Thomas on Sunday!

I'm very excited and very proud!

Seems silly and trivial.... but for me, it's a HUGE HUGE deal. I've had this image of a wonderful, "perfect" wife who was actually quite tradtional (think 50's) and it's taken some time for me to get here. Mainly, I'm sure, because we rarely eat in and are so carefree I haven't had to honker down and settle into my "new" role as a wife. I've gotten all the other aspects of the traditional role (cleaning, washing, etc) and glad that I'm excited to tackle this one!

I had to thank God for the desire to serve my husband in this way and definitely goal to become an even better wife to my exceptional husband! Proverbs 31 one step at a time! :)

Anywho, here's the picture of a SUCCESSFUL grocery store visit!

Can't wait til next week!

Until next time..... I look forward to posting pictures of my cookies and chocolate covered peanut butter balls!

Happy Valentine's Day everyone!

Wow! Time has flown....

I hadn't realized it's been nearly FOUR months since I've blogged! I hope your holidays have been especially special (lol) and warm!!

Holidays are OVER.... The new year isn't so NEW.... Birthday is long GONE..... Our first anniversary has been CELEBRATED! That pretty much covers Nov. - Jan.!

So, for the recap!

Christmas 2010 (no Christmas card... THIS year, we WILL have one!))

My 28th birthday....

One year anniversary....

Somehow we didn't get a picture of ourselves (sad day) BUT, we did take pictures of one of our favorite restaurants, Hungry's, which is located in Rice Village. We ate here the day after we were married with a few friends and came again for our anniversary dinner with our family! I hear that if you do the samething twice - it is offically a tradition. So, here's to many more anniversary dinners at Hungry's! So simple yet so nice!

I feel like horrible newlyweds as we ((still)) haven't eaten the top tier of our wedding cake - I'll work on that this week!! But so far so good!

This past year has been so incredibly amazing in so many ways!! I look forward to our growth, our lives continuing to mesh and become one, and all of the accomplishments, hurdles, and new beginnings our life will bring!!

Alaina.