Happy Birthday Addie & Jack!

It was my niece and nephew's birthday party a couple weekends ago... no they aren't twins, they are 2 years and 1 month apart.  Since the actual birth DAY is so close together, we still celebrate the kids birthdays together which is SO much fun!!!

My parents came up from San Antonio and stayed with us the night before the party giving us time to catch up, drink some wine, and celebrate my Dad's birthday which was a week later!

It was an amazing weekend full of family time and celebrations!

Addie showing us her awesome kicking skills on her new birthday boogie board!

Pop Pop playing in the pool with Addie..

Warming her up for the big TOSS!

Pop Pop and Addie Racing!

What a great swimmer she is!

Jack & Mommy (Mandy) joined in on the fun!

SUPER ADDISON!!!!

Dad's Birthday Dinner - a beautiful night dining outside in Austin!

The sunday after the kids celebrations, Trae and I went to the Austin Hot Sauce Festival.  We LOVE all things Salsa and Hot Sauce so with only a small donation to the Austin Food Bank as entry fee... we were IN!  We didn't take many pictures while there because it was so warm outside.  Warm/muggy weather + super hot sauce = sweat city!!!

Riding the bus from public parking to the hot sauce fest.

HOT HOT sauce!!!

This is a picture from our favorite hot sauce booth: Assburn. Yup. That's their name. Their mascot is a devil baby and the female owner insisted we pose with it and then continued to rant how amazing and "natural" we looked with the devil baby. We weren't sure how to take that and chalked it up to one of the weirdest comments we've ever received.

In other news... we have a new "schultz-ism" for those of you who haven't heard.  Trae has been doing a lot of grilling this summer on his new 'Big Green Egg'.  While we both love at-home dinners, Trae has been getting several mosquito bites despite his bug spray and OFF wearable fan. Because of these bites, ( (and slight case of hypochondria) Trae is quite certain he has been "Niled" twice this summer.  "Oh God... I got Niled again, Cyndi".  BUT NO WORRIES, FRIENDS!  Trae believes that a little hydrogen peroxide in his ear does the trick.  We've done it both times and he's pulled through somehow!   

Nurse Cyndi to the rescue!  :)  Ah, I love my dramatic husband!

Hope everyone is doing great! I'm ready for some cooler weather, that's for sure!  Some exciting trips coming up for us: we have the Ole Miss game in a week and then Costa Rica over Thanksgiving with Milton & Sharon!

Growing into our home...

I wish I had pictures of the true "before" of Misty Brook, but I think Trae and I started renovating and moving things around in the first month I moved in.  Not that I wasn't TOTALLY into the Big 12 memorabilia decorating every surface of our house... but it clashed a bit with my furniture I moved into the house at the time.

SO.. we got to renovating.  Painting walls, scraping popcorn, staining wood, making trips to furniture stores and although you will still catching us changing things around here and there to this day, we are pretty happy with Misty Brook and how it turned out! We strongly considered moving during the first major renovation.. then again when we decided we needed more, but every time we go to make a costly improvement with the house and look at real estate, we realize how good we really have it. We love our location, the size is perfect for our family to grow into and did I mention we just did renovations? :)

Here are some updated photos of the house...

Our living room

Den

Kitchen!

Stairs to show new wood throughout house

Guest Bathroom

Guest Room with Photo Booth photos from wedding framed

Our office

Our Patio 

Living Room..again

We'll keep updating you of our growing home!!

A Favorite for all my Loves

I promise to update y'all on the "before and after" photos on Misty Brook in the next post or two!

Today's quick post is to list 2 recipes that my family LOVES.  I adore it when my friends/family write blog posts on their favorite meals!  For those of you who know Tessa Hubbard, she is the ultimate queen on this one.. I copy many of her meals which are always a crowd pleaser!

Recipe #1 is a major favorite of Trae's: Turkey Meatloaf

I wish I could source a link to where I originally got the recipe for this, but I've been making it so long that I have it jotted down on a piece of paper and make it off the same simple note every time!

Like I've mentioned in previous posts, Trae loves him some beef and I have to REALLY knock his socks off with a turkey recipe to make him like it as much as its Beef option... this one does it every time and its OH SO EASY!!!!

BBQ MEATLOAF

1LB Ground Round (or I use 93% lean ground Turkey)

1/2 C BBQ SAUCE (we love the spicy Salt Lick sauce the best)

1/4 C chopped onion

1/4 c Italian dry Bread Crumbs

2 egg whites

1/4 tsp pepper 

*Combine 1/4c BBQ sauce, onion, breadcrumbs, egg whites & Pepper in large bowl, stir well

* add meat and fold ingredients

*shape mixture in a 7x5" pan  (or whatever loaf pan you have)

*spread remaining 1/4 cup bbq sauce over loaf (or more if desired to taste)

BAKE @ 375 for 25 minutes or until done

Yep. That's it. Total Crowd Pleaser. We normally make it with baked sweet potato "fries" and a green. Try it!  (NO PICTURE BECAUSE WE EAT IT TOO FAST.)

Second recipe is thanks to our amazing dog sitter, Erin.  We came home from Australia last year to happy puppies who had homemade dog treats made for them by Erin when we were gone. They LOVED them!!!

I make them now that I'm home with the dogs more, and it feels good to give them something that you made them yourself.

This recipe comes from a cute website called www.brokeassgourmet.com/articles/peanut-butter-bacon-dog-biscuits

Peanut Butter-Bacon Dog Biscuits

• Ingredients
• 2 strips bacon (preferably uncured and thick-cut) 
• 1 1/2 cups flour, plus more for rolling. 
• 1/3 cup flax seed meal 
• 2 tsp baking powder 
• 1/2 cup peanut butter 
• 1 egg, lightly beaten 
• water, as needed
• 
  

Directions

Preheat oven to 325 degrees F. Lightly grease a baking sheet (or line with parchment paper—my preferred method).

Heat a dry frying pan over medium-high heat and cook the bacon until crispy on both sides (2-3 minutes). Drain the bacon on paper towels and reserve the grease left in the pan.

While bacon and bacon grease cool, combine the flour, flax seed meal and baking powder in a mixing bowl. Stir well.

To the dry ingredients, add the peanut butter, egg.

Crumble the bacon and add to the bowl, along with the cooled bacon grease and stir well, adding water as needed to create a thick dough.

On a lightly-floured (or parchment paper-lined) surface, roll the dough out to 1/2” thickness. Use cookie cutters or a paring knife to cut into desired shapes. (I don’t own a bone-shaped cookie cutter, so I just cut circles out of the dough using a small upside-down glass and then used a paring knife to cut the circles into the shape of a bone.). Gather scraps, re-roll and continue cutting shapes out until you run out of dough. Arrange dough shapes on the prepared baking sheet.

Bake for 18-22 minutes, then turn off the oven and leave the biscuits in the turned-off oven for at least an hour (and as long as overnight). This will dry them out and make them more gnaw-able for the pups.

Store the cooled biscuits in an airtight container for up to 2 weeks in the fridge or up to 6 months in the freezer.

Makes 18-24 biscuits (amount varies according to cookie-cutter size).

(a pic taken at the bean in Chicago a few weeks ago.. pretty typical photo for us - me with the camera and trae with his trademark grin... more pics from this trip to come!)

Picky Cooking

One thing not everyone knows about me is how picky of an eater I am. I try not to be... But it's been this way since I was young. I've gotten better over the years, now liking most vegetables and seafood, but I still have some issues with meat.

Watch this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HnjWZT3yWWc

Settle down. I eat meat. I just don't eat red meat, pork or lamb. Seafood, chicken and turkey and eggs are all fair game, though.

My sweet husband has gotten used to my culinary preferences and doesn't complain much when I alter recipes to fit my needs. Don't get me wrong, it took many attempts to find the perfect Turkey meatloaf and other recipes (yes, i will post this recipe soon, but with me doing 99% of our cooking and grocery shopping... He gladly tries all my attempts with grace. OR ELSE! ha...kidding...kinda.

There are few menu options Trae dislikes, but one that has never been a favorite of his is Pesto. This hurts. I LOVE pesto. So instead of kissing my beloved sauce behind, I decided I would find a version Trae loves as much as I do. A culinary challenge, if you will.

Giada-I-over-pronounce-all-Italian-words-de Laurentiis had a Pesto segment on the Today show last week that demonstrated different pesto options.

I made the Grilled Chicken with Spicy Pesto tonight for dinner. Super easy and very fresh. The whole dinner took about 40 minutes and considering I served it over a bed of spinach and walnuts tossed in a bit of the Pesto...it was a full meal thrown together in 1 bowl. The best kind!  This would be really good over all kinds of meats/dishes.  I have a bunch of pesto left over and am popping it in the freezer now for future meals.


http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/47801909/ns/today-food/t/pesto-perfection-giada-shows-three-ways-make-it/#.T96N4e17xG5

** The only difference I would make to the recipe is I would add another 1/2 - full jalapeño.  We didn't think this was spicy at all, and we love spice. Test it as you go and see what you like!

So... Was this version a success?! Clean plate and all thumbs up. He liked it first and second helping.

Back on the Blogging bandwagon!

I don't know why it's so hard for us to keep up with this blog thing. I mean, I LOVE reading other blogs during the day and I would be upset if they never updated their blog... so what's the deal??  I'm jumping back on the bandwagon, friends. Here we go.

If we're catching up from my last blog, let's hold me accountable for some activities I said I would be trying out this year.
1. Photography: I've been spending some good, quality time with my camera and the editing tools that we have (i use lightroom currently). I've even spent some time going on newborn shoots with my good friend and professional Austin baby photographer, Jenni Jones. *plug alert*  (jennijonesphotography.com)  She is so good she makes me want to be good IMMEDIATELY. Like now. Have you ever met anyone like that? Bottom line... I'm working on it.  I need to learn photoshop.. that's still on my "to-do's" for a weekend/few weeks that I make free.
2. Sewing Machine:  I got one for Christmas from my Husband!!! I took 3 introductory sewing classes and haven't touched it since. Having that said, I am glad to have it and look forward to pulling it out and planning projects with it soon...very soon.
3. Train Dogs: Oh man... we hired a trainer and they were good for like 3 months. Now it's like they've digressed and are doing it smugly. For instance, we've had George almost a year now and he's successfully ruined landscaping lights, several potted plants, a hot tub cover + 1/2 (the second is on its way), 2 inside shutters, a coffee table, our new outside patio furniture... yep all of it, some A/V cables that our contractor was using, an arm chair, and many many dug holes in our backyard. It's a little discouraging.

All in all.. a decent start.

In true Schultz fashion, things have been VERY face paced for the past few months leaving little extra time for hobbies.  We are still fixing up Misty Brook, making necessary changes to make this a home for the next 3-5+ years.  This deserves its own special blog post featuring before/after pictures. To be continued...

We have managed to fit in a few fun times with friends, though!  For St. Patty's Day we went up to Dallas to see the Ratliffs, Shepherds and Hubbards.  In fact, it was Tessa that asked us to blog more and suggested we post more about George!

So without further adieu ... Meet George Schultz.

George's story:
Last July while on our anniversary trip to Seattle & Portland, Trae and I started discussing getting Colbie a doggie "sibling".  We felt that she was bored and needed companionship while we were gone. .. or at least I thought she did. :) Trae was pretty unsure about adding a second dog, but when we saw George's face on Austinboxerrescue.com we were in love.  George was around 6 months and was a little underweight but otherwise friendly living with a foster family.  He got his name "George" from a young boy, named George, who chose to donate his birthday money to ABR to sponsor a dog, rather than accept gifts.  We thought the name suited him perfectly, so didn't change it.
While George has managed to successfully ruin several hundred... possibly thousands of dollars worth of our home in our first year, he has also warmed our hearts with his sweet face and loves his big sister Colbie so much he cannot bear to not be by her side.
We look forward to George's puppy years to be over and are glad he's part of the familia...most days. ;)