It's time for Holiday Cards!!!

I know it's not even Thanksgiving yet, but I am SUPER excited about holiday cards this year for 3 reasons...

1. This is our first Christmas as a Slivocka family (Kris, Gromit, and I)!

2. I love getting Christmas cards, so I feel like I should send them too!

3. Shutterfly has AMAZING holiday cards!

I ordered our guest book for our wedding on shutterfly and everyone loved it! It was one of their photobooks.

These are some of my favorites:

Find this one Here

This one can be found here

Click here for this one

Bloggers get 50 free holiday cards from Shutterfly...Learn more by heading here.

You will have to wait and see which one you get in the mail!

Thank you Shutterfly!!

Friday Finds

I am always instantly drawn to all things Vera Bradley, so when I get the emails almost daily I instantly have to look at the content. It usually means there is a new item on sale or they have something new in the collection. (both super cool!) Today was one of those days and I just have to share it. I LOVE finding something that can be the perfect Christmas/Birthday gift for someone who I am stuck on what to get. These are perfect and I can't wait to buy them. I already have specific people in mind (including myself of course!).

Here is the Christmas Ornament that with a couple together could double as a centerpiece on your table in a pretty clear bowl the rest of the year when it's not on your tree. It comes packaged in this cute box too for only $18! And there are several patterns to choose from.
The second is this apron. I don't own an apron but I plan on it real soon. I want this in all the patterns and then I can where a different one every day of the week while I'm cooking up dinner (haha) that would be a perfect world if I actually cooked every night. This comes in a cute package as well for only $28!

Update from the last blog:

It's been a MUCH better week this week for my Dad especially which in turn makes it better for me too! Kris has his last regular football game tonight and we are hoping for an undefeated record heading into playoffs next weekend!!

Recovery

I had one of those weeks last week that you NEVER want to relive. It all started last Monday morning when I got a phone call from my Grandma that my Dad had yet another bad night. I won't go into that, but for those that know me well know my Dad has not been in the good health for the last 2 years after his near death heart attack and open heart surgery. THIS has been one of the HARDEST things for me to deal with.

My Mom came into town on Tuesday for my Brother and Carly's wedding this past weekend. We had a few things to do in preparation for the rehearsal dinner and wedding (we did a popcorn bar for her favors). With out her in town I probably would not have made it through the week. I miss her terribly not living in Dallas, so we are all hoping she can move back real soon!

I took off work Thursday and Friday so we could get everything done and it's a good thing I did because we had to tend to my Dad and help him move to his new "home" for awhile. It was the hardest day of my life thus far...I was an emotional wreck all day and hardly ever stopped crying. I am still an emotional wreck but the crying has subsided a little bit.

My Dad means the world to me and I am a total DADDY's girl. He is the a great man and the fact that he is suffering SO bad eats away at me. I want to help him any way I can but I am starting to realize that there is not much more I can do and so the guilt has been tough.

The wedding was really great and I had a great time visiting with my family that was in town. I wish I had more time with them, but the time we had was great!

This is the Biermann's + Ryan (Jodi's Fiance). I am sure you can tell who is who by the height difference among these people. They live in Kentucky and Virginia and we don't get to see them as often as we'd like.

This is my Mother (far right) and my 2 Aunts. My Aunt Donna lives in Missouri and Aunt Joyce lives in Kentucky. We are sar spread out and I hate it. Clearly my family likes to wear black!

Kris was in the wedding so this was a pic of us dancing the first dance...I love my husband. He makes me a better person and keeps me sain MOST fo the time. I have struggled with a lot of things lately and he is always there to bring me back up.

And this was our popcorn bar...the Popcorn was awesome and everyone LOVED the idea! I have a lot left over and I'm plannig to make some goodies for the football players tonight since it's their team colors!! And so I will stop eating it every night!

Weekend Wrap-up!

This Weekend started off on Thursday it seemed like because that's when Kris' team played. Since they have to share the district stadium with 2 other teams they usually have to play on at least on Thursday a season.
We WON! Which is becoming a regular thing for the Raiders...I hope this lasts all season! It's fun to win! I wish I could say that for the rest of our sports teams this weekend.

It made for a very dreary Sunday when the Rangers Lost...then the Cowboys Lost...but Kris' fantasy team won!! Amish Gone Wild...yeah! (I only care about this and don't grip at him when he spends A LOT of time talking to my Brother about who they are going to play...because there is a pretty good prize that comes if you win!)

Friday night we went to http://firesidepies.com in Legacy center. We've been wanting to try this out for a while and it was awesome! I splurged and had wine and appetizer and then we split a pizza. So good!

Saturday we got up and had to chat with our financial advisor (this makes me feel old) but he is one of my Mom's friends and he started to help Kris and I out with our savings and retirement. Who knew we needed to start saving for retirement now...well most people don't, but I really don't want to have to work forever. That call was way over my head and lasted most of the morning so we were ready to get out of the house after that. Just did errands then hung around the house for the rest of the day.

On Sunday, Kris' parents took us out for brunch at Lawrys, which was a treat and amazing food!

Goal for this week: work out at least 3 days!

On the calender for this weekend: Football game at the Colony on Friday and the State Fair of TEXAS! on Saturday (which means working out 5 days will be my goal for next week...yeah right!)

There's only one Ryan...

I have found myself having some major dejavu when I'm at Ryan Football games. It's been 9 years since I was in that exact place every Friday night cheering on the Raiders and as fate would have it I find myself cheering on the Raiders from the stands every Friday night. If you would have told me I would be married to a Ryan coach 9 years ago when I graduated I would have called your bluff, but here I am! I LOVE every minute of it and it brings me back to some really fun times, but I still can't believe things turned out they way they did. Sometimes I find myself paying more attention to the cheerleaders than watching the game, and being that I've always been a football dummy you can understand why I would do that. I've really been to not sit myself in the view of the cheerleaders so I can become a more knowledgeable coaches wife, but it's not going so well! That will be something I have to try harder at accomplishing this season. The Raiders are doing great and had a BIG win over Lake Dallas this past week...it was on TV and completely sold out! Dad and I got to the game about 30 min late and we were told (by the green shirt Lake Dallas Nazi) that if we didn't have a ticket or a pass we couldn't get in...little did she know I'm big time and had a PASS!! Thank goodness!! We had to sit in the only seat I could see which just happened to be right in the middle of 50 high school girls who screamed and yelled about Justin Bieber ALL night...I don't know how Kris handles that all day because I was going nuts! Here are some photos from the game...

Here's the link to the new jumbo-tron promo video Kris' bro Jay did for the football team...it's pretty cool! (P.S. Kris has a slight feature about 40 second in ) (;

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0nlCrIFbOXY

I want to Rock and Roll all night......

So this is a montage from my first KISS concert experience. I got Kris these tickets back in June and gave them to him as his wedding present. They were pretty expensive and I wanted to get good seats so we would be close AND (this is big) I wanted to be on the side of the stage where we wouldn't be in the sun. I've never been to Pizza Hut Park before so I just guessed and well...I guessed wrong! The concert started at 1pm but that was mainly just no name bands who were playing and Pat Green and Daughtery didn't go on until almost 6pm. We got there and sat on the West side of the stand until the sun went down then moved to our seats. I was excited mainly to see Pat Green and Daughtery, but there was probably only 1% of the fans who were in my shoes...they were ALL there to see KISS and it showed!

This was just one of the tons of people who had face paint and garb on...can you believe this kid?? He was probably maybe 5 years old. I am so not a Rock and Roll type of music fan, but this is was Kris grew up listening to and I was trying to be nice. I have to admit I did know a few of the songs, but only the mainstream popular one's.

This concert by far wins the award for the biggest production I've ever seen...I mean fireworks, fire, smoke, confetti exploding everywhere, and Paul Simon and Gene Simmons were hardly ever just standing on stage. They were zipling across the audience, raising on platforms, singing on top of the lights all while wearing that garb with 6 inch platforms on and it was HOT!! These guys are in their 60's, which is pretty unbelievable.

Kris left LOVING every minute of it and I'm just gonna say I enjoyed experiencing it but probably not going to go see them again. (:

Health Kick

So, Kris and I are sort of on a health kick these days. I figure it's so easy to cut some of the bad things out of your cooking, so why not do it when you can. Kris has had some cholesterol issues, so these days I am always searching for a low cholesterol recipe that's still tastey. Kris also is not a big chicken fan, so I have to come up with really good chicken recipes or he is not really interested. He is 100% a beef lover and we have almost completely cut that out of our at home meals, in less I can find a good "healthy" beef recipe. We did not have a whole lot going on this weekend, or at least I didn't while Kris was engrossed with football Saturday and Sunday night. Anyways...this gave me time to find some good healthy/low cholesterol recipes for the 4 days we get to have dinner together (Sun-Wed). I almost always search on http://allrecipes.com because most of the recipes have pictures and I refuse to cook something if I don't know what it looks like first. Here is what I found...


Sunday Night: Gumbo Style Chicken Creole


http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Gumbo-Style-Chicken-Creole/Detail.aspx

Monday Night: Fiery Fish Tacos with Crunchy Corn Salsa

http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Fiery-Fish-Tacos-with-Crunchy-Corn-Salsa/Detail.aspx

Tuesday: Slow Cooker Pulled Pork Sandwiches

http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Slow-Cooker-Pulled-Pork/Detail.aspx

Wednesday: Beef w/ Broccoli and brown rice

http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Broccoli-Beef-I/Detail.aspx

The only recipe on here that I can comment on is the Creole Chicken and it was delicious! Of course we add our own flair and alterations to each recipe, but for the most part I stick to them. We like things spicy so I usually add stuff to make it spicier than the original recipe, and Kris LOVES onions so most everything I cook has onions in it. I also always buy wheat instead of white when I can...so for this week we had brown rice, wheat tortillas, and wheat buns!