Wow, what a whirl-wind fortnight (or more) it’s been here in the McMaster household!

The two weeks leading up to Helena’s arrival was all kinds of crazy in itself.  We were certainly kept very busy, and, I don’t know about you all, but for me, this year is going by quicker and quicker, the closer to the New Year we get!

I’m trying to remember just how far back I have to go, to bring y’all up to speed.  I’ll start on November 29th (man, doesn’t November seem like a forever ago?!).  A pretty healthy group of twelve of my SSA friends got together in Sweet Tomatoes, for what ended up being, pretty much the last time we’d all be together this year.

Our table was pretty long, too long to socialise with everyone sitting around it, but it was fun.  For those of you who haven’t been to Sweet Tomatoes before, it’s pretty much an all you can eat salad bar.  They have soups, breads, pastas, a little ice cream machine, and any number of yummy yummies to devour for lunch – and, it’s dirt cheap (it’s also made slightly cheaper by the fact that we get a 15% SLB discount too!)  For those of you who haven’t yet tried it, I can’t recommend it enough (my sister loved it when she was here!)

After lunch, it was home to get all glammed up for an Office of Foreign Affairs Holiday party that the choir was invited to.  However, our President couldn’t go, so she invited me to go instead.  I was dreading it, I imagined a room full of stuffy people, not in the least interested in the ‘little people’, like Col and I.  Turned out, I was right, one person spoke to us (a representative from Japan) and, when he heard we weren’t with the UN, ‘just’ the choir, he hauled ass on to someone more interesting.

So, from there, we headed to Bombay to Beijing for a slightly later than normal dinner, as we were starving!

This place came to us on the recommendation of an Indian friend of mine here in Houston.  She’d heard me complain and complain that I couldn’t find a good Indian restaurant locally.  It was ok, not as good as the London Sizzler, but not bad, in a pinch, though, a little too expensive!

We had the onion pakora to start, it was delicious, a little subtle on the flavour but the batter was light and tasty.  The dipping sauces we got with the poppadoms (which were yummy) weren’t great, the hot one was too hot for hubby and I and the sweet one just wasn’t nice.  I’d recommend a nice chilled curry dipping sauce for that kind of starter.

Hubby had chicken fried rice – I think the Chinese selection on the menu is very limited and he had it because it was all he would be able to eat on the menu and not cause it’s what he WANTED to eat off the menu.

I had the Chicken Korma, with a side of pilau rice and some garlic naan, I ordered it mild, but it was verging on too spicy for me – korma is mild by nature, so where this heat came from I’ve no idea.  It was tasty (and day two left overs were even better, somehow the flavours had dulled and not gotten stronger, so the heat was less).  The korma was good, though it’s not white chicken breast meat, I’d say the quality of the ingredients weren’t worth the cash.

The garlic naan was nice, also,  but I’d still prefer the London Sizzler, it’s just a wee bit better on every level!

Wednesday (30th) is noteworthy, for mostly one reason, I got my KitchenAid mixer…I swear, Christmas well and truly came early!

I have been drooling over this from afar for a while now, but when this deal came up, I couldn’t walk away from it!

Kitchen Aid 5QT Artisan
R.R.P $400
Black Friday Sale price $300
Add to cart, drops to $270
20% off coupon $215
$30 Mail in Rebate $185
10% cashback Ebates $163.50
Add Tax + Shipping $181.50
$15 Kohls Cash for every $50 spent = $60
Total $181.50 with $60 Kohls cash to spend in store on whatever I want, ‘like’ paying $121.50! whoot!! Cheapest price I’d seen in a long time!

I was a VERY happy Black Friday shopper.  Honestly, I cracked that sucker open and put it straight to use, gotta earn your keep here in Casa McMaster!

Thursday brought with it the first day of December, and my first experience babysitting for little Eve Madden.

Now, if you’ve not fallen completely head over heals in love with this adorable little baby, go get your head seen to! LOL! She’s a wee dote and behaved like a real trooper being away from her parents for the first time.

She took it in her stride and enjoyed putting Aunty Las through her paces!  When Magz had finished giving her dietetics talk, we hit up TGI’s for lunch before Aunty Las did some frosting-making and went to choir practice.

Friday December 2nd, was originally supposed to be the SSA Winter social, however, plans fell through and,  instead, we did an SSA dinner group in it’s place, we went to Azuma, check out the review, here.

Aside from the crappy service, we had a wonderful evening with some really great friends!

Sunday (4th) brought with it my first performance with the UNA Chamber Choir.  I know I’ve gone on and on, and on about how honoured I was to be chosen to sing in this small, 25 person group, but I really, really feel blessed.

These people are talented beyond any words I can write on this blog.  As I spend time with them, I am coming to learn that they are wonderful individuals, with a special gift and each has something different to contribute to the group.

We sang for the English Speaking Union of Houston, it was a 30 minute set and I had an absolute BLAST!  I’d never been to the Houstonian before, the halls were seriously ‘decked’, as they say.

It was beautiful and definitely helped bring out the holiday cheer!

Tuesday, I met another special little girl, another Evelyn (Evy for short), born only two short weeks after Miss Eve, but just as adorable in her own right.

I have to say, she was a total gem. She gave great cuddles and was so very well behaved!  It was great to see Heather too, it’d been so long since we just ‘hung out’ that I was really starting to miss her.

Back at home, I did a serious cook-a-thon.  I spent a few short hours making a bulk-batch of food.  I’ve found that I’ve been so seriously busy latley, that by the time I get home, it’s too late to make anything, I’ve never any inspiration and, that’s the time when we just hit the restaurants.

I decided to cook-up a batch of food to freeze, so I can just take something out the night before (or the morning of), let it defrost and I’ll have stuff to eat, instead of nothing but excuses.

I made cheesy chicken noodle bake, cottage pie, chicken Florentine, sausage casserole, chicken in hoisin sauce with veggies, both dinner (with left over) and lunch portions.  It was a very productive few hours!

Thursday was a day of insanity.

No, really, I was run from pillar to post!

It started with the SSA’s 5th annual ornament exchange down in Mimi’s Cafe, Pearland.  Pearland always reminds me of my friends Colin and Amee, (who, I have to say I’m missing a lot at the moment), I do enjoy it down there, it’s a great place to shop if you’ve not checked it out yet!

The event was a great success, we had around 45 ladies turn out for a breakfast and ornament exchange, it was my first ever exchange, and I really enjoyed it, I sat chatting to a couple of old and new friends alike.  One in particular, Shelley, I’ve known for a while now, but not really had a change to *talk* to her, it was nice to spend some time just chatting! I also got to see some other ladies I’d not seen in a long time which was nice!

Straight after the ornament exchange, I hopped in the car and drove to my newest hairdresser, Angel’s house.  I discovered Angel at the Regency Beauty school a few months ago and I LOVED her work!

Today, was a special occasion, Col (my hubby for those of you who aren’t aware,) was celebrating his 15 year seniority dinner with his company.  I had to get glammed up!

At Angel’s house, I had a manicure, pedicure, haircut and hairstyle, ok, so we were a little late to the dinner (ok, about 25 minutes late) but I was glammed up, dressed up and ready to hang out with Col’s boss, his bosses boss and a whole bunch of SLB guys and gals who have all served 5, 10, 15, 20, 25 and 30 year milestones with the company.

The event was in the Wynden, the food was absolutely divine! It was a four course dinner, I started with the jumbo lump crab cake (beurre blanc, red wine reduction, saffron aioli), I’m not normally a brave or experimental sea food lover, but that was delicious!!

Second course was a Frisse BLT, Apple smoked bacon, grape tomatoes, maytag blue cheese and sweet onion emulsion – a little too ‘smokey’ tasting and I can now officially say that I’m not a fan of blue cheese, but it was really quite an impressive salad!

For my third course, I had herb crusted pork, mediterranean BBQ sauce and mango confit with whipped potatoes and haricot vert.  Are you getting the picture on how fancy this place was?

For dessert, I enjoyed something called a molten chocolate eruption with vanilla bean ice cream.

The meal was out of this world, service was impeccable (seriously, I didn’t want for anything all night) and I can’t begin to tell you all just how proud of my hubby I was.  His boss said some really nice things about both Col and I, and I went home with a box of delicious Godiva chocolates and a gorgeous bunch of flowers.

The evening was great fun, I enjoyed myself.  I got to talk to some of Col’s co-workers, their wives and enjoyed a delicious dinner – what more could I want?

Friday, was a return trip to Sweet Tomatoes for lunch with another friend who I haven’t seen in FOREVER! My crafty friend Helen listened to me whine and moan for almost two whole hours – poor gal needs a medal! LOL! It was great to see her though, and my new years resolution is to go to more scrap-booking groups with her!

Back at home, after lunch, I did some last minute cleaning and tidying and got the news that my sister had hopped a slightly earlier flight than originally planned, so I was THRILLED!