Weekend Recap- Lights, Running, Basketball, Work, Family, & Baking!

Happy Monday Before Christmas!!

Yay for a short week!! How was everyone's weekend? Fabulous, I hope! My weekend was jam packed with fun, and quite a bit of work as well, but we will just talk about the fun stuff.

On Friday, Eric surprised me and took me out to see the most amazing Christmas lights ever! The neighborhood is called Deerfield, and literally every other house was decked out in Christmas lights. One house had the lights synched up to Christmas music. It was absolutely beautiful. I took some video, so hopefully I can figure out how to upload it to the blog. Here are some samples of a few of the houses we saw. Please pardon the picture quality, I had to take them on my iPhone.

If you look closely, you can see that the characters in the windows are made out of balloons. I had to do a double take when I first saw them. How creative and cute!

On Saturday, I went for a run in the morning (more like I went to the treadmill for a run, but oh well). Then, Eric and I ran a few errands before heading to the A&M vs. Arkansas basketball game. The game was in the American Airlines Center, and we had a blast! However, I was once again reminded that you can forget about finding anything healthy to eat at most sporting events. :(

After the game, we went to dinner in Uptown at a restaurant called State & Allen. I had the most delicious Portobello mushroom and avocado sandwich on whole wheat bread. It was mmmm mmmm good. The Portobello mushroom was so juicy, I didn't even need to use the red pepper pesto sauce that came on the side. All growing up, I hated mushrooms, but now I can't get enough of them. I think my taste buds must be maturing. ;)

I have to admit, after dinner I quickly morphed into an 80 year old lady and passed out on the couch at 9:00pm while the hubby was watching a bowl game.

On Sunday morning, I had to get up and do some stuff for work, but then we got to go to lunch with Eric's brother, his wife, her sister and her mom who came in for the day. They live pretty far away, so it's always good to get so see them.

Sunday evening, I was a cooking/baking machine. For dinner, I had a tuna steak and a gigantic sweet potato. I definitely couldn't finish it all.

 

I also made goodies for Eric and I to take to work. Since everyone is itching to go home for the holidays, treats are always a good thing to help the time pass. I made chocolate chip funfetti cake batter cookies, cinnamon cake batter cookies, and low-fat banana oat bread. The first two items definitely fall under the fabulous category, while the banana bread is actually pretty healthy. Eric won't take things with the word low-fat with him to work, so cookies it was for his crew.

I found a banana bread recipe the other day on The Healthy Apron that looked absolutely delicious. Erin's recipes are always yummy. I wanted to modify the recipe a bit, so I decided to give it a test run tonight before I brought it home for Christmas! I'm no Master Chef after all. If all goes well, I will have the banana bread recipe for you tomorrow! :)

Food for thought:
Do you think your taste buds can really "mature" or change as you age?
What is your favorite holiday baked good?
Are you a cookie, cake, brownie, pie or bread person? I would have to say I am a pie or bread person.

In health,