what i'm lovin' wednesday!

I know, I know- I've been a little MIA lately. Of course, I have to lay the blame at the feet of two people:

     #1- This trainwreck

Jodi Arias

I spend basically every free second I have at work checking the live blog for this trial. Seriously, it's an obsession, a sickness, and I can't stop. I was the same with Casey Anthony. I'm sure I'll be the same when the Aurora psycho goes on trial too. If I had been old enough to understand/care during the OJ trial, there's no doubt I would have been addicted to that as well. When I get sucked in and am convinced someone is guilty/deserves justice, I follow the trial with the same passion that I watch, for instance, the Iron Bowl. For all you non-Bammers and non-Barners, that's an in-state college football rivalry, and I am fiercely passionate about the outcome of the game. Likewise, I'm absorbed by every detail of this trial and find myself subconciously "cheering" whenever the prosecutor makes a slam-dunk in court. This trial has read like some sort of trashy romance/criminal suspense novel. The kind you can't put down even though you're embarrassed to admit it. Sex, lies, deceit, cheating, religious scandal, murder, blood... you name it, this trial has it. It's riveting to watch, and hopefully when it is over, I'll have a little more time on my hands.

     #2- Matthew Crawley

So now that you know how I spend every free second at work, it's only fair to tell you how I've been spending every free second outside of work. That's right folks- I'm 100% on the Downton Abbey bandwagon. I kept hearing so many good things about it that I just had to give it a shot. I watched an episode or two on Netflix a couple of months ago, but got busy and never got back to it. A few weeks ago, a friend loaned me Seasons 1 and 2 on DVD, and since then I've been living on a British rollercoaster of love, war, and social class division. LOVE IT. The hype is for real y'all. I'm almost done with Season 2, and I dare say I'm a little nervous to see Season 3 after hearing so much recently about the finale. DON'T TELL ME if you have seen it! I've heard so many people discussing it that it's been almost impossible to avoid a major spoiler. But so far, I've successfully managed to stay in the dark until I watch.

So there you have it, my two very time-consuming guilty pleasures of the moment. And how appropriate that I shared this secret for "What I'm Loving Wednesday" because I'm most certainly loving the courtroom dramatics of the Arias trial and the "Will they or won't they?" saga between Mary and Matthew on Downton.

Here's a VERY brief recap of some of the things we've been up to since my last post:

Valentine's Day

Pink Sugar Cookies

Red Velvet Milky Way Cookies

Whole morning at the spa courtesy of Mr. M

Birthday Celebrations

Group birthday celebration at Cocina for our friend Jesse

Sweet Tate's 2nd Birthday Monster Party

Nashville Trip

Paradise Park- our fave

Love some Mal

Traditional group guitar pic!

And last but not least, I leave you with some of my favorite Oscar looks (via):

Charlize

My absolute favorite- Naomi

Jennifer

Cutest couple - the Tatums

Royal Reese

Jessica

Amy

wednesday loving

I'm linking up with Jamie for What I'm Loving Wednesday to share a few of my current random loves.

1. Nutella Muffins with Cream Cheese Icing

I've made these delicious muffins the last couple of weekends and we are hooked! Here's the how-to if anyone is interested.

• 1 can Pillsbury Grand Biscuits
• 1 small jar Nutella
• 1 1/2 cups powdered sugar
• 4 oz. cream cheese softened
• 1 tsp. vanilla
• Preheat oven to 350 degrees

- Roll each of the 8 Pillsbury Grand Biscuits out into a flat circle with rolling pin. Coat with sugar on both sides.
- Spread a couple Tbsp. of Nutella onto each rolled out dough.
- Roll up each dough.
- Cut each rolled up dough into 3 equal pieces.
- Place 3 pieces, with the cut side up, into each muffin tin slot.
- Bake at 350 F for about 15 minutes. Once cooked, let cool in the muffin tin for 5 minutes, then remove and let finish cooling (or if you are like me and like them warm, then you won't have to wait long :) )
- For Icing, beat softened cream cheese, vanilla, and powdered sugar together until smooth. Top Each Nutella Roll with Icing.

 Recipe via Chef In Training

2. Carrie Diaries

It's no SATC, but you take what you can get. And I think this new series about high-school-age Carrie Brashaw is a fresh, pleasant surprise. Check it out!  

3. SAG Awards
I thought the SAG fashion was a bit of snooze-fest this year, but I did see a couple of looks that I loved.

Jennifer Garner

Amanda Seyfreid



Katrina Bowden
All SAG images via Yahoo

4. THE Kiss

Nick and Jess FINALLY locked lips last night on New Girl. On a side note, if anyone knows where Jess got that super cute ruffle robe, please tell Mr. M that yours truly would like one for Valentine's Day.

Have a good Hump Day!!!

christmas in the city: day four

Here it is folks- the final post on our December NYC trip. All of this re-living the fun has only made me want to go back. Who's with me??
Sadly, my picture taking dwindled as the days went on, so I have very few pictures from our last day. So here it goes, the final recap. 

Saturday, December 8

• We woke up Saturday morning, got ready, and headed to Paradou for "drunk brunch". What is drunk brunch you might ask? Apparently this is the term for the ever-popular meal between breakfast and lunch in which various NYC restaurants serve you all the champagne cocktails you can drink as you eat. SO MUCH FUN! And the food was delicious. This was easily the guys' favorite part of the trip.

Paradou

• Since Saturday was our last full day in the city, we did not really make out an agenda for this day and decided to play it by ear. As we were leaving brunch, we noticed a cool little bar down the street called the Brass Monkey. Because there's a bar near our hometown with the same name, we decided we had to check it out. We had some fun conversation with a few locals in here and enjoyed our leisurely stay.

The Monkey

• After spending the day out and about we headed to the hotel to freshen up. Then it was off to Eatlay. I could have wandered around this food hall forever. So many interesting places! We got a table at Birreria to enjoy some craft beers and a cheese plate. I loved the atmosphere here!

• Finally it was off to our dinner reservation at Gramercy Tavern. This restaurant was gorgeous and the food was mouth-watering- the perfect way to end our trip! We somehow discovered that our server was originally from Alabama, and when she found out that we were too, she brought out her manager who was also an Alabama native. Before leaving for New York, he had worked at some of my favorite Birmingham restaurants- Highlands Bar & Grill and Hot & Hot Fish Club. Small world. The hometown connection made for a very fun meal! And as I said before, the food was out of this world good!

Yes, I'm the crazy person who takes a picture of the resaurant's front door. It was so beautiful!

The trip was truly a whirlwind of good food, good friends, and great memories! Sunday we headed back to Alabama thoroughly satisfied and thoroughly exhausted. I already can't wait to go back!

christmas in the city: day three

I've been slacking this week with the holiday on Monday and various things going on, but I did manage to crank out the next NYC recap post. Enjoy!

Friday, December 7

• We headed out of the hotel bound for FAO Schwartz. Our plan was to hit it up early before the massive crowds gathered. Good idea in theory but massive crowds nonetheless.





Even big kids love a huge toy store!

• All those kids and fun toys can make you hungry. Next it was time for lunch at Burger Joint, a cool dive restaurant in the Parker Le Meridian hotel. So yummy!

• During Christmas the Parker Le Meridian also has showcases gingerbread houses constructed by local bakeries in the lobby. Very cool thing to see. 



Lincoln was our fave gingerbread creation!

• We bounced over to Bloomies next. A lot of you know that I try to collect an ornament from each of our trips, and this one was no different. After browsing all of the ornament displays, I settled on the Radko NYC ornament (shown in this post).



Bloomies!

• Tea has become a must-do for me whenever I'm in the city. It's so fun to get dressed up and enjoy a formal tea service with a girlfriend. All of the hustle and bustle from the street outside just fades away as you sit down to the white table linens, fine china, polished silver, and beautiful tray of finger sandwiches and scones. After Bloomingdales, Kat and I had reservations at the St. Regis for afternoon tea. Astor Court does a wonderful tea service that I highly recommend for any of you fellow girly-girls. Meanwhile, the boys headed to Park Avenue Tavern for something a little more manly (aka beer via self-serve taps).  

• After our tea reservation, we met up with the guys at Park Avenue Tavern then headed to Grand Central. I did not think it was possible for this landmark to be any more gorgeous but Christmas at Grand Central certainly proved me wrong. We wandered around taking in the beauty and browsed some of the holiday market shops (noticing a pattern?) before heading back to the hotel to freshen up.

• Next we hoppped on the subway bound for Brooklyn. We had dinner reservations at Peter Luger and the guys had been looking forward to this meal the entire trip. You see, Peter Luger has consistently been voted best steak in NYC and our guys love their red meat. If you are planning to visit NYC with a man, go ahead and put this place on your to-do list and be sure to order the following- Appetizer: Bacon, Shrimp, Tomato, and Onion chopped and mixed together. Entree: Porterhouse for 4 with spinach and potatoes. We got advice from a local on what to order and hit the jackpot. Our meal was D-E-L-I-C-I-O-U-S! The steak was wonderful, but I have to admit that I fell in love with the spinach most of all. 

  

  The aftermath





Post-Peter Luger = Happy Husby


• After dinner, we were ready for some fun so we headed to a flip-cup bar. While I can't remember the name of this bar, it is known for hosting flip cup and beer pong tournaments. It was a bit of a dive, but lots of fun.

• We had met up with some other NYC friends of Katharine's at the flip cup bar who insisted that we should check out a "country bar". So off to Johnny Utah’s we went. Country bar it was NOT. The presence of a mechanical bull and the occasional country song played by the DJ does not equal a true country bar. It was, however, very fun and entertaining. We had a blast here and even coaxed one of our party to give the bull a shot.

• Fun night complete, it was off to hotel and the bed for us!

Day Four (the final recap post) to follow soon!

christmas in the city: day two

Hope you all had a good week and are ready for the weekend! Another day, another NYC recap!

Thursday, December 6

• We kicked off the day with an early lunch at the famous Carnegie Deli. Nothing like a monster sandwich to engerize you for a busy day in NYC.
• Next we set out for Bryant Park – hello ice skating and holiday market shopping!

Beautiful Bryant Park

More Bryant Park

• Of course the boys wanted to visit Wall Street, so that was next on the agenda...

No trip is complete without a picture with the bull

...or the back-end of the bull

• We didn't want to spend a huge chunk of the day going to see the Statue of Liberty, so while we were near Wall Street we headed over to Battery Park. From there the guys could at least get a good view Lady Liberty.

Lady Liberty

• We had reservations at Ground Zero and the 9/11 Memorial next. While most of the trip was filled with fun and laughter, we all very much enjoyed this time of reflection. Such a moving experience.

South Memorial Pool

One of the new WTC buildings

• By this point, we needed a little pick-me-up, so we made the trek to Union Square to enjoy some delicious hot chocolate while we browsed more holiday market shops.

Union Square Holiday Market

• Before our reservation, we had time for a pre-dinner toddy. Since we loved Death and Company so much the first night, we popped in JBird Cocktails (same owner and trust me, the guy knows how to craft a cocktail). We munched on some of their savory popcorn and enjoyed a couple of drinks. I'm pretty sure Clint won the prize for best selection with his pineapple shell creation.

And it GLOWED

happy boy





• After JBird's we made out way to Felidia for our dinner reservation. It's a shame that you can't take pictures in nice restaurants because these Italian dishes were true works of art. Everyone thoroughly enjoyed their meal, and while I can't remember everyone's dish, I had the Biancorneri Alla Trapanese (a black and white bavette pasta with calamari and trapanese pesto). HIGHLY RECOMMEND.

• For dessert, we decided a trip to Dylan’s was in order. A bar in a candy shop, y'all. Heaven. Of course we had a blast exploring all the candy in the store, but the true treat was heading up to the bar on the top floor. The decor and cocktail menu is all candy-themed, and it's impossible not to be happy in such a fun place. While everything we tried was pretty tasty, I think everyone was in agreement that the Pink Cotton Candy drink was definitely the best!

Dylan's

Cotton Candy Cocktails

Sitting in a cupcake. I should live here.

Kat and Matt

Me and Mr. M

• After "dessert", we had a little late night fun out and about in the city and then trekked back to the hotel to get ready for Day 3.

I'll be back with Day 3 as soon as possible. Happy Friday!!!