The Non-adventures and Crazy Ramblings of Martha

Non-Adventure # 42 SiNg sOnG!

2011-03-18T10:58:00.005-05:00

It has been a couple of years since I have been to Sing Song mostly because I haven't been in or known anyone in Sing Song but my sweet friend Baylee pledged Siggies this year and I was determined to go and see her. My best and fun loving friend Robin agreed to go with me, even though she had no clue what Sing Song was and I had no great way to explain it to her. Our crazy schedules prevented us from leaving earlier than Saturday morning but we still had plenty of time to make the afternoon show. We headed out somewhat early on Saturday morning and chatted and talked and caught up on things. It made the drive fly-by and before we knew it we were in Abilene and we were starving, we were ready for lunch, and I knew the perfect place...
La Popular!

We had a delicious lunch! I had my favorite burritos and they were just like I remembered them~FANTASTIC!

We then decided to head back to ACU to park and pick up our tickets at will call. Since we had some time we cruised around the campus center and it is soooo different. It looks really cool, modern, and bright but I miss the Hilton Room. I have great memories from ACU and a lot of them were in that room. But enough of that. We also cruised through the bookstore where I picked us this cup:
By now we figured we should REALLY head over and pick up the tickets. As we were coming out of the campus center I was explaining that everyone wears costumes as I pointed out what was clearly Siggies in their Piggie costumes, I recognized my favorite piggie~Baylee! She chatted with us quickly before she had to get going and we finally hit up will call, got our tickets and headed in to find our seats. Our seats were portrayed online as further back than when we actually got there and got to sit in them. We were in the front row. We couldn't have been any closer or we would have been a part of the show! Here we are getting our pose on in front of the stage before the show began.
With out a flash this was the best I could do with my iPhone to get a picture of the Siggie Piggies.
The finale with everyone coming back in.

After the show Baylee wanted us to come with her and her family to eat dinner and she chose:

Fuji's!

Here I am with my sweet Siggie Piggie Baylee! I just love her!
After dinner we decided to head on home. We made a quick stop at the Luttrells to say hello, I couldn't just pass through town without saying hi to that sweet, wonderful family. Then we filled up with gas at Walmart got some blizzards for the road and headed home. We had a great time and I enjoyed seeing Sing Song again, even though the Siggies were beat by popcorn. Robin liked the show too. She said her favorites were the Grad students with their Super Mario Theme. I'll leave y'all with one more picture of Robin and I hamming it up before the show.

Non-Adventure # 41 Black Heels and Marlboro Man

2011-03-16T12:23:00.011-05:00

I'm sure many of you remember when I went and waited in line for hours for the Pioneer Woman~Ree Drummond to sign my cookbook, if not you can read about it here. Well she wrote another book, this book is called Black Heels to Tractor Wheels.This book chronicles the story of how she met her husband, The Marlboro Man (so called for his likeness to the ruggedly handsome Marlboro Man in the cigarette ads) and adjusting to life as newlywed and ranch life.

It just so happens I found out she was doing another book tour and this time she would be stopping again at the Borders on Preston Road, on Valentine's Day! Unlike last time I was a little more informed about the process this time and my sweet and very kind father offered to head over to the bookstore when it opened, purchase my copy of the book and thus obtain my golden ticket~
a purple wristband~the first color in the wristbands they were handing out. This guaranteed me a short wait later that evening! Thanks dad you truly are the BEST!

I got to the store managed to finally find a parking space and head inside to this:
Tons of people! I was told that I could either line up now and not see her while she was doing her Q&A session or wait and watch that and then line up . I just got in line. From my spot in line I could kind of see the back of her head.

Oh yea she also brought Marlboro Man and the kids. Here is the back of him.

After they came out she answered audience questions for about 15-20 minutes. She was very funny and kind.

Here is the line.

Waiting in line
Getting closer
Rounding the corner
The last stretch
Only one person left (in front of me)
MY TURN! She said well aren't you cute! Then we chatted about somethings I had made that weekend (wishing I had brought her some because she said she was hungry), seeing her last time, and how much I loved her cookbook. Then my turn was over and I headed off. I still have a broken camera and I only had my iPhone but I think my pics turned our ok. After I was done I ran into Olivia and Rebecca from college days, and Rebecca had a real camera! If only! Oh well the iPhone got it done.
I had heard Marlboro Man (his real name is Ladd but after hearing MM so much it seems wrong) was signing the book too, and that he was quite chatty and nice. So I waited in the line that had formed for him to sign. I must interject that the man in person is quite handsome, dazzling so, and pictures don't quite do him justice. We chatted about how he felt about all this (loves it, gets them to see all kinds of new places), what his fav meal really is (the sandwhich, and he taught her to make it) and if he liked the book (yes, of course he did). Then he signed my books.
Here is my signed book:
After all this excitement (I had spent almost 2 hours in traffic to get there) I was tired and ready to head home. I always love getting to meet her, she is so beautiful, very kind, genuine, funny and down to earth. It was a nice treat to get to meet Marlboro Man too. Happy Valentine's Day to me!

Rambling #34 Cover Girls!!!!!

2011-03-11T10:49:00.012-06:00

I must start this rambling with a little background. I have loved reading as far back as I can remember, we spent weekends going to the library, in fact my parents used it as a punishment for bad behavior, if we didn't obey we weren't allowed to go to the library. For some reason starting about this time last year I stopped reading. I'm not sure why I just did, it was like I didn't have a desire to even crack open a book.

So last fall when my friend Leah got us together to start our book club, I thought this would be a great way to reignite my love of reading. Well it did. I'm so glad it did because I have started flying through books. Lately it has gotten crazy out of control, I feel like I am at the library every other day returning and checking out new books. So I thought I would give you a list of what I have been reading lately.

I had finished our book club book for April (I'm not a over achiever, it's just my name came up at the library and I decided I would just read it instead of canceling and trying to get my name to come up on the hold list again.) We hadn't chosen new books yet for book club so I went to the library and started picking out books. I had read the other three books in the Queen of Babble series but I had never finished the series. So I started with:

This series is light, cute, and funny. It's about a girl named Lizzie Nichols who happens to be amazing at restoring vintage wedding gowns and moves from the Midwest to New York City to make her dreams come true. Along the way she struggles with finding jobs, bad boyfriends, true love, and her Spanx!

It took me a little while to remember all the details because it has been a long time since I read the other books but after a couple of chapters I was in and I was hooked again. I enjoyed the whole series, Lizzie was a great relateable character that made me laugh and root for her.

I decided to continue with Meg Cabot because I really love her writing. So I picked up the books in the Heather Wells mystery series. Starting with:

These books are about Heather Wells she is a former pop star turned resident hall assistant director at New York College. Her roommate, Cooper is a PI and the brother of her ex-fiance and fellow pop star. When people end up murdered in the dorm where she works she has an uncanny knack for ending up involved in the investigations.

Heather is honest, smart, and quirkly funny. The books are were easy and interesting to read. I loved the whole series.

One of my other favorite authors is Sophie Kinsella. I loved her Shopaholic series, Becky's mind sounds uncannily familiar to my own sometimes. So I decided to pick up:

Lara Lington's life is crazily out of control, her boyfriend dumped her through email, her business partner went on vacation indefinitely, and she has to attend the funeral of her great-aunt she can barely remember. Her life becomes even more complicated when she starts seeing and hearing her late great-aunt. But once she starts following her aunt's directions her life starts going in a directions she never would have dreamed.

I thought this was going to be a little out there, I wasn't sure about the whole ghost coming and talking to you but it was a great book and I loved reading this one, I went through it in like two days.

I sometimes really love the comedy of Kathy Griffin. I also like her show My Life on the D-List, even though I am not a faithful watcher I love the episodes when her mother is on. Her mom always cracks me up, one of the things she always says is "Tip it Kathleen!" (she means when it looks like your box of wine is out you tip it so you can get every drop) I saw this and thought it might be funny. It is her mom's thoughts and opinions on her childhood, late husband, her children, and life. Kathy apparently got hold of the manuscript before it went to press and added her own comments and thoughts about her mom's stories.

It was a very quick and funny read. It was interesting because from watching the show I have heard both of them talk and in my mind I could hear Maggie, like she was reading the book aloud to me. Then there would be a comment by Kathy and then I would hear her voice come in, with correct sarcasm and wise-cracking.

Since I was on a reality TV kind of mindset and on Abbe's reads she had said she had read this and it was a pretty interesting book I decided to read Tori Spelling's first book and I then followed it up with her other two books.

This was an interesting look into the childhood and life of Tori Spelling. I found that she was open, honest, and very candid. She talked about how she viewed growing up as Aaron Spelling's daughter, life behind the scenes of 90210, the plastic surgery, and meeting Dean. While she never came off as awww poor me, poor little rich girl, I did find myself thankful that even though my parents never had the money to throw elaborate, over-the-top parties like hers they always made sure to spend time with me and my sisters. Overall I liked the book, obviously since I went on to read the next two.
In this book she explored what it was like to be a mom in Hollywood. She talks about her desire to have the normal block party, hanging with neighborhood families, trick-or-treating neighborhood she dreamed of growing up. And the perceptions those moms have of her as celebrity mother. It was also quite interesting and entertaining. I really like her voice, she writes like she's in the room talking to you.
Her last book was about figuring out where their lives are going now after they have stabilized work, finances, family matters, and dealing with paparazzi. It was a nice way to round things out.

I am still reading, in fact I just started a new book. I am so thankful to the Cover Girls, not only for helping me reignite one of my first loves but also the fun we have when we get together. I went in knowing some of the girls really well, and others only as acquaintances, and some not at all but when we are together we all get to talking and laughing about all kinds of things, not just the books. The weeks we are getting together I almost cannot wait for the week to end so that I can see my fellow Cover Girls! Tonight we are meeting to pick new books and I am so excited to see each girl, I love them all!

Rambling #33 Cover Girls-The Pursuit of Alice Thrift

2011-02-24T15:19:00.005-06:00

February's Cover Girls book club was Leah J.'s book called The Pursuit of Alice Thrift.

Alice is a resident who one day aspires to be a plastic surgeon who works on wealthy clients so she can afford to fix people in third world countries. She is smart but a little inept when it comes to social customs and interactions. This story follows her realization about who she is and whether she should stick with the profession she has devoted years and time to.

It was an interesting book. I thought it was slow and it took me awhile to get into it but after I finished the book I realized I had liked the book and somewhere along the way I went from being disinterested in Alice to rooting for her.

We all met at her house one February night and like in the book we had sub sandwiches. We all sat down to talk about what we thought about Alice, the book and the author. After we had been chatting awhile Leah announced she had made fudge just like Ray's (a character in the book). Her fudge was delicious. She made two kinds: chocolate and peanut butter. We had a great time.

I apologize again I was unable to take pics because of the lack of camera.

Rambling # 32 Cover Girls- Catching Fire & Mockingjay

2011-02-24T11:28:00.007-06:00

January was originally supposed to be to talk about Leah W.'s book but instead we met to finish up the Hunger Games Trilogy with Catching Fire (2) and Mockingjay (3). Amy sent out an email inviting us to meet at her house to eat and chat about the Hunger Games Trilogy and whether we are Team Peeta or Team Gale.

So Friday evening we all headed to Amy's (she has fantastic parties, she and her sister host our Twilight parties). She had a magnetic board up where we could cast our vote for Peeta or Gale. Then we helped ourselves to all the fixings for Tacos or Taco Salad. We sat around talking about the books, who we thought would be great in the movie, and any other random topics that came up. After we had all finished with dinner Amy announced that dessert (a cherry chocolate brownie trifle) was ready and we had a choice of hot chocolate or coffee to go with. We all got comfy on the couches while Jennifer asked us questions about the book.

We all stayed too late and too long but it was such a blast hanging out and chatting about these books with these girls! When we left Amy had made us all arena survival kits. Each kit came with a bottle of water, crackers, some jerky, worms (candy), red berries (candy), night glasses, and a token from Peeta-a pearl.

It was such a blast! I apologize for the lack of pictures but over Christmas break my camera broke! Hopefully I'll pick a out a new camera soon! Our next book is Leah J.'s pick!

Rambling # 31 White Christmas in Kentucky

2011-02-24T11:23:00.008-06:00

I feel it is totally fitting that after I post about my Mr. Schuester Valentine Card I follow it up with another holiday~Christmas! My family had a long and lengthy discussion about where and who was hosting Christmas this year. We finally came to the decision that Christmas would be in Kentucky at my sister Melissa's house. My mom, Sookie (my dog), and I went up there first. Followed a couple of days later by my dad, sister (Donna), Blink (parents dog), and June (Donna's dog). My sister had totally decked out her house, including her fridge. When you opened the fridge to get something out you would find this:

The cute little snowman had several songs he would sing when you opened the door. You could turn it off but it was kind of fun. Here's the living room with their beautiful Christmas tree.
Every time we go to her house we go to a Christmas Eve service at this little church up the road. Right before we started to head out to the church it started snowing (yes we had a white Christmas, like in Christmas Story) so Donna and I went outside and took some pictures in the falling snow.

the inside of the church where we attended the candlelight Christmas Eve service

The next morning Melissa made us (that were awake) breakfast and we got somethings ready for lunch later in the day. Once we were all awake we sat down and opened presents. After years of asking I finally got this:

My green apple Kitchenaid Mixer!!!! I totally love this thing! I used it right away. It was a great Christmas. The next morning we all went to breakfast at Toast on Market to celebrate my mom's birthday and it started snowing a little again. Then my mom, Sookie, and I left to make the trek back to Texas.

Happy Valentine's Day!

2011-02-14T13:21:00.003-06:00

My Valentine's Day card from my best friend Stacie! I just love Mr. Schue!
Inside it says:
I think I would still be in high school. Failing classes on purpose. Yup. Here's to an oh-so-HOT Valentine's Day.

What a great card!

Non-Adventure # 40 IBC Christmas Women's Dinner

2011-01-20T12:26:00.007-06:00

Sometime back I got an email from Leah asking me to be part of a decorating team. For the last couple of years, Leah, Amy, and their mom Nancy have been in charge of putting on a Christmas dinner at the Irving Bible Church. Every year the women at the church decorate tables and come for some delicious food, fun, and great entertainment and raise some money for a good cause in the process. Well last year Nancy, their mom, decorated a ton of tables all on her own and barely finished in time. So this year, Leah had asked some of us to help and be on a team that could help her mom out.

So early one cold December morning I met up with my friend Jennifer and we headed out to the Irving Bible Church. When we got there tons of tables had already been decorated but there were still tons in progress, and some still waiting to be done. Here is what the scene looked like when we arrived.

Our team (minus me) Jennifer, Tiffany, Lindsey, and Leah
Once there we set about to get things decorated. Nancy does a wonderful job of planning these tables out during the year and then sets them up at home, takes a picture so even if she isn't setting the table up someone could easily use it as a guide to set up the table. We divided into two teams Tiff and Lindsey, and me and Jennifer. Nancy even had stuff to decorate the bathrooms. Here is the girls bathroom:
And the boys (no boys were actually there so it was used as a 2nd womans bathroom)
Jennifer and I's first table was a black and pink table with a pink christmas tree. I loved this table it was girly, glitzy, fun, and of course it had one of my favorite things, it was PINK!
The pink Christmas tree, it had a pink feather boa and black feathers and sparkly ornaments in pink and black.
The place settings
Nancy had provided these back loofa scrubbers to decorate the chairs but they were too short to put on the way she had and so we changed it up and tied them on and added some leftover ornaments. There were two different chair types. It kind of reminds me of an old perfume bottle.

The centerpiece was a cute hatbox and it also had these cute crosses
and some small purses
It ended up super cute and we totally loved it. I would have loved to have sat at this table. Our finished product! Our second table was a little more difficult. Nancy had put a box together of black, red, silver and white, but didn't really have a plan. She told is we were free to make it look however we want, to play around with what we had. Here is our start, There was a started centerpiece and we played around with the fabric till we found something we liked.
This was our planning process. We kind of made a huge mess. we drug everything out of our tub and we started looking at everything

The finalized place setting
The final product:
from another angle
Sometimes people don't show up until too late to decorate their table or don't show up at all so we have to set up some tables really quickly. The last table I helped with was one of these. The theme for this table turned out to be: Peppermint Candy Canes! The chairs had cute candy cane striped ribbons.
The place setting
The centerpiece
The final table! Not bad for 15 minutes!
Some of the tables were raffle tables, meaning some part or all of the table was up to be won. All you had to do was buy raffle tickets and drop a ticket into the glass bowl on the table. One of the tables decorated by Amy had a coffee theme because part of the prize on the table was Keurig coffee maker. It was super cute!
Leah had also made it possible for us to stay and enjoy the dinner, and entertainment by getting is a table. Here is my name holder at our table. It is a cute pin that can be used for other things like your hair or pinned to a sweater.
The dinner in full swing. It was tons of women walking around, laughing, talking, hugging, dropping off their tickets, and having a great time.

The dinner was delicious! And after dinner we had some great entertainment. They had an improv group called Pavlov's Dog come and perform for us. They were hilarious and had everyone laughing. Here are Jennifer and I all glamed up at dinner.
Leah, Amy, and I
And how cute are these ladies in their aprons! Leah, Nancy, and Amy. It's hard to find a cuter, sweeter, kinder trio of women! I just love them all. Thanks Leah for asking me to help and Nancy I had a blast! If you need help next year, I'm in!!!

Rambling #30 Cover Girls-Hunger Games

2011-01-20T12:06:00.007-06:00

Our book for November was Lyndi's pick, and it is the first book in a trilogy called the Hunger Games. I will admit here and now when we were discussing which of Lyndi's choices to read I wanted a book called Wednesday Wars based on her synopsis I thought I would be more interested in that book. I did read Wednesday Wars and I did like it, I thought it was a great book but I didn't realize or think I would be as interested or enjoy the Hunger Games like I did.

The Hunger Games is about a young girl named Katniss Everdeen. She lives in a future United States that is broken into different districts according to their major product/function and they are run by the Capital. Every year the Capital forces the districts to draw out 2 names, boy and girl, to be tributes and compete in the Hunger Games. The games are a fight, a fight to the death, only one will survive. So I am sure you can see why I thought I didn't want to read this book, a book where children are fighting to their deaths.

In November, our last Cover Girl meeting of the year (we took a holiday break), we headed over to Lyndi's house for some dinner and some competition of our own. Lyndi made us a wonderful Italian dinner and we all sat around eating and chatting about what had been going on and some about what we thought about the book. Then after everyone was done eating we got ready for our competition. She had told us to bring aprons, I brought some of my collection to share and we all suited up!

Leah and I in our aprons! Kelli and Leah
In the book before the tributes actually compete in the games they have a training period where they can hone skills they already have or learn/develop some new ones. One of the skills is the art of camouflage. So Lyndi made cupcakes and had colored tons of icing in all different colors like green, brown, blue, yellow, and orange. Our mission was to take four cupcakes and use our camo skills to make something out of our cupcakes. Here are some girls chatting and decorating their cupcakes:
Here are some of the designs.

Then we named our creations and voted. There was tie for 2nd and 3rd so we had to do a 2nd vote but winners were chosen.
Laura (Lyndi's sis) won 3rd place with a stunning collection but I somehow missed getting a picture of her beautiful creations.
My creation and 2nd place a tree. It is important to the book.
Jennifer's creation and 1st place winner "The Arena"
After the winners were picked the creations were eaten and we all sat around and discussed the book. I never thought I would have loved this book so much but I did. It was great. I mentioned earlier that it is the first book in a trilogy, we all loved the first so much we changed up the schedule of books. We decided that in December we would read books 2 (Catching Fire) and 3 (Mockingjay) to meet and discuss in January. Here are the Cover Girls in a group pic.
Can't wait for January! I love my Cover Girls!

Rambling #29 3rd place all around!

2011-01-14T16:34:00.003-06:00

Every year on Veteran's day our Board of Realtors has a chili-cookoff. Since our business is often very closely related to realtors, our office competes in the cook-off. One year their was a poker or cards theme but this year was a red, white, and blue and stars and stripes theme. I had been asked by Chris to make an entry for the dessert competition. I love making pies and so early in the week I made a cherry and a chocolate pie and had the office vote for which pie they would like entered in the competition. The cherry pie just barely edged out the chocolate pie in the office vote.

Thursday afternoon came and so Chris, Kristi, Keith , and I loaded up cars to head out to the board of realtors building to set up our booth. Here are some pics of our booth.

My pie entry for the contest.
We also had to provide a pie for everyone to eat, so here is our public pie. It is not a cobbler, cobblers don't have crust on the bottom. This is still a pie just made rectangular not round.
Some of the other tents or competitors.

They even had one of the local high schools ROTC come over and present flags

We had a great time and in my opinion the best chili and pie. We actually took home 3rd place in both the chili and the dessert!

Non-Adventure #39 Mrs Jonathon Hill!

2011-01-14T16:30:00.003-06:00

October was a kind of a busy month. One special event of October happened at the end of the month. My college roomie and good friend Kellye got married.
She had what some would call a low-key wedding but I just thought it was amazing. It was outdoors, with this beautiful open pavillion. There were tons of personal touches. For example instead of signing a formal guest book she provided this giant canvas with a bare tree on it. Then guests used green, yellow, orange, and brown ink to make their thumbprints or fingerprints the leaves and to sign their name by their print. It was pretty cool because I know she will hang this up in her house and forever have it to look at. She also didn't have a real flower bouquet but a beautiful felt and jeweled one.

It was gorgeous. She looked radiantly happy as all brides should.

Another neat thing she had done was stamped or embroidered their initials on her dress:
Me and Kel
Anne (her sister), me, and Kel!
I hereby fully admit that I fell down on taking pictures of her wedding. It was a truly beautiful wedding and I am so happy for her! Congratulations to Mr. and Mrs. Jonathon Hill!

Rambling #28 Diaper Cakes For M&M

2011-01-12T14:03:00.004-06:00

My sister Melissa came down in the middle of October and one of the things she wanted to do while she was visiting was for me to help her make a diaper cake for a co-worker. Since I was also planning to make one for my friend Erik's baby we made and shopped for them together. Her cake had a pink and brown theme to it and she picked out this totally cute bunny to stick out of the top.

Here is Melissa's:

My diaper cake was for my friend Erik's new baby. I was invited to Caroline's shower (Erik's wife) and I saw this monster hooded towel at Target and it was soooo cute and it totally matched the color scheme I was going with, I had to get it! I really loved this diaper cake and I think it turned out great! And Caroline said she totally loved the cake I made for baby Madeline (due near Thanksgiving).

Here is the pink and turqouise Monster diaper cake I made for baby Madeline:

At the shower, her sister Mary-Nan also made this beautiful diaper cake. It sat on the table with all the delicious goodies they offered.
Stacie, Caroline (baby Madeline), and I
Madeline has since made it safely into the world and is so sweet and precious! (That's what happens when you procrastinate so long in doing your posts!)

Rambling # 27 Cover Girls-Little Bee

2011-01-12T13:58:00.004-06:00

Last year (weird, I meant to write this post last year) several of my friends and I (initiated by my friend Leah) decided that we wanted to start a book club. We all met at her house and four girls brought some books, they gave a brief description about or what they thought the book was about and we picked one book from every girl. The girl whose book we picked will host the meeting at her house or place of her choosing when we get together to discuss the book. We decided to just start out with four girls book choices and then we will pick four more in three or four months.

Our first book was Robin's choice and it was called Little Bee by Chris Cleave. It is about two women, one is British and the other is an African refugee named Little Bee and how they met and their lives intersect. It was kind of a darker book and deep, but a good read.

About a week before we were supposed to meet up Robin sent us an email inviting us to meet her at The Melting Pot to discuss what we thought about Little Bee. So on a Friday night in October we all gathered together for some discussion and some fondue! Here are (most of) the girls or as we call ourselves the Cover Girls.
A different angle with me in the picture.
We had a great time discussing and for some (me) trying out fondue for the first time. Stay tuned for more Cover Girls book choices.

Non-Adventure #38 At the Ballet! Cinderella & the Winspear!

2011-01-05T16:56:00.004-06:00

I love ballet it is one of my most favorite things. So when my wonderful and totally awesome friend, Kurt got tickets to the ballet and asked me if I wanted to go, I was in! We (Stacie, my best friend, and I) left bright and early on the morning of October 2nd and headed out to downtown Dallas to go see Cinderella at the Winspear Opera House. It is AMAZING! Totally beautiful inside and out. I was kind of excited because I had never seen Cinderella. I have seen the Nutcracker many times, but this would be a new one.

We left pretty early that morning because we wanted to avoid college football traffic and so upon arrival I was pretty hungry. I purchased this sandwich and soda to snack on before going in and finding our seats.
Here is Stacie and I all decked out before the show.
The food area where I purchased my snacks
When we went inside there was this massive lighted hanging chandelier. It was incredible! When it came time for the show to start the lights pull up into the ceiling.
The view to the stage from our seats.
The tiers behind us

Our seats. They were super plush and extremely comfortable, no squashed feeling here. The aisles were also pretty wide, I usually have my long legs running into the seats in front of me but not here.
Us goofing around before the show starts.

After the show we tooks some more photos.
The main dancers came out and signed programs. Here is Cinderella and her prince:
Cinderella and one of the Ugly Stepsisters
Both of the Ugly Stepsisters

When we were leaving there was a couple taking their wedding party pictures outside.
The ballet was fantastic. Everything was super beautiful and we had a great time. It was a totally fun day! Thanks Kurt your the BEST!

Non-Adventure # 37 Everybody say Surprise!

2011-01-05T16:29:00.003-06:00

My friend Ben's birthday is in August and his sweet wife and my good friend Leah decided she was going to throw a surprise birthday party for him at the marina in Grapevine on a party boat!! So she had us all meet at the marina 30-40 minutes before they were supposed to "arrive". We all gathered there on the boat waiting for them to show up. If you look close you can see them walking up the dock.
stepping on the boat after we yelled "SURPRISE!"
Me with Leah
Some of the girls
Everyone chatting as we headed out out onto the lake

Amy and her hubby Richey
I fully admit the pictures end here. Our party boat guys docked us out in the lake and one of them started cooking the hot dogs, yes they cooked and yes the boat had a grill as well as a slide! After everyone grabbed a hot dog and their favorite chips and beverage choice and chowed down most of us got off the boat. We grabbed some life vest and headed into the water to float our afternoon away. After the heat of the summer we had been experiencing the water felt great. We all sang Ben Happy Birthday from in the water. At some point most of us climbed back onto the boat to grab ourselves some cookie cake. Finally the party boat guys herded us back onto the boat and drove us back in. We all mostly sat on the upper deck getting some rays and drying off in the sun. It was soooo much fun, just hanging out and partying wih friends.

Happy Birthday Ben and welcome to 30!

Non-Adventure #36 Thirty, Flirty, and Thriving!

2010-11-14T16:27:00.004-06:00

So this is THE year, the year I am now officially thirty, flirty, and thriving. I have a tradition of always celebrating my birthday and Stacie's (no I didn't step on your birthday hour) together with our high school best friend Erik (we celebrate his in December). So this year we decided our dinner out would be at Cheddar's in Keller. I love their vegetable plate as well as their chicken tenders so yummy! So here we are at dinner (Erik came to our side of the table for the picture)

Then we decided to head up the road and go see Despicable Me. Here we are with our 3D glasses waiting for the movie to start. It was super cute and really funny!
Then I thought it was appropriately fitting that the July Chick Flicks movie fit in and we had it the weekend before my actual birthday.

Our July movie was:

13 Going On 30

So a group of girls headed over dressed in their funnest pj's. I asked everyone to bring toppings. Toppings for their favorite pizza and what they would like to eat with ice cream. I provided dough, sauce, and cheese as well as fruit (you can see it towards the back of the picture). I set out all the toppings in bowls and gave everyone a rolled out slice of pizza dough. Then everyone went around the table and put on their favorite toppings. We cooked them in batches in the oven.
Tiffany and Leah hanging out in the kitchen
Leah and Amy made theirs into giant pizza pockets
Amy showing off their handiwork
some more pizza fun
I received this cute homemade apron from Amy and Leah (I also got a handmade apron from Baylee) to add to my apron collection. I promise one day I will take a picture of all my aprons.
We took a trivia quiz and this month everyone was a winner. Everyone received Razzles (candy that is also gum) and an 80's Jams cd that I mixed together. It has some great tunes that include Thriller, Girls Just Want to Have Fun, Loveshack, Jesse's girl, etc.
A couple of pictures of everyone with their Razzles and cds.

We all watched the movie and took a brief pause to make our ice cream sundaes in edible waffle bowls. After the movie which brought back many memories from our childhood, we packed up all the leftover toppings and everyone headed home.

On my actual birthday I arrived at work to find that my boss Cyndi had decorated my desk with tons of thirty party stuff. She felt that I needed to see the actual number thirty all day long. So she put this big thirty on the door across from my desk.
She even climbed on my desk and stood on a step stool to put up the thirty things hanging from the ceiling and tied a balloon on my wires. The cards were from some of my co-workers and Chris gave me the bite-size cupcakes which were delicious.
Maxine gave me some new ring bling!
Stacie came and brought me this huge Happy Birthday balloon and...

my favorite banana pudding that her mom makes. It was sooooo yummy and delicious! Yes, I shared with my co-workers.
I met my good friend Leah and her son Casen at "our place" aka Chili's in Hickory Creek for lunch. We had a good time talking and remembering how much fun we had at the Eclipse party.
Here I am surrounded by all my birthday goodies
eating my cupcakes
That night I went to dinner at Babe's with my family. They spared me the humiliation of the chicken hat and being sung Happy Birthday by a bunch of waitresses. Sometimes I can't believe I am thirty but yes I am OFFICIALLY:

THIRTY, FLIRTY, & THRIVING!!!!!

Trivia Quiz

1. What was the original title of 13 Going On 30?

a. Sparkle

b. Sugar and Spice

c. Turn Back Time

2. What was the most popular girls name of the 70's and 80's?

3. In what country was the title changed to Suddenly 30 because the distributors thought audiences would misunderstand the original title?

4. In what year did Cosmopolitan magazine get its start?

a. 1886

b. 1946

c. 1966

5. What was Jennifer Garner's first major in college before switching to drama?

6. In what decade did Mattel introduce the first Barbie Dream House?

Rambling #26 Hap-py Birthday Char-he!

2010-11-14T16:24:00.003-06:00

For as long as I can remember Stacie and I have said that to each other on or birthday's, it is from All Dogs Go To Heaven. Unfortunately for Stacie she had to get locked up at the jail on her birthday aka she had to work. So long ago she told me she wanted me to make her a coconut cake for her birthday and bring it up to her while she was at work, so I did. Here I am visiting her at the jail, on July 5th.
Here is her coconut cake I made from scratch, icing and everything. It was a Barefoot Contessa recipe found here.

Here is the birthday girl cutting into her cake! Doesn't she look happy cutting into her cake!
She said she had a wonderful birthday and she loved the cake!

Rambling #25 Summer of Babies!!!!!

2010-10-18T11:47:00.005-05:00

So this spring I had several people close to me that were pregnant. Most of these babies were all due at some point this summer or late this summer. Starting with my friend Adorah. She had her little girl Saida on July 8. Here are some pictures of Saida:

this was Saida a couple of weeks ago. I'm holding her. I think she looks like her daddy, Chris.
Next up was my cousin-in-law Jessica. We were all waiting to see if she would have a baby girl Brown or baby boy Brown. Well She had a little girl named Margo on August 16 at like 11:20pm. My dad, sister and I went to see Jessica and Margo at the hospital the next day. Here we are with Margo:

The last baby born was my friend Chrissie's. We knew we were waiting for a baby boy to be named Austin Hoyt Russell and I got the news that he was born on September 4th at 7:45 in the morning. Here is sweet Austin:

Some newer pics Chrissie sent me just today!

So CONGRATULATIONS!!!! to all the newly formed families and HAPPY BIRTHDAY BABIES!

Non-Adventures #34 & 35 and Rambling #23 & 24 Baby Showers and Diaper Cakes!

2010-10-17T22:52:00.004-05:00

So towards the end of May and the beginning of June I had two baby showers come up. So we (my mom and I) decided we of course would make diaper cakes. Well I make them she helps with the funding and overall design input. Our first shower was for my cousin Matt's wife Jessica. In a previous post I showed pics of their wedding. Well now they are expecting a baby and they decided to wait to find out if they were having a boy or a girl, so gender neutral colors were decided upon. Here is the cake we came up with and gave them. We put a painted "B" for Brown.

Here is the cake they had for her
This is Jessica and her mom, I tried to lighten it up as much as I could.
Jessica and her mother-in-law Julie (my aunt)
Jessica opening her presents
My cousin Jenna and I
She received a lot of basics and we all had a good time playing some baby games. Jessica was due in August.

The other shower took place at the beginning of June and was for my good friend Chrissie whom I have known since Elementary School. She and Jason were married and talked about on the blog too. They decided they wanted to know and learned they were having a BOY! To be named Austin Hoyt Russell. Here is the cake we made for Austin. Her nursery has a Winnie-the-Pooh theme and I thought it was perfect that we found these pacifiers with Pooh and Tigger on them.

The party was at her sister-in-law Vickie's house. Here is Chrissie and her mother.
Me and Stacie
Stacie, Chrissie, and I
Chrissie and her hostesses, Margot (her sister) and Vickie (her sister-in-law)
Chrissie got some great gifts for Austin and we all were able to talk about how we knew her and give her some advice. Now all she had to do was wait for September to come!

Non-Adventure #33 I Heart Edward Cullen! Eclipse Fun!

2010-10-15T20:46:00.004-05:00

At the End of June a movie long anticipated finally arrived in theaters. I was invited to a party and helped throw another party for Eclipse. So here are the pics from those two awesomely fun events!

The first party was thrown by my friends Amy and Leah they were the throwers of the previous party for New Moon. So on the 30th (the day the movie opened) we all headed over to Amy's house for talking, trivia, and yummy treats.

The table all decked out with the goodies. There were twizzlers, red velvet cupcakes, puppy chow, hot pizza dip, and vegetables, etc.
they put drinks in the kitchen like these sodas
as well as the Vampire Kiss Mojitos

Everyone sat around talking, eating, and being entertained by Reese and Riley

Amy, Leah, and their precious mom Nancy!

Leah, Amy, and I

Chrissie came along too!
You can't tell but the plate has Edwards face on it and Jennifer is wearing a replica of the engagement ring he gave to Bella in the movie!
Me posing with Edward with the ring, you see I won the trivia quiz and my prize... the ring!
Everyone wanted to pose with Edward
After the party we all headed over to the Studio Movie Grill to wait and see the movie. Here we all are waiting in line for the movie to start.
I also helped Chrissie throw a party at her house in Euless. Here is our table of goodies to take into the movie later. We made little bags of puppy chow and cups. We put twizzler sticks and ring pops in them.

The table of food. We had some dips, cupcakes, vegetables and cherry purses.
For drinks we made our own virgin Vampires Kiss (we had quite a bunch of preggers girls at ours)
Jennifer and Stacie
Me and Jenn
Stace and I
Me a Chrissie posing with our table
I thought it would be fun since Bella, Edward, Alice, and Jasper all graduate in the movie to have fake Forks diplomas and a cap and gown for grad pictures, although I didn't have time to make a cap, I did manage to fake the diplomas and gown.
Here we all are with our "diplomas and gowns"

After stuffing ourselves we headed out to the movies to watch Eclipse (and yes for those paying attention that means I watched it twice). I had a great time at both parties and I did love the movie. I still think that both the book and movie for New Moon were my favorite, I guess we will have to see how that plays out after watching both movies for Breaking Dawn!

Rambling #22 California Slush!

2010-09-14T12:44:00.006-05:00

Years ago when I lived in South Jersey (or for some of you South NEW Jersey), I became very good friends with a couple named Mark and Jane. They had three children who were all just a little older than me, but from the first time I met them I always felt at home when with them or at their house. They took me in and treated me like I was one of their own. I think I can count on one hand the Sundays I didn't spend with them or at their home. Jane is a Kansas farm girl who is an incredible cook and baker (she can bake a loaf of bread from scratch because that is how they do it on the farm). One of my favorite memories is being her "gofer". When cooking she never kicked me out of the kitchen, she just pulled me in and had me stir, mix, unwrap, and fetch. We cooked for all kinds of events from sunday potlucks and church dinners to thanksgiving meals (I spent both Jersey Thanksgivings at their house). I loved cooking with Jane! Here I am with Mark and Jane in their kitchen.
In the summers she would make a delicious fruity treat called California Slush. From the first spoonful I was hooked. Since it has been sooooo hot here in Texas lately I thought it was the perfect time to make some and remember Jane. So here it is and I highly encourage you to try this for yourself!

California SlushThe ingredients: water, sugar, bananas, maraschino cherries, crushed pineapple, orange juice, (pretend you see this) lemon juice, and a couple of gallon ziploc bags.
In a pretty large bowl pour in the orange juice (I let mine thaw in the fridge, it doesn't have to be thawed.
Next add a can of crushed pineapple with the juice
This step you might want to do ahead of time, drain the cherries and cut them in half, and then half the halves, or quarter them. I like to do a jar and a half to two jars of cherries but it is up to you I like a lot of cherries.
Be aware this will stain your fingertips.
Then add the quartered cherries to the orange juice and pineapple
In a sauce pan measure two cups water
and two cups sugar and bring to a boil on the stove
While you are waiting for it to boil, slice and quarter 3-4 bananas. I think I did four and a half because the bananas I got that day were a little small.
Be sure to check your water. See its not boiling yet but it has turned clear again.
Now its boiling!
Add the boiling sugar water to the orange juice, pineapple, cherry mixture.
Add 1/4 cup lemon juice concentrate to the bowl.
Give it a good stir
Add the bananas
and then add 4 cups of water and stir well. If you left your orange juice frozen make sure it has completely dissolved and there are no frozen chunks.
Now ladle equally into two gallon ziploc bags. Be sure to scrape the bottom of the bowl to pick cherries as well as the bananas.
If you need some help you can get a tall container like this one to hold the bag while you ladle
Yummm!!!! I cannot wait till I can dig in! Squeeze out leftover air and seal.
Lay both bags flat in the freezer you can tilt the end up a little to try and evenly distribute the cherries (they tend to sink to the bottom of things). It will take 5 or more hours to freeze. If you are impatient like me you will be waiting and watching the freezer, so when it reaches a slightly slushy stage you will pull it out and dish some out. If you let it freeze completely, set it out about an hour before you want to serve. If it gets too liquidy just put it back in the freezer for a bit.
Doesn't it just look delicious! I love this slush. It is an easy treat to make with and serve to kids!
You can click the picture above to make bigger or here is the recipe below.

California Slush

2 cups water
2 cups sugar
1 12 oz can frozen OJ concentrate
1 Lg. can crushed pineapple (not drained)
3-4 ripe bananas, sliced and the quartered
1/4 cup lemon juice concentrate
1 cup (I like 1 1/2-2 jars) of marachino cherries, quartered
4 cups water
2 ziploc bags

1. Quarter the cherries.
2. In a large bowl combine the OJ, pineapple, cherries, and lemon juice.
3. Boil 2 cups water and 2 cups sugar.
4. Slice and quarter the bananas.
5. Add boiling sugar water to OJ mix.
6. Add 4 cups water and stir to mix well.
7. Ladle evenly into ziploc bags, be sure to scrape the bottom to get cherries too.
8. Lay flat in the freezer.
9. If frozen solid, remove about an hour before serving. Refreeze if it becomes to liquidy.
10. Enjoy!

Non-Adventure #32 Steel Magnolias!

2010-09-11T15:35:00.006-05:00

Well here is another Chick Flicks post! This one took place in May!

Our movie was:

Steel Magnolias

Everyone came over and this time instead of signing up for food items, I had people bring beauty supplies like nail polish, curling irons, flat irons, skin care products, etc.
I went ahead and purchased food and everyone contributed to the cost of our dinner. We had chicken strips, mashed potatoes, biscuits, fried pickles, mac-n-cheese (this I made I have a great recipe from Luby's I will try and share the next time I make it.), sweet tea and pink lemonade.
We did our quiz too. Above is Robin, Rose, Adorah, and Jennifer. After dinner we all headed in to watch the movie and we continued on with the beauty treatments while we watched.
Painting Jenn's toes.
Robin doing a pore cleansing treatment
For dessert we had the Pioneer Woman's Dump Cake with vanilla ice cream, to cut the sweetness!
Adorah found a strip and ended up pouring water all down her front trying to wet it enough to get it to stick to her face.
Even Sookie watched the movie with us.
Here is everyone's fingernails all painted!

We all had so much fun. I will list below the quiz if you would like to take it for yourself it is about Julia Roberts. This movie didn't have recipes for food but it did have some recipes to make your own beauty type products which I will put in after the quiz.

Julia Roberts Trivia Quiz

1. What was Julia Roberts' first name before she changed it to Julia?

2. What movie launched her career success and earned her an Academy Award nomination?

3. Julia Roberts was the first actress to ear what salary for her role in Erin Brockovich?

4. What is Julia's true hair color?

5. What special event did Julia celebrate in 2004?

6. Why was a 9,000-year-old skeleton excavated in Bulgaria given the name "Julia Roberts" by archaeologists?

Truvy's Sugar Scrub

1/4 cup sugar

2 tablespoons oil (canola or olive)

1 drop scened oil (optional)

In a small bowl, mix the sugar and oil. Add one drop of scented oil, such as lemon or floral oil, if desired. To use, put 1-2 teaspoons on hands and rub all over backs of hands, palms, and fingers. Rinse with warm water, and pat dry on a towel. Leaves hands silky smooth!

Truvy's Lip Gloss

1 tablespoon petroleum jelly

1/2 to 1 teaspoon crushed powder eye shadow

cosmetic glitter (optional)

Combine the petroleum jelly, eye shadow, and glitter. Use a cotton swab o dab on lips. Try different shades of eye cream for fun!

Truvy's Bath Salts

2 cups Epsom salts

scented oils

food coloring (optional)

Mix Epsom salts with a drop or two of scented oil and food coloring. Make ahead or have each woman make her own with 1/4 to 1/3 cup of salts. Place finished bath salts in small jars or bags to take home.

If you try any the recipes let me know what you think about them. Leave a comment if you would like to take a guess at the answers to the Julia Roberts Quiz!

Non-Adventures #28-31 A Quick Review of Spring

2010-09-05T11:31:00.010-05:00

In this post I am going to quickly review some of what happened this spring. For starters we had a nice girl get-together where we headed out to Northpark for a Bobbi Brown make-up event.
My friends Robin, Tamela, Beth, Adorah, Jennifer, and I all headed down and had the pros do our make-up. Here is Robin and I posing after being beautified.
My friend Meredith was there as well, and we of course could not miss the opportunity to take a pic together!
After every one's make-up was done we headed to the food court so everyone could choose their own meal and we commandeered a couple of tables where we ate, chatted away, and people watched. We all did a little shopping around afterward before finally heading out our own ways.
A great time was had by all and everyone looked so beautiful!

In May as usual there always tends to be a flurry of a graduation events. I attended a couple for my friend and one time babysitting charge Hope. I headed out to McKinney one weekend in May to go to a graduation party at her house and Graduation Sunday at her church.
They had a special service in the morning at church after which we all went out to lunch to celebrate Hope. After a long morning most of us just chilled back at her parents house until it was time to head back up to the church for a reception honoring the grads.
They had a cake with all their names on the side.
We somehow managed to snag and completely fill a table. L to R: Valinda (her mom), Sweetie (her maternal grandmother), Jay and Christie (her uncle and aunt), Popsie (her maternal grandfather), Pop Pop and Meme (paternal grandparents). All of her cousins were there too but they spent the time running around the youth room and playing outside.
The graduates:
all the girls
Hope and I
The grad and her parents.
I have been so blessed to be a part of her life and get to watch her grow up. I have watched her grow from a precocious 4 year-old, to a gymnast, a spunky and fun loving teenager, to an accomplished, confident, and beautiful young woman who is starting college soon. I enjoyed being a part of such a huge milestone in her life and I am so proud of who she has become! I hope she enjoys her time at OU!

On a different weekend in May Baylee and I headed to Taste Addison and met up with Rob and Robin. Rob obliged and took our girl picture.
In May I also attended a Rough Riders game in Frisco with a group of girls. Here they are Robin, Adorah, Jennifer, and Tamela. It was a great little deal for like $10 we got a ticket, hat, and as much food and drink from this food section that we could eat.
Robin and I
Heading in.
Enjoying the game, our hats, and our food!
It was a CRAZY busy Spring but a lot of fun! I had so much fun I was too busy to blog! Keep checking back there are still more posts to come!

Non-Adventure #27 Going to Cali!

2010-09-04T17:21:00.020-05:00

Well here it goes, my attempt to catch up. I am starting with my trip to California. In April I went to see my sister Donna, she lives about an hour north of L.A. So I flew in to hang out with her for a week. Here is some landscape I passed in flight, also know as the Grand Canyon.

I arrived at John Wayne Airport in Burbank and we decided to spend our day in L.A., since we were already there. Our first stop was to the Getty Center.
You pull up and then drive down into a parking garage. Then take an elevator back up and wait patiently to ride up to the Getty on a tram. Here is a picture of what the scenery looks like as you head up the hill.
This is what the main building of the Getty looks like.
Here are some of the views from up top of the Getty.

This is from a landing looking down into the sculptured garden.

The tram on the way down.
We hopped back in the car and we headed over to Culver City. Our reason for heading here was mainly due to a somewhat new show on the Food Network channel called "The Best Thing I Ever Ate." On an episode, that I think was crunchy things, Duff picked a restaurant called Akasha, for the best onion rings he has ever had. So that is where we went next.
The menu at Akasha.
The onion rings. Originally I was going to eat them to go but I ended up eating them there at the counter.

I am here to tell you they ARE the best onion rings I have ever eaten. They were light and crunchy and super yummy! And there was no biting and pulling out the whole onion so all you are left with is the crunchy outer layer.

As we were heading back to the car we saw a farmer's market type street fair.
They had fruit, vegetables, soaps, lotions, food, and all kinds of things.
This guy was just singing and playing right in the middle of everything.
We stopped and bought crepes. Here is the crepe maker guy.Here is mine, I got a banana nutella crepe! It was so delicious!
After the fair we headed home, it was now 4 something in the afternoon and we didn't want to get stuck in too much traffic heading home. That night we kind of just hung out and watched some tv and a movie. The next day we decided to chill and we WALKED down the block to the beach. We layed out a little there before the ladybug attack and wind pelting sand became to much to take and we headed to her friend Nikki's to lay out there on their roof deck.

Thursday we decided to head down to their old stomping grounds, San Diego. We were going to start off and spend most of our day at the San Diego Zoo.

Once inside we headed out on the bus tour. We rode up top.
We saw elephants
Meercats
Giraffes
and drove by the pandas, lions, polar bears, and the bird area. Our ticket into the zoo also included a trip on the sky tram.
Up in the sky.
Me and Donna

Here you can see just exactly what we traveled on.
Since we rode back up to the top of the zoo we went into the polar bear exhibit.
Saw the zebras.

We strolled our way back down the big hill seeing as many animals as we could along the way. We decided that we would head downtown and leave the zoo but we got our hands stamped just in case we wanted to come back in.
We drove downtown and hung out at a mall there and then we decided to head to her favorite mall where we got some make-up touch ups at Nordstroms and ate dinner at Uno's Pizza (Where neither of us ordered pizza, I think she had pasta and I had a chicken and rice dish) before trekking up north to go home.

Friday we had a chill day because we were waiting for Charlie to come back in town from his FX. Once he came home we all hung out and ordered pizza. The next day we decided we were going to get up early and go to Disneyland! So aside from some minor blips and detours we arrived at Disneyland!
Walking in on main street

Our first stop was in Tomorrowland and we went to Innovations and played around in the Dream Home and other stuff. We ate in lunch in Tomorrowland. Then we headed next door and watched Captain EO in 3D. (This was 80's 3D not like the 3D of late). We then walked down to Fantasyland to ride on:

I love this picture of Charlie right before we went inside the tunnel!

Paris!
They have added some characters I don't remember seeing the last time I rode this ride, like Ariel

We then strolled over to Mickey's Toon Town and we rode Roger Rabbit's Car Toon Spin.

Sleeping Beauty's Castle (Disney World in Florida is Cinderella's Castle and my favorite)
I tried to get a picture of Donna and Charlie riding Big Thunder Mountain Railroad in Frontierland, but I don't think I was fast enough. We also ate dinner in Frontierland at Hungry Bear Restaurant.
We went to the Haunted Mansion

We rode Pirates of the Caribbean, climbed Tarzan's Treehouse, saw the Tiki House show, and took the Jungle Cruise. Here we are picture taking before embarking on our cruise.

our cruise guide
The castle at night
Splash Mountain from the monorail station.

I loved that we rode the teacups at night because the laterns were all lit and it was so pretty.

I love this picture

The last thing we rode was Buzz Lightyear's Astro Blasters. Then we hung out a little in Downtown Disney before calling it a long night and heading back to the buses that would take us back to our car for our drive back home.

The next morning (not too early) Charlie drove me by In and Out for my burger and fries before driving me back to the Burbank airport. After a long and complicated wait at the airport I did make it home to Dallas late Sunday night.
On my way home.
I had a blast hanging out with Donna and was glad that when I left Charlie had come home and I wasn't leaving my sis all alone. This trip took place in April, since then Charlie has been deployed to Afghanistan and will be there for another 7 months at least. Please pray that he returns home to my sister safe.

I'm Sorry!

2010-08-11T16:15:00.002-05:00

I hereby apologize for being the worst blogger ever. I have a TON of blog posts I need to update you all on but I am caught in a vicious cycle of first needing to hook up my camera, load pictures, write the blog! But before I get all that done something else happens and the list of blogs I need to load pictures on keeps growing! So be on the lookout because once I load those pictures on, the blogs will be coming fast and furious! Thanks for sticking with me!

Non-Adventure # 26 It's that special time of year again.... SPRING TREND SHOW!

2010-03-23T23:40:00.014-05:00

That's right my friends our early morning trek to Northpark came again. This year some familiar friends went along as well as some new! On March 20th I got up bright and early (after getting in late the night before from Louisville) and met up with some special girls to see what new trends were happening in makeup and fashion. We got our totes, signed up for the raffle (Chrissie won a basket of Chanel skincare), had some breakfast nibbles, and waited for them to open up and let us sit down at the runway. When they did finally open up, Jenn and I made a beeline up there to reserve us some seats on the front row. Here we all are waiting for the show to begin. L to R: Chrissie, Me, Adorah (BSF friend), Robin, and my cousin Jennifer.

The stage for this year
Robin and Adorah totally cheesin!

I was totally sad that this years spring show fell on spring break. It meant that for the first time in years Baylee was unable to attend. She was on a spring break campaign to DC and didn't fly back till later that evening. I snapped the picture below because it was a dress that would look totally great on her, the model even had red hair like her!

I loved this purple dress
And as always my friend Meredith was there. I was lucky enough to have her do my makeup this year and we got to take our trend show picture. My friend Adorah was the cameraman and she got a little picture happy, so I picked my two favorites.

Then we (minus Jenn, she had to get home to her kids) went to lunch at Maggiano's in the mall. Our first attempt at a group picture only caught me and Adorah.
So we had the waiter take one of the table.
This was my makeup later that night I seem to always forget to take one right after I am done getting it applied. I loved it as usual! Meredith always does such an amazing job and I always leave feeling totally beautiful.
I had a long but great day with great friends. We tried a lot of stuff and laughed a lot. I cannot wait till it is time for the one in the fall!

A little more odds and ends, Allison was the only one to attempt answering the quiz questions and even though her guesses of all A's wasn't all correct (ABCAB) she still wins! So be on the lookout in the mail for your surprise gift Allison!

Last thing I promise! My sister finally had that shower for her friend! So I can officially post the diaper cake I made for her in Louisville.

The front:

Side 1:

Back:

Side 2:

I will try and post my Cali trip pictures, a some other events, and recipes soon! Sorry I am sooo behind!

Non-Adventure # 25 March in Louisville!

2010-03-23T23:23:00.011-05:00

So I figure that before I publish photos from my California trip that I should post the ones from my trip in March to Louisville first. Originally my mom was going to fly and visit my sister Melissa, but the airfare was far from what could be considered a normal price. SO since I had a bonus week of vacation that expired at the end of March and she didn't want to drive alone, Sookie and I hi-jacked her trip and went along. We loaded up and left early Saturday morning and drove to Jackson (in between Memphis and Nashville). Here we are leaving Arkansas and heading into Tennessee!

We stopped to stay at this wonderful new hotel called the Courtyard by Marriott. They not only gave us a great deal on the room for the night but they were dog friendly and didn't care that I had Sookie (meaning they didn't charge us a pet fee). And for those of you who read this and know how clumsy I am I only had one minor trip on the curb that only spilled a small amount of Sookie's dog food on the sidewalk. Here is what our awesome room looked like.

We got up and drove to my sister's house the next day. The next week involved a lot of home improvement, trips to Lowe's, and trips to Home Depot And of course lunch at Toast on Market!

Sometimes I went along and sometimes I hung at the house with Sookie to let them chill and talk together without me. Sookie loved hanging out on their deck when it was nice and warm, as you can see.

I also made a diaper cake for a friend of my sister's while I was there but since she hasn't given it to the person yet I will post it later after she has the shower. Our last night there we went to this restaurant near their house called Aspen Creek. It was pretty darn good! They had a nice variety of choices and the food was really yummy! I also wanted to get a picture of Melissa and Michal because I always seem to have pics of Melissa but none of him or them together. The first picture Melissa didn't like because Michal was only half smiling.
So we retook it. This was much better.
Then when we got home my mom wanted a picture with them in their backyard. Again with first picture we had a slight issue ( just at the right moment Sookie jumped on Melissa's foot and I snapped just as she was yelping out in pain! It was pretty funny but I didn't think she would like if I posted it so I left it out.
The next day (Friday) we got up early and drove straight home all the way through because I had somewhere I had to be bright and early in the morning! I had the spring trend show at Nordstroms! I will post that as soon as I can, but definitely before my Cali trip!

Don't forget to check out the While You Were Sleeping post and take your best guess at the answers. I currently have only one gal entered it looks like she will be getting the special prize if no one else makes a guess!

Non-Adventure # 24 While You Were Sleeping!

2010-03-23T14:33:00.020-05:00

First off I have been a really BAD blogger. I have several posts coming, but I apologize to the few who read this blog in not posting lately. So I am starting with our monthly Chick Flicks get together.

February's movie was:

While You Were Sleeping

So everyone came over (minus two girls who while en route had a minor emergency and had to skip out), and we started dinner. Seeing as how the movie takes place at Christmas time the menu planned was a Christmasy-type meal. It included:
Pot Roast with carrots (I used the Pioneer Woman's recipe)
Creamy Mashed Potatoes
Green Bean Casserole
Rolls
and for dessert:
Ice Cream Kitties
We all got started making certain parts of our meal. Here are Rose and Adorah peeling and cubing the potatoes for our creamy mashed potatoes.

While they were doing the potatoes, I dealt with the pot roast, and my friend Robin made our easy green bean casserole.
Here is our Christmas feast complete with some Christmasy decorations. I even pulled out the cards from this past Christmas.
Everything was soooooo yummy! Especially that yummy fall apart pot roast. We couldn't eat too much though we still had to make our dessert!
We couldn't resist stopping to take a picture (in between the dinner and dessert course)! Now it was time for dessert. In the movie there are several references to cats. So for dessert we made our own cats. With the help of cookies, candy, chocolate topping, whipped cream, and ice cream we created our own cats.
Some kind of look like mice but we did our best!! And most importantly we had a great time making them and an even better time eating them! We had fun watching the movie, even with an unnamed person asking us which one is Bill Pullman? throughout the first 20 minutes of the movie. It was also quite entertaining to watch a movie with no cell phones!
I know I am sooo bad for taking forever to post this and though no one even tried to answer the quiz last time, I am just going to assume you just didn't know the answers to it. I am going to post a new quiz, I will give out a little gift to the one who guesses the most right, even if it is just one person. So here it goes:

Sandra Bullock Trivia Quiz
1. For whom was the role of Lucy in While You Were Sleeping originally written?
a. Demi Moore
b. Meg Ryan
c. Julia Roberts

2. In what action movie did Bullock make her on-screen debut?
a. Speed
b. Hangmen
c. Demolition Man

3. What writer is one of Sandra Bullock’s favorites?
a. Ernest Hemingway
b. Tom Clancy
c. Dr. Seuss

4. Sandra and her father work together on a passion of Sandra’s. What is it?
a. Real Estate
b. Deep-sea fishing
c. Jujitsu

5. What is the most outrageous thing Bullock has done for a role to date?
a. Bungee jumped
b. Duct-taped her breasts
c. Shaved her head

So take your best guesses and leave a comment, and remember if you keep it anonymous and win I won't be able to give you your prize! Here are the recipes we used for the night, minus the pot roast one because I linked you to the Pioneer Woman's earlier. We are taking a pause for the month of March with Spring Break's and some other things it was a crazy busy month. I will resume again in April and the movie is...............................

Mary’s Creamy Mashed Potatoes
6 medium all-purpose potatoes
1/2 to 3/4 cup hot milk
1/2 stick butter or margarine
salt

Peel potatoes and dice into 1-inch cubes. Place the diced potatoes in a large saucepan, and cover with cold water. Bring to a boil, and boil gently for about 20 minutes or until you can mash a cube easily with a fork. Drain well. Add hot milk and butter, and mash with a potato masher or a fork until lumps are smoothed out. Transfer to a hot serving bowl, add salt to taste, and whip with a fork until fluffy. Add additional hot milk if necessary. (For a change of pace and a richer flavor you can substitute 6-8 ounces of cream cheese in place of butter. Cut up the softened cream cheese before adding it to the potatoes. Makes approximately 6 servings.)

Green Bean Casserole
1 can cream of mushroom soup
3 14-oz. cans cooked green beans, drained
1/2 cup milk
pepper
1 1/3 cups French fried onions

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees, mix the soup, milk, and pepper to taste in a 1 1./2 quart baking or casserole dish. Add the green beans and 2/3 cup of the fried onions, and stir until just coated. Bake for 25 minutes. Top with remaining 2/3 cup fried onions, and bake for an additional 5 minutes or until onions are lightly browned. Makes approximately 6 servings.

Ice Cream Kitties
2 or 3 half gallon containers of ice cream in a variety of flavors
1 package chocolate sandwich cookies
one 8-ounce package m&m’s
1 container spray or whipped topping or whipped cream
1 package black licorice laces cut in 4-or 5- inch strips

To create your cat, place a baseball sized scoop of ice cream in a bowl (let ice cream sit our a bit to soften; then use an extra-large ice cream scoop). Take 2 cookies and push them halfway into the ice cream ball. These are the cat’s ears. Place two dollops of whipped cream halfway down “the face”, these will be the cheeks. Take two m&m’s for the eyes and 1 for the nose and place them accordingly. Take 2-3 licorice strips per side for cat’s whiskers and poke them into whipped cream cheeks, all the way to the ice cream so they will stand out.
Feel free to get creative. You can add stripes with chocolate sauce or “fur” with different colored sprinkles, but most of all have fun! Serves approximately 8 depending on how much ice cream you eat!

We Promise It’s Not Elsie’s Eggnog*
6 beaten egg yolks
1/4 tsp salt
1 cup sugar
3 cups milk
1 1/2 tsp rum extract
1 tbsp vanilla
2 cups heavy whipping cream
nutmeg

In a large, heavy saucepan, mix egg yolks, salt, milk, and 5 tablespoons of sugar. Cook and stir continuously over medium heat until mixture just coats a metal spoon with a thin whitish or beige film. Do not boil. Remove from the heat. Place the pan in a bowl of ice water, and stir for 2 or 3 minutes to cool. Stir in rum extract, vanilla, and 3 tablespoons sugar until sugar is completely dissolved and incorporated. Cover and chill for 4-24 hours.
Just before guests arrive, beat the whipping cream and remaining 1/2 cup sugar in a mixing bowl until soft peaks form. Transfer the chilled egg mixture into a serving or punch bowl. Fold in the whipped cream. Cover and chill. Stir lightly before serving. Sprinkle each serving with nutmeg. Makes about ten 4-ounce servings.

*We didn't actually make this because some of the girls that come to Chick Flicks are pregnant and the raw eggs in this are no bueno for them! And we were way past them serving eggnog in the store.

Rambling # 20 An Upside-Down Delicious Pineappley Treat!

2010-02-10T00:28:00.020-06:00

Have you ever seen a recipe in a book or a magazine and it made your mouth water and you began to crave it so bad you knew it wouldn't be long before you made it? Well that was me this week. I am not usually a HUGE fan of cakes but there are some I just absolutely love (like Chris's Chocolate Cake and this one!). I was flipping through this month's Family Circle (well technically I think it is March's)
and I came across a Pineapple Upside-Down Cake recipe that set my mouth to watering! The other night I gave in to my craving and made this really simple but super delicious recipe for Pineapple Upside-Down Cake!

Ladies and Gents your ingredients for:

Pineapple Upside-Down Cake

Baking powder, milk, eggs, butter, flour, vanilla, pineapple slices, maraschino cherries, DARK brown sugar, nutmeg, salt, and sugar.

I started by cracking open the pineapple slices and draining the juice into a bowl, you will need this later. So for now, just set it to the side. Preheat the oven to 350. Now it is time to build up the yummy top part of the Pineapple Upside-Down Cake! The best part if you ask me.
I started with a 13 x 9 pan and melted half a stick of unsalted butter in it. I set the pan on the stove and turned a burner on low. When it was all melted I made sure the bottom of the pan was completely covered.
Then I added a 1/2 cup DARK brown sugar Mix it with a fork until it is all combined and completely coats the bottom of the pan, like so
Next layer the pineapple slices on the brown sugar so that you make a good layer. It will take at least 10 but could use 12 slices to make a complete layer.
Rather than open another can for 2 more pineapple slices I just spaced them better so that they make a good layer.
Put a cherry into the middle of each pineapple slice.
Umm it looks yummy already!
Now for the Cake part! First measure out your dry ingredients. In a bowl measure out 2 cups of flour,
2 teaspoons baking powder,
1/2 teaspoon salt,
and 1/8 teaspoon of nutmeg. Most people I know (including me) don't have a 1/8 tsp measure so I just did about half of the 1/4 tsp.
Give those a good stir with whisk or a fork to mix well, and set aside. In a mixing bowl add a cup of sugar
add a stick of softened, unsalted butter now beat together for 2 minutes. When your two minutes are up add two eggs. Beat until well blended.
After your eggs are good and blended add HALF the flour mixture on a low speed.
Keep the mixer going while adding 1/2 cup of the pineapple juice (the stuff you drained from the slices earlier and set aside)
1/2 cup milk and beat until blended.
Beat in the rest of the flour mixture,

and then add a teaspoon of vanilla.
When all is mixed, blended, and combined pour the batter over the topping into the 13 x 9 pan.
Smooth it out and make sure everything is covered, no cherries peeking out.
Now bake in the oven for 40 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean. Cool on a wire rack for a full 10 minutes. If you rush to pop out the cake too soon the pineapples and cherries may stick to the pan.
Ding! Ten minutes are up! Take a baking sheet and place it on the cake (and ignore the camera cord! I had to plug in my camera to even be able to turn the camera on.)
flip
and Voila! It looks so yummy and golden! Be aware it will be hard to wait those full ten minutes so make sure you set a timer or leave the room so it will look just like this!
Now cut yourself a slice and enjoy!
Look at the carmelized brown sugar, the soft sugary sweet pineapple, and a cherry to top it off! Perfection!
Here is what the page looks like in the magazine! Delicious!
Don't forget to read the post below and make your best guesses in the trivia questions! I got a great surprise for the winner!

Pineapple Upside-Down Cake

topping:

1/4 cup (1/2 stick) unsalted butter

1/2 cup packed DARK brown sugar

1 can (20 ounces) pineapple rings in juice

10-12 maraschino cherries

cake batter:

2 cups flour

2 tsps. baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

1/8 tsp ground nutmeg

1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, softened

1 cup sugar

2 eggs

1/2 cup milk

1/2 cup pineapple juice from pineapple rings

1 tsp vanilla

Preheat oven to 350.

Topping:

Melt butter in a 13 x 9 metal baking pan on stovetop over low heat. Remove from heat and stir in brown sugar. Drain pineapple rings, and reserve 1/2 cup of the pineapple juice. Fit the rings in the pan, it should take about 10-12 rings. Take a maraschino cherry and tuck it into each hole in the pineapple rings.

Cake:

In a bowl whisk together the flour, baking powder, salt, and nutmeg. In a mixing bowl mix softened butter and sugar together for 2 minutes. Add eggs, and beat until blended. On a low speed, beat in half the flour mix, pineapple juice, and milk. When all that is blended add remaining flour mixture, then vanilla. Spread the batter into the pan over the topping. Bake at 350 for 40 minutes or until toothpick comes out clean.

Cool cake on a wire rack for 10 minutes. If you pop too soon the pineapple rings and cherries might stick to the pan. After the FULL 10 minutes use a baking sheet on top to flip the cake over. If some do stick just put them back on the cake. Eat warm and enjoy!

Non-Adventure #22 Something Fun! Plus a Surprise Giveaway!

2010-02-04T21:53:00.018-06:00

I am starting a new monthly project and I am calling it Chick Flicks! I saw something in Mardels last November that caught my eye. It was a book called Chick Flicks.
Like it says on the corner it provides Dinner and a Movie. So I emailed some friends to see who was interested and everyone said they were couldn't wait and would love to do something like this at least once a month.

The Plan:

Your friends come over and together you make a pre-planned meal that goes with the movie theme. Everyone sits down, eats together, and chats. There are meal time talk starters and trivia questions too. As a group we clean-up, sit down, and watch the movie. After the movie (if everything hasn't run too long) there are discussion questions that help with the overall themes in the movie and provide some Bible scriptures to help re-inforce the themes in the movie. The book has twelve movies, so we will finish the book in one year. By the way there are other versions of this book one for guys that has action movies, one for families with movies like Finding Nemo and others.

January was the official kick off month! I invited everyone over (and despite some cancellations) we had a good showing. I promise next month I will take pictures, I was so busy trying to figure out how I wanted to do everything I forgot to get my camera out. So our first movie was:

Fried Green Tomatoes

Everyone came over and we started cooking. I set up stations with everything the girls would need so that I could just kind of float between helping where I needed to. Now somethings have to be made ahead of time so that everything can be eaten all together and so you can eat before the movie not after.

The Menu:

"The Secrets in the Sauce" Sandwiches (made ahead of time)

Deviled Eggs (made ahead of time)

Potato Salad

Fried Pickles (Supposed to be Fried Green Tomatoes, but couldn't find and green tomatoes so I had to make a substitution)

Whistle Stop Old Fashioned Peach Cobbler and ice cream

(I'll include the recipes we used at the end of this post. The potato salad was store bought and I used my mom's deviled egg recipe instead of the book one.)

As people finished with their food prep I had a quiz for everyone to answer. After all the food was hot and ready for eating we sat down. We prayed and started chowing down. I asked the girls some of the meal time talk starters. Here are what some of those were:

The south loves its fried foods. What is the strangest thing you have ever eaten fried?
As women, we truly relish attention lavished on us by the one we love the most. What is the most outrageous thing you've ever done to attract the attention of the opposite sex?
Why do you think so many women struggle with issues of self-esteem?
How important or unimportant is it for us to conform to the lifestyle society expects of us?

By then everyone had answered their quizzes, so I gave out the answers. All of the quizzes are themed to either a big theme in the movie, the movie, or an actress in the movie. This quiz was the Comfort Food Trivia Quiz. I am going to post the questions here online. If you leave a comment with your guesses on the answers, I will send a special gift to the person with the most right answers. If we have a tie I will do a drawing. I will post the answers with the winners name. The deadline to make your guesses will be next the next Chick Flicks get together (I am thinking it will be Feb. 20th). So here's your quiz:

Comfort Food Trivia Quiz

1. How many pigs does a typical American eat in a lifetime?

a. 8 b. 28 c. 48

2. What fine, Southern lady brought us the first ready-mix food to ever be sold commercially?

3. What is the most popular meal ordered in sit-down restaurants in the United States?

4. What woods should you never use to barbecue as they can add harmful tar and resins to food?

5. What are grits?

6. What popular packaged treat was invented in 1931 as a way to use thousands of shortcake pans that sat empty all year except for strawberry season?

7. Why is pound cake called pound cake?

After our yummy meal it was time for dessert: peach cobbler and ice cream. Then we sat down and watched the movie. It has been a long time since I last watched that movie. I had forgotten just how much I loved it. It was funny to see some of the fashions! It was kind of a long movie so after it finished everyone headed on home! So thanks for coming girls! I had a great time and I hope you all did too.

Good luck on the quiz ladies! And tune in next month when our movie will be........

Oh and here are the promised recipes:

“Secrets in the Sauce” Sandwiches

3- to 4- pound boneless pork shoulder roast
2 medium onions, sliced
1 1/2 to 2 cups bottled barbecue sauce
1/2 tsp hot pepper sauce
2 tbsp orange marmalade (or 1 tbsp brown sugar)
1 tbsp cornstarch
1 tbsp cold water
8 to 10 sandwich buns

Cut roast into large cubes, 2-3 inch squares. Place in slow cooker with onions. In a bowl, mix barbecue sauce, marmalade, and hot pepper sauce. Pour over meat and onions. Cover and cook on low for 8-10 hours or until meat is cooked through and tender. Remove pork and onions from the slow cooker with a slotted spoon, and place on tray or plate. Shred the pork with a fork and set aside. Combine cornstarch and cold water until completely blended. Turn slow cooker on high, and add cornstarch mixture to juices in slow cooker. Blend well. Cook and cover on high for 1 minutes. Return pork and onions to slow cooker, stir to coat well and then cook on high for 10 minutes. Add more barbecue sauce if desired. (if it will be a while before you eat, return the slow cooker to low to keep warm and tilt the lid to vent the steam.) To serve, spoon a generous amount of pork and onions onto sandwich buns. With extra barbecue sauce and horseradish sauce, if desired.

Fried pickles

Vegetable oil, for frying
1 cup all-purpose four
salt and fresh ground black pepper
4 large eggs, beaten
1 cup cornmeal (or breadcrumbs)
1 (16 oz) jar of dill pickles

In a heavy bottomed pot, heat 2-inches of oil to 350 degrees.

Put the flour and a dash of salt and pepper in a small bowl, the beaten eggs in another bowl, and the cornmeal (or breadcrumbs) with a dash of salt and pepper in a third bowl. Dredge the pickles in the flour, then the egg, and then the cornmeal. In bathes, carefully lower the pickles into the oil and fry for 3 minutes. Using a slotted spoon remove from the oil to paper towels to drain. Transfer to a serving platter and enjoy with your favorite dipping sauce.

Whistle Stop Old Fashioned Peach Cobbler

2 15- ounce cans of sliced peaches, drained well
1/2 tsp cinnamon
6 tbsp butter
1/2 cup sugar
1/4 cup brown sugar
1 cup flour
2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
1 cup milk

Preheat the oven to 350. Drain the peaches and sprinkle them with cinnamon. Stir until the peaches are coated, then set aside. In a 2 quart baking dish, melt butter. In a separate bowl, combine sugar, brown sugar, flour, baking powder, and salt. Add milk and stir until mixed. Pour batter over butter in baking dish. DO NOT STIR. Spoon the peaches evenly over the batter. Again, DO NOT STIR. Bake for one hour. Let cool for 10-15 minutes before serving. Serve with a little fresh whipped cream or ice cream.

Non-Adventure #21 and Rambling #19 FIG & Muffins!

2010-01-31T23:49:00.007-06:00

My favorite non-adventures almost always happen when I am out with Robin. She is super fun and almost always up for anything! She is very trendy but realizes that being trendy can be costly so she is an excellent bargain hunter! So somewhere she heard about this finale fashion show where you can find trendy stuff at somewhat affordable prices. It isn't so much a fashion show like runways and stuff but rather lots of racks and tables of clothes, jewelry, shoes, purses, and other accessories. It is called the FIG finale show. Here we are all ready to head out to downtown Dallas.

Here is Robin feeding our meter:
Robin trying on somethings. There are never formal dressing rooms just areas they block of with a partition or small curtain so you quickly try things on. I loved this top on Robin but it didn't make the final cut that day.
A nice fur vest (it too stayed here)
I found me a new headband to go with my favorite blue old navy dress.
Robin and all her purchases heading back to the car.
After shopping and trying things on for most of the morning and some of the afternoon we left and headed off to get some grub. And since Robin had a gift card we headed to Chili's. It is and always has been a favorite restaurant of ours.
Now I am going to leave you with a new recipe I tried. It was one that I got off the Tasty Kitchen website. It is called Bakery Blueberry Muffins and you can go here to look at it. I don't know what my deal is but lately I have been really craving me some blueberry muffins so when I came across this I HAD to try them. So here it is:

Bakery Blueberry Muffins

The ingredients: vanilla, salt, eggs, sugar, buttermilk, baking powder, shortening, raw sugar, blueberries (fresh or frozen) and flour. Preheat the oven to 450.
First I washed and dried the blueberries, since I used fresh. I set aside about a 1/2 cup of blueberries for something that we will get to a little later.
Next I sprayed my 12 cup muffin pan with Pam and then I lined it with muffin liners.
In a seperate bowl I put 2 cups flour.
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt. Give it a good stir with a fork or a whisk to mix up the ingredients, and set aside. Then in a mixing bowl
put in 1 heaping cup of sugar
and 1/2 cup shortening.
Cream together generously
Then when its all mixed add 1 teaspoon vanilla
1/2 cup of buttermilk
and 2 whole eggs. Mix well.
Then add the flour mixture
Mix until just combined. If you mix to much or too long it will make your muffins tough.
Next I added the blueberries (not the half cup you set aside earlier, keep those, I promise we will get to them) and I gently folded them in with a spatula, be careful you don't want to smach your blueberries.
See all mixed together.
I used an ice cream scooper to put a generous amount of muffin mix into each liner. So it looks like below when all is done.
Now remember the 1/2 cup of blueberries you set aside, just push a 3-4 blueberries into the top of each muffin. Push the berries in pretty good (or they will roll of when the muffins rise).
Now take some raw sugar and sprinkle it on top of each muffin.
Ok here they are all ready to go in the oven.
Here is one up close.
Then put them in the oven and bake at 450 for 5 minutes. Then reduce the heat to 375 and continue baking for 20 minutes. Here they are fresh out of the oven. Mmmmmm don't they look yummy!
Look how the raw sugar is all sparkly! It makes a really nice crunch too.
I let them cool on a wire rack for about 5 minutes. Serve while warm or if saving for later store them in a plastic ziplock bag. Just looking at them is making my mouth water! I hope you guys like them as much as I do.

Bakery Blueberry Muffins

2 cups Flour
2 teaspoons Baking Powder
½ teaspoons Salt
½ cups Shortening (butter flavored is fine)
1 cup Sugar, (a heaping cup)
1 teaspoon Vanilla
2 whole Eggs
½ cups Buttermilk, (Or Vinegar Soured Milk)
2 cups Blueberries (Fresh or frozen, set aside 1/2 cup of blueberries)

Raw Sugar (or Turbinado sugar)

Preheat oven to 450. Wash blueberries and dry blueberries, and set aside 1/2 cup. Grease and line 12 cup muffin tin. In a bowl add 2 cups flour, 2 tsp baking powder, and 1/2 tsp salt, stir to mix together, and set aside. In a mixer add 1 heaping cup of sugar and 1/2 cup shortening, cream together well. Then add 1 teaspoon vanilla, 1/2 cup buttermilk, and 2 whole eggs, mix together. Then add the flour mixture and mix until just combined, not too long or too much or your muffins will be tough. Next, gently fold in the blueberries with a spatula, carefully so that you don't break the berries too bad. Then using the 1/2 cup blueberries you set aside, push 3-4 blueberries into the top of each muffin. Sprinkle each muffin with some raw sugar. Bake in at 450 for 5 minutes. Then turn it down to 375 and bake for 20 minutes. Cool on a wire rack for about 5 minutes and then enjoy!

Rambling #18 Diaper Cake Time Again!

2010-01-31T23:14:00.006-06:00

I have made another diaper cake and with the number of friends that I have recently found out are pregnant I am sure I will have many more additions to this category so keep an eye out! I think I like every new one more than the last. My friend Chrissie had a friend who she wanted to give one to, so she asked me to make one for her and of course I said yes! Normally I buy the stuff, put it together, and then if they haven't paid upfront they reimburse me. But it was around the holidays when she asked and funds were low so I gave her a basic list of what I use and she bought what she wanted to include and then I put it together from what she gave me. I actually kind of liked it because it gave me a little challenge. I am so used to making them the same way all the time but she bought somethings not on the list and so I had to rework somethings. So here is the cake I made for Madison:

Side 1
The back:
Side 2:
She wanted the whole name on the cake but that can get kind of expensive so I bought just the first letter and painted it with pink polka dots.
One of the things she got that was out of my normal routine was a clothing set that contained two hats and a set of booties. So I tried to make a flower for the topper out of the items and I actually like it and think it turned out really cute. It is definitely something that I would try and do again.
See bootie, bootie, and then both hats wrapped around that:
All in all the cake consisted of diapers, baby wash, baby lotion, diaper cream, washcloths, onsies, a hooded towel, and q-tips, and the baby set of booties and hats. I think it was cute and I'm glad I was pushed to step out of the routine and work something new. And I heard through the grapevine (of Chrissie) that the mom absolutely loved it! And I did too.

Non-Adventure #18 & #20 and Rambling #17 Holidays! Celebrate! (think Madonna)

2010-01-03T23:02:00.018-06:00

I was going to give an update about our Thanksgiving but I fell behind and I have decided to make it more of a holiday season update. This update will include Thanksgiving, some Christmas fun with friends, a road trip with my friend Stacie and Sookie (my dog), Christmas in Kentucky, and to finish it off a recipe from cooking with Baylee!

Sooooo.......

Thanksgiving around our house used to be this giant family thing where we all (aunts, uncles, cousins) went to my Aunt Julie's house and had a huge Thanksgiving feast! But as the years have passed, people have gotten married and the number of people attending has dwindled. So we now just have a meal at our house. My sister Melissa and her husband Michal drove down and we invited my Grandad, my uncle JF, and my aunt Kay. That is the all of them in the picture below.

Our spread of food minus the corn
This year I helped make the food as usual but my main contribution was dessert (oh and breakfast we had the Pioneer Woman's Cinnamon Rolls). I made pies, three of them this year. I made a cherry (cause it's my dad's fav), apple (my fav), and I made the Pioneer Woman's Chocolate Pie.

Here is my cherry and my apple pie

all three pies with fresh whipped cream
the cherry up close
Apple
The chocolate pie (she uses a pie crust and i changed it up and used a graham cracker crust)
The next day we made some more Pioneer Woman recipes. We made the mac and cheese and my dad made the bbq bacon wrapped japaleno peppers. She (my sister) liked my cookbook so much she wanted one of her own. So we headed up to Barnes and Nobles to get her a copy. When we got there, there was a giant bus with Mike Huckabee's name on it. Turns out he was doing a book signing. We called the rents and they came up and my dad got a copy of his book signed right at the end of his time in the store. Here he is signing away.

He was nice and signed really fast. Unlike PW, he didn't personalize with names or anything but he did sign a lot in the 40 minutes he was in store. We had a pretty great Thanksgiving and I am thankful for the family we had there and the time we got to spend together. I only wish Donna (my sister) hadn't had to work so she could have been there with us!

Now that Christmas season had officially started I could start listening to my Christmas music! (I mean I was already listening but now I wouldn't get all the strange looks!)

Here are some of the ways I spent my Christmas season. I went Christmas shopping in Southlake with Robin (here we are in front of the BIG Christmas tree!)

I also met up with some longtime friends Hope and Valinda, we went to The Chestnut Tree on the square. It was beautiful inside! They always have Twinkle lights up but for the holidays they added huge beautiful ornaments. While we were eating, Hope looked behind me and said Baylee! I turned around and there was Baylee! Here they are together! They are so cute! I just love those two!

Baylee was there with her great grandmother Mer. Just two fun gals eatin and chattin!I also got to hang with Baylee before heading out of town. We mixed up some hot chocolate and drove to Dallas to look at Christmas lights in Highland Park. As always the lights there were beautiful and elaborate! And we had a great time listening to Christmas music, talking, and looking at lights.

For Christmas I had planned to go to my sister Melissa's house to celebrate! I of course brought along Sookie (my dog) and my best friend Stacie. Sookie turned out to be a fantastic car dog! She slept practically the whole way. Here she is hanging our on her bed in the backseat.
and sleepin' in Stacie's lap

and again in the backseat
Stacie and I took turns driving and we stopped to spend the night at Homewood Suites in Memphis! It was a nice place with a FULL kitchen and it was a pet suite so I didn't get charged a pet fee for Sookie. Here is Stacie on one of her turns driving!
We arrived on Tuesday afternoon (which practically became night because of a time zone change) unloaded the car, and the we headed off to Cheddar's with my sister to meet one of her friends, Becki. Here they are below.
Becki was 9 months pregnant. She ended up having the baby the day after Christmas on my mom's birthday!
We grocery and gift shopped our way through the next two days. On Christmas Eve we got up and headed out to eat lunch/brunch at this place called Toast on Market. It is such a yummy place to eat. We had eaten there before on a previous visit and we (Stace and I) were dying to eat there again. The front of the menu:
Here we are Melissa, me, and Stacie. We are waiting patiently (or trying to) for our food to arrive. Normally there is a HUGE wait but we lucked out being Christmas Eve and all we didn't have to wait at ALL!!!!!
Melissa's food
Stacie's (ignore her "you'll poke your eye out claws!")
And mine. I didn't eat anything all morning in anticipation of the yumminess!

The outside of the building
Melissa then wanted to show us her office building in downtown Louisville and since we were full and in the area we headed over! In the lobby they had a beautiful tree. We took turns posing in front of it.

Then we headed back to my sister's house so I could get started making my pies and other desserts for the next day. Here is my Christmas apple pie (one of my best yet!)
We also made the sausage cream cheese pinwheels for breakfast and oreo truffles. We watched Four Christmas' and then we headed out to a 10pm Christmas eve service. The Sanctuary was beautifully decorated and the candlelight ceremony was really good.

We headed home and went to bed. The next morning we woke up I made my last pie (the chocolate one from Thanksgiving from the Pioneer Woman) and made breakfast. After we had eaten our fill we went and opened presents. Here is her house all decorated.

Ater opening all our swag (mine included new phone covers, juicy pants, a cookbook , earrings, and gift cards to my two fav places itunes and Nordstroms!) we started preparing the holiday feast for later. Melissa and Michal got the turkey in the oven and when it was all done it was a gorgeous looking bird!
Our whole Christmas feast! Hashbrown casserole, southern green beans, turkey, stuffing, cranberry sauce, deviled eggs and yummy rolls.
Our yummy and totally dangerous desert table. Chocolate pie, apple pie, fresh whipped cream, and oreo truffles!!!!!!! Oh it was soooooo goood!
That evening we watched some more movies (Christmas ones of course) and played some games and drank hot chocolate!

Saturday we just hung out and then we went and saw the Blindside. It was such a fantastic movie! I just love Sandra Bullock! Before bed we again played some games and snacked on the desserts from our Christmas feast!

Sunday morning we packed up the car and headed home, stopping at a pet friendly Holiday Inn in Little Rock. Which was a very nice hotel but had two doors one leading into a hall and one into an atrium area and Sookie barked all night long. Oh, and when I was taking Sook outside for a potty break , the parking lot appeared wet but was actually frozen because of the drop in temperature. I went to lift her over "the puddle" and in doing so lost my balance and busted so hard in the parking lot! I was ok a little bruised and some strained some muscles, but fine. I was glad that a car didn't come flying around the corner and nail us both or that she didn't bolt off. Here is Sookie doing what she did best on the trip!

While I was gone (up north!) there was a white Christmas at home but up north we had none of that. So when I got home I was glad when a couple of days before NYE I was able to at least watch snow fall. I was even able to catch some pictures.

I am so glad it's still college Christmas break because that means that Baylee is still home from ACU! I'm thrilled she is having a fantastic time but I still miss our good times. On Wednesday (before NYE) she came over and we made Oreo Truffles (the ones we had at Christmas)
Aren't we just so precious! We had to take a picture in our aprons! Hers has a B embroidered on the pocket! And as promised I am finishing this post with a recipe!

Oreo Truffles

Your ingredients: Oreos (any kind, you can even use the mint ones), cream cheese, and melting chocolate. I found this one at Sams it is reallly yummy and super smooth!
You start by dropping the WHOLE bag, that's right I said it the WHOLE bag into a food processor and crush them up into crumbs. You can also crush them in a plastic bag.
It is ok if you stop and eat a couple like Baylee!
Here I am crushing them up!
And Baylee playing around with the camera.
They should look like this when all is said and done
Next drop in the whole box of cream cheese (make sure it's good and softened!)
And mix it up good and well
When it's all mixed up chill it in the fridge for at least 30 minutes preferably an hour. When your mix is chilled, choose your favorite melting chocolate and melt according to package directions.
UMMMMM! Try and not stick your finger in the yumminess!
Then like Baylee is demonstrating, roll Oreo mixture into 1-inch balls. You can make them big or small really it's upto you.
And place them on a baking sheet with parchment paper.
When all are rolled out dip them into the melted chocolate and get em all good and covered. Use a fork and pull them out making sure to let excess chocolate drip off.
Place them back on the parchment paper. Here is a good time while the chocolate isn't solid where you can add some other things like crushed nuts or crushed peppermints. Don't worry about any holes left in the chocolate from the fork those can be covered with leftover chocolate later.
When all are coated, additions made, and holes filled/covered put the whole tray in the freezer to firm and set the chocolate.
It doesn't have to be long 10-15 min. After they are firmed up you can store them in container in the fridge.
Be prepared for people to think you have slaved for hours to make these yummy treats!

I had a fantastic holiday season and I hope all of you did too!

Oreo Truffles

1 bag of Oreos (your choice on which you would like)

1 box cream cheese, softened

Melting chocoloate (the amount you will need will depend on how many balls you make. Remember you can always melt more!)

Crush the whole bag of Oreo's in a food processor or by hand until only fine crumbs remain. Add in the softened cream cheese and mix well. Chill for at 30 minutes-1 hour. Melt chocolate according to package directions. Roll Oreo mixture into 1-inch balls (or bigger or smaller however you want them). When all are rolled out dip them into melted chocolate and cover them good. Using a fork, lift them out, let all chocolate drip off, and move to parchment paper. When all are dipped and covered add any extras you want and put them into the freezer to firm up for about 10-15 minutes. Store in a container in the fridge and Enjoy!

Non-Adventure #17 and Rambling #16 New Moon

2009-12-05T22:40:00.014-06:00

I am a HUGE Twilight fan and I have been sooooo excited for months about the next movie. Mostly because I love the whole story but also because out of the four books I think that #2 aka New Moon might be my favorite. I think that Stephanie Meyer did an outstanding job with the writing of this book. For me, I truly felt the heartbreak she (Bella) experiences in this book. My good friends Leah and Amy share my love for these characters, in fact we (Leah and I) busted Amy out (she had been on lockdown with the twins for cold and flu season) and took her to see Twilight at the dollar theater in Lewisville. Oh just looking at the poster sends a thrill of anticipation through me!

I was super excited when an email invite popped up from Leah and Amy inviting me to a New Moon party on Saturday the 20th! I couldn't wait! I emailed my yes almost immediately.
Me and Leah
In all my hurry to get to the party, I switched purses and forgot to switch my camera over. So some of these were sent to me by friends and some were taken on my iPhone. These two sweet girls below are my friends Robin and Chrissie (they are fellow twilight lovers as well). I couldn't leave them out of the fun I was sure to encounter at the New Moon party.
Here we are all together. (thanks L!)
The yummy goodies Amy and Leah had put out for us! The table was so pretty it was decorated with apples, sparkly lights and with quotes from the book and movie.

Like the sign says above, they made Italiano for us. The menu included salad, two kinds of lasagna (one with meat a la Jacob and one with cheese a la Edward), and garlic bread. We also had some tasty appetizers and delicious desserts. Most of the food had twilight themes to them. Like the "Hotter Than Jacob Pizza Dip" below:

I asked if I could help bring anything and Amy asked me to make puppy chow or as we called it at the party the "Wolf Kibble". I have included the making of that recipe at the end of this post. To round out the desserts we had Blood Red Velvet Cupcakes and Twizzler "Vampire Bites".
Even the drinks were themed some of the choices were Bloody-Tini's (cranberry, lime, and vodka)
Vampire Kiss (strawberry soda)
They also had a Werewolf cocktail (strawberry pomegranate italian soda), Edward's Sparkling Red Grape Juice, and Type A+ (red wine).
While we ate Twilight played on the TV and we even had a game of trivia that included questions from both Twilight and New Moon. Everyone at the party seemed to really know their stuff.

We were even given party favors!!!!!
Our favors included a copy of the New Moon soundtrack, a card that thanked us for coming, and of course a fork! I do love Forks!!!
A close up of what was written on the card

Here we all are at the theater, seated with snacks and ready for the saga to continue. (thanks A!)

It was soooo good and way better than the first movie. I liked that they were so true to the book, seeing as it was my favorite. I almost cannot wait till it comes out on DVD! I may have to go and see it again!

And to Leah and Amy thanks for the party, I cannot wait till we can do it again in June for Eclipse!

Here is how I made the puppy chow or wolf kibble.

Puppy Chow

The stuff that you'll need: vanilla, butter, chocolate chips (semi-sweet), Chex cereal (I like the Rice Chex), ziplock bag (gallon size), peanut butter, and powdered sugar.
In a large bowl measure out 9 cups of cereal and set aside.
I like to place about a cup of powdered sugar in the bottom of the ziplock bag and I use a can or plastic container of some sort to hold the bag up and open it will make it easier for later. Once done with this, set it aside.
In a saucepan over low heat melt together 1 cup chocolate chips, 1/2 cup peanut butter, and 1/4 cup butter.
Stir until its smooth like above and remove from heat. Stir in 1 teaspoon of vanilla.
Then pour chocolate mixture over the pre-measured cereal.
Stir
until all are well covered in chocolate like below
Now, carefully put cereal into proped up ziplock bag.
After all cereal is in the bag, add another cup powdered sugar.
Seal and close the bag and shake, shake, shake! You want all those cereal pieces covered with the powdered sugar.
I like to chill the mix in the fridge until serving.
MMMMMMM!!!!! Don't they look sooooo good!

Here is a copy of the recipe from on the box. You can also click here to see it on the website. They microwave it, but I have always done it on the stove.
Puppy Chow

9 cups cereal (any of the chex kinds will do)

1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips

1/2 cup peanut butter

1/4 cup butter or margarine

1 tsp vanilla

1&1/2 to 2 cups powdered sugar

In a large bowl measure out cereal, and set aside. Prep ziplock bag with sugar and prop up with can or plastic bowl. In a saucepan melt the butter, peanut butter, and chocolate chips. When melted and smooth remove from heat and add vanilla. Stir, when well mixed pour onto the cereal. Mix until all is well coated. Pour cereal into ziplock. Add the rest of the powdered sugar. Close bag and shake till it's well coated with sugar. Chill in fridge until serving and ENJOY!

Non-Adventure #19 Meet my hero! Her name is Ree or more commonly known as The Pioneer Woman!!!!!

2009-12-03T22:03:00.014-06:00

OK so forgive me because some of the posts may seem out of order but I am waiting on some pictures from some friends for some of my other non-adventures. Because I, in all my excitement, stupidly forgot my camera and they were kind and gracious enough to take pics for me. I REALLY REALLY wanted to tell you all about my Tuesday night. It was a night that I have been waiting for months to get here. So all day Tuesday I could not wait to be done with work, as soon as the clock hit 5 I was out of there and on the road. It was raining and as usual in Texas when it rains people truly become idiots on the road. So finally, after almost two hours of traffic, I arrived at my destination. The Pioneer Woman's cookbook signing! I could barely wait for this book to come out and when it did I ran and bought mine the day it came out! I and several of my family members have made many of her recipes. I love that she gives you step by step pictures. So when my creations start to look funny to me I can check back to her pictures and make sure I am still on track! Here is her book below, it is a wonderfully beautiful book and I highly recommend going to get yours today!
The book signing was at the Borders on Preston road. I want to say to ALL the staff that worked there, thank you! You were all super kind and wonderfully patient with us crazy fans!
Here is just some of the crowd, waiting for her to come out.
And here she is! She had her two daughters with her and her brother (the wrestler). Thats him in the tie.
She talked to us for a couple of minutes. Isn't she absolutely gorgeous!

Her two girls

They were passing out the t-shirts she brought to gives us. Aren't they the cutest!
Here she is starting to sign!
I don't know about her but I NEVER thought there would be THAT many people there. They had us line up by colored wristband, I think they had 6 or 7 colors, with a hundred bracelets in each color. I didn't even get in line for like 3 and a half hours. I debated for a bit about just leaving and going home but then I decided to get in line. Once in line I was committed, I was in it for the long haul! This picture below was not even half way through the store. The far red wall behind the purple was the end of the store we had to make it all the way there, snaking through the store, and then make 3 lefts before we ended up at the table where she sat!
Finally there she is! Just two more lefts (the red wall is directly behind me)!
Just one more left! These four wonderful woman were my crew I waited in line with. I wish I had been more proactive in remembering there names but it was really late and we waited in line for many hours. The two girls on the left are sisters. The girl in the middle had a wonderful husband who patiently waited all night for her to get her book signed (and it was his birthday!). And the nice lady on the right was from my neck of the woods. We laughed a lot, talked a lot, and held each others places in line when we needed to take bathroom breaks, food breaks, or moving your car breaks.
I made it!!!!!!! I must say that I spent all that time in line and never thought about what I should say or ask her when I got up there. If I had thought about it I would have been better prepared. Especially considering that this moment where she is signing my books and taking this picture was about 2 minutes before 1. That's right 1 AM!!!!!!! (the signing started at 7!)
We closed the store down! They completely sold out of her cookbook (they had 700 copies)! She is so wonderful. She writes her blog in way where she feels like your best friend. So naturally 600-700 of her best friends showed up to say hi! She took time to talk and take pictures with everyone. I was soooooooo tired that I felt like I was rambling when I talked to her. I think I mentioned making some of her recipes (but seriously like everyone there probably had!), and told her something like I love her or the book or both. I knew that people were waiting and so I only chatted as long as she was signing my books. I must say here that she was the kindest woman and extremely personal. She was wonderful she stayed and signed until the line ended! She personalized every book and was a true delight to meet! Here is my book!

She brought us a gift too! T-shirts! They are sooooo cute. By the time I got to the shirts they only had large left. So while I might have had a chance with the XL, I don't have a hope of making it in to this one! So if I cannot find a way to exchange it for a larger size, I might make it a giveaway gift! Keep posted for that I will let you know!
Here is the design up closer:
The back
and up close:
Sooo, while the night was a little crazy and I almost cannot believe I stayed that long, I am sooooo sooooo glad that I did! I am glad that I got my book signed and finally got to meet my hero!

Rambling #15 Lookin' for love? Make these!

2009-11-11T01:29:00.012-06:00

This is the the yummiest, most addictive, and easy appetizer to make. People will love you for this and think you are the most amazing cook! I cannot remember exactly who gave me this recipe I just know it is one I love!

Pinwheels

(Sausage Cream Cheese Pinwheels)

Your ingredients cream cheese, breakfast suasage, and a can of crescent recipe creations dough (or a tube of crescent rolls). Recipe creations is the most amazing invention ever. I used to use the crescent rolls but you have to pinch all the seams together but the recipe creations is one big sheet of dough, perfect for this recipe. Preheat oven to about 375.
Brown, rinse, and drain the sausage.
In a bowl mix together the sausage and softened cream cheese. Stir together until well mixed, like below.
On a floured surface, place your dough, and slightly roll just to make a rectangle.
put the mixture on the dough
and spread evenly covering the dough.
on one side start rolling
pinch dough together so you have a long tube like so.
Slice in half and chill in freezer for at least one hour. It can be frozen and thawed later.
After chilling, use a sharp knife to cut slices in your desired thickness.
Place on a parchment lined baking sheet
Bake for 8-10 minutes until golden brown. Scoop on to a plate and serve!
Be prepared to be beloved and adored for the yumminess that you have made and shared.

Pinwheels

1 pkg. (8oz) cream cheese, softened

1 lb. (16oz.) breakfast sausage

1 can of recipe creations dough (or 1 tube of crescent rolls)

Preheat oven to 375. Brown, rinse, and drain sausage. In a bowl mix together softened cream cheese and sausage. On a floured surface, place and roll dough out a little (if using crescent rolls pinch together seams). Spread the mix onto the dough evenly coating. Chill in freezer for at least 45 minutes to an hour. Slice in desired thickness and bake for 8-10 minutes til golden brown. Eat and be loved!

Rambling #14 She's All Grown Up!

2009-11-11T01:26:00.009-06:00

Many, many years ago when I was a freshman in high school, my mom was out walking and came across this pregnant lady who was out walking with her mom. They began to chat and she mentioned how she was looking for a babysitter for her daughter and the baby on the way. My mom told her she had a daughter that babysits, one thing led to another and next thing I knew I had a regular babysitting job! This picture was about a year or so after I started babysitting for Hope and Landon.
I babysat for them until I went to college, and right about that time they moved to North Carolina. After college I moved to New Jersey. They came to visit and we all went up to NYC! I moved back to Texas around the same time they came back to the DFW area. The kids were older and their parents were starting to travel a lot more. So they started asking me to stay with the kids while they were out of town. I could still do my day job and I loved getting to just hang with the kids, so of course I always say yes! Here they are now:

Yesterday was a big day for Hope, the older of the two. She has seriously competed in gymnastics (like olympics level) for several years. Yesterday she signed the papers to be on the gymnastics team at OU! She starts in June. I almost cannot believe that she is old enough to be a college freshman! Here are some pictures from her signing party at the gym yesterday!

So congratulations Hope! I cannot wait to see you compete as a Sooner! I love you and I am sooooo proud of you and the person you have grown to be!!!

Rambling #13 Trick-or-Treat! It's sugar cookie pumpkins!

2009-10-25T20:51:00.011-05:00

So I should have posted this sooner but I had a little blogging bog down when I misplaced my camera. This blog posts pictures are from my phone camera too. I got this recipe from my friend Annalee's mom, Sherri. She is a wonderful woman who over the years has helped me in countless ways while in college and out of college. She is the best! I love that I can randomly call her and get a recipe, ask her a question, or get a place to crash while in Abilene. So one of the several great recipes I have gotten is her sugar cookie recipe and the other day I decided to make some in the shape of pumpkins. So...

Sugar Cookies
Preheat the oven to 400. In a mixer cream together butter, shortening
sugar
vanilla
and eggs
In a bowl stir together flour
baking powder
and salt
After creaming stir in the flour mixture
take your dough and chill in the fridge for at least one hour.
On a well floured surface roll out your chilled dough to about 1/8" thick. Cut your desired shapes (like my pumpkins below) and place them on an ungreased or parchment lined baking sheet.
Bake for 7-10 minutes or until the edges are a lite brown. Cool for 1 minute and then move to a wire cooling rack.
Once cooled either eat or ice them. I mixed up some icing (also Sherri's) and sprinkled them with a little orange sugar.
Aren't they really cute!!!
Hope you had a fun Halloween! Mine was yummy!!

Here are the recipes.

Sugar Cookies:
1/2 cup butter, softened
1/4 cup shortening
1 cup sugar
1 tsp vanilla
2 eggs
2 1/2 cups flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt

Preheat oven to 400. Cream together butter, shortening, sugar, eggs, and vanilla. Stir in the flour, baking powder, and salt. Chill for at least one hour. On a well floured surface roll out dough to about 1/8" think and cut into desired shapes. Place on ungreased or parchment lined baking sheet. Bake 7-10 minutes. Cool 1 minute and then cool on a wire rack. Ice if desired and enjoy!!

Icing:
2 cups powdered sugar
1 stick of butter or 3/4 of a stick of butter
1 tsp vanilla
1-2 tablespoons of milk

Add first three ingredients into a mixer and mix on low and add milk by tablespoon until the consistency is what you would like.