Oreo Oreos

I made some homemade Oreos this weekend, and boy are they easy. I don’t know if I’ve ever posted the recipe I do on here, but here goes:

2 boxes of chocolate cake mix (try to have two different ones, it makes it slightly more fun)
1 cup shortening
4 eggs

Mix all ingredients together, and then roll into tiny small balls, maybe an inch wide. Bake at 350 degrees for 9 minutes. When you take them out of the oven, drop the pan onto the countertop from a few inches up, this flattens the cookies. When completely cool, pair together and frost the middle.

So, there’s that, and here’s my super easy recipe for frosting:

1 stick butter
8 oz cream cheese
1 tsp vanilla
3-6 cups powdered sugar, depending on how much you need

Cream together the butter and cream cheese, throw in the vanilla as well. Then add powdered sugar until desired consistency.

So, after doing that, to make things a little differently, I put like, 15 regular store-bought Oreo’s in a food processor, and reduced them to crumbs. I threw these into the frosting, and voila:

Much deliciousness and amazingness. Make these, guys. I’ve done so many different frosting flavors with these lately, do that too, see what happens!

New Tiny Bestie

Today, as I was chilling, all of a sudden, Husband called me from upstairs and told me to quietly come outside. All riiiiight, I thought suspiciously, but came anyway. I got up there, and lo and behold, there was a tiny family of quails running through our yard, a mama and like, 10 tiny babies! I snapped this pic before they got too far:

You can barely even see them, but that’s the best I could do. Then I saw one go underneath a car in the street, and the rest of his crew ran away. I was basically in tears trying to figure out if he was going to be lost behind! I kept tabs on him, and at one point, he came out from under the car, but as I got closer, he didn’t run away.

Then I was concerned about him frying to death on the hot street in the hot sun, so a neighbor and I conspired to get him into the grass, and hopefully to his family. But when we tried to grab him, he went back under the car. Defeated, and believing everyone’s words of “leave him alone, his mom will find him or he’ll find his mom” (and by everyone, I mean my sister, Husband, and the neighbor) I left him alone. I came out a little later, and he was gone, so I think they did find each other! I’m sad not to have my bestie around still, but I’m glad knowing he’s with his tiny adorable family.

Weekly Darth

Guys, Darth is getting freaking more adorable every dang week.

Look at this joker, getting himself his own food.

Baby duckface?! Come on!

He basically sticks his tongue out now every time anyone says his name. Amazing.

Miscellaneous Monday

School has started today. It’s so weird to think that this is my second year, I already have one done. Do I have 3 more years, or 4? I don’t know yet, I don’t know how much longer things will take to get finished, or if I’ll finish it right on time. Hopefully, the fact that I don’t have a writing class will really help me out this year, since writing is the bane of my existence. After going through my first day of stuff, it seems like luckily, I won’t have too many papers to do this year, so hopefully my stress level won’t be too high. Good luck to all students this semester!

Cookie got a haircut today, which was good, because she was looking really grizzled. She actually hasn’t had a haircut since before the summer, I think May was the last time. Yeah, 3 whole months since she got a haircut, so she was gross, and pretty gross-looking. When we got her, she definitely was freaking out because she had been around STRANGERS (honestly my dog is a weirdo) but she calmed down after a few hours. And luckily we’ll get her haircut done before 3 months pass, next time.

I tried a new food truck today, Kitchen Eighty-Eight. HOLY COW I cannot stress how delicious this is. I got the tri-tip, which was deliciously tender steak over a lot of mashed potatoes and some snap peas. They were so freaking good, I wanted to have more dinner, I was sad when I ate it all. I’ve really enjoyed hitting up food trucks lately. I just like how fun it is to experience a delicious awesome meal outside of a place to sit down, where I can be outdoors, and the possibilities are endless! So everyone should try this place, is what I’m saying. You won’t regret it.

Color Run 2015

Today was the glorious Color Run, and it was as fun as always! This year, they introduced glitter/silver, and that was a lot of fun. Before, clean and fresh:

And after, not at all:

This was a fun day, and while I didn’t take as many photos as years passed, I still think I got some good ones:

It felt so good to get home and wash it all off. It took two shampooings to get the color out, and much scrubbing, but it finally came out! Happy Color Run day!

Foto Friday

Friends, today is the one year anniversary of Husband and I getting sealed in temple, so I thought for my Foto Friday, I would post a flashback picture of it.

I can’t believe it’s already been a year! Happy anniversary to us!

Weekly Darth

Darth got a haircut this week, and boy did he hate it.

This is him beforehand, He’s jazzed, he’s in a tiny train, he has no idea what’s coming.

Then the haircut started, and boy was he angry. I wish I could post the video here, but I can’t figure out how to do it, apparently.

And here he is after! He looks like a tiny nerd, and now he has a thing where he likes to stick his tongue out, but he’s a happy camper.

How to Clean a Crock Pot

Yesterday, I brought a soup to a friend in the ward, their family’s oven/stove burned and they don’t have one for a while, so we’ve all chipped in. After I dropped off the crockpot of soup over, I noticed, my base was dirty and gross, and needed to be cleaned.

Gross gross gross. So I looked up tips on the internet and for most of them, I didn’t have the right things at home to clean so I went with one that was easy: Just use oven cleaner. So I did. I took the crockpot outside, and sprayed the inside of it liberally until it was coated in foam, and then I let it sit out there for an hour. An hour plus 10 minutes, if we’re being honest, because I had forgotten about it.

Then I brought it back inside, and was supposed to use a sponge to clean it but as it turned out, I had no sponges in the house! Sheesh. I instead grabbed a washcloth, made it wet, and then I just wiped out the inside, and scrubbed at the harder stains. After a few minutes:

Ta-daaaa! It’s clean, and I’m happy with it. I recommend this as a way to clean, in case you’re looking for a way.

Family Pictures

A few weeks ago when we had Darth’s birthday party, we also took family pictures. We had every sibling there, except for my eldest brother, who never comes to family stuff, and who I actually haven’t seen in over 5 years. But I liked how they turned out, despite my older sister who apparently was refusing to smile, come on, sis.

My younger sister and I obvs are besties and we took one just of us two:

My dad never really looks happy in photos, but that’s all right, I know in his heart he’s singing. We had a fun day with everyone, and it was fun to see the ones who live a little farther away, and we don’t get to see them often.

Road Trip/Reunion

This weekend, we took a road trip to Montana for Husband’s family reunion. In our car we had, myself, Husband, husband’s brother, his wife, and their child, E-Money. We gave her a magazine, and she enjoyed the ride up.

The ride wasn’t too bad, and luckily it passed pretty quickly. We were given nametags as soon as we got there.

The reunion was all right, but it got over really quickly. It seemed like we had just gotten there and then all of a sudden, we were packing up Sunday morning to go. There wasn’t anything too interesting to report on in the interim, just swimming in the hot springs, and chilling out with family. The ride home was longer, but I think that’s how it always goes. I’m just so excited to be home that the ride seems to drag on. It was fun, I drove my car for the ride, and it was nice to have a car with room, and where people fit and nobody was fighting for space. Happy to be home, though!

Weekly Darth

Oh baby has blessed us with some great photos this week.

He got this little bike/trike device today. He wasn’t sure how he felt about it at first, but now he loves to be zoomed around on it.

This magnificent baby ate his mom’s eyeliner today. In addition to it being on his tongue and face, he had it in streaks all over his arms and legs.

Derp derp derp says baby, getting off the slide.

Throwback Photos

I recently have found some time on my hands, and I’ve been using it to clean. At first, I did the regular cleaning of bathrooms, mopping, and vacuuming and the like, and now, I’m deep cleaning. I’m throwing away crap I haven’t used in ages, I’m trying not to be such a hoarder. And today, as I was cleaning, I came across old photos that I didn’t even know I had! I’ll share these delights with you.

This is myself and my sister, swimming in our small pool. Must have been fun, of course I can’t even remember doing this.

Look at my dad ROCKING this beard.

My brothers and sister, chilling on this giant stuffed horse our aunt has.

And here we have small Vieve, wearing a really weird turtleneck shirt, apparently. I hope you enjoyed looking at these photos as much as I did!

Miscellaneous Monday

Summer is almost over. I can’t believe that in two weeks from today, I’ll be back in school. I’m all registered, I have my schedule, I just need to get some new notebooks. I know that I could just tear the pages out of my old notebooks, and use them anew, but I like having a new, separate notebook for every class, with no thinning pages from previous use. I’ll probably go school shopping the Saturday before school starts, so let’s all wish me luck that I can find the notebooks that I want.

Yesterday, I taught a YW lesson to my Laurels for the 4th time. I’m still just as nervous as I was the first time, and that’s mostly because as a teacher, I don’t think I’m improving. I’m not learning how to be a better teacher, and maybe that’s bad on my part, because you’d think after about 5/6 months of being in this calling, I would improve, but I’m just not. And it’s not just me being critical of myself, and saying that to be humble or anything, I literally still have the YW president texting me after the lessons, giving me tips and stuff of what I could do to be better, and how I could have probably improved on this lesson. And that’s fantastic, I am grateful for the help, but I am really frustrated with not being a good teacher. It’s almost driving me to the point of not wanting to be in this calling at all. If I’m not helping anyone, if I cant get through or get my message across, then what’s the point of being in it at all? Just something to ponder about, for now, I s’pose.

Husband has recently decided to go back to school and get his MBA. Last week, we found out that he was accepted into the U of U’s MBA program, how exciting! This does mean that we’re both in school at the same time, which is really weird. You’d think that being in our thirties, we’d be done with this phase of our life, but I feel like we’re brand new 20something year old kids, who impulsively got married just as we began school. Hopefully the two of us will do well in our studies, and maybe we can help each other study and get through it!

Cookie Dough Oreo Brownies

You guys, I have had a delicious treat today. Let me tell you the steps, it’s mostly in pictures.

Step one:

Make a favorite cookie dough (or use a pre-made one, I legit don’t care. I made my standby favorite)

Step two:

Yep, just plop some Oreos on top of that.

Step three:

Make a favorite brownie mix (mine was definitely a box mix) and then throw it in the oven at 350 degrees for about 48-55 minutes. Take it out, let it cool, and you have this:

Oh yeah. Lots of rich deliciousness in one bite.

Weekly Darth

It’s been a slow news week here for me, so I don’t have anything to report, except for cute baby pictures.

Recently, he’s started to make a weird crinkle nose thing, I don’t understand it, but it’s so funny.

He just likes to look at cars, so every time a car or helicopter comes by, he stops and stares.

The brownies I recently made, his mom made too. This is him enjoying them. What a champ baby.

Frosted Brownies

I was really craving some brownies this weekend, so I found a good recipe on Pinterest, and made it myself. This one was super easy!

1 cup butter, melted
1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
2 cups flour
2 cups granulated sugar
4 large eggs
4 teaspoons vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 350° F. Line a 9x13-inch baking dish with foil and spray foil with non-stick spray. Set aside. In the bowl of an electric stand-mixer, add the melted butter and cocoa powder. Using the paddle attachment, blend until smooth. Add the flour and sugar. Beat together then add eggs and vanilla. Mix just until combined. Pour batter into prepared baking dish and spread out evenly. Bake 25 to 30 minutes or until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean. Remove brownies from oven and let stand 15 minutes before frosting. You want the brownies still warm when you frost them, to  melt the frosting a little. And here’s the frosting:

1/4 cup butter, softened
1/4 cup milk 
1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
3 cups powdered sugar

Beat together all the frosting ingredients until smooth. Pour and spread over warm brownies. Let cool completely before cutting and serving.

These are so good, you guys. We all ate them within a day!