We did it!

Guys, we did it! We made it the full thirty days of blogging without missing a day! I wish I could say that I’m proud, but really, it’s not that hard of a thing to do, it’s not super important either. I’ll most likely be taking a super small blogging break for a couple of weeks – I have the end of the semester, with days of homework, plus my finals, Christmas to get ready for, and my brother-in-law’s wedding to prepare for also. So, I’ll blog when I can, but it won’t be happening all the time, but dry your eyes. We’ll make it to the end of the year together!

Family Photos

A week ago, we did family pictures with Husband’s side of the family. We did them by Utah Lake, and I think they turned out all right. Well, some of them. Some of them are awkward, but that’s all right. I’ll ignore them. For your viewing pleasure, the better pictures:

My sis-in-law and I were in charge of coordinating everybody’s outfits, and I think we did a pretty good job, we all look pretty snazzy. I’m glad they turned out good, it’s always nice to get a fresh batch of pictures every few years!

Ready For the Holidays

All right, now that the wonderful holiday of Thanksgiving is over, I took the day to decorate the house for Christmas. It didn’t take me too long, and I’m pleased with the final result.

I do love doing the tree, but it always gives me such anxiety. Why? I don’t know. I never remember if I put the ribbon garland on before or after the ornaments, and I don’t want there to be too few or too many ornaments, and the whole thing makes me nervous.This is just one of the tiny trees I have around the house. I like having them on the floors where the Christmas tree isn’t, to keep the holiday alive everywhere.

It seems like every year I add a little something to the ledge with the letters. I like it though.

And the stockings were hung by the chimney with care…now the holiday season feels like it’s begun!

Foto Friday

Here’s the best picture that could have happened on Thanksgiving. I leave it with no story.

Happy Turkey Day

Happy Thanksgiving! I started the day as I usually, the Earn Your Turkey 4-miler near my house. I finished it pretty good, I thought:

Finished the 4 (well, 3.97 according to my watch) in 33:42, not too bad! My goal was 35 minutes, so I feel all right with it. It was so bleeding cold this morning and so windy, I was surprised I didn’t freeze to death there. But luckily I finished, and came home and sat in front of a space heater for a bit.

Then it was time for the delicious pies that I spent all night baking. Here are two of them, cherry-apple and peach.

These were pretty good, I won’t lie. Hope you had a good thanksgiving too!

Lovely Day for a Lunch

Today, at the office, they threw a potluck pre-Thanksgiving lunch. We all banded together to make taco salads, and holy cow were they delicious.

I don’t like that many things (for example. tomatoes, onions, salsa. etc.) so mine looks boring but it was oh so delicious. I can’t believe Thanksgiving is already here, guys!

Weekly Darth

Well, since Thursday is Thanksgiving, I’ve decided to move this week’s Darth to today, to keep things moving. He’s especially cute this week, guys.

He got a bean bag chair this week, and he super loves it.

Baby, have you been eating Oreos?

World’s most photogenic baby, I say.

Miscellaneous Monday

Today starts the beginning of Thanksgiving vacation. In theory, how exciting! I get a whole week off to do nothing! In real life, ugh, I still have so much homework to do, plus I have a test to study for, and work to do. So it’s not too much of a vacation, all that I have a vacation from is actually getting up and going to class. I’m still glad for the break!

Guys, school is over in about 2 weeks! I can hardly believe this, it seems like the semester just started, but I am so incredibly glad that the semester is over. Math this semester was just difficult (and why did I sign on for more math?!) and science kind of kicked my butt, and history was also tough. Maybe just the glow of the freshman year is over, and second-year classes are just supposed to be harder anyway. I’m getting used to the grind of having millions of homework, and having tons of assignments, so if the next semester is like this, bring it on!

You guys, Christmas is a little over a month away! Literally, a month and two days, and then we’re at Christmas. Luckily, I spent some time yesterday thinking a lot, and doing a lot of searching, and I think I’m on top of my shopping, I know what I want to get people, and I feel like I’m not too stressed about it. I’m sure that when it gets closer, and more and more things pop up, the stress of the holiday will get to me, but I’m trying to stay on top of things, so that I don’t have to worry too much as it gets closer to it. I’m excited for the holiday to come, though!

Oreo Truffle Brownies

This is a revelation of a treat, guys. Let’s dive into it. For the brownies, I used a store-mix because I’m lazy, and the brownies aren’t the main focus of this, so I don’t sweat having it homemade. So, make your brownies, and bake them for the appropriate time in a 9x13 pan. Cool them. Completely. No warmth. To accomplish this quicklyish, I just put the pan outside at night and it cooled quickly. Then, make the Oreo layer.

Oreo Truffle Layer
1 pkg. regular Oreos, crushed, crushed, crushed. I put these into a food processor to make them super tiny.
8 oz cream cheese, softened

Then, when your Oreos are finely crushed, add the cream cheese to the food processor (or, you can do it in a standing mixer, or however you want to add them together) and combine the cream cheese and crushed Oreos until well combined. When Brownies have cooled completely, place layer of Oreo truffle on top.

Chocolate layer
2 cups chocolate chips
1 Tablespoon butter

Melt those in a microwave until smooth and completely melted. Spread evenly over the Oreo later. Put in the fridge to harden (yeah, or like I did, put outside, since it’s so cold outside it chilled so fast!). Enjoy!

These are so freaking good, I can’t even explain how good they are. They are so amazing. Make them!

Oatmeal M&M Cookies

Saturday night, time for baking! I wanted to do a cookie tonight again, so I chose oatmeal m&m cookies, they are so tasty. The recipe is:

1 cup butter, softened
1 1/2 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup granulated sugar
2 large eggs
4 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 and 2/3 cups (140g) old-fashioned rolled oats
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 bag (12 oz?) mini m&m baking chips

Preheat your oven to 325 degrees. Mix together the butter and both sugars together on medium speed until smooth. Add the egg and vanilla and mix until combined. In another bowl, combine the oats, flour, cinnamon, baking soda, and salt together. Add to the wet ingredients and mix on low until combined. Add the M&M’s. Roll balls of dough (about 1 tablespoon of dough per cookie)  (or, if you’re me, just use your cookie scooper and plop onto the pan) and place 2 inches apart on the baking sheets. Bake for 10-11 minutes until very lightly browned on the sides. The centers will look very soft, like they’re not done cooking, but take them out anyway! Let them sit on top of the stove for about 6 minutes, to finish cooking a little. Then let cool on baking sheet for 5 minutes before transferring to a wire rack.

Guys, I can’t express how good these are. They are tasty. The cinnamon is a nice little spice to add, and these look like Christmas because I bought the Christmas m&m’s. I can’t wait for the holidays!

Foto Friday

I was Skypeing with sister and baby today, and he made this face, and it was too good for me to pass up getting a photo of! He’s getting to be so much fun lately, now that he’s old enough to walk and talk, he just talks the whole time we Skype, mostly nonsense words, but he does say ‘hi’ a lot, and he says ‘cool’ and ‘pop pop’ and today, he learned how to say my name! It mostly just sounds like ‘feef’ but it’s close! What a great little guy.

Weekly Darth

You guys. As of today, I have one month until I get to see my sister and baby Darth in the live. I could not be more excited for this blessed event. To tide us over until then, here are these amazing pictures.

I don’t think you can see it here, but he has orange dust all over his chin and cheeks. This kid loves himself some Doritos.

What is his life about?

There are just too many great baby faces.

A Lovely Card

My sister and I have a joint iTunes account (well, myself, and her, and my sisters-in-law all do) and the bonus about that is that we all get to share the music and movies that we all buy. The bad thing about it, is that whoever sets up the account (which in this case, is me) gets charged any time anybody buys anything. Recently, my sister bought a $15 item, and so to pay me back, she sent me the money in the mail, in what could be the best card ever.

The front…

And the inside. What a great card to get.

It’s Happened

Well, it’s happened. I made it a whopping 17 days before I ran out of things to blog. It’s nobody’s fault, there’s stuff going on all over the place, but there’s nothing of note for me to talk about. I haven’t done anything lately, between my math test on Thursday, my paper due yesterday, and another paper due Saturday, I really have just been pumping myself into my schoolwork. But, I have good news, there’s less than a month of school week! 3 weeks left, and I’m finished! I just have to make it through finals, and I’m home free. I leave you with this picture to enjoy until we meet again.

What a great dog.

Miscellaneous Monday

Thursday of last week, I was running some errands, and then had picked up some lunch. I was waiting at the back of the stores, waiting to be able to turn left out of this business. I had been waiting for a minute, and it didn’t look like I was going to be able to turn any time soon, so I was looking at my phone, reading something to Husband. All of a sudden, BAM, I was hit! I got rear-ended! I got out of my car, and we took a look at our cars, and miraculously, no damage! I had never been so happy to have my new car, if I had had my Toyota, it would have folded like an accordion. We exchanged information, just in case, and went on our merry way. Thank goodness that nothing happened!

I have great news, everyone, I only have 1 paper left for this semester. It’s due in 6 days, and I know what you’re thinking: oh Vieve, you must be almost done! But no, this isn’t the case. I haven’t even started. I only just found out what the paper was going to be on last Thursday. I had a lot of science homework to do over the weekend, so I finally started to write in on Sunday. I have none started. I tried to get things going, but I don’t know how to begin, and I don’t know how to do it. Papers are literally the worst, I hate them so much, it makes me want to quit school. Hopefully I can get this done within the next few days, and we can rest easy the rest of the year.

I’ve realized recently that the end of the month of December will be insane. Not only is Christmas happening, but I also have finals a week before that, a wedding (not mine obvs) a few days before, with a second reception (these two events are in completely different places than my town, so the travel time alone is going to be annoying) and then Christmas. My stress level for all of these things is about 89% right now, and I’m a month away from these things happening. I’m trying to remain calm, but this stuff is all doing me in, and there’s almost nothing I can do to lower my stress at this point. Let’s all send some good stress-free vibes this way, guys.

An Unexpected Visitor

Today, as I was in sacrament meeting, I was just chilling, and glancing around, you know, like you do. As I was looking in front of me, I noticed a visitor I can honestly say I had never seen at church before.

You can’t really tell, but I tried to point out with the arrow, but there’s a puppy there! The people here were visiting my ward, and they’re training a guide dog. He was so cute, I wanted to snuggle him, even though it wasn’t allowed. Take heart, though, I didn’t break any rules, and I didn’t touch him.

Peanut Butter Blossoms

Now, I won’t lie, I’ve blogged about these before. But today, I did things a little differently. Here’s the original recipe if you’re so inclined. I did some differences though. Instead of shortening, I did butter, and instead of frosting, I used Hershey’s Kisses…until I ran out, and then I used some leftover Nutella buttercream. I tried to imitate a Kiss shape, and I think it worked out pretty well.

See, the ones on the left are Kisses, and the ones on the right are frosting. Cool, eh? These were super good and ever so tasty.

Foto Friday

For my card swap, we do neighbor gifts for one of our cards in November. I had many ideas, and some didn’t really pan out, so I chose this:

I got the link for the paper from here, and then I just attached to a popcorn bag. Easy and cute!

Weekly Darth

All right let’s look at this cute baby.

He was trying to avenge his fathers death, of course.

Dinner time is happiest time.

And now, some news. I don’t know if I’ve put it on here yet, but Sister is expecting a new baby! I keep calling new baby Baby Genevieve, because I hope it’s a girl, and I hope they name it Genevieve. They found out what the new baby is going to be, and drumroll……it’s another boy. I’m a little disappointed, because I wanted a niece, but that’s ok. I’m sure new baby will be cute too, and let’s get him started on the blog too.

The ol’ Stamp and Chat

Tonight was our amazingly fun stamp and chat. The treats for the evening were ones that were to start with the letter T, so we had:

Tortilla chips (plus tseven layer dip)
Turnovers of the cherry variety
Truffles of Oreos
Tasty treats of hard candy

They were all so delicious, and I definitely ate a lot! And of course, our super great cards:

True Love

So, the youth in my ward come over every Sunday after church. We all chill, eat a snack after our 3 hour meeting, and chat. There’s too many that come, so half are in the kitchen (where I usually am) and then half are in the front room. I have a dinosaur note holder in my front room, with papers in his back, for the notes. There’s a thing the kids in my ward do, they write 2 names on these notes, and if the note make it to the next Sunday, than that couple is meant to be. It’s kind of funny to look through the names after they leave, and see who wants what relationship to happen. This past Sunday I was looking, and lo and behold, our names had made it!

I reckon it’s true love already, but we’ll see if it makes it to Sunday!

Miscellaneous Monday

You guys, I have too much school going on right now. It’s nearly Thanksgiving, so I have a million things due. Ok, and by million, I mean I have 2, I have 2 papers due the week before Thanksgiving. I’ve been working on one of them for the last week or so, and as of today, I think I’ve finished it. Unfortunately, I still have the other one to write, and it’s going to be the worst one of them. Hopefully it won’t be too awful and I can finish it with days to spare.

Originally, I was supposed to be teaching for YW next Sunday, but with a surprise twist, I was only going to have to teach for about half of the time, since we’d be getting a new presidency for the girls. Then last week, I was informed that we were moving the new presidency date, and I’d have to teach the whole time. Daaaaang it! And then I was informed this week, we have to change up the way things go, so I don’t have to teach at all! What a fantastic chain of events! I know, I know, I should want to teach and blah blah but I don’t. It’s actually the worst part of this calling, and I hate it more than life itself. I’m waiting every day to not hate it, and maybe someday I will. But for now, I’ll celebrate not having to teach.

Do you ever feel like being an adult is stupid? Like, for just one day, you want to quit being adults? I would love this. I would love to make no decisions for myself, but have an amazing day of just playing, while someone else cooks my meals, and brings me places, and plans my whole day for me, and I just have to worry about coloring, or if I’m going to get “the good cup” at dinner. (yes my family had a “good cup”). I just feel like one of these days would be great.

A Sabbath Video

I know that Sundays are the day of rest, but lately, since I've started school, it's not really a day of rest. Even with having done my homework on Friday and Saturday, I still have so much to do on Sunday. So I thought including a good video here would help us all keep in the spirit. I love this video. I first saw it during Sunday school class, and I just love it. It gives me the feel-goods. Enjoy!

Golden Oreos

Today, I was making my customary Saturday night treat, and I had to use my frosting left over from last week’s apple pie cupcakes. I finally decided, why not just make some Oreo’s? So I made some yellow cake Oreo’s, and then used the brown sugar cinnamon frosting from last weekend. And then, I still had over half of my Oreos unfrosted, so I made a different frosting, Nutella buttercream. They were both really good!

I just love Oreo’s, they’re my go-to treat, and they’re super tasty all the time.

Foto Friday

There are many times when I need some help with homework. Actually, it’s not too many of times, it’s just that there are times in math where I have issues, and I need a different way of explaining than the way my teacher did. So I enlist my sister in law to help me, she graduated in a math degree. The other night, she was helping me, and my sisters in law were also helping, it was like a group effort.

I think we finally did figure out the answer, but boy, is math so frustrating sometimes!

Weekly Darth

Baby is just the best at making faces, I love his little ways of doing things.

Now that it’s cold, he has to start wearing hats, I don’t know what he’s doing here, but it’s marvelous.A lot of my pictures are also saved from snapchats, so there’s always the explanation in with it. This is fantastic, I love his expression with the headband.

Of course, the obligatory tongue-out picture. What a great baby.

Chili Dog Casserole

I’ve had this before, and I’ve even blogged about it before, but in my earlier post, I just showed a pic, I didn’t include the recipe. So now, for all your dining pleasure, a delicious recipe for Chili Dog Casserole:

2 cans chili
8 hot dogs
8 10-inch tortillas
Cheeeeeeese (cheddar or Mexican. I used Mexican blend because I was out of cheddar)

First, preheat the oven to 425. Then, take a can of chili, and put it on the bottom of a 9x13 pan. Roll the hot dogs in the tortillas, and place them in the pot, seam-side down. Put the other can of chili on top of the hot dogs. Bake for 25 minutes. Take it out, and put cheese on top, maybe 1 cup, maybe 2, maybe just throw as much on there as you feel.

Bake for 5 more minutes, until the cheese is melted. Eat that business. I accidentally put my cheese on first, before putting it in the oven, and it may have burned just a touch.

 

Whatever, it’s still tasty, and even though this is not the healthiest thing to eat, it’s still so good. Enjoy!

My Halloween Pumpkin

Here’s the problem with blogging every day right now: I have nothing going on. It’s just that school takes up so much of my time, since my homework takes several hours, by the time I don’t have any homework, I’m too burnt out to actually do anything else. Not that it matters, because by the time I don’t have homework, it’s usually 9:00 or 10:00 anyway. But I digress, nobody wants to hear about homework. So I dug into my phone, and thought, here’s a fun thing, the pumpkin that I did for Halloween.

I’ll be honest, I don’t like to carve pumpkins. The insides are gross and everything is so goopy, and the thing is just messy and I don’t like the smell. So every year, when we do pumpkins, Husband does the pumpkins, and I supervise in another room. But this year, he bought me a little kit that I could do a pumpkin without all the junk I hate. Behold: Iron Pumpkin

What a great looking pumpkin. I think I’ll just do this every year.

Miscellaneous Monday

All right, all right. Halloween is over, and Thanksgiving is about 4 weeks away. Then, Christmas is about 4 weeks after that. We have about 8 Fridays until Christmas, and I can’t tell you how stressed this makes me. I feel like there aren’t enough hours in the day for anything, and all of a sudden, it’ll be Christmas, and I won’t have prepared at all! Let’s all not panic, I think we’ll be fine, but oh man I am feeling so crazy about this.

Bad news, everyone. I have mice in my house. This morning, I found mice. Well, technically, I haven’t seen the mice, just the evidence of them. I don’t know where they are, I don’t know where they’re hiding, but oh my dude, we need to find these jokers. I’ve emptied out the closet where I saw the evidence, and we’ve set traps, and now I’m just waiting for those idiots to fall for it and kill themselves in the traps. Does that sound harsh? Good, I want these suckers dead.

Recently, I decided to re-watch the TV series Parenthood on Netflix. I started it a while ago, and then today, I finished season 5, the second to the last season of the series! So imagine my rage when, after I finished it, I all of a sudden learned that Netflix doesn’t have season 6! I tried to figure out when it’s supposed to be on there, but they don’t have a date. Hopefully they’ll put the next one on there soon, and I can finish the whole thing. Cross your fingers, guys.

Apple Pie Cupcakes

All right you guys, here starts November, so here starts National Blog Every Day Month. I am going to try it! Basically, even though school is knocking me down every single day, I’m going to try it. So, lets kick off this month with a recipe.

Today’s is Husband’s father’s birthday, so we got together to celebrate it and reminisce. We made his favorite foods for dinner, and he really liked apple pie, so I made apple pie cupcakes. Mostly I was flying by the seat of my pants, but I think they turned out good! So I made a basic yellow cake, and spooned them into the cupcake liners. I had gotten a can of apple pie filling, and I chopped up those apples into small pieces. Keep the rest of the apple mixture, once the apples are out. I spooned about a half-tablespoon of the apple pie filling onto the top of the batter, like so.

I baked them at 350 for 15 minutes, and then let them cool. Then I made the frosting. The recipe is:

2 cup softened Butter
3 cup Powdered Sugar
1 cup Brown Sugar
2 tsp Cinnamon
2 tsp Vanilla

Whip butter, brown sugar, cinnamon and vanilla until fluffy. Gradually add powdered sugar. Then add about a tablespoon of the apple pie mixture (without the apples), and mix until that’s incorporated. After the cupcakes are cooled, frost!

These ended up being really good! I recommend these, they’re delicious and so soft and tasty.