Happy Valentine's

 Well, Valentine's is here which means time to celebrate love. 

I love love. 

Today we headed to Downtown Disney and hit up Black Tap, because they had a special shake for today. 

Hecking delicious, and definitely had to share. 

And of course, the Love Lego, gotta celebrate the season.

Happy Valentine's Day!

Happy Valentine's Friends! We had a super romantic night of...going to mutual tonight! We are trek Ma and Pa, and tonight they had an activity where we got to find out who our families are, and then we played some Family Feud in our families. Our family won, of course, we are freaking champions.
I hope you guys had a wonderful day of love, and I leave you with a video of Gecko, eating a chocolate covered strawberry for the first time. I can't stop watching it, I just think it's so cute and funny.

Happy Valentines!

Happy Valentines everyone! This is an interesting day for it, because I have some mouth problems. I have had an issue with a tooth since November, and this week, finally, the tooth has had enough. It's a crown, and it fell out in November. Then it fell out again on Christmas night, for goodness sake. Then finally yesterday, it completely fractured and broke out. Alas. So after going to the dentist and learning that I was going to have to get an implant, they glued it back in my mouth and said DO NOT USE IT UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES and I said, ok doc. So after going to school today, Husband and I celebrated with a nice dinner and a romance movie. I also had to stop eating by 7:00, since I have a surgery tomorrow for an unrelated tooth to the problem tooth! GAAAAAH the dentistry will never end! So Husband made us a dinner of Cincinnati chili spaghetti. We recently learned of this from a food show that I record, and I wanted to try it! So we did and it was delicious. We had a fun time watching Amelie, (Adam's first time, definitely not my first) and it was a lovely evening. I said goodbye to the YW leaving on her mission tomorrow, and then an early night for both of us, with school and surgeries tomorrow!

(meanwhile I say to look up a recipe for this and make it yourself, it is delicious!)

Be Mine!

We had craft club tonight, finally getting around to doing a Valentine/February craft, since we’ve been lacking one. After the final decision was made, we got together for decorating, pizza, and fun. It took a few hours to complete, but in addition to doing the adorable craft, I got some cooking recipes off of a cooking show we happened to be watching at the same time. Can’t wait to try them! But now, the thing you’ve all been waiting for:

Ta-daaaa! Lovely, eh?

Foto Friday

Happy Valentines, friends! I got some really awesome stuff from everyone that I love today, and of course, I have to share them.

I got an awesome scarf and cute umbrella (with its own matching scarf!) from Chelle.

And from the Husband, I got some flowers and candy.

And I got a Curl Magic, and I’ll blog about that later. It’s always so fun to share with the people I love on Valentine’s Day. I love that I have the opportunity to tell those close to me that I love them. Of course, I can do that all year long, but it’s nice to do it on this day.

Valentine’s Day

For weeks, Husband has been telling me that I will be so psyched to get his present for valentine’s day. I never have any context of what his gifts are, because they’re always so all over the map, so I had no idea what to expect. I had scouts on valentines day (Because, as I was told by my leader, valentine’s isn’t really a family holiday, so there’s no reason that we should cancel scouts.) I had about 5 minutes between getting home from work and having to be at scouts, and I needed to change out of my skirt into some jeans. As I came into the house that evening, I was like, ok what is that smell? It smelled like, plastic or something, but I couldn’t quite place it. So I go upstairs to my room to get my pants, and when I get in there, I noticed something is different in the bathroom. It takes a second, and I realized, the mirrors! They’re different! And there was my valentine’s present – Husband had installed 2 mirrors in the bathroom, instead of the one. Here’s the pic, and I’ll explain:

Always growing up, I had the tri-fold mirror, and I really got used to having them. I could always turn them to see the back of my head, and do my hair just a little better/quicker. Then I got hitched, and neither our apartment, nor this place, had the tri-fold mirror, so I had to learn to deal without it. Of course, whenever I get frustrated by my hair, I blame it on the mirror, not anything about myself, naturally. My gift was a practical gift, but I am really glad to finally have this kind of mirror. And a plus, it’ll finally clean the counter of all of the stuff on there!

Valentine Day Blondies

Now, I found this recipe a month or so before Valentine’s Day, and I just couldn’t wait for the week to get here so I could make them at the appropriate time. So finally, this week gets here, and I make the recipe. It was pretty easy to make, thank goodness. The recipe:

1 cup flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1/3 cup butter
1 cup packed brown sugar
1 egg
1 Tbs vanilla extract
1 cup to 1 1/3 cup Valentine M&M’s

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Mix together flour, baking soda, baking powder, and salt and set aside. Melt the butter. Add the brown sugar, and mix well. Cool slightly. (I cooled for like, two minutes) Add egg and vanilla and beat well. Add flour mixture, little bit at a time, mixing well. Add 2/3 cup M&M’s. Spread in 9x9x2 pan. Sprinkle 1/3-2/3 cup M&M’s (your discretion) on top. Bake for 20-25 minutes.

The recipe was easy enough, but when I pulled it out of the oven, it was still jiggly and the toothpick I inserted didn’t come out clean, so I baked for a bit longer, like 4 minutes. Then when I checked again, it still jiggled, but the toothpick was clean, so I took it out. And as soon as I took it out, I noticed that it had a really strong vanilla scent. That’s when I realized that the amount of vanilla the recipe calls for is the most I’ve ever seen added to anything. I waited for it to cool down completely, and then when I cut into the bars, they were so gooey it barely cut. I was disappointed in that. They were delicious though, but there was definitely a strong vanilla after taste. So maybe the original gal I got this from meant to write teaspoon, but it came out as tablespoon? I’ll never know. I forgot to snap a pic of them after I got them after the oven, so you’ll have to be pleased with this pic of them going in:

Valentine's Shenanigans

Happy Valentines everyone! I know that Valentines was yesterday, but I’m just here as a recap of sorts. This is only the second time in my (whole long) life that I’ve actually been dating someone at Valentine’s, so usually the holiday means nothing to me. But in all fairness, it still doesn’t mean that much to me, it’s just that this year, I had to buy someone (of the opposite gender) a present, and someone (of the opposite gender) had to buy me one.
Last night, I got home from work, got all my belongings out of my car, and started walking up the stairs to the door. I looked down, and there was a small cupcake on the top step. I picked it up, opened the door, and there was a tiny line of cupcakes leading from the door to the table in the living room. I laughed, and walked over, and saw this:

A cute box of chocolates, with a heart ring of cupcakes, how delish! There was also a vase full of white roses, next to the cupcake heart. Husband also made me dinner, chicken fried chicken, so yum. After we’d eaten dinner, and watched Cougar Town (it started up again last night, all!) we decided, pretty late, that a shake sounded pretty good. So Husband left (I was already in my PJ’s at 9:30, I’m a wild child) because I didn’t want to get dressed. So he leaves at a little after 9:30. While he’s gone, I put away dishes, cleaned up the cupcakes, cleaned the kitchen…and then it’s about 9:50. I was like, I swear this is too long for shakes, but whatever. So I wash my face, put away a few pieces of laundry, and then it’s about 10:05. So now I’m about freaking out, because, hello, it should not be taking this long to go a block or two and get some ice cream. So I just sit on the couch, imagining that he’s somehow gotten into a horrifying accident, and I’m not really doing anything, just sitting there waiting. Of course, he didn’t bring his cell phone with him, he’d only be a minute! And finally, at about 10:20, he comes home, all casual-like. Of course, being the girl that I am (a total sissy) I was all happy that no one had died, and ate some of my shake (it was huge!) and then went to bed.
So anyway, now I have a lot of cupcakes, which I have of course brought to work in the hopes that all my friends here can help me eat them. 24 cupcakes is a lot of cupcakes, especially when it’s just the two of us. So, happy valentines to all, and I hope you all had a good one as well.

Single Awareness Day

It’s that time of year, when guys are furiously searching for gifts for their gals, and girls are busy practicing their surprise faces: Valentines Day. Or, as I like to call it, Single Awareness Day, or SAD. But that’s not to be confused with the SAD of being depressed during the winter, lets make that clear right now. I like to change the name up to reflect my status at said time. To date, I have not yet called it Valentine’s Day. I’m not sure if this is a good thing or a bad thing. I don’t particularly hate this week that much. I say week, because, lets be honest, the week leading up to this day is pretty much like the day itself. You see Valentines Day cards everywhere, there’s red and pink in every store, and hearts all over the place. It’s being shoved down your throats. Probably so that men have no excuse to say they forgot it. Good work stores, way to make sure we celebrate this fake holiday. I know that people do say this is a “real” holiday, from a saint back in medieval times or something, but let’s be honest; it’s not a legitimate holiday. I like to think of holidays as times you get off of work, but then we’d have no holidays! We don’t even get Halloween off, and to me, that is a tragedy. But I digress.
I don’t have any hate towards SAD, I am actually quite glad I don’t have a boyfriend/husband during this time. I might just be naïve in this respect, but I’m glad I don’t have to spend time with a significant other. I can do what I want to do, and I get to mock the couples out who look slightly uncomfortable with each other. Not every couple is like that, of course, and I’m sure many of you out there are laughing at me in my single ignorance, saying, Oh, that Vieve. One day, she’ll understand, and I’m sure I will, but for now, I am enjoying my singledom. I don’t want to have to think of other people’s feelings or thoughts or whatnot when all I care about right now is my own thoughts. I don’t have to stress about getting a gift for a boyfriend, and thinking, is this too much? Is it not enough? Have we been dating for enough time to get each other gifts? Its way too much for me to have to deal with; I have a hard enough time with Christmas gifts for people I’m not particularly close with.
So please, for those of you in a relationship, please don’t pity me. Don’t think this is an attempt to just “make myself feel better”; because I truly am glad I only have myself to worry about. I won’t be sending myself flowers, or envying the people who get them (well, not too much) But if you do see me, I’ll be giving free hugs out, so for those of you who just need a little squeeze to get through the day, I'm totally there for you.