Success!

Well, it's done. My blanket is finished. I gave it to my sister for the new baby for Christmas. She (my sister) loved it.
So after giving away this blanket I think I went through withdraw. I sat for a day with nothing for my hands to do. So when I went to work the next day, I brought more yarn and started another project. This time it's a big blanket for me and Russell. =) Its a Granny Ripple pattern and looks pretty cool. I'll have to post a few pictures later.


PS: G found out yesterday she is having another boy!!!!!

VTech Visit

Mom and I went to VTech over the weekend to see Kit's Christmas concert. We got an added bonus of seeing him test for his gold belt in Tae Kwon Do the next day. Here is a video.

Happy Thanksgiving

I know its a little early, but this Thanksgiving is going to involve a LOT of driving and little time at home for blogging.

This year I am thankful for:

• Getting sick before the holiday so I don't miss it. (Strange, I know but I am feeling so much better today than I have been for the last week. I know I will be in top shape for the holiday.)
• A new(ish) car that can handle the drive up and back to NJ and PA in the span of three days.
• A fiance who is willing to give up his Thanksgiving with his family to come spend it with me and my family.
• A sister who is ok with me taking my nephew for a night just so he can see the changes to his grammy's house and get to spend some time with the family.
• A job. In this ecomony and high unempolyment rates, I am so thankful that my job is deemed essential and they haven't moved to downsizing my department to save some money.
• Great friends who got together yesterday to celebrate a Thanksgiving dinner. With everyone pitching in and bringing a dish we had more than enough food and it was delicious.

I hope everyone has a wonderful and happy Thanksgiving! Stay safe on the roads if you are driving. Remember everyone in front of you, causing traffic is trying to get to see their family too. =)

Happy Halloween

So today I am braving the unknown and roasting a chicken. For all the cooking that I have done, this is NOT something I have done before, even assisting my mom. To start, I did some research. I found the right recipe. I then read more. And totally confused myself. Some recipes said to put the bird breast side done, others said to put butter under the skin. But they all started the oven at the same temp: 425. I went to the store, picked up a 6.5 lb oven roaster. Came home, read the packaging. And was even more confused!!! The package said to roast at 350. For 2.5 hours! So I called my mom. She said to pre-heat the oven to 425. Put the chicken in and turn the oven down to 350 and roast. Since the chicken I got has a pop up thermometer, she said to roast for the short amount of time, then check the pop up to ses how much more time I should leave it in. So that is the plan.


On a side note, yesterday I discovered the joy that is the produce and fresh foods section at Whole Foods in Annapolis. I've been there before, to the old location, and wasn't really impressed. There were strange brands and different kinds of foods that I really wasn't interested in trying or needed. But yesterday was a different experience. They had some great looking apples and other produce. I went with my friend and we got stuff for dinner last night. We got some really good sweet chipotle balck bean dip. To die for!!!! They even had organic heavy cream in the cool bottles. I got one because on top of cooking chicken, I'm making butter again! Yum.

Well I hope everyone enjoys their end of October today. The weather is great outside!!!!

Theifing.

A few weeks ago R and I stole my nephew for a few hours while G was working. We took him to a pumpkin patch and the beach. We enjoyed some pizza and playing in the sand. This Sunday we are stealing him again for a family brunch. He is really excited! Me too! Can't wait to see this smiling face! Saying Cheese!

Picking out a pumpkin... "this one is heavy"

"I found it"

Climbing around in Baabee's car.

Making sure the "punkin" rides in style and safety

Cutting his pizza with a knife and fork. So sophisticated.

Never mind, hands work best!

Getting a chance to run around the boardwalk. Peaking in the sign Now it's beach time, complete with flying sand.

"Look I found some driftwood"

Napping with the "punkin" on the way home. Shaking up some bottles.He loved being hung upside down by Uncle Ruf Ruf

Look who found some monies! Oh this could be trouble!

The gingerbread cake Extravaganza

Here it is folks; my gingerbread cake making adventure. The results smelled and tasted fantastic! The whole point behind this baking was to use up the ginger, clove, and nutmeg spices I had in my pantry. Well when I decided to make cup cakes instead of a whole cake I discovered that I did not have any cup cake pans. Oops. So I went out to the store and bought two. And decided to buy all-spice. Which is was the recipe called for to begin with. So now I still have ginger, clove, and nutmeg. And on top of that I have to figure out how to use up the all-spice. Oh well. I'm sure it will be a great adventure. Any recipe ideas floating around out there would not be turned away.

*Sorry about the lack of pictures, but the blogger thing wasn't uploading pictures.*

Freshly bakes cup cakes.

The end product. They tasted as good as they smelled!

Gingerbread cake.

About to make this: http://www.food.com/recipe/gingerbread-cake-78628
And cover it with this: http://allrecipes.com//Recipe/cream-cheese-frosting-ii-2/Detail.aspx colored with yellow and orange for Halloween. And with candy corn and gummy bugs and worms for decoration. I am excited!

A quick update on the baby blanket. I started over for a third time. With red, blue and green yarn. But the right brand and right size. So far so good. A picture will follow. I'm hoping that a 3rd time's the charm with this blanket. I have plans for the yarn that I first started with. I am going to try and make the blanket that I first started with. So we will see.

The first true fall weekend

So a quick update on the blanket. RIP. =( I had to pull it apart. I found out that I had somehow added 3 extra stitches from the time I started row one to the time I did row 30. It wasn't pleasent. BUT, I talked with my mom and she and I both agreed that now that I have had lots of practice with the basic double crochet, I can try a blanket that has some variation in the stitches. So I chose one with a shell pattern. Now the hard part is figuring out the gauge. I'm still kinda stuck on that, so I hope to figure it out while watching some Sunday night football. Keep your fingers crossed for me.

On a better note, R and I spent the day yesterday at Hershey Park with his roommate and girlfriend. That was a good time. The weather was great! Nice and cool with no clouds in the sky. We made it to the park around lunch time and managed to get two roller coasters done before an hour was up. After that we walked a lot. I mean a LOT. The is one park that has hills all over it. That made it easier to eat all the gross, greasy park food. We just walked it off. C and I managed to make it through one last roller coaster. It was called .... well I don't remember what it was called but you sat down in the car with an over the shoulder harness. It wasn't a wooden roller coaster. It then dragged you up a huge hill and dropped you, sending you through the station and out the other side, through a couple of loops and twists and then pulled up a huge hill on the other side. So now we were backwards. It then dropped you down the hill and back through all the loops and twists and back to the station. It was just like 6 Flags Two-Face except you were all facing the same way and the track is underneath you, not suspending you. K and R went on one last roller coaster while C and I went shopping for some T-shirts and other goodies. We stayed at a hotel in Harrisburg and went to eat dinner in a firehouse that had been coverted. I didn't get any pictures, but the beer tap at the bar was an old fire hydrant. The whole place was pretty cool. The food was fantastic!!!! Even the price was good. We then tried the heated pool. It wasn't heated. It was inside a room that was heated, but the pool was too cold to swim in. I would have liked to get a chance to swim in it, because there was 2 walls of portholes at the bottom of the pool. They looked through to the hotel bar.

Today we went to visit the National Civil War Museum. That was pretty cool. They had some great displays and a ton of information. If you wanted to spend the whole time reading the walls and displays you could. I just looked at the pictures. We picked a good weekend to go. It was the last weekend of the season they had anything going on. Today they had the 44th Mississippi doing a live camp weekend thing. Complete with shooting demo. We learned the history of the outfit. They started the war with over 100 men. They ended with 9. One cool thing that was done in the Civil War was that when a unit lost men, they didn't add replacements. As casulties rose, the unit would get smaller and smaller until it was integrated into a bigger unit. Also, the units were geographically based so the men from the same town all fought together. This has all changed now. Replacements are added to a unit and men from all over fight together in the same unit.

I ended up with a puzzle from the gift shop. Its a scene from a ballroom. I'm excited to start putting it together.

Well it's time for football. Everyone enjoy the cool weather!

It's officially fall.

It's officially fall. So to celebrate, yesterday and today I made chicken soup. I have a recipe that I took off the foodnetwork.com by Emril. I made it once before and it turned out ok. Not great, just ok. This time, I used a whole chicken cut into pieces, two whole bulbs of garlic, and two boullion cubes. I know that last ingredient is kind of cheating, but last time, even when I used salt and garlic salt, it just was missing something. I made the soup stock yesterday while Russell and I were out. When I drained everything the stock was a beautiful, rich, dark brown color. Last night it had been light yellow. I was really excited because now it looked like all the homemade stocks that the food network chefs use. Score one for me! I tasted it and it was yummy. It definitely needed salt, but I didn't add any yet. Russell and I were getting ready for a date night so I quickly put everything away. This afternoon, I shreaded the chicken and began making the soup itself. Onions, garlic, carrots, and celery all went in. The chicken too. Then the stock. I brought it to a boil and added salt, garlic salt and tons of pepper. It is absolutely delicious!!!!! Because it is chicken NOODLE soup, I'm supposed to add noodles as well. Right now my plan is to cook the noodles separately and add them as needed so that I can have left overs with noodles that are not soggy.

Next cooking adventure? Butter. Again =)

PS: the baby blanket is coming along great! Pictures soon to come.

Learning how to crochet.

My mom must love it that I am learning to crochet.... I have called her more than 6 times in the past three days to ask her questions about it. =) Earlier this week I got to meet my friend at JoAnn fabrics to search for the right yarn. We ended up with all the right stuff, plus a little more for a future project of necklace making! So I got a book on how to crochet a blanket and all. I read it from cover to cover. I looked online for clarification for some terms.... who knew that "drawing up a loop" meant that I had to pull the loop through the other look already on the hook. Not me. Thanks Internet!

To start I took my "practice" yarn and played around with stitches. This isn't a very good picture but I am using light colored yarn and it doesn't like the flash.

I then took a skein of my "baby neutral" yarn and book with me to work yesterday and got started. Once I got into the rhythm of things, (and called my mom three more times) I calculated my gauge and chained 158. Ugh!!!! Try counting that high when everything looks the same. I got distracted some times and had to stop and re-count. From there I started on the double crochet. Doing that into a tiny single-with chain was ridiculously hard. It took me over an hour to finish it. I didn't have anything to hold onto and I was trying to count stitches to make sure I got it right... well I finished with 155 instead of 156. So I called mom again. =) We got the problem all worked out and I now have 5 rows worked.

The only problem now is that the length is supposed to be 34 inches. The single chain was a few cm over that. With the first row it grew to about an inch longer. Now I have over 3 feet of length. I did think that maybe I am pulling my stitches too tight and that is effecting the stretch of the yarn, but I have no idea.

I am hoping that if I loosen my stitches, maybe that will shorten the length of the rows.

And now.... I go back to crochetting!

Coming for a visit

My sister and nephew came down for a work visit at the beginning of the week. We had a grand time. R and I took the baby to see the airplanes at a park on Dorsey Rd. We also ate some lunch at the mall and saw a baby and a puppy. Once at Grammy's we ran around the new room a lot and just played. Day two was pretty much the same, without the mall and airplanes. I love watching my nephew... hopefully R will break down soon with all the exposure to him and R will decide that having babies sooner rather than later is a good idea ;)

He's playing Ring Around the Rosie in his cave.

Change of seasons

I love fall! I love being able to open the windows all day long, even through the night. It does help to have a heavy comforter to snuggle under at night though. Russell and I went running today. It so much easier to run with its cool, then when its ridiculously hot out. I even don't like going to the gym in the summer because of how hot it is outside when I leave. But anyway... the nice weather promts being outside lots... including bon fires. We are having one tonight. I love the fall. =)

Just Like Highschool......

I had a wonderful meeting-up with some ladies at the beginning of the week... and it was "Just like highschool" according to Mrs. H. Except better. Why? Because of this.....And this....And this....And of course... this made it the best!It was a wonderful visit complete with pizza for lunch with fresh mozzarrella and yummy pepperoni! I had a great time just sitting around and talking about childhoods and "back in the day" memories. We also saw great, modern, (for lack of a better word) baby tools like the "udder cover" for public breast feeding and the ring sling with made the baby snuggle with her momma and go to sleep. It was great getting to hold a little little baby again and little girls are just a little bit cuter than little boys. =) Especially when it come to hair accessories like bright green hairbows.

Along with a great visit from friends, we were productive as well.... we always are, I think. And this truely made it "just like highschool." Back in the day Mrs. K ;) and I would sew away on dresses and costumes and blankets and all sorts of great things to our hearts content on her mom's bedroom floor. Well we were still in the house, just moved to the living room. And we sewed.... and sewed... and sewed. Until 7pm when Mr. K called and said he wanted his wife back. So I had to let her go =( But we were both so close to being done with our projects that it all worked out anyway. And for right now... like maybe only the next few days to weeks, but still.... they are close enough that we can join up again on the living room floor to sew for a day.

Mad sewing on the floor skills demonstrated throughout the afternoon.

Awesome festive material!

Success!

Getting ready for fall.

I love fall. I love the cold. I even like it when it's cold and dark and dreary in the winter-time. I am just a cold-loving person. =) Anyway... with school starting and all I have decided to stop being bored and try some projects. The problem is... I don't know how to knit or crochet. And I don't own a sewing machine. But I went online to Joann Fabrics and I really just want to buy piles of their Halloween/ Fall/ Christmas material and roll around in it..... don't ask me why I feel that way. Anyway... I am trying to decide if it is worth it to spend $300 on a sewing machine since I don't really have anything to sew. I could try to make a quilt but for $300 I would just go and borrow my mom's sewing machine since she is not using it right now. Plus I don't need a quilt. I could learn how to knit.... but what would I knit and for whom. Same with crocheting. I want to decorate my house with fallish stuff but I have no idea what. There are only so many table clothes, oven mits, pillows and aprons a girl can make and use. Blah!

Welll on a happy note.... Paulie let his "Tia Marmaymees" (Aunt Marlenys) hold him while we were in the Poconos. I missed the sweetest picture of him holding her face, but I got this good one.

And I get to see this cute kid this weekend!!!

Dress choices

So it took longer than a few weekends ago, but I finally made it to try on wedding dresses with my sister. And despite my misgivings about going to a "factory" store, the expirience I had with David's Bridal was above my expectations. I came away from the visit with two, yes two, dress options and the idea that if I bought my dress from David's I would go back to the NJ store and have the same sales consultant. She was very helpful and just plain nice. Here are the links to my choices. The first one is name brand and pretty expensive. But the second one is just as pretty and fits me well so I will not be upset if I decide that the first dress is just too much money for me.

Dress #1: http://www.davidsbridal.com/Product_Satin-Bodice-with-Organza-Skirt-and-Beading-CT258_Bridal-Gowns-Features-Designer-Gowns-Oleg-Cassini

Dress #2: http://www.davidsbridal.com/Product_Satin-and-tulle-assymetrical-pick-up-gown-T9669

My plan is to look at two other stores, the bridal place in SP and the same place my sister got her's to see if I can find similar dresses that I like even more or the same dresses for cheaper.

Enjoy the pictures.

Attack of the ants.

Went to a wedding this sunday. It was an outdoor/ backyard wedding. Very nice. Very hot!. Left my purse on the ground. Had an interview the next morning and discovered ants crawling all over me and my purse. Once home dumped everything out and found the draw. An old jolly rancher. Covered in ants. So I attacked them back with my vaccum cleaner. No more ants!!! PS. No wedding dress shopping this weekend. Nor next weekend. Too many changes in plans. So we try again next weekend. Keep your fingers crossed!!!

My Grand Adventure

This weekend I am officially beginning the grand adventure known as... Wedding Planning! I know, I know, I really started that the moment Russell proposed, but in my mind it is not truely offical until I look for a dress. So this weekend I am driving up to NJ for such a purpose. I'm not planning on buying anything yet. I mean I've still got a few years... hahah. But really. I have no idea what I want in a wedding dress. Except that I want a big skirt and a train. Oh.. I also think I'd like a cream colored dress. Not ivory, but off white or some shade of that. I am hoping to come home with some good ideas and an idea on prices. As of right now, I'd rather keep my dress with alterations done to a three digit number. I'm pretty sure I can do that. I'm also plannig on looking at bridesmaids dresses. I know David's Bridal is a very good place to get dresses from. I mean they DO dresses. And I am ok with getting bridesmaids dresses from there. But I'm not sold on buying MY dress there. Probably because when Gina went to David's to look for dresses she didn't have a good time. It was crowded and rushed and the guy (yes, guy) brought the same dresses out for her to try on. When she did find her dress it was from a small, local store and I loved the atmosphere of it. There was never more than one other person there trying on dresses and all the ladies came out and fluttered around her during the fittings. I'm afraid that with David's I wont get that. That it will be too overbearing and "processed." There is so much time and effort put into picking and fitting the right dress that I want to be the only dress that person is thinking about. Not "oh my gosh this is dress number 4 and I've got 50 more to fit!" With bridesmaids dresses there isn't that much to it. You get a dress, make sure the size fits and if you needs some alterations they are usually very small issues. So.... here's to getting ideas and just enjoying trying on some dresses!

Happy 4th

Happy Early 4th of July everyone!!!!!!! And for those reading this tomorrow, Happy Regular 4th of July.

Baby it's cold outside.

Ok so it's not really cold... but compared to last week and even the beginning of next, its wonderful outside. We've got the windows open and everything. Highlights of the week: my nephew came down on Monday and Tuesday. He had a fever the whole time but we weren't sure if it was a virus or from teething. Highlight of next week: Gina is coming back down and we begin..... Wedding Dress Shopping!!!!!!! I can not wait. It makes the fact that I actually AM getting married all the more real. And what girl doesn't like playing dress-up in some fabulous clothes.

An Adventure in Butter and Cream

So folks, I did it! I made butter today!!!!! It was really fun. It took a bit longer than I thought so I got a bit nervous but everything turned out right. I started with a nice cold mixing bowl, wisk and heavy cream. I started mixing it and watched at the cream got thicker. Once the stiff peaks formed, this is where it got dicy. Since it was taking a decent amount of time, I turned off the mixer and scraped down the sides. I also looked up my friend EK's blog to see what she did when she made butter. About this time, the mixture started changing and I knew I was on the right track. As I watched the butter granules started forming and buttermilk began splashing out of the mixer. Thats right. With a mixer on high, any liquid is going to get wizzed right out of the bowl. At this point I decided the mixer had done its work. I turned it off and felt the butter. It felt like, smelled like and looked like little pieces of butter in a cloudy liquid. I dumped everything into a strainer lined with cheese cloth and squeezed. Once the butter was in a nice lump I began to wash it. I got butter all over my hands and ring, but its all good. The water came clear and I put the new butter into the French Butter Bell that I had bought from the farmers market a few months ago. My mom had bought one just like mine with a different pattern. When she tried to use hers with store bought butter, she said it didn't work. The butter slid right out of the bell into the water. When I filled mine, I checked to make sure the butter was staying upside-down. So far so good. In fact I just checked again... it's still upside-down. Since I've also been trying to find a place that sells fresh dairy products so that I can buy some buttermilk and fresh cream to make sour cream, I used some of the new-made butter milk and the left over heavy cream to attempt to make some sour cream now. Its sitting in a platic container on the counter. "Souring" I hope. We'll find out tomorrow. Now for using up the rest of the buttermilk. I have no idea what to do with it. The only thing I can think of is buttermilk biscuits or buttermilk ranch dressing! I'm sure both of those are fine things to try out. Maybe next week? Anyway.. I have plenty of ideas for using up the butter. I am hoping to make an herb butter with it. I have tons of rosemary that I never use and I am trying to come up with ideas for using it up. So far it's doing the best out of all my plants and herbs that I planted in the spring. I have one cucumber growing but I think it is dying because it is turning yellow. Oh well. On a side note I have some black cherry tomatoes! Gonna talk to my mom to find out exactly how dark they should be before I pick them. I can't wait. Maybe I can make some bruchetta with the basil pesto and cherry tomatoes. Looking forward to all the possibilities!

Its hot outside!!!!

Russell took a picture today. It was of the tempurature gage in the paramedic unit. It registered a 120 degrees outside!!!! Yikes! On a good note: I made a basil-parsely pesto trying to use up all the basil from my herb box. Its getting too hot outside for any kind of plant so I had to save them. The pesto doesn't quite taste like basil, but that's because I put a huge amount of parsley in it. And maybe not enough garlic. I toasted up some pine nuts for the first time. I tasted them too. They are soft. Almost like peanut butter in a hard shell form or something. It was new and different. I also have some good news. I finally bought heavy cream with the intent to whip the heck out of it and turn it into butter!!!! Yay! Stand by for an update either tomorrow or Saturday. Because I am going to make butter. =)

Garden update

So we had a bad windstorm a few days ago and an extra fence picket got knocked into my tomato plants that Russell moved onto the back deck. The mean ol' fence picket broke a branch of the HUGE tomato plant. Lucky me it didn't break it all the way and I was able to stake the branch and tie it to the stake and back on it self. There are bunches of tomatoes growing and I want to enjoy every single one, so I hope the branch will graft itself back onto the main stem. On a happy note, I have dahlia blooms!

Pictures

A picture post of babies!

My garden

I promised an update of my garden when I got my new computer. PS: I did get my computer finally =) So anyway.... here are the garden pictures. I've actually got a rather large cucumber too that I just saw today.

My tomato plants are mutating! They are so huge! It probably is because I misread the directions on the tomato plant food and fed them with it everyday I watered them instead of using it every 7-10 days.

I've got some flowers growing too. These below are Ranunculus.

And these are the Dalihas that I transplanted from a pot. They were just too big.

I also have two big trays of herbs. Parsely and Rosemary in one and Basil in the other. I've used them all but I have tons and am racking my brain for more ideas of where to use them. Any tips let me know =)