Fall - OVERLOAD!

I went over to Ken's house this afternoon to watch some DVDs. When I walked into his living room and looked out the window, I saw leaves EVERYWHERE in his backyard. I started laughing so hard, because it looks like they have never cleaned their backyard...EVER. But the truth is, it looked spotless last week. I guess the rain and changed of weather caused this. Check out the pictures below...haha...

Can you believe THIS?? (that is a pool underneath all of those leaves!)...(don't worry the pool has a cover over it!)

Guess we won't be using the fire-pit anytime soon...haha

WOW! (that big tree to the left is the main culprit!)

It is going to take a LONG time to clean up all of those leaves!

Fall Decorations

My Mom loves to decorate for special occasions & holidays. Since it is Fall, she has made our house beautiful, with Fall themed decorations. Here are some of them..

Our front porch area (cute little hay & pumpkins!)

On our kitchen breakfast bar

In our kitchen, the window above the kitchen sink

EVEN on top of our family room TV, little pumpkins lined on top!

(I think this is my favorite: on our living-room table in front of the couch) How pretty!

On our dining room table, pine cones & candles

And our dining room table, what a cute table runner!

Oh...these decorations bring me such joy! I love walking through my house during Fall, it is so festive. Thank Mom for making a beautiful house to live in!

You all are going to LOVE my Christmas decoration blog!

A Halloween Project

About a month ago I had the idea that I would make a Halloween costume for my dog, Jake. I knew right from the beginning what it was going to be...a tennis ball! Jake is a Border Collie mix and is a very high energy dog, he always wants to play especially with his tennis ball. Where you find Jake, you will find a tennis ball. Here is my journey:

Ok..so it's going to be a tennis ball...I need: 1) sewing machine, 2) fabric, 3) stuffing, 4) lots of dedication and time!!

I call Ken's Mom and she luckily had a sewing machine I could use...CHECK!

After work one day I stop by our local fabric store Joann's and got bright green felt, white felt, black fabric and velcro. While I was there I grabbed 2 bags of cotton stuffing...CHECK!

Then the project began...

I got a plain green tee-shirt from Richards and cut it to fit Jake, I used the velcro to open and close the shirt over his ribs. Once the shirt, AKA base of the costume, was made I started on the ball. I measured (with the help of my awesome dad) and cut the green felt.

On the living room floor working away

After measuring, I started to cut what I thought the shape would be...

After I cut my shapes, I decided to hem all the cuts to make it look professional...(wink wink*)

This is where you would find me after work or school, sewing away!

Once I had the green pieces of the ball made, I started to apply the white stripes.

pinning the white stripes into place

Then I had to attach the two green pieces together, this would make the shape of the ball.

I think Jake knew I was making him a very large tennis ball, and he was so excited! He would stare at me, while I was sewing and chew on his tennis ball. It was so cute!


Lou and Jake had the most fun playing in the stuffing for the tennis ball. They would wrestle and lay in it all day.

I think Lou likes it the most...

Can anyone see Lou?? hehe

I put everything together and the tennis ball was complete. It was a very long and tedious process. But in the end (thanks to my amazing mom) the tennis ball turned out wonderful!

We got to show off Jake's costume at the dog park the day I finished it. Everyone in my family went, it was so fun!

Jake could barely fit into the car with the big tennis ball on his back!

Jake walked around and got a lot of comments on how cute his costume was. It made me feel good to hear people say how cute he was in his costume!

Lou and Jake about to go into the dog park. Lou was a alligator...hehe

DA DA DA LAAA!!! The finished product!!! Jake in his wonderful tennis ball costume!

It was fun to make, but A LOT OF WORK! I think I will think twice before I start a project like this again.

Happy Halloween!!

Camping

This weekend Ken, Natalie, Shawn and their friend Nate and I are going camping! We are going to Big Sur, It is going to be a weekend filled with games, campfires, laughs, hikes and great food!



Blog to come when we get back!

Hope you all enjoy your weekend!

Cheat Sheet

For those of you who don't know, I am a pre-nursing student. My goal is to become a Registered Nurse. It has taken me a long time, but I am almost ready to start applying to Nursing Schools...(WOO!!)

With Nursing being my major, there are a lot of science classes to be taken. These science classes are really tough and require between 12-20 hours of studying a week. That doesn't even include the 10 hours I am in school for that one class! When I started taking physiology this semester, I was so surprised to hear that we got a cheat sheet for our tests. "A cheat sheet??", I thought...this must be some kind of joke! I have never been allowed a cheat sheet on any test in college...EVER!

After I confirmed with my teacher this was not a joke, I got my cheat sheet all ready for our first exam...it took me 5 hours to complete, but I was able to fit about half of the information we had to have memorized.

A quarter of the way through

The final product...never thought I could write that small

It was a lot of writing, and I had to take many breaks because my hand was cramping so much. It paid off though, I did really well on my test! I am so glad the first exam is done...only 4 more to go!

Fun Friday

Every Friday, my family starts the weekend off with what we like to call "Fun Friday". Fun Friday usually consists of a bike ride on the trail before dark, then we pick up take-out (no one has to cook = fun) and we usually end the night with a movie. But this last Fun Friday was special. My dad was out hunting, Ken was in Maui (lucky) and Natalie and Shawn were working. So that just left me and my Mom. Even though it was just the two of us, we had so much fun!

My Mom and Sister watch this show called America's Test Kitchen. My Mom saw them make a home-made deep dish pizza, she was determined to make it. So we spent our Fun Friday baking our own deep dish pizzas! After eating them, I like to refer to them now as "Deep Dish Delish Pizzas!"


These really were home-made!


We started off with the dough with a little flour.



While the dough was resting we started our pizza sauce. We used one tablespoon of olive oil with two cloves of garlic. We let the garlic cook a little in the olive oil...


Then we added our crushed tomatoes to the garlic and olive oil...(1 can). We let this simmer for a while to thicken up...


While the sauce was thickening up, we tried this great tip we learned from America's Test Kitchen. A lot of the time when you get a pepperoni pizza, the pepperonis are very greasy on top of the pizza. We learned that if you put the pepperonis in between some paper towels and cook them in the microwave for 20 seconds, it remove most of the grease. So after the pizzas were baked there was far less grease on top of our pizza. Thank you America's Test Kitchen for that tip!

Pepperonis pre 20 second cook

Pepperonis post 20 sec cook...look at all the grease we got off!

Next, we got the dough in our pans. You add 3 tablespoons of olive oil to the bottom of the pan. I know that seems like a lot of olive oil, but that is what make the bottom so crispy and "deep dish delish!". The trick was to make the center of the dough much thinner than the outer portion.



Then we added 2/3 cup of our pizza sauce. Don't do what I did and add the sauce all the way around. As you can see there is a red tint all over the dough. I didn't know you were supposed to leave some crust, and ended up using a paper towel to dab around the edges...whoops...

Sorry I know the picture is sideways, just tilt your head!

Then we added my favorite food....CHEESE! They said mozzarella was the best to use, so we went with America's Test Kitchen's advice. We sprinkled 1 1/2 cups on top of each of our pizzas.

Next came our non-greasy pepperonis. You just add however many you want. I tried to do a pretty circle design.


Put the pizza's in the oven and bake for 20 minutes at 400 degrees. Remove the pizzas and let rest for only one minute....


After they have rested for one minute, remove from pan and cut a slice and enjoy!



This was such a Fun Friday, and it was even more fun because I got to spend time with my Mom. We always have so much fun together. She is the best!

After our pizzas were done, we lounged on the couch and watch some TiVo.

Here is a link to the actual recipe...probably makes more sense than mine!

The pizzas turned out great, I would recommend this recipe to everyone. YUMMY! Hope everyone else had a Fun Friday like we did!

Pedicures...

A few days ago: my mom, sister and I all got pedicures...can you tell who got what nail polish??

WINNER GETS A COMMENT ON THEIR BLOG!!

Guess away....hehe......