Pinterest: The New Facebook

I've been hooked on Pinterest for a few months now, and it's only getting worse (better?). I love finding new recipes to try, and home remedies, and crafts to fill my time (wait, what time would that be??). I feel like I am able to be more creative - whether that means we are adding one new meal a week into our "rotation", or if it just allows me to let my mind wander, and create ideas and ways to use crafts and other things that I "repin". The other thing it has encouraged me to do, is to use the internet more effectively. The long and short of it is, Pinterest is now my "most visited" site on my computer. It bumped out Facebook about a week ago. I'm okay with that though, because I feel like something good and productive {eventually} comes out of Pinterest. To prove my point, here are the things that I have made, thanks to Pinterest:

Table Runner

S'mores Cookie Bars

Ghost Chili  (I found this on Tasty Kitchen, and actually made it last night for dinner. Leftovers for lunch today!)

Chicken and Cheese Lasagna Rolls

Easy Lasagna

Pork Chops with Apples and Garlic Smashed Potatoes (dinner tonight - a repeat already!)

Turkey Stuffed Peppers (okay, okay, this one I looked for after watching The Biggest Loser - dinner tomorrow)

Grilled Balsamic-Crusted Pork Tenderloin (Sunday's dinner)

Homestyle Creamy Chicken Noodle Soup (Saturday's dinner)


So technically, I haven't actually made those last 3 links yet, but they are on the menu for this week, and we've already bought the food for them (not the pork tenderloin yet...). Thank you Pinterest, for opening me up to more than just salads and the usual chicken dishes.

The table runner is technically not all the way finished (and it's longer than in the tutorial). Also, it never would have happened without my dear friend Michelle. She helped me. I am sewing impaired. I picked out some fabric on Saturday. One side is white with little black bats, and the other side is just an orange on orange damask-y print. It sits on my piano so I can put out my Super Saturday crafts, and one of the 3 Halloween decorations I own. I just have to hand stitch the one end of my table runner, and then I'm done. Don't worry, Michelle, I will finish it this week!! :)

If I'm not already following you on Pinterest, let me know. I'm always looking for new, fun things to try!

xoxo

Chocolate Raspberry Almond Protein

I've been experimenting with some different flavors for protein shakes/smoothies, and I finally found one that I love!

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1 cup Unsweetened Vanilla Almond Milk (I used Blue Diamond brand)
1 1/2 scoops vanilla protein powder (2 scoops = 1 serving of my protein powder)
1 cup frozen Raspberries**
2 tsp Unsweetened Baking Cocoa
1/4 tsp (+ a drop more) Almond Extract
A handful of ice

I put about 2/3 of the Almond milk in with the frozen raspberries and blend that first, then add the powders, then more milk, ice and extract.

Nutrition Stats (when made exactly as above): 229 calories; 18.6 g Carbs; 4.7g Fat; 18g Protein.

This makes a LARGE glass. I like to use straws, and since my straws are small, this takes me about 20 minutes of continual sucking to finish. It's my new favorite snack!


**I freeze my own raspberries so I don't have added sugars or anything. When they are cheaper at the end of the summer, I stock up, and then wash, dry, and freeze. voila!

Elvis for Breakfast

This morning, before heading to the gym, I grabbed a new to me snack. I toasted one slice of Whole Wheat Bread, slathered 1 TB of Peanut Butter on it (yes, I measured out the Tablespoon) and put half of a banana (sliced) on top. I was pleasantly surprised at how good this was. I've had peanut butter and banana before, but on toast was new. This is a snack I plan to repeat!

Rumor has it Elvis loved peanut butter and banana. 

Rumor has it Elvis also loved fried pickles. 

Elvis has good taste {buds}.

The Middle of the Project

The Bedroom Makeover is still happening. We started out by peeling the blue paint off the walls, and then there was a lot of work, and now we have a room that's green. There was much sheet rocking, sanding, mudding, taping, and rejoicing.

Our Dads have worked so hard to help us get things ready. We started painting last Saturday, and put on the second coat Monday (we know what Labor Day means!). We picked out molding yesterday, and are going to get started on that tomorrow. After a Young Men/Elders Quorum service project.

Thanks to all the "Renovation Realities" episodes we've watched on the DIY Network recently, we learned that we can learn how to install crown molding from the DIY Network website. In 10.5 minutes, I have been educated on crown molding installation.

Here is the best picture I could get of "the green room". 

Don't worry. The window isn't crooked. I just don't have picture taking skillz. I have nunchuck skillz, and liger drawing skillz, but no picture taking skillz.

Happy Weekend!

xoxo

Menu Planning

Since the week is mostly over, I decided to plan meals for the week! I just finished putting everything down on paper, and I realized, every single meal is chicken (except Sunday Dinner - we'll be eating at Josh's Parents' house). Granted, lunch is leftovers, that still means I've planned three meals - in a row - of chicken (plus a lot of poultry leftovers). Easy chicken, and pretty "not-too-bad-for-you" chicken. Still, that's a lot of chicken. I guess I plan a lot of chicken because I think it is better (read: fewer calories, less fat, generally healthier) for you than ground beef.

For the love! Please, link some recipes in the comments!! Preferably sans chicken (I didn't need to add that though, right?)

For now, I think I may swap out the chicken meal on Saturday for pork chops. Side dishes will stay, and the chicken eating will resume Monday.

Adventures in Baking

Sunday was Josh's Mom's birthday. Since I'm so on top of things (like birthday presents...woops!), I'd had thoughts about making a really tasty and different cake, or at least trying to decorate (with more than just frosting) a less fancy cake. I ended up deciding to try to improve the physical appearance of an otherwise average cake. How did it go? Well...let me put it this way: You win some, you lose some.

Since her favorite color is orange, we dyed a white cake orange. It took a lot of fancy food coloring, and in the end, I think it wasn't super successful. We didn't bake the cake long enough, and then when we tried to level off one of the round cakes (for the bottom layer of the cake), it ended up, well, mutilated. Evidence below:

*Let me go ahead and apologize now for not being one of those ultra talented people who take really good pictures of their food and figure out the lighting so you can actually tell what you're looking at* 

Sorry. 

We dumped the orange cakes, and started over. Good thing we buy eggs from Costco - you know - bulk. Luckily, we had 2 of the 3 eggs needed for Cake number 2 (or 3 and 4, if you count each round separately, and sometimes I do). So we borrowed an egg from our neighbors and commenced baking cake #2.

This time, we decided to make a chocolate cake, and just dye the frosting. Much better plan. I had this idea in my head for a couple of days, that I wanted to do something different, and try my hand at something I learned from Bakerella once. My MIL really likes the phrase "We do not doubt that our Mothers knew it" (from the story of the Stripling Warriors in the Book of Mormon) and would like that on her headstone. So I thought I would use that phrase. 

I had a bag of orange candy melts on hand (but only 2 eggs, yes, I understand the irony) so I melted them in my squeeze bottle, and wrote out "We do not doubt that she KNOWS it!". I wrote on lined paper with a sharpie, and then taped the paper to a cookie sheet, and taped Waxed Paper over the top of it, like so:

When the candy melts were melted, I traced over the words with the squeeze bottle. Remember in grade school, when you would be gluing something, and all of a sudden the glue would pop because there wasn't enough glue down by the nozzle? Same thing happens with squeeze bottles of candy melts. Only difference is, it leaves a weird blast-looking hole in your candy melt craft. 

{Side Note: Only shake the squeeze bottle up and down, not back and forth - even if you're SUPER frustrated with it. I ended up with orange candy melts on my neck and arms.}

After I got all the words written out with candy, I drew some hearts and put the tray in the freezer to harden the candy melts again. 

The cake baked, and frosting made, we just had to assemble it. I should have done thicker layers on the words. I did "she" in cursive writing, and that was the sturdiest of all of them. I should have just done the whole thing in cursive, and it wouldn't have broken in so many places. Oh well. We stuck the words and hearts all around the edges of the cake. 

You can see where the "N" cracked. :(

We dyed the excess frosting pink (Josh picked and mixed the color) and I wanted to write "Happy Birthday to a Mother who knows"...but that didn't work out exactly as planned. I was pressed for time, so instead of whipping out my decorating tips and bags, I just grabbed a ziploc bag, shoved the frosting in (well, Josh did that) and cut the end off and wrote that way. Unfortunately, I cut too much off of the ziploc bag, and the lettering came out fat. So it said "Happy B-day to a Mother who knows". Not too bad. Except that it looks like Harry Potter's birthday cake from Hagrid. 

It wasn't until we were on our way to my parents' house that I realized how I could have fixed the fat lettering. I should have just dropped that ziploc bag into another ziploc bag, and cut a smaller hole. Oh well, now I know. 

and at least she knows we love her and we did our best. :)

Happy Birthday, to a Mother who Knows and does not doubt. May the next 60 years be as great as the last. 

xoxo

In the Jungle...

A few weeks ago, Josh's Mom, Sisters and I, hosted a baby shower for Karen and Baby Charlie (Welcome, Charlie!)

Baby Charlie's room is Monkey/Jungle themed, so we decided to have a Jungle themed baby shower. Here are a few of the details:

I made two dips: Toffee Crunch Dip, and a Chocolate Chip Cheeseball (tasted like frosting with mini chocolate chips in it)

We had Cinnamon Bears, and Animal crackers, Circus Animal cookies, and Teddy Grahams as well as fruit, for the dips. 

Those two mounds of dirt are the cheeseball(s)

We had "King of the Jungle Nachos" with shredded Pork (crock pot - super easy!!), olives, onions, tomatoes, avocados, sour cream, cheese, and salsa (homemade by Temaire)

We played the infamous "Diaper Game" and then a game similar to Scattergories. These are the prizes the two winners received. They each got a bath brush (what are these even called??) and a little box of lotion, bath gel, and bubble bath)

Each of the adults at the party got to take home a jungle animal loofah

Each of the kids (all the nieces were invited) got Safari Lip Gloss as a party favor...

...and everyone got cupcakes from The Sweet Tooth Fairy (my FAVORITE cupcakes!!) We added the animal shaped sugar toppings. 

Thanks to my friend Megan (Hi Megan!), who throws marvelous parties, I found all the Jungle/Safari prizes and party favors at Pier 1 Imports. I don't think I would have even thought to look there, but she saved the day! Thanks, Megan!!

We had a great time, and then beautiful Baby Charlie was born on Tuesday (at 4:36 p.m. - I guessed the exact time. I'm still proud of that!) He is such a cute little guy, and we're so happy he's finally here safely, and that Karen is doing well too!

Have a great weekend!

xoxo

Back Room Redo: Part 1

Josh and I were making breakfast on Saturday morning and planning out the day. Josh asked if I wanted to start sanding down the back bedroom, and I agreed. I'm so sick of all of my textured walls. Don't misunderstand, I think textured walls are lovely, when done right. Every single wall in my home is textured, and I'm a little tired of it. If this back room is any indication of what the rest of the house is like, the texture is merely there to cover up a LOT of impurities in the walls. Yikes. One room at a time.

Here is the bright blue wall before. The color isn't as true in this picture, but you can really see the texture (we'd already been sanding a little bit - not much though).

Look at all that texture...

10 minutes into the sanding...

I called my Dad to see if we could borrow some tools for sanding, so I ran over to his house, and by the time I got back, most of the first wall was "unpainted". Apparently, they used so many coats of the Latex paint when they painted (they = previous owners), that when Josh peeled back one piece of paint, it came off in a big sheet. It was like one of those plastic shower curtains. Totally strange - but very helpful. 

You can see how it just peeled off in sheets

After we peeled the paint off of the first wall, and part of the next, we realized what kind of shape the underlying sheet rock was in. We are planning on just putting up new sheet rock, which means we won't have to peel any more paint off. :) Yay!! We want to get started on it on Friday night, and give the mud some time to dry over the weekend. Here we go...

Amish French Bread

My Supervisor at work brought in some Amish Friendship Bread and 2 starters a week and a half ago. I remember my Mom having starts? starters? at home when I was a kid, but it's been a really LONG time since then. I took a starter home, and yesterday was baking day. Basically, it ferments on your counter for 10 days until you bake it. All you do is mush the bag for 5 days, add stuff to it, mush it for 4 days, and bake. Let me tell you, fermenting milk doesn't smell very good, but baked up with 2 pounds of sugar, it sure tastes delicious!!

I've mushed my bag and added it, and mushed it some more, until last night, when it was time to bake. I cleaned my fridge while it was baking. [Actually cleaned it. Like, hand washed the shelves, and then Lysoled (word??) them down.]

 I keep calling it Amish French Bread. Ummm, huh? As delicious as it is, 8 loaves of bread with 7 pounds of sugar each, is not really what I'm looking for in my life right now.

So, who wants some Amish French Bread?? (I've got 2 up for grabs)

101 in 1001 & an Update

I panicked when I was reading someone else's blog recently. They mentioned they are almost out of time for their 101 in 1001 and I thought I was about out of time too! I realized I have another year (and a couple months) before my time is up. Thank goodness!

Since my last blog post I have:

Gotten an "A" in my Statistics class (probably the most memorable thing about 2010)
Quit my job at The Roof
Taken another semester off of school
Gone to California - twice
Had visitors
Gotten in a car accident
Recovered from my car accident
Learned how to do pullups (kipping pullups) and completed 3 in a row!!
Gotten a new nephew (Welcome, Baby Chase!)
Found out I'm getting 2 more nieces/nephews this year
Gone running a few times a week
Taken a Kickboxing class (at the gym)
Tried out the Cycling class (at the gym)
Been interested in certifying to teach group fitness
Researched how to certify in group fitness
Forgotten to do a million things
Been jealous of my parents - they've been to CA like 5 times since my last post
Lost 7 pounds and 6 inches
Been frustrated with my job
Gotten Joshy back - no more swing shift!! wahoo!!
Paid off our Camry
Loved like crazy
Cried with my friends
Laughed with my family
Gotten up at 5:15 way too many times
Neglected a blog
Mailed a Christmas present in January

No certain order, you can see. I've been busy! No wonder I haven't had time to keep up on the blog.

Is anyone still reading? How many of you have clicked over and read my http://www.futuremommyblogger.wordpress.com/ blog? Seriously, I'm interested to know who is still around.

Love you all!!

xoxoxoxoxo

Katie