DIY Crafts and Baking!

Notice the change of the background?! I had to change it to something Christmas like because it certainly won't look like that in Florida this Christmas. Which actually makes me a little sad.. Growing up where it pretty much always snowed on Christmas makes me think that's how it should be. I really liked getting all bundled up, possibly ice skating on the lake, and have a white Christmas. Jamie says I'm just used to and like the "traditional" Christmas. I pretty much love everything that is "traditional" so this should be no surprise to anyone! And usually I make it back to Indiana around the holidays- last year being Becky's wedding- it was cold and everything was decorated! But this year I won't make it back :( Anyways, I have been making Christmas cookies!! And I thought I would share one that is AMAZING. If you are going to a cookie exchange make this one:

It's a peppermint chocolate chip cookie: YUM! I would have taken pictures but mine weren't as cute as the ones on the website. I recommend not putting them on the parchment paper to bake. I did one set on and one off.. the ones off were much better. And I found the Andes at the local grocery store. They weren't chips but you can break them in small pieces.

http://www.culinaryconcoctionsbypeabody.com/2010/11/28/peppermint-mikl-chocolate-cookies/

Peppermint Crunch-Milk Chocolate Chip Cookies

2 ½ cups all-purpose flour
¾ tsp. baking soda
1/8 tsp. salt
1 cup unsalted butter, at room temperature
1 cup packed light brown sugar
¾ cup granulated sugar
1 tsp. vanilla extract
2 large eggs, at room temperature
7 ounces milk chocolate chips
7 ounces Andes Peppermint Crunch Chips
In a small bowl, whisk together the flour, baking soda, and salt; set aside.
Using a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment (or in a bowl by hand), beat together the butter, brown sugar, granulated sugar, and vanilla on medium speed just until smooth, about 2 minutes.
Beat in the eggs one at a time until thoroughly incorporated, then stir in the flour mixture followed by the chocolate and peppermint chips.
On a lightly floured work surface, divide the dough into quarters. Shape each quarter into a log about 9 inches long. Wrap the logs in plastic wrap and refrigerate until firm, preferably for 24 hours (do this part for real please).
Position racks in the upper and lower thirds of the oven; preheat the oven to 350°F. Line 2 baking sheets with parchment paper or silicone baking mats.
Slice the logs into disks ¾ inch thick and place the disks 3 inches apart on the prepared baking sheets. If the chips crumble out (and they will), simply push them back in, they reshape nicely.
Bake, rotating the baking sheets midway through baking, until the cookies are very lightly browned in the centers, about 10 minutes. If you like soft chocolate chip cookies, as I do, err on the side of underbaking.
Let the cookies cool on the baking sheets until firm enough to handle, then use a spatula to transfer them to a wire rack.
Adapted from Ready for Dessert by David Lebovitz

My other new recipe I tried was a crock pot taco chili and low fat. It was GREAT! Everyone really liked it. It was so easy to make. I even used chicken that was on the bone (organic) and the chicken fell right off the bone.

Here's the link:  skinnytaste

Crock Pot Chicken Taco Chili
Servings:

1 onion, chopped
1 16-oz can black beans
1 16-oz can kidney beans
1 8-oz can tomato sauce
10 oz package frozen corn kernels
2 14.5-oz cans diced tomatoes w/chilies
1 packet taco seasoning
1 tbsp cumin
1 tbsp chili powder
24 0z. (3) boneless skinless chicken breasts
chili peppers, chopped (optional)
chopped fresh cilantro
 
Combine beans, onion, chili peppers, corn, tomato sauce, cumin, chili powder and taco seasoning in a slow cooker. Place chicken on top and cover. Cook on low for 10 hours or on high for 6 hours. Half hour before serving, remove chicken and shred. Return chicken to slow cooker and stir in. Top with fresh cilantro. Also try it with low fat cheese and sour cream (extra points).

And last but not least I have been crafting!! I wanted to do something with all the pictures from the wedding- which I love at least 30 of them so our new apartment is going to look insane but I think we should enjoy them! At least until we have kids and then I heard we won't have any pictures of ourselves anymore.. So I wanted to make something to put in the middle of all the pictures and frame the pictures around the centerpiece. I found this:

Really cute right? And it was only $16.00 from etsy.com.. but I decided hey I can make that! So I set out to make my own "h". And probably $20-30 later and hours of my time I got this..

The flash makes it look like it's not filled in but see below

I still have to add the ribbon but I think it looks pretty good! Now I have been searching for cheap frames since we have so many pictures. TJMax had frames for $3.50 and I found some $1 ones at the dollar store but I still need more! I'll post everything when we get them hung up.

Thanksgiving 2011

Our first MARRIED Thanksgiving! Originally Thanksgiving was suppose to be held in our DC apartment so my family could enjoy being in DC for the holidays.. slight change of plans on that one. This year Thanksgiving was held in Jacksonville at my parents house. My parents were nice enough to let me plan and organize Thanksgiving as if it was my house.

Planning: I spent the entire month of November looking at recipes, decorations, and entertaining ideas. With the help of pinterst and several blogs I came up with some great and not so great recipes. Our menu included:
Speciality Drink: Iced hot chocolate martinis
Appetizers: Spicy Crab dip and pumpkin cheese balls
Main Meal: Turkey, green bean casserole, mashed potato casserole, sweet potato casserole, spicy cornbread stuffing, macaroni and cheese... is that it?!
Dessert: Pilgrim hat cookies, pumpkin pie, and mini pumpkin cheese cake bites

Games: Conversation starters for the meal, turkey beer pong after dinner

I even organized the grocery list into sections and typed it- who likes grocery shopping for Thanksgiving?! Plus you always forget something!  The cooking started on Tuesday night, cooked all day Wednesday and half of the day on Thursday. I was exhausted! Someone mentioned Christmas and I almost died! Here are the pictures:

Pilgrim hats- the biggest hit of the day! The yellow icing for the buckle continually slid off the cookie- hints the red icing.

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Mini Carmel Pumpkin Cheesecakes

My mom's china and mine! We had to mix and match because Jamie and I don't have enough yet.

Sweet Potato Casserole Yum!

Cheese balls in a pumpkin shape

Iced hot chocolate martini- YUM!!

The blender exploded with too much martini- next time we will make half!

Spicy crab dip- yum yum

One of the cooks :)

Pumpkins with everyone's initial on the for a place setting

My $4 arrangement

Our first Thanksgiving!

Turkey Pong

Turkey pong tournament!

The winners

Oscar wanted to play

The "old farts"

The girl team

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Our new Norwegian friend

Everything was great except..the macaroni and cheese (I can never seem to make macaroni right unless it from the box) and the pumpkin pie with spiced icing (too many flavors or something). But with only two bad recipes I think we did a great job! Overall, Thanksgiving was a huge success! My dad invited one of Jamie's coworkers from Norway and her friends to join us. They really enjoyed all the food and we enjoyed learning more about Norway! It was great to have a full house and lots of fun. The conversation starters did help the dinner table due to the fact we didn't know two of our guests. And after dinner we started the Turkey Pong tournament with breaks of flip cup. The young Norwegian's killed us all in beer pong.. even though they claim they don't play it in Norway.. hmmm. We did miss all of our other family members but hopefully they will all come for Christmas! 


Friday night, we went down to St. Augustine to check out all the lights. Although, my pictures don't show it, they were amazing! St. Augustine is so pretty! Jamie and I took our engagement pictures in St. Augustine the day after Christmas but it was during the day so we couldn't see the lights. It was fun going back to where we took our pictures. We ate dinner at this great little Italian restaurant that had great wine and food. Then we walked around to check out the lights and sites. And of course ended the evening with some sweet treats! The rest of the weekend we spent running, riding my parents beach bikes, and shopping for our own beach bikes. The weather was beautiful! It was a great weekend!

Italian Beer

The lights in St. Augustine

The lights in St. Augustine

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Moving Week

It has been our first week in Jacksonville so I thought I would update everyone on our new life!

Last Sunday we packed up everything from Virginia and made the long 11-12 hour drive to Florida. It was a very long and exhausting day but we all made it safely! Monday we spent the day putting all of our stuff in storage with the help of some very nice friends. Returned the rental truck, moved stuff into my parents house, and Jamie went off for his first bit of orientation. It was another busy, exhausting day! Tuesday was the start of Jamie's first week at his new job. He has been up early working out and up late studying all of the new information. He even made it to an early networking group Wednesday morning. He is doing a great job! I am very proud of all of his hard work! By Friday he was ready for some R&R.

My week has been a little less hectic. I spent Tuesday trying to figure out where to put all of our stuff in my parents house... which unsuccessfully most of it is in piles or still in bags. UGH! I spent Wednesday making appointments to see apartments and doing organizing for my job. Thursday I attempted to get my license and take passport pictures... that didn't happen. I needed my marriage license that was at the passport place and I needed to redo the passport pictures to get my marriage license back but you can't wear a white shirt in your picture.. I also found out that our car insurance prices are going to triple being in the state of Florida. So Thursday I was annoyed. But Friday I went for my first day of orientation and LOVED it! I am so excited to have my own very nice office and everyone was helpful and nice! My commute was 10 minutes. I was able to finish my Medicaid application- that has been a nightmare- and take my passport pictures. I am actually excited to go to work tomorrow and a little nervous.

Our first weekend we spent getting things done. Snooze! Jamie got a new suit, studied, and caught up on some sleep. I spent time running with a friend, shopping for work stuff (candy land anyone?), and printing wedding pictures :) We also went apartment hunting on Saturday and after driving all over we ended up liking the first apartment we looked at! The apartment is awesome- 1300 square feet, 2 bedrooms, 2 baths, screened in porch, nice kitchen with a island, and a laundry ROOM (not a closet a ROOM). The apartments are 2 years old. The amenities are awesome as well. It's only 6 miles away from the beach, 3 miles from the town center, really close to both of our works, and hahah still close to my parents less than 1 mile... We are very excited to move in December 10th!! Next on our list is a coed soccer game. My first soccer game. I'm pretty nervous about it... Updates to come.

*Oscar weight loss challenge update* We did attempt to feed Stella and Oscar wet cat food and that back fired. There was a lot of accidents (from both ends) from both cats. So we will NOT be switching to wet cat food. And we have tried to play with Oscar more but no weight loss. We even thought living in my parents big house with stairs would help.. no luck. I think he looks like he lost weight but nada. It looks like Oscar just may be a fat cat for life.

Goodbye DC Hello FLORIDA!!

Less than three days we will be back in Florida!! This will be our first time living in Jacksonville at the same time (and actually knowing each other). We are very excited!! We have been checking out places to rent on zillow.com. This is a bit of a debate because Jamie wants SPACE and I want to be by the beach.. I don't care if it's a shack. So we will be checking out everything.

This week has been an interesting last week. Usually before I leave places it's the best week ever which makes me not want to leave. I'll be ready for a month to move on then bam Last Week Fun Week then I'm sad to leave. For some reason DC has made sure that I don't ever come back. Drama at work, my sideview mirror being stolen, some great goodbyes and some just moving on without saying goodbye (disappointing), TRAFFIC, my commute has been the longest this week, forecast of SNOW, and I can keep going... Jamie has had his share of sad good byes this week too :( After I long week our apartment looks like.....

This is just one room! And taken with my phone so not the best picture.

Halloween Results!

I am having trouble getting the original pictures on the blog.. but until then the results! Here are my mummies

Mummies!

Ok so these were harder than the appear. First tip do not let the dough get warm. It makes it very hard to cut into slices. 2. This is a long process so don't start one hour before the party 3. Buy toothpicks for the mustard eyes 4. Dry off the hot dogs- if they are slimmy the dough doesn't stick as well
Overall they turned out cute! Everyone loved them! I didn't come home with any!

Ghosts!

I was in a really big hurry so I didn't get a cute picture but this will do. And I bought the wrong eyes.. you should use MINI chocolate chips but I grabbed the wrong bag. All you do is dip the nutty buddy cookies in white chocolate, put the eyes on, let it sit (or put in the freezer) and ghosts! These were very easy! Also super sweet.. I think maybe using a dipping chocolate instead of white chocolate chips might be better..

Overall I think it was a success! Now on to Thanksgiving planning :)

Back where I come from..

For most of you (if there are any followers..) you know that I am from, born and raised, Indiana. Now if you have or haven't been to Indiana it's not the most glamourous or happening place to go but it is a fantastic place to grow up. Every fall I get a little nostalgic thinking about what a perfect place Indiana is in the fall. Just look at these pictures courtesy my friend Katie Thomas.

Indiana is perfect in the fall. The leaves change colors the weather is cool but not cold. When we were younger we would have haunted hayrides and bonfires at my grandfathers farm, surrounded by the cornfields. There were apple orchards and pumpkin patches to find the perfect pumpkin and sip on apple cider. There are fall foliage parades- you know everyone in them and you actually get to be in them because it's a small town. You spend Friday nights bundled up watching the football games. You don't worry about safety or traffic. Everyone knows your name, your grandparents, you cousins... The food is AMAZING!! Calories aren't even discussed when you are eating homemade pies, mashed potatoes, macaroni, you name it it's made from scratch and delicious. Saturdays are filled with sporting events or all day cross country meets. Sundays you go to church, no if ands or buts about it. And if your lucky your parents take you out to eat at one of the small local places to eat where you run in to... everyone! Last year, I took Jamie to Indiana during the fall to enjoy it. Hopefully we will make it back next year. 

Now you might just understand how different living in DC is for me. I haven't been quiet about my struggles with living in DC but look where I grew up. A small sleepy town with country roads to drive on. Not a major city with traffic, round abouts (I can't even spell it), power people discussing money and status.. I obviously did not adjust well but I have come to realize I am not a city girl and I won't pretend to be! I love visiting cities and I admire people who love to live in them. 

Disclaimer: I love how I grew up but I won't be moving back there ever but I do hope my kids can grow up similar to how I did but near the beach :) 

Army 10 miler- Team Holmes!

Last Sunday, team Holmes set out to run their first race as a married couple!!!!

Lets begin with our training. We set out training two months prior to the race- doing the long runs, checking off the runs on our "training schedule", when Danielle hurt her hamstring (1 week before the wedding) 1 month before the race. I tried to keep running which just lead to more pain. So I had to take a week off- which turned into two. But Jamie kept trucking, putting in those long runs! One week before the race, I ran once :( AHHH. We spent Friday and Saturday before the race at Virginia Beach for the soccer tournament, drove back late Saturday night, ate Wendy's for dinner (including a frostie), and woke up at 5:30 to get on the metro by 6:15. Double AHHH. As a former runner, this is NOT how I prepare for a race. I was nervous. I even brought my IPOD as a back up, which is against the rules, I don't like disobeying the rules...

As we ran up to the metro, we were greeted by more crazy runners riding the metro at 0 dark hundred. One guy was even stretching on the metro. I was just trying to keep myself from turning around and heading back to bed. After heading straight to the port-a-potty line, the atmosphere became contagious. There were 30,000 people running this race! There were army men everywhere and even men sky diving right at the start line. Awesome!

Finally after waiting for hour and half we were off. 500 yards into the race, I see men lining the trees.. I thought hahah that's a funny joke they can't seriously be peeing next to the pentagon. Wrong. They were. We ran around DC, seeing lots of the monuments, tons of people cheering, the miles were clicking away. My competitive spirit was kicking in. Luckily, Jamie kept me in check- hey we don't run this fast at home! We passed a few wounded warriors running without their legs- which was incredible. You couldn't complain about being tired in this race! Then we hit mile 7. Ugh. My wheels fell off and Jamie's picked up. He was feeling good. Finally around mile 9, I said please leave me. I wanted to slow down. hahah so he took off. And he did awesome! This was his first race and he did great! I finished a minute behind proud that I finished after my lack of training. Our first one done and hopefully more to come!