Trifecta

We had quite the weekend...

Saturday: Wedding
Sunday: Baby Shower
Monday: Funeral

I will post about the wedding and funeral later, today is about the baby shower.

We attended our friends, Jay and Ellen's, baby shower on Sunday.  The hostess and host went all out and it was great shower.  One, of my favorite things they had was a onesie making station.  Here are our results.

By Kris, which turned out to be really funny.

By Julie, which turned out to be totally awesome, she's a good artist!

By Me, I was determined to win by painting their dog.  A little unfair, but hey, if you got skills flaunt them! ;)

And, just so you know, puff paint isn't the easiest medium to work with!

Catch up leads to random posting

Its been awhile!  I've been busy!  I know, I always say that.  But, I got a commissioned to do a painting of some dogs for a Christmas present.  Needless to say, I'm busy, busy working on my painting and putting my book club book on the back burner.

The book club book is Angle of Repose, and supposed to be really good.

I also told my best friend, who is getting married this weekend!!!, I would make her a painting for her wedding, good thing she loves me and will let me do the other one first!

I should probably start on my matron of honor speech...I know what I'm going to say...mostly.  So, busy, busy.

AHHHHHh, super scatterbrained post.  This is what happens when you don't post often enough, then its crazy and all jumbled together.

Here are the long overdue Halloween photos....

Kris and I were Frankenstein and The Bride of Frankenstein.

Ande and Aaron had won the costume contest, so far, as vampires.

Zac and Julie were Jason and a Crystal Lake Camp Counselor.

Here are some photos of most of the group.

Like I said, Ande and Aaron had won the costume contest, until this arrived...  Then, hands down, he won.

Then other people put the robot head on...

Here's some of us girls.

Sarah was super scary.

So we took scardy photos.

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Also, to keeps things as random as this post.  Here is a photo of Kris with our out of town friend's baby!

Aren't they cute?

All of this, and more, has happened.  I'll try and be more together next time,

Halloween!

Had our annual Halloween Party last night for the second year.  It was a blast, Kris and I went as Frankenstein and Bride of Frankenstein.  I have a few photos, but most of them were taken my a friend of mine.  So, I'll post more when I get them.  We go all out with the decorations.... and I made meat pies, 7-layer dip, home-made ranch dressing, peanut butter cup cupcakes, and some mean apple cider rum punch.

The pies, dip, cupcakes, and cider came from different issues of Everyday Food.

The amazing ranch dressing came from The Pioneer Woman.

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On a different note, in the last two months I have had to leave places because my allergies had gotten so bad.  Since, its gotten to the point where I have actually had to leave and not hang out with my friends, I finally decided to get tested.

My right arm is mostly grasses.

Left arm.

I'm severely allergic to dust and oak, and literally allergic to everything they tested me for, except cockroaches.  So, I guess I can have a cockroach as a pet.  Yippee!  I'm now on allergy shots, a bunch of asthma medicine, and have my mattress and pillows covered in allergy proof slightly crunchy wrap.  It's a little depressing, but hopefully things will get better!

School is cool

Teaching is consuming my life!!!  Well, not really, but sometimes.  I thoroughly enjoy teaching and feel I am where I should be.  Besides getting paint all over myself, trying to control defiant children, getting hit on the butt by kindergarteners for my attention (perfect height), being called Art Teacher, teaching children how to properly use the watercolor pallete, coming up with art ideas.... its awesome, I love job.  I do not dread going to work for once, which is a really nice feeling.  And, I make more money which saying that, as a teacher, says a lot.

I have lots of funny stories, but since I am trying to think of them I can't.  Better luck next time, maybe.

busy bee

This week we made Chicken Alfredo Pizza with pink peppercorns....

 and, Candied Bacon and Blue Cheese Sliders with handcut fries!

Both were delicious, but I've been super busy...more info later.

YUM

Finally made the iced coffee from the Pioneer Woman, and it is delicious.  Last week we made the Orecchiette with Shrimp, Lemon, and Asparagus from Gordon Ramsay, and it was really good, we're going to make it again.

 Here is our picture!

This week we are going to make rice paper spring rolls, so far, that's the only thing on the menu.

School

School starts tomorrow!  I'm hoping for the best!  Cross your fingers for me, but I am excited!

This week we have the following meals planned:

Meatball Sandwiches
Fried Chicken and Biscuits
Orecchiette with Shrimp, Lemon, and Asparagus



and for tonight,

Corned Beef Hash with Fried Eggs

The End.

Bourdon Tea Book Club

A few months ago, a group of my friends and I created a book club.  At the past two meetings, there has been this awesome drink, called Bourbon Mint Tea.  So, we have named ourselves the The Bourbon Tea Book Club.  The recipe is from Everyday Food (of course) and really good!  (recipe posted at bottom)  The rules of the book club are pick a book you either really love and want everyone to read, or pick something you've been wanting to read.   The rules are pretty simple.  Also, to choose a book, you must have read all the others and have to wait for everyone else to pick a book before you.  We're pretty relaxed about it and don't have to have the next one read for a couple months.

So far we have read:

The Lazarus Project by Aleksander Hemon
Jurassic Park by Michael Crichton
My Antonia by Willa Cather

and are currently reading:

American Gods by Neil Gaiman

I know absolutely nothing about Norse Mythology, so I am learning about that for insider knowledge into this book.  I am determined to get this book read fast since I will be starting school August 1.  I will be teaching art to elementary students!!!!  I am so excited and terrified.  I haven't said anything yet because I was waiting for it to be more official.  Wish me luck!  Hopefully they won't eat me alive.  ;)


Bourbon Mint Tea

In large saucepan, boil 4 cups water.
Add 1/2 cup sugar; stir to dissolve.
Remove from heat; add 8 tea bags of black tea.
Steep 10 minutes; discard tea bags.
Add 4 cups cold water; transfer to pitcher, and chill.
Add 1/2 cup fresh mint leaves.
Using a wooden spoon, crush mint until fragrant;
stir in 2 cups bourbon.
Serve over ice.  (serves 8)

Cute Animal Videos

I am a sucker for cute animal videos.  Luckily, Today's Big Thing dedicates a whole section to this awesomeness.  Here are my two favorites:

Herbs and Veggies

My first pepper!!!  Look at it, its so cute.  Nothing better eat it except me!  Pretty sure this is an Anaheim, banana pepper plant did not survive the crazy hale and wind we had earlier this summer.  Now we've reached the severe heat part of the season, and I am watering twice a day.

 And, my okra is looking promising too.

 And, my mint!  I want that whole bed full of mint.  It smells amazing and ants hate it.  David is keeping watch over the mint and he steals things when you aren't looking.  Also, a friend to the bunnies.

Grilling.

We grilled greek chicken kebabs tonight. I love Martha Stewart and I subscribe to her food magazine Everyday Food.  We almost always find at least one thing (normally many) in each magazine that we love.  And, its one of the few magazines I actually read.

Here is our action shot.

Here is the finished product. Very romantic with the soft focus...

I made some rice on the side with butter and paprika, which goes well with these.  The yogurt mint sauce is really good too.

Adventures in Cooking

Kris and I cook a lot.  We try to cook at least three times a week.  I was thinking about sharing our adventures here.  The other morning we made some really awesome biscuits and gravy... I have a pretty blurry photo.  We're new at taking food photos, so bear with us.

Biscuits and Sausage Gravy

Sorry for the bad photo.  I got the biscuit recipe out of Cook's Country.  They have cake flour, regular flour, and cream cheese.  They are amazing, we love them.  Plus, I get to pretend I'm back in ceramics class when I kneed the dough.  Kris normally handles the gravy and I make the biscuits, we make a good team.


Buffalo and Brie Burgers

This picture is better, thank you to Kris' iphone.  These are made with buffalo from the Oklahoma Food Coop (YUM), brie, and pickled onions (minus the onions on mine).  On the side, we made a tomato and mozzarella salad with pineapple basil from our backyard, and topped with fig balsamic vinaigrette.  Which, despite the name pineapple basil is spicy but good.  We took the recipe from Graham Elliot, in the recent magazine, MasterChef (which Kris is obsessed about), and tweaked it for us.  These were awesome!

My Best Friend's Wedding

My best friend (Ande) is getting married and I am the maid, (ahem) I mean Matron of Honor.  Why does that sound so old.  Matron, ugh.  Anyway, I'm really excited for her and we've ordered the dresses and ordered the shoes, and everything is coming along grandly. Ande's wedding is going to be in December of this year and the wedding colors are navy, silver, and white.  Check out our awesome shoes!

These are Cailyn by rsvp from Zappos.com

Speaking of awesome shoes, look at these others I treated myself to recently.

These are from Poetic License, and I don't know what they are called.

And, recently I came across this on the Pioneer Woman's website.  Iced Coffee!  Looks delicious.  I'm going to try it next week, and I'll let you know how it turns out.

Photo taken from the Pioneer Woman.

Weekend Wedding

This past weekend was a really busy one for me.  My sister is visiting from LA, and has a couple weddings and a movie to shoot here in Oklahoma.  I was her assistant on a wedding this weekend from 9am to 10pm!  Long wedding, but the couple was really great and sweet and I had a great time taking photos!  (Well, until my battery ran down!)  I was using an extra camera my sister had.  She is going to edit the photos for my since I don't have a decent edit program.  I'll post some of my shots when I get them!

Oh, and as a side project I am doing a painting with a friend for her house.  She picked the subject and were painting the whole thing together, its a lot of fun and she said she is learning a lot about painting!  I'll post that when we finish it!

Strawberry.

I know its been forever, but the show went really well, I've just been busy.  And, now that my husband and I have the same schedule I have less time to blog about my ego.

One of the biggest things that has happened is that about a month ago I had to put my cat down.  She hadn't been doing as well, and I woke up one day and she couldn't walk, so I held her and called the vet.  I cried, Kris cried, the vet cried.  But, I feel it was time.  She was the greatest pet I could have had, and brought love to me and everyone she met.  People who didn't like cats liked her.  She will be missed.  She was full of love and silliness, and I enjoyed the 7 years I had with her.  Over 4 of those years she battled feline leukemia and I truly believed she lived so long out of love.

I am alive!!!

I've just been busy, will post later...hopefully.