Christmas Village

We went to a Christmas village in downtown Ogden with some friends a couple days ago, and it was so fun!! Other than being FREEZING, it was really nice to get out and let Marlee play with her friend Taylor. Marlee got to roast a marshmallow and loved looking at the lights and saying "pretty!!"

Marlee and her Marshmallow mouth :)

There was a taco truck, so of course, the guys had to stop and get one...

Marlee and Taylor

Marlee

I haven't written about Marlee in a while! She is almost 17 months!!! Crazy, right?? She is just so much fun to hang out with everyday! Her last Dr.'s appt, she was in the 90th percentile for height and just about the 50th for her weight. She loves playing with her babies and she loves horses. She wants to do "horsie" on anything and everything. She climbs on everything too! She loves to play with friends every chance she gets, and LOVES to be in nursery (That's mine and Alax's calling). She's always "ung-ary" (hungry) This girl is a never-ending pit. She just eats all day!! She can be a stinker sometimes, but that's a toddler for ya, right? I'm loving this age right now, and am trying to soak it all in!!

I gave Marlee these magnetic letters on her first birthday, but she immediately put the 'M' in her mouth and almost choked on it :/ We tried them out again today. She kept them out of her mouth and LOVED them.

Marlee "helping" :) She also doesn't like putting her clothes on. She's naked 80% of the time.

OH, and look at all the hair she has!! I can do braids, and tons of fun things!! I love having a girl :)

Did you know...

that I have a craft blog?? If you didn't then you should head on over and check it outttt!!!! I post fun things I make and yummy recipes I find! You could even follow me while you're at it ;) happy blogging!!

My craft blog!!!

Cookies :)

My mom told me that she had made these lemon crinkle cookies and i was skeptical...I've never been one to indulge in anything lemony....except lemon bars (yes, i realize saying this defeats my point...) But these cookies are UH-mazing!!! I'm actually only writing this post because the whole world needs to know about them, and I'm going to go make some as soon as I'm done with this post.

photo

Lemon Crinkle Cookies
Makes 2-3 dozen

Ingredients:
½ cups butter, softened
1 cup granulated sugar
½ teaspoons vanilla extract
1 whole egg
1 teaspoon lemon zest
1 Tablespoon fresh lemon juice
¼ teaspoons salt
¼ teaspoons baking powder
⅛ teaspoons baking soda
1-½ cup all-purpose flour
½ cups powdered sugar

Directions:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease light colored baking sheets with non-stick cooking spray and set aside.
In a large bowl, cream butter and sugar together until light and fluffy. Whip in vanilla, egg, lemon zest, and juice. Scrape sides and mix again. Stir in all dry ingredients slowly until just combined, excluding the powdered sugar. Scrape sides of bowl and mix again briefly. Pour powdered sugar onto a large plate. Roll a heaping teaspoon of dough into a ball and roll in powdered sugar. Place on baking sheet and repeat with remaining dough.
Bake for 9-11 minutes or until bottoms begin to barely brown and cookies look matte {not melty or shiny}. Remove from oven and cool cookies about 3 minutes before transferring to cooling rack.
*If using a non-stick darker baking tray, reduce baking time by about 2 minutes.

ENJOY!! I dare you not to eat the whole first batch as soon as they come out of the oven. I have a...ahem...friend...who may have done it :)

Thanksgiving

I've been awful at updating this blog, but I'm going to start trying harder :) This Thanksgiving was a good one for our little family! Since Alax's parents are on their mission, and my parents are in Virginia, we did our own Thanksgiving just the three of us. It was kinda sad not having our family with us, but at the same time, it was really fun to do it ourselves too! And guess what? Everything turned out great!! I cooked my very first turkey!!! I was, and still am very proud :) It was absolutely disgusting to prepare, but turned out sooooo good. Although....I may or may not have called my dad like 20 times to ask him questions like: what the heck does the neck look like? Where do I find the neck? I may have sent him a picture OF the neck to make sure. Are you wondering if I'm always this needy?? Prettttty much....sad I know. But, other than cooking and eating, we had a really lazy day sitting around and enjoying Alax's day off with him.

After we Ate, Alax and Marlee sat on the couch and watched Gnomeo and Juliet, Marlee's new favorite movie.

I didn't get any pictures of any of our food beforehand, we all know what a cooked turkey, and all the fixings look like right? :) This is all of our leftover turkey. I got an 18 and a half pound turkey. We're all set for turkey sandwiches for about a year....

While I was cooking, Alax had to go to the store, and took Marlee with him. They came back with the groceries, and this lucky little girl had sweet talked daddy into getting her a balloon :) Every time we walk into a store, the very first thing she does is point out any balloon in her line of sight and whines talks about it until we leave. Every once in a while we give in though...

She has kept it by her side since. We hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving!!!

"Orange" Chicken

I found this yummy orange chicken recipe online and tried it out the other night. Alax and I both LOVED it. While it was delicious, it tasted nothing like orange chicken...But it was easy to make, and I'm all about that.

Chicken:

• 2 lbs boneless skinless chicken, chopped into bite sized pieces
• 1 eggs
• 1 1/2 teaspoons salt
• white pepper
• oil ( for frying)
• 1/2 cup cornstarch, plus
• 1/4 cup flour

1. Place chicken pieces on plate or in large bowl.
2. In a small bowl: Stir together the egg, salt, pepper and 1 tablespoon oil and mix well.
3. Stir cornstarch and flour together in another bowl.
4. Coat each piece of chicken in the egg mixture, then roll generously in the cornstarch/flour mixture.
5. Set each prepared piece of chicken on a plate, and fry in oil.

Sauce:

• 1 C. sugar
• 1 T. flour
• 1/3 C. vinegar
• 1/3 C. ketchup
• 1/4 C. chicken broth
• 1 T. season salt
• 2 T. soy sauce

1. Mix & microwave for 5 minutes, stirring half way through.
2. Pour sauce over chicken
3. Bake uncovered at 350 until hot and bubbly

California Trip

We went out to California on Wednesday and stayed for 5 days with Alax's sister and her family. We had sooo much fun!! We had a day at the beach one day and we also went to Great America! It was so fun to visit with everyone and Marlee had such a good time with her cousins! Here are some pictures from the trip!

Me and Marlee at Great America

Great America with Daddy

Waiting for Dad to get off a ride

one tired girl!

I love this picture of Alax

Marlee's first time at the beach!!

Helping to dig a hole!!

Fair

Alax and I went with my sister and her kids to the Fair on Friday. It was a hotttttttt day, but still fun! The kids had fun at the petting zoo and on the pony ride!! Here are some pictures of Marlee enjoying the day!

Cucumbers!!!

There was a great deal on cucumbers this week at the store and i got 8 for $.99!! I was searching for a yummy vinegar-y salad I could make and came across this beauty!! It is so delicious, and I can't wait for Alax to come home and try it. He loves cucumbers. Here is the recipe. I suggest you make this right away!

Cucumber Salad with
Balsamic Dressing

2 or 3 medium cucumbers
4 T mayo
1 T best quality balsamic vinegar
1 T sugar (or more depending on the quality of your vinegar)
1 tsp. fresh lemon juice
1 tsp. garlic puree (I didn't have any so I left it out, but this could only make this 10x better..)
sea salt to taste
fresh ground black pepper to taste

Peel cucumbers, leaving strips of peel if garden cucumbers and peeling completely if not. Cut cucumbers in half or fourths lengthwise, and then into slices and place in serving bowl. In small bowl, use whisk to combine mayo, balsamic vinegar, Splenda or sugar, lemon juice, and garlic. Combine cucumbers with dressing, season with sea salt and pepper, and serve. The salad can also be chilled for an hour or two before serving.

RICE KRISPIE TREATS

I was watching a local tv station today and they were making gourmet rice krispie treats and my mouth was watering the whole time!! Here is the recipe for my favorite one she made!!!

Rocky Mountain Grizzly Bear Paw Rice Krispie Treats

Ingredients:

• · 5 tbsp butter
• · 5 1/2 cups Rice Krispie Cereal
• · 1 10oz package marshmallows
• · 1/3 cup peanut butter ( White Chocolate Wonderful, Peanut Butter & Co. 1 4oz bar of chocolate, melted (Hershey)
• · 1 4oz bar white chocolate, melted ( Lindt )
• · 3/4 cup coarsely chopped cashews
• · 1/4 cup prepared, or homemade caramel

Method:

· Butter a small baking sheet, set aside.

· In a large saucepan, melt butter over low heat, add marshmallows and stir until smooth. Remove from heat, and stir in peanut butter.

· Fold in cereal.

· When evenly coated, pour into prepared pan. Press to flatten slightly.

· Sprinkle cereal mixture with half the nuts. Drizzle half of the chocolate, white chocolate and caramel over the nuts.

· Refrigerate for 5-7 minutes, or until chocolate is slightly set.

· From the small end of pan, lift cereal and roll, jelly roll style. Pressing lightly to compress. Smoothing edge to seal.

· With seam side down, drizzle remaining, chocolates, and caramel over the top of roll, finishing with remaining chopped nuts.

· Refrigerate until firm. Slice into rounds when ready to serve.

Makes 10 pieces


the rest of the recipes are HERE!!

BIRTHDAY FOR MY SWEET MARS

My sweet baby turned 1 on Saturday!! This year went by way too fast...She is such a little independent little girl now. She is walking, talking, and getting big WAY too fast!!!! We had a fun day celebrating yesterday too!! We went to a park that has a water play place and the kids loved it. I'm bad at taking remembering to take pictures, but thankfully my sister took these of Marlee while she was eating her cupcake!

that look....I think this girl is going to have some serious attitude..pray for me in about 12 years...

playing in the water!! She was so brave!!

OATMEAL TOFFEE COOKIES

I made some yummmmmy cookies today!!! I didn't take any pictures, but thought I would share the recipe!!

Oatmeal Toffee Cookies

• 1 cup margarine
• 1 cup packed light brown sugar
• 1/2 cup white sugar
• 2 eggs
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 3 cups rolled oats
• 1 bag toffee bits (like heath or skor)

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C).
2. In a large bowl, cream together the margarine, brown sugar, white sugar, eggs, and vanilla until smooth. Combine the flour, baking soda, cinnamon, and salt; stir into the sugar mixture. Stir in the oats and toffee bits. Drop by rounded teaspoonfuls onto ungreased cookie sheets.
3. Bake 9 to 10 minutes until light and golden. Do not overbake. Let them cool for 2 minutes before removing from cookie sheets to cool completely. Store in airtight container.

Fun Hike

We went on a little family hike earlier in the week. It has been so nice to get out of the house now that the weather is getting warmer!! It's also been nice exploring our new town :)

we sat on a bench on our way back and ate a lunch we had packed.

trying to get a family shot :)

Saturday Drive

Time to update the ol' blog i guess. Today was a beautiful day!! Alax took the top off the jeep earlier this week, so we took a drive up the canyon. It was gorgeous, and reminded me a little of Northern California and made me miss home :( I have always been of the opinion that Utah is not that pretty, but i changed my mind today. It's just a different kind of pretty, and one that i can get used to :) Here are some pictures of our day!!

we saw a moose!!!!

the water was kinda gross looking, but it was still quite a view.

one TIRED girl....