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Everyday Life: 01.20.12 – 01.26.12

Ahhhh… it feels so good to be sitting back at home in front of my computer writing out a blog post! I returned home late Wednesday night am taking my time settling back in. It’s always a good feeling to know that I am glad to be home. I love our little life here in Tennessee :) Vacations are wonderful, but home is better. And that is a good thing right? Especially since vacations only occupy about 4% to 8% of daily life per year! Yay for home!

Now onto photos! Most of these photos are still left over from vacation but there will be one or two from yesterday :) Here we go…

As I mentioned last week, while I was in Oregon I stayed with Jason’s parents. My Mother-in-law made me the most wonderful lunch while I was there and I can’t wait to repeat it at home. A turkey-provalone-avacado-tomato sandwich on half a toasted bagel. Plus, some turnip slices, carrots and a couscous salad. Everything was wonderful! How is that for a gourmet lunch at home?!

I have 4 nephews and one niece. Their favorite thing to do is wrestle. Especially when my younger brother (their uncle) comes for a visit. It is always wrestling time. It’s pretty cute!

Noah getting ready for bed, already in his pajamas. Can you believe my sister-in-law makes pajamas for all 5 kids every Christmas? She seriously is super mom!

We spent some time with my Grandma and while we were there we looked over some old photo albums. There is a rumor that we are related to Abraham Lincoln through his wife Mary Todd Lincoln and this is the paper that maps it out. Whether it is true or not, I don’t know. I have never done any research to figure it out. The bottom name on the list, Iris Wolfer Yoder, is my paternal Grandmother.

Wrestling isn’t the only favorite pastime. They also love reading. And once you start reading to them it’s hard to stop because they all want to pick a book out for you to read :) And they are so adorable it’s hard to resist their charms!

My niece, Lily, turned 2 years old yesterday. We celebrated her birthday while we were there and she requested a duck cake. So, my sister-in-law, Jodi, made this cake for her. I was wondering how she was going to do it and I think it turned out pretty amazing. Lily loved it. She wouldn’t share her duck with anyone :)

Jodi and Lily share the same birthday. Since Jodi made a cake for Lily, I made a cake for Jodi. I had never made a multi colored cake before but it was pretty simple and I love how it turned out. This isn’t a very good photo but you get the idea! The kids decorated the outside with figures of the family made from candy. It turned out so cute and tasted pretty good as well!

I didn’t really take any outfit photos while I was there. I just never thought of it. But in this case, I was at Starbucks waiting for Jodi and my Mom and I snapped a photo. Gotta love leopard print purses!

My older brother (yes, the one with five kids!) is in his first year of nursing school. He is super dad! We got to go visit him at school one day and take a little tour of his classes. It was fun to see where he is spending his time.

Part of the tour included seeing the mannequins. It was really interesting. They can do so many things. I would really like to be there while they are working with them but just seeing them was good too!

And finally, after 12 days of vacation, we headed home. It was a great trip!

We had an awesome pilot on the way home. There was some reported turbulence so he flew lower than normal and then pointed things out to us. We flew low over Colorado and it was so beautiful. We got to see Pike’s peak and lot’s of snow. It made me want to go to Colorado again! Although next time, I hope I go when it is my idea rather than how it went down last time :)

Yesterday, when I was back in town, I went to the library. I sat for a bit and looked at magazines and I loved seeing Oprah magazine with the chalk drawings by Dana Tanamachi. You can see some more of them here and on her site here. She also did lettering for West Elm at Christmastime and it was so awesome.

Last night we celebrated a birthday for a friend of mine at a local Mexican restaurant. I almost always get chicken tacos on corn tortillas but this time I added avocado and it was wonderful! I love Mexican, it’s one of my favorite foods.

And that pretty much sums up my week and the rest of my vacation. Now I have to get back to work on things around the house but first I am going to go on a date with my husband tonight because I missed him while I was gone!!

Have a great weekend!

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Tagged: Everyday Life, Personal, Photography

From The Kitchen: Chili

One of the first things Jason and I cook when the weather starts to turn cool is chili. We love chili. It’s the perfect thing for a cold winter’s day. Not only does it taste good, but it makes a huge batch so we are able to freeze some plus eat some during the week. It makes for one of the best leftovers too because the spices start to mingle the longer it sits. Chili is wonderful!

It’s an interesting thing that I love it so much now because growing up we didn’t eat much of it and so I always thought I didn’t like it. Then, after we got married, Jason introduced me to the recipe his Mom always made and I was hooked. It became my new favorite thing. I’m not sure where this recipe originally came from but, as we do with most recipes, we have tweaked it to our liking and now (we think) it’s perfect. Make it and see for yourself…

A glimpse into our recipe book. From my experience, the hand written recipes are the best!!

Chili

2 pounds ground beef (we have never tried ground turkey but I bet it would be good too!)
1/2 cup chopped onion
2 quarts tomato juice
1 can (15 oz) kidney beans, drained
1 can (15 oz) black beans, drained
28 oz can pork & beans
28 oz can diced tomatoes
1 teaspoon salt
2 or 3 teaspoons chili powder
1 bay leaf
4 shakes Tabasco sauce
a dash or two of hickory smoke
a bit of cayenne pepper

Using a large kettle, brown the hamburger and onion. Drain off grease. Add all of the other ingredients and bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer for 1.5 – 2 hours (do not cover). Remove bay leaf and serve. This recipe is better with age :)

Browning the beef.

Spices, Tabasco, and tomato juice, all ready to go.

The line up. Just to give you an idea of what brands we use.

The chili while it is simmering.

When your chili is ready you can doctor it up to your hearts content (try adding sour cream or cheddar). My favorite thing to do with it is pour some over a baked sweet potato! You may be a little bit skeptical about it but trust me, it is so good. Just bake your sweet potato by adding a bit of olive oil and salt and pepper and wrap it in foil for 1 hour at 450 degrees and it’s super good. And then do it again the next day because the chili is even better as leftovers. Bon appetit!!

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Tagged: From The Kitchen

Scrapbooking: Noah and Lily

It’s time for another round of scrapbook pages. One for my niece and one for my nephew. I love these little people :) One of my favorite things about making their pages is I go through the past years first so I don’t make them too similar and I get to see how much they have grown and changed. It’s so fun to be an aunt!

Let’s start with Lily:

I have 4 nephews and one niece. When I make Lily’s page it is so fun because I get to use girl colors. Not that boy colors aren’t fun, it’s just that making things girly is even more fun! Lily is already two and she is so adorable. She has the most beautiful eyes, they will make the boys melt one day!

Noah came to be part of our family when he was 6 months old. He is one of the gang and we love him so much. What a little treasure :) This is one of my favorite pages I have made in a while. Of course, that isn’t saying much since I haven’t scrapped much lately :)

Happy Birthday Noah and Lily, I love you both so much!!

Check out other scrapbooking posts here.

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Tagged: Scrapbooking

Everyday Life 01.13.12 – 01.19.12

I am still in Oregon these days and having a great time! I am trying something new out: I’m writing a post from my phone. We shall see how this turns out :) Let me know if anything looks amiss!

Here are some photos from this past week, taken on vacation.

Our day on Saturday started early with leaving at 5:30 AM. Here I am waiting at the airport, all ready to go. I was traveling light this time with just a carry on. That is a new record for me! Especially since we will be gone for 11 days!

Yeesh! We have had a lot of rain! First it started with a couple of dats of snow (which is unusual) to crazy amounts of rain and everything is flooding. More on that later.

I am staying with my in laws while I am here and this was taken at their house. There is a creek that you drive over to get to their house and the water was creeping up so high. Usually this water is about 3 feet lower! It never did spill over though. In the 30 years they have lived here that has only happened once!

I have been continuing with my workouts while I’ve been here but without my favorite training buddy (Jason) which is sad. I miss him :) we normally do P90X but I didn’t take any of it with me (remember, packing light!). So, I got the Nike training app and I have been using that. It’s awesome, I love it! And it’s perfect for on the go and even better, it’s free!

My little 2 year old niece. Isn’t she adorable? Look at those eyelashes! I’m so jealous! The cutest thing is she holds her pencil like an adult. I couldn’t help but snap a photo :)

The game of the week has definitely been Sorry. The boys want to play it all the time. But I actually think its a fun game so I don’t mind! Plus I love being with them!

And that is a quick recap of some of the stuff that has been going on here. I have had so much fun already and there is still more fun to come!

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Tagged: Everyday Life, Personal, Photography

Dining Room and Entryway Changes

This will just be a quick little post to show you some small changes I made to the entryway and dining room. After all, I am on vacation so I’d better make this fast :)

Just like the living room, I put all of the Christmas stuff away and decided not to put the same stuff out that had been there before. Nothing too drastic, just a new vignette. In these rooms, all the furniture is still in the same places.

Does it look the same to you? Look closer…

I added some different frames to the wall. The bottom frame has an old post card from Oregon that I found in an antique shop here in Tennessee. The post card is a drawing of a place close to where I lived when I was born.

And for the dining room…

A peek from the living room.

I changed the vignette on the console. I like it. Even though it is a small change, it was time. It’s nice to have something new to look at now and then.

Now I need to be thinking about some new artwork. Doesn’t that sound like fun?!

And that is all for today. I’m going to go enjoy being with my family some more because vacations go by so fast!

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Tagged: Our House