New Minnesota Beginnings and Ugly Christmas Sweater Party!

Well, where do I begin with telling you all about our new life in Minnesota!? I would say that the biggest key to our new life here has been the Bible study we started attending a few weeks ago. Bible study has opened up so many new avenues in our life...we have met so many new people. I am so thankful for this bible study...we are growing our relationship with our Lord Jesus and also making new friends and awesome memories along the way!

This week our Bible Study had an Ugly Sweater Christmas party with a gift exchange. It was so much fun! Mickey and I went to a store called Rag Stock in the Mall of America to find the perfect ugly sweaters. After two hours of rummaging around the store, we came out with some pretty ugly outfits! (I also was the winner of the ugly sweater contest out of all the girls:)

(Unfortunately this came out blurry!)

We also thought long and HARD (and I mean a couple hours of searching online), for the best Christmas gifts. Each person had to bring a rapped, unmarked gift to the party to put into the middle of the living room. Each person in the room picked a number out of a hat and picked one gift to open. The game rules are long, but it ends up that each gift can be taken only 3 times total, and there is a lot of strategy involved. Mickey and I decided that one of our gifts should be a funny, not-so-desired type of gift, while the other should be a more expensive, nice gift. 


I will share what our funny gift consisted of...
Toilet Time Golf
12 pack of ultra soft toilet paper
Poo Pourri "Trap a Crap"
Poo Pourri Original
**We individually wrapped everything and placed it in a large wrapped moving box :)


The game was a ton of fun and everyone got a good laugh out of our gift. Mickey and I made out well with the gifts we ended up with! What a fun Christmas party and gift exchange! Here is a picture of our whole group! 

I hope everyone has an amazing holiday, and remember that Jesus is the reason for the season :) 

Greetings from MinnesOHta!

Well it has been awhile since I have been on Blogger!! I have been so busy lately because Mickey and I just moved to Minnesota for his job.The past few weeks have been packed with packing up our apartment in Florida, driving to Minnesota (its a LOOOONNNG drive from Florida to Minnesota), finding an apartment here, moving in, unpacking, etc. etc! This is the first chance I have gotten to sit down at my computer in a while, so I figured I would check in here in blog-land!


I am loving Minnesota's winter weather. It really feels like Christmas here (as opposed to Florida, where it did NOT feel like Christmas). We have had a few inches of snow and the best part is that its sunny here 98% of the time! Its cold and sunny, what could be better!?


I will be getting back to blogging, so stay tuned...I have some fun creations coming up! (Hint..I'm making gender reveal cupcakes for a friend and everyone will find out the sex of her baby by biting into them at Bible Study this week! yay!)


Have a blessed night!

Happy Belated Thanksgiving (and Thanksgiving cupcakes)!

Happy Belated Thanksgiving, Everyone!

Unfortunately, I am posting this blog later than I had hoped to! I have been so busy these past few days and haven't gotten to my blog. Oh well, better late than never, right!?

I absolutely love Thanksgiving. I think it is such a great time of the year. It is a time to reflect on all of the blessings we have and also a chance to pig out (which I love to do and am always looking for reasons to stuff my face i.e. Thanksgiving)

Unfortunately Mickey and I couldn't make it to PA this year for Thanksgiving (where we are both from and where our families are). Luckily, however, Mickey's parents were in town so we at least got to celebrate Thanksgiving with some of our family!

I decided to make some Thanksgiving Turkey Cupcakes for fun. They turned out really cute and were super easy!

As you can see in the picture, I just placed a cookie in the center of the cupcake and used the blue icing to make an eye. Then I cut the white tip of the candy corn off to make a beak and placed it next to the cupcake. The red icing fills the gap between the beak and the cookie and makes a gobbler, and the candy corn are the feathers!

Hope everyone had a blessed holiday. We sure did, God has been so good to us! Have an amazing week!

My Mom's Delicious Chicken Corn Noodle Soup!

It was a rather dreary day here in northern Florida, so I decided to make Mickey and I some of my mom's chicken corn noodle soup. When I turned 18 my mom gave me a hand written recipe book full of our family's favorite recipes! I absolutely LOVE my cookbook and use it all the time. Today, I went to the "soup tab" and my mom's recipe was there on the first page. I went to Publix to pick up the ingredients, and an hour later we had amazing chicken corn noodle soup. 

Ingredients: (I bought all organic ingredients, but that is obviously optional)
1. one whole soup chicken 
2. half and half (can use fat free if you wish)
3. one box of chicken broth
4. fresh parsley
5. whole wheat soup noodles
6. carrots with tops
7. shredded carrots
8. one bag frozen corn
9. Parmesan cheese


Directions:
1. Place whole chicken in a pot on the stove, pour broth in the pot and then add enough water to completely cover the chicken. 
2. Rinse the carrots with tops, then place them in the pot with the chicken.
3. Bring the pot to a boil and continue to boil until chicken is completely cooked (time depends on how large the chicken is, but a half hour is usually the minimum amount of time)
4. Once chicken is cooked (no pink in the meat) put a strainer over a new pot and strain broth into pot, leaving chicken and carrots in the original pot. 
5. While chicken cools in seperate pot, add 1/2 cup of half and half to broth. Pour in noodles,shredded carrots, and desired amount of chopped parsley.Bring pot to a boil.
6. When chicken is cool enough in seperate pot, pick off the pieces of meat and add them into the broth pot with the noodles and shredded carrots. Add frozen corn to the soup, and turn on low.
7. The carrots with tops usually just go in the trash, but I cut up the carrots and mixed them with Jagger's dog food. He loves carrots and they are good for dogs :)
8. Add salt, pepper, and garlic powder to taste. Top with Parmesan Cheese before serving.


Enjoy! <3

Seville Quarter Wine Festival

A few days ago, Sue and I went to the Wine Festival in the historic Seville Quarter located in downtown Pensacola. Seville Quarter is similar to what you would find on Bourbon Street in New Orleans...it has a French flare with adorable brick walkways, courtyards, and fountains. Seville Quarter has seven rooms, each with their own theme. There is also a party plaza, an outdoor concert venue, and a banquet facility. The only way I can think to describe the ambiance in Seville Quarter is "quaint." 

(The Champagne Bar in the courtyard)

There were over 200 handpicked wines from around the world being poured by 10 local distributors. There was also a cigar sampling, oyster bar, handcrafted microbrew beers, live entertainment, and cooking demos and tastings from Harris Ranch Natural Beef, Italian Specialties by Enzo, Tribeca Bread, and Artisan Cheeses.

(Just one of the delicious food tables)

I tried many different types of white and red wines from all over the world and I learned a TON about different wines and the regions that they are from. I enjoy wine because I feel that it is much more than an alcoholic beverage. Wine and wine making is an art, a science, a culture, and an experience. 

Some of my favorite wines were:

Jam Jar Moscato 2011

Trimbach Reserve 2007 Pinot Gris

Dr. Fischer 2009 Riesling

I am not a very "sophisticated" drinker. My mom always teases me and says she can tell I just graduated from college. I love boxed white zinfandel and anything made by Arbor Mist... but I will say that I am starting to like better wines! I can drink Chardonnay without making a face like I used to, and I actually ENJOY the taste of it! I never thought that day would arrive, but it has. I am not a big drinker, but I have enjoyed learning about wine, trying it, and drinking a nice glass of it every once in a while!

Blue Angels

About a week ago my in-laws and I drove to the Naval Air Station in Pensacola to watch the Navy’s Flight Demonstration Squadron, the Blue Angels. It was such an amazing experience! I had never seen fighter jets up close, let alone watch them fly over my head for an hour. The pilots were amazingly gifted and obviously very, very, VERY trained, because the stunts they performed took extreme precision and left ZERO room for error. The jets flew within 18 inches of each other at certain points during the show. UNBELIEVABLE! Below are some videos I took at the practice.

Here the jets are flying 18 inches apart from one another!

I would highly recommend going to watch the Blue Angels perform (they travel all over the country to different air shows). If you are ever in Pensacola, going to practice is a MUST!! To read more about the Blue Angels, click here.

Baking Extravaganza Part 2: Halloween Cookies

This post is a bit delayed but I figured I would write “part two” to my baking extravaganza I had a few posts ago…click here.

Anyway, long story short, I decided to take the leftover ingredients I had from decorating my cupcakes and make cookies. I followed a pretty basic sugar cookie recipe and then tried to add some fun twists for Halloween (but more just to use my left over candy because I CANNOT leave it in the house or I will eat it all=ZERO SELF CONTROL!)

First, I decided to make “thin mint sugar cookies,” but called them ghost poop cookies when I sent them to my brother (he’s 7 and I had to make it somewhat Halloween-ish/scary). Next, I made M&M cookies…they were pretty difficult to make because I had to put the M&Ms in the cookies mid way through baking, and for those who are challenged bakers like me finding the right time can be difficult. Anywho, I decided to call them “monster cookies” because of the big M stamped on the M&Ms. Pretty creative, huh!?

Then, I got fancy. I decided to whip out my food coloring. Since orange is not supplied in the food coloring kit, I had to use advanced chemistry. I mixed some drops of red with some drops of yellow and got a beautiful orange color.

For the first batch of orange cookies I placed two marshmallows in the dough right before I put the cookies in the oven. I thought the marshmallows would melt and make a nice gooey center, however, they shriveled up and actually ended up looking kind of like…boobs. Weird, I know. It was definitely not my intention, but I went with it and called them “goblin boobs.”

For the second batch of orange cookies, I added chocolate sprinkles to the dough and baked them. They turned out like I had hoped. I thought ahead for this baking experience and had addressed boxes sitting on my kitchen table. I bagged the cookies, put them in the boxes, and drove them to the post office. I hope my mail recipients enjoyed their Halloween treats :)