"Food, like a loving touch or a glimpse of divine power, has that ability to comfort."

Since we've been back in our house and Mark's been home, I've really been enjoying cooking real meals! I admit I was pretty lazy in MO, I hate cooking for just myself, so not worth the effort and Evelyn doesn't always count cuz she's such a two year old and their diet isn't very consistent on how much they eat :) So I was super glad to get all my cooking/baking stuff back and have been excited to try out some stuff from my "Our Best Bites" cookbook I got in MO! So this is a post dedicated to the yumminess I've tried from them and maybe one or two other places :)

 

First is Slow Cooker French Dip Sandwiches although I forgot the dip in the pic :) These were super good and made waaay more than we needed so Mark had lots of good leftovers for days. :) I also made these sandwich rolls to go with them.

Next up, is Pork Tenderloin with Chimichurri, with broccoli and potato wedges. I forgot to take a pic of the whole thing but snapped this before we ate it down :) I made this one night when we had the missionaries over and was kinda sad about it cuz there were no leftovers! :) I wasn't sure how I'd like the Chimichurri sauce on top but it was sooo yummy! I even used it to dip the potatoes in, super good! I loove pork tenderloin so I love trying new recipes with it.

For dessert I made these apple dumplings from the Pioneer Woman. This recipe is SO GOOD! Seriously awful for you but soooooooo goood! Especially warm right out of the oven with some vanilla ice cream!!! But it's also good cold. It's amazing. I posted this link of facebook and had at least three people try it already! :) I did make one change though. My friend made this for me a couple weeks ago, which is why I tried it, and she used Sprite instead of Mt. Dew so that's what I did. Small change, probably didn't make much difference but I'd rather have sprite to drink leftover than Mt. Dew :) (you don't use the whole can :)

This next one is Baked Creamy Chicken Taquitos with Creamy Cilantro-Lime Ranch dressing. I've never been a fan of taquitos but I decided to try homemade ones and these were super yummy!

And the last one I've already shown, my pumpkin cheesecake from Thanksgiving, but here is the link to the recipe. It is actually a "Layered Pumpkin Pie Toffee Cheesecake", so super yummy! Although I think I liked the double layer pumpkin cheesecake I made a couple years ago. This one you do a cheesecake layer on the bottom and pumpkin pie layer on top. The other one I did had a regular cheesecake on bottom and then pumpkin cheesecake on top. I like the pumpkin layer as a cheesecake instead of regular pumpkin pie. :)

"Alas! How dreary would be the world if there was no Santa Claus!... There would be no childlike faith then, no poetry, no romance to make tolerable this existence." --FRANCIS P. CHURCH--

Yesterday was our Ward's Christmas Social. There was dinner, a song from the primary kids, and of course, Santa Claus! :) Evelyn was actually excited this year about Santa and kept asking where he was throughout dinner. She was even excited when he came out on the stage, which was definite progress from last year and progress from the Christmas Tree farm this year! :) So she and Mark got in line and he went up there with her. She was a bit hesitant but did sit on his lap, as long as Mark was next to her. We talked to her on the way there that if she sat on Santa's lap she could tell him what she wanted for Christmas and maybe he'd give her some candy. :) So the first thing she asked for was candy, then presents, and then Mark reminded her of the bike. :) So her wish is in, we'll have to see if Santa delivers :)

this girl is so funny to watch....she picked off the sprinkles one by one and then devoured the cupcake, she does this with a lot of things! 

ooo, is Santa coming???

nope, false alarm! and yes, Evelyn is biting her nails...how ridiculous is that???

while we waited for Santa she decided to run back and forth to the stage...she  is such a funny runner! and she'd say she was gonna go fast but her fast isn't very fast ;)  good thing for me!

and Santa finally made it!

she was so excited!

but then the wait made her a little nervous....

walking up to Santa....she waited for Mark to help her

haha! see? wouldn't let Mark leave her

and success!!! candy bag!

that's what she really wanted :)

"The whole difference between construction and CREATION is exactly this: that a thing constructed can only be loved after it is constructed; but a thing created is loved BEFORE it exists." --Charles Dickens--

Here is a few projects I've been working on since we got here...along with some help from Mark! :) The first couple are some home decorating type projects. I've seen a lot of subway art on pinterest (awesome, addicting website btw) and really wanted to do some for my house so I did! The first one is a kinda family rules type one, which I've seen a lot, and the second is kinda along the same vein, but I kinda went more along the Be-attitudes line...I like the second one better though...I like the square effect instead of the straight lines on the first, but I'm definitely not redoing it and it's cute anyway so there it stays! :)

The next project is a yarn letter, I've seen this a lot on pinterest too, kinda hard to tell here but I like it. Although it was a bit tricky...I think most people use a thinner letter, this is a 2 in cardboard letter I got at  Michael's and have had a hard time getting the edges to stick and stay down. So I've gotta figure out how to get that to work so I can hang it up. :)

I really love this next project..I've wanted to do an advent calendar  for awhile and have pinned a bunch of different ideas and finally picked this one...although I changed it up a bit from the example. They had little brown paper packages hanging from the clothes pins and I decided to do little envelopes instead. I have soooo much scrapbook paper so I only had to buy a foam board to hang these on and the clothespins, super cheap! :) My friend Nicole loved it so much that she asked to do a copy of it...which was fine cuz I had lots of extra paper from it and extra clothes pins too! Plus it let me play with my Cricut more and since I've been neglecting it lately it needed some attention :) I cut these cute little envelopes on it. So quick and easy!

This last project I've been wanting to do for a year now but we didn't get around to building it before deployment so we finally did it last weekend! This is a helping tower from ana-white.com (the same site we got our nightstand plans last year). I loved it and was excited to finally do it! And Evelyn absolutely loves it!

Evelyn wanted to help us build :)

and the finished project! Of course we had to make it pink....this girl is OBSESSED with pink! ridiculous really....

using it to pick an envelope!

too cute :)

I love this thing! So fun. Evelyn climbs on it all day and loves to help me cook and prepare stuff. SO great!

So there's that! I've been kinda lazy the past week so don't have much to show for that but Mark and I have started to build a shelf (plans from ana-white.com as well!), it's been slow going on it cuz we spent last Saturday building the helping tower and didn't have enough time to finish it yesterday so hopefully before Christmas...I'm excited to get it done though! I've needed a shelf in the living area for awhile and it's just so much more fun to build it ourselves :) Anywho! Hope you all are having a great weekend!

"A two-year-old is kind of like having a blender, but you don't have a top for it." --Jerry Seinfield--

These are just some pics I found on my other computer....I keep forgetting which computer I have on which and then when I do a post I leave some out...so here's some pics I forgot to post!

This is Evelyn opening up some presents Mark got her in Japan...she thought the fan was pretty cool.

She wasn't too sure about this, but I think it's adorable! Kinda hard to see but it's a wooden Japanese doll. Super cute!

The other day I gave Evelyn a bowl of beads and some pipe cleaners for her to play with, and she loved it!

The funny thing was that she picked out all the pink ones and put them on the pink pipe cleaner and same with the purple. Such a funny girl!!!! I love it. 

Last week I watched my friend Gwyn's kids (they are the ones moving to NC with us, YAY!) and we made some cookies!  They had fun cutting out Christmas shapes.

I had to get a close up of Eber's cute little hand! I love these fingers!!!

She's so cute! 

Cute lil' Veronika!

I didn't trust her with frosting and a white shirt so she got to play with no  clothes :)  She didn't last too long though, the cookies were better being eaten than frosting them. :)

So there's some of what we've been up to lately! More posts to come...I've been on a roll lately! :)

Bethany: "Is your house on fire, Clark?" Clark: "No, Aunt Bethany, those are the Christmas lights."

Last weekend we went to a neighboring town called Pass Christian, where they have an annual "Christmas at the Pass" celebration...basically just all the shops around downtown were open and there were some booths and food and Santa and a tree lighting (which we missed) and then at the end there was a boat parade! That was the funnest part of it I think...we did walk around a bit and looked at things but then we walked over to the pier and sat and waited for the boats. There were like 7 or so boats that were all decorated up and rode by the pier. Pretty cool...nice and relaxing to just sit out there...wasn't crowded like I thought it would be or anything too! Evelyn enjoyed it so that's all that matters right? Anywho...once again, not much text here but here's some pics!

watching the boats line up

aw so cute!

and so silly!

I was playing a lot with my shutter speed that day...this is with regular  speed....nothing slowed down

and this is with a 6 or 10 sec delay! pretty cool huh?  I think it's pretty :)

the boats are coming!

the city's Christmas tree

And a new pic of our Christmas tree! This was also me playing the shutter speed. Some photographers I  follow posted how to make your tree pics turn out better...pretty much just set your camera on something that's not gonna move and adjust the shutter speed and let it go :) not very technical sound I know, but I'm not so great with the technical terms yet :) but my lights look cool! little starbursts :)

"All of our dreams can come true -- if we have the courage to pursue them." ~ Walt Disney ~

Yesterday Evelyn and I, along with some friends, went to see Disney on Ice! I was excited to take her since she loves so many of the Disney characters now and knew she'd love it and she did! I told her that morning that we were gonna go see Mickey Mouse and she was sooooo excited to go! She did really well there too...sat at the edge of her seat most of the time, watching, yelling, clapping...pretty darn cute!!! She got a pair of Mickey binoculars as a souvenir and she loved using those to watch...also pretty darn cute!!! So here's some pics!

Getting ready for it to start! She got a special treat too...snow cone in a princess cup! :)

Mickey is sighted! I LOVE this picture, pure joy!

on the edge of her seat! although she would fall back a couple times and then her foot would get stuck cuz it was the folding chairs, not really made for wee ones!

Mickey binoculars!

a couple favs....Finding Nemo...

Beauty and the Beast

more princesses! Cinderella

This is when she saw Buzz and Woody

Me and Evelyn at intermission! :)

and of course Mickey and Minnie!