Wedding Photo Book

Click here to view this photo book larger

I have FINALLY created a Wedding Photo Book! Thanks to Shutterfly :) It took only what 2 years ha. Well I have spent quite a bit of hours creating this book with all the details. I hope it turns out good and I can't wait for it to come in the mail! Please ENJOY :)

Catch Up

Well sorry for the LONG disappearance for any of my followers. Since my last post we have left VA (for good) and as of July we have been living in Panama City, FL. I enjoy the city very much and love our new house and neighbors! As of right now I'm not a fan of Eric's station only because it takes up so much of his time--Emma and I never see him! But he is fully enjoying the new station and all the new things that go a long with it. He's so use to small stations so its a great change for him! So I'm very happy for him. Emma has started doing some new tricks since we've been here--she is now CRAWLING all over the place! She is pulling herself up in her crib and on the tv stand, she hesitates with the coffee table only because she keeps bumping her head on it and so I think she is scared of it. Her personality is changing and she loves making different facial expressions. She still loves any and all food we feed her. She also loves her daddy's sweet tea!!! We definitely miss our families and hate the distance between FL and NC. I'm so use to being able to go home once a month or have people come visit us for a weekend, but its a lot harder to do that with a 12 hour drive or flight now. I have been homesick like all the time, more so when Eric is at work and its just me and Emma. But now that time is passing by I'm getting a little more use to it (not that I will ever fully be use to the distance). Our neighbors have been absolutely wonderful!!! We have been very lucky with such great neighbors in VA and now FL. I sure hope this pattern keeps up on all our moves! I'm a people person and love entertaining so its great when it can be with neighbors! Our neighborhood is very kid friendly. Everyone on our street has kids. So I'm looking forward to all the fun holidays such as Halloween, Christmas and Easter!

Now I'm getting ready to brag a little about myself :) ha! I joined Weight Watchers on July 17th and since that day I have lost 11.8 pounds YAY ME! Most people complain about weight watchers and say things like "let the starving begin" but I have not felt like I've had to starve myself on this diet! I am NOT a diet person, never have been. But this counting points is a lot easier (for me anyway). I do not have to go without certain foods at all. I am also one who loves to eat fruit and vegetables so that has definitely helped me out with this because almost all fruits and most vegetables are 0 points so that helps with any hunger points throughout the day. I have also fallen in love with the "Smart Ones" frozen meals. They are Weight Watcher friendly and Chelsea friendly :) Since most of the time I have to have dinner alone it helps to just pop in a GOOD frozen dinner, especially when I'm having to take care of a baby girl too! I haven't ventured too much in the cooking weight watcher meals from my cookbook yet, but I did make General Tso's Chicken with white rice and broccoli and that was a huge hit :)

So to end this post I've uploaded a video of Emma. I was lucky enough to catch her VERY FIRST time crawling on video! Eric wasn't home (he was in Louisiana) so he didn't get to see her in person, but he was able to see the video. She crawled for the first time on August 3, 2011!! Let me tell you she is a PRO now, no wobbling crawl anymore. She is focused when she crawls, she sees something and just GOES, most of the time its toward the tv or here lately its over by the front door to play with the blinds (lord help me haha). But I hope you all enjoy her video :) I hope the video works ha!!!!

Addictions!!!!

No I'm not needing to be admitted to AA or anything like that! But I do have a slight MOVIE addiction!

There is nothing I enjoy more than sitting on my nice cozy couch and snuggle up to my hubby and daughter and watching a movie! Although this addiction started back in high school ha! I believe my first movie I bought was "The Ring" and technically I didn't physically buy it because I wasn't old enough to buy a Rated R movie, so one of my friends boyfriend (at the time) bought it for me (I of course gave him the money) so back in 2002.

I'm pretty sure there were a couple movies bought before then too but for some reason this movie sticks out in my mind. This does not include all the vhs movies me and my sister had growing up...Disney! :) Which of course I've added to Emma's collection but in DVD's not vhs!

But back to my addiction, I could seriously open up my own Redbox and rent my movies out for a $1 a day and I believe I hold more of a collection than Redbox does.

But I have to warn you there are quite a few chick flicks....what can I say I'm a CHICK :) Eric has his collection mixed in with my movies too, but what's the saying once you get married "what's mine is yours" so we have quite a bit of a movie selection between us.

We counted the movies yesterday for inventory purposes for our upcoming move and we are at 257 movies! I should clarify that when my husband counted I know he didn't open up the TV collection and count each of those discs that are in one box so there are physically more discs than that but whatever. Also you'll see in one of the pictures on the floor there is a big black dvd/cd holder...I'm not sure what the count is on that but I know its over 100 possibly 200 but there are dvd's in there too..we did not count all those either! Haha I told you its an addiction! But I can't help it! :)

So we got this as one of our wedding gifts and it holds all of our movies...well not all but the majority of them!

Top Shelf (not because they are our "top" movies) they just couldn't fit in the movie boxes and are in no particular order

Second shelf--most of the movies are in Alphabetical order! There might be a few out of place


3rd Shelf

Bottom Shelf--also holds our newest collection of Blue Ray movies!


These are not on a shelf and they were neatly stacked on top of the speaker until the collection started growing more and more--these are Emma's movies! :) She's got a mixture of regular and Blue Ray movies!


Now on to the TV collections!

As most of you know I'm a HUGE "Friends" fan! I basically know everything there is to know about the show! So it only makes sense that I own all the episodes!!

These TV collections are located in our bedroom--only because we didn't have room in the living room haha! They consist of all the Grey's Anatomy, Private Practice, Glee, Son's of Anarchy, King of Queens, The League and of course the big pretty pink case of Sex and the City!


So I hope you all have enjoyed my collection! How many movies do you own?! :)

First's!

The month of May has been a BUSY one! We went to NC from the 13th-24th and visited with family and friends. The weather had called for rain most of the trip BUT luckily it was pretty instead. We didn't get a chance to take Emma out in the boat or even to the beach while we were home, but she still enjoyed her time there :)

Before we left Emma experienced a few "southern first's" she was always seeing her daddy drinking out of a big blue cup and she finally got curious enough and we let her try Sweet Tea for the first time! She enjoyed it, so now every time she sees him drinking out of any kind of cup she instantly reaches up towards it ha! The other thing she tried and LOVES is Watermelon! We put a piece of seedless watermelon into a mesh container thing (not sure what its called) and she was just sucking the juices and oh my goodness if you try to take it away from her, even if your trying to add more watermelon she throws a hissy fit! It's crazy how much she loves a piece of watermelon.

her trying sweet tea/eating watermelon


While we were home Emma took a stroll in her new stroller for the first time and we took her down front street. It was incredibly hot that day, so of course to cool her off we stopped into the General Store where we got some ice cream (cookie dough) and I gave Emma her first taste of the General Store :) Definitely a right of passage....if you are from Carteret County you have to get ice cream from the General Store. Below is a picture of her striking a pose in her stroller...I love this little girl more than words can express!

We took Emma to the Aquarium for the first time while we were home. Papa B came to visit for the day so he got to go with us. Emma seemed to enjoy bits and pieces of the aquarium, but I think some of the tanks were too dark for her to really see inside and see the fish. But it was still a fun experience and we also did the nature walk, where she ended up falling asleep. She did enjoy being able to touch some of the fish sculptures (you are allowed to touch).

This picture below was pretty cool (in person) the ground would do a ripple effect when you walked over it and she seemed to enjoy this, of course the pictures don't do its justice.


Haha this picture of her mouth is the best I could get because every time I try to stick my finger in there she just licks my finger. But I'm trying to take a picture of her first tooth! Its barely showing but it is there! :) Its on the bottom in the front. She hasn't been cranky like you hear of most babies when they are teething. She's been acting like she normally does so perhaps we have lucked out again!

Emma's first Memorial weekend and we finally took her to the beach!!!! We went with our neighbor's to a local beach here in VA called "Pub Beach". It was a nice beach with lots of families :) There is a place where you could order food and drinks and they also have bands that play on Sundays. It was very hot that day we went, which was perfect beach weather! The water was cool and refreshing, but NOT to Emma! We put her in the water for the first time and she cried! We kept bringing her back thinking she was just in shock of all that was around her, but she still cried every time. Finally I put her in the water with me facing towards the beach and she seemed content longer than she had been in the water. The thing is she loves a bath so I really thought she'd enjoy the beach, but it just wasn't her thing. I'm guessing its the temperature of the water. Maybe when we go home for the entire month of June the water will be warmer for her. I know once we move to FL the water is going to be like bath water!






She did love playing on the beach and consuming LOTS of sand! Every time I tried to pull her hand away from her mouth she would get upset! But all in all it was such a great experience! I'm so glad we got to share it with some great friends. We are truly going to miss our neighbors once we move :(




So speaking of moving and "first's" we had been looking and looking for places to rent in FL and we finally crunched some number's and realized it's cheaper for us to BUY a place then to rent one. We contacted the VA Loan people to see how much we could get a loan for and then they basically did the rest for us! They found us a realtor who found us a few places to look. Eric ended up having to drive to FL our last weekend, but it was well worth it because he found us a place that is just perfect! It is located in a great neighborhood that has lots of other military families who also have lots of kids everywhere. Eric met the neighbor's on both sides of the house. The house is a 2 story, fenced in backyard, front porch, 3 bedroom, 2 1/2 bath house built in 2005..it is perfect for our first time buying a house! I can't wait to actually see it in person! We put an offer on the house and a few days later the seller's accepted the offer! They first told us we could close by June 30th, but do to the military HAP (homeowners assistance program) that the sellers are doing it might take longer so they pushed the closing to say on or before July 31st! Our realtor seems to think that it could still close by June 30th, but I'm not going to get my hopes up! Eric's first day at his new job is July 8th so in an ideal world it would be PERFECT to move in by July 1st, but I just don't see that happening. Our lender says they are ready on their end. Anyway we are extremely excited!!!!!!!

I'm sure I missed mentioning something, but I figured this was a good start :) OHHH yeah Emma bug is now saying "dada" she doesn't say it all the time, but she does say it! As many times that I've said "mama" to her somehow "dada" came out haha! Either way its super cute!

Hope everyone had a wonderful and safe Memorial Day Weekend!

Cinco De Mayo!

Not Pictured: Boneless, Skinless Chicken Strips, Red Pepper, Green Pepper & Onion

Go ahead and turn your oil on medium heat because it takes about 20 minutes to heat up.

Cut the peppers, onions and chicken in long strips. You want to start with onions so they can saute down and then add the peppers. Add the taco seasoning into the onion and pepper mix (flavor to taste). Put on a low or medium heat and stir occasionally. In a different pan add the chicken and taco seasoning (flavor to taste) and cook until chicken is done. Add all ingredients together in biggest pan and just mix and put on low heat.

While your peppers, onions and chicken is sitting on low heat (stirring occasionally) place 1 tortilla at a time (unless you have a bigger pan) and let it fry for about 15 seconds on each side. Then place on a paper towel to damp off remaining oil and repeat until you have your desired amount.

Finished product! Serve with sour cream, mexican shredded cheese and hot sauce! Let me just say this is such a SIMPLE fajita dinner and I enjoyed mine much better then the local mexican restaurant Eric and I went to! :)

Now on to DESSERT :)

SOPAPILLA CHEESECAKE PIE....yes I just said that! For those of you that aren't sure what a "Sopapilla" is a crisp, puffy deep fried pastry often served with honey and syrup...ummm YEAH they are delicious! Well this recipe just adds more goodness because the top and bottom are pastry and the inside is the cheesecake! It is REALLY easy and definitely worth trying for your family or if your having a Cinco De Mayo party :)

INGREDIENTS:

What it looks like before going into the oven

Usually I don't take a picture of what it looks like while its in the oven...but the kitchen SMELLED Soooo good that I felt I had to capture something! :)

Right out of the oven

Add Honey on top after it comes out the oven and let it cool! Then SERVE!!!!

Ingredients

• 2 (8 ounce) packages cream cheese, softened
• 1 cup white sugar
• 1 teaspoon Mexican vanilla extract
• 2 (8 ounce) cans refrigerated crescent rolls
• 3/4 cup white sugar
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1/2 cup butter, room temperature
• 1/4 cup honey

Directions

1. Preheat an oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Prepare a 9x13 inch baking dish with cooking spray.
2. Beat the cream cheese with 1 cup of sugar and the vanilla extract in a bowl until smooth.
3. Unroll the cans of crescent roll dough, and use a rolling pin to shape each piece into 9x13 inch rectangles. Press one piece into the bottom of a 9x13 inch baking dish. Evenly spread the cream cheese mixture into the baking dish, then cover with the remaining piece of crescent dough. Stir together 3/4 cup of sugar, cinnamon, and butter. Dot the mixture over the top of the cheesecake.
4. Bake in the preheated oven until the crescent dough has puffed and turned golden brown, about 30 minutes. Remove from the oven and drizzle with honey. Cool completely in the pan before cutting into 12 squares.

Stuffed...cookies.. :)

As I've told you all before I enjoy reading food blogs, but I'm also addicted to cooking magazines--you know the ones that are in the checkout line at the grocery store!?! Yeah they get me every time, just today I went to the grocery store to get a few things and low and behold I ended up purchasing 2 cooking magazines while waiting in line ha!

Well the recipe below I got from a food blog, but I am sorry to say that I can't remember which blog it was from :( I'm wanting to say it was "Picky-Palate" (I think) you'll see her website in the left hand column, great blogger!

This past weekend Eric was on duty and when he's working I have a tendency to visit him at work and of course I bring some goodies to everyone there. But this past weekend was one of the girls birthday (well she's the only girl stuck at work with a bunch of guys--bless her heart ha). So it sucks having to work on your birthday and I figured to make her birthday a little better I'd bake her something good. Well this treat was definitely different! It is STUFFED chocolate chip cookies!!! Yes I said STUFFED! The recipe is at the bottom of this post. I used a homemade cookie recipe but if you don't feel like going through all that you can always just buy the store bought cookie dough.

These are just a few things that I chose to stuff the cookies with! Yes you even see brownie mix in that picture HAHA! I only did one with the brownie mix though.

My cookie dough

Oreo stuffed chocolate chip cookie!

Snickers stuffed chocolate chip cookie

These are what they look like stuffed!

Voila! what they look like after they've been baked. I chose to cut the cookies in half so everyone could see what they were getting and plus the cookies are big so you'd only want like one or two and this way you can have a variety.

This is the oreo stuffed cookie and this was by far my favorite! The oreo cookie actually softens and the cream melts but just enough, its not a gooey melt.

All my lovely cookies!

So instead of just putting them in a container, I saw these cute boxes at walmart in the Easter section and they were toooo cute to pass up. So because these cookies made such a big batch and even more when I cut them in half, I shared them with a few of my neighbors in these pretty boxes too (they got great reviews!).

Stuffed Chocolate Chip Cookies

2 sticks softened butter

3/4 Cup packed light brown sugar

1 Cup granulated sugar

2 large eggs

1 Tablespoon pure vanilla

3 1/2 Cups all purpose flour

1 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon baking soda

10 oz bag chocolate chips

1 bag Oreo Cookies, I used the double stuff

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. In a stand or electric mixer cream butter and sugars until well combined. Add in eggs and vanilla until well combined.

2. In a separate bowl mix the flour, salt and baking soda. Slowly add to wet ingredients along with chocolate chips until just combined. Using a cookie scoop take one scoop of cookie dough and place on top of an Oreo Cookie or Snickers or whatever miniature candy bar you'd like. Take another scoop of dough and place on bottom of Oreo Cookie. Seal edges together by pressing and cupping in hand until Oreo Cookie is enclosed with dough. Place onto a parchment or silpat lined baking sheet and bake cookies 9-13 minutes or until cookies are baked to your liking. Let cool for 5 minutes before transferring to cooling rack.

Serve with a tall glass of milk, enjoy!

Makes about 2 dozen VERY LARGE Cookies