Yummmmm...

Summer sure has been great... for many reasons! One reason is that I have been able to enjoy some baking. I am quite the avid blog stalker- and of those blogs that I frequent I like to check out the after dinner num-nums section. I have found some yummy things to try- mainly to take to different get teogethers here and there, while sometimes Josh would bring them to his squad too :)


Awhile back I found a recipe for a rainbow cake that I tried a couple of times- both a success. I wanted to make something festive for Memorial Day, so I tweaked it a bit and just did Red, White and Blue... it turned out super cool. I didn't follow the exact recipe this time (the healthy version), not for any particular reason- just because! I just use Non-Dairy Whipped Topping (in town here you can actually buy it in pint containers from Fry's) instead of the recipe she gives on the original. Basically, I followed that the first time so I knew how to put the colors in the pan and then have made up my own version since!

I did make one of the rainbow cakes too... :)






Okay, I can't remember the exact order that I made these goodies, but another one I tried was a Hostess Cupcake . Don't hate me, but I didn't take a single picture during the process of making these. They were a little involved, but SO good. I brought them over to a friend's house and they seemed to be a hit (PS. they did look just like a Hostess Cupcake)!

For the 4th I made a couple of different treats to take to our friend's BBQ they were having. I made one of our usual Christmas cookies- Homemade Oreos (with Red, White and Blue frosting of course) and Oreo Truffles. There was a bit of an underlying Oreo theme apparently.


The recipe for the Oreos is pretty easy: 2 boxes of Devil's Food cake mix, 4 eggs, 1 cup shortening. Mix ingredients well, dough will be stiff. Roll into balls, making all balls same size. Balls can be any size from 1 1/2" to 3", depending on how big you want your cookies. Place on baking sheet. Bake at 350 for 8-10 minutes for small cookies, 15 or more for large. Watch carefully, do not overbake. Cookies will be soft and puffed up when done, then flatten as they cool. When cool, put two cookies together (top of the cookie will become the outsides) with any frosting desired *cream cheese frosting is especially good*




The Oreo Truffles were very tasty- very dangerous.



I was in the mood for oatmeal cookies one day (mind you- I'm not eating a whole lot of these goodies... I know... torture), so I made some :)

If you were wondering, this is what the two knuckle heads were doing while I was baking. The two bigger knuckle heads were out enjoying the pool!!

Fun. That's all it is. I enjoy "thrill" of finding a new recipe and giving it a try. I enjoy sharing it with people. I enjoy eating one and saying that's enough. I just like it. I hope to keep it up... probably not as much as I was this summer, but hopefully some!

Enjoy any of these for yourself, if you'd like!

What We've Up to This Summer

Okay... so, summer is almost over. GASP. I go back to school for teacher meetings on Tuesday. Yes, Tuesday. Before I go into all the oh-my-gosh I go back to school woes, let us talk about how awesome this summer has been! Like I said in our last post, Josh has been working swings for the majority of the summer. That made for lots of fun time together.

We started the summer off by driving to Cedar City for Joseph (Josh's brother) and Dulce's wedding. They got married up in Brian Head, which is a beautiful ski resort near Cedar City. That was so sure a fun time- and the wedding was beautiful! It was fun to see all of our niece and nephews and to see the fam :)

Cute married couple!
Us after the wedding, right before we hit the hay... thus we look sleepy

My parents had planned to come visit us again this summer, but sadly the night before they were going to fly in my grandma in Washington was not doing well (she's doing better now), so my dad felt that he needed to be there with her and his family, but still wanted my mom to come here and visit. SO, she came for a week while Dad was in Washington with his mom and family. It was decided then that they would come out again because Dad really wanted to come, so before Mom left we had already "penciled" in when they would come again! While Mom was here we got some good shopping in, yummy eating, and lots of game playing! It was a great trip! The three of us hanging out at the game we went to.

Joshua and I celebrated 5 years of wonderful marriage in June. We planned a little "stay-cation" at a beautiful resort in Scottsdale. We had such a fun time swimming in the pools, floating down the lazy river, and going to yummy dinner. Can't wait for all the many, many more anniversaries we have in store for us. Such a fun day to celebrate our love! On our way to the pool(s)!

My parents DID come again in July. They were here for a week and it was so fun. We did some good shopping (yes, that's a staple when they're here), went to a Diamondbacks game, lots of yummy food, ride alongs, working in my new classroom- you know... basically a great time!

At the Diamondbacks game with my parents!

In between all of these fun things, Josh and I have just been enjoying our time together. Relaxed by the pool lots of times, played with the dogs in the pool many times, lots of impromptu dinner and movie dates. It's been so fun spending time with Joshua and we really know how to have a great time together- even doing nothing some days!!

This is one way we can get Gus in the pool ;)

Playing with the dogs in the pool!

We are so blessed to have jobs that allow us to have time spent together like this in the summer. We've both really enjoyed hanging out and look forward to see how the Lord helps us find time for each other with a whole new schedule (for both of us- Graves for Joshua and school for me).

We ARE alive... I promise

It's quite obvious that I've slacked in this area of my life! I still get on here and blog stalk my friends and such, but the actual act of sitting here and updating on us... well that was out of the question apparently.

Things are pretty much the same for us, but different (awesome sentence, I know).

Josh at work one day

The handsome hubby is still patrolling the streets of Glendale and loving it. He is currently working his last week of this schedule (swings: 2pm-12am) before switching to his new schedule, which will be... drum roll please... bbbdddddddddddddd... GRAVES (8pm-6am). How do I feel about this you may be asking... well the answer would be: I HAVE NO IDEA. Am I excited, am I worried... I just don't know what to expect. Will I have a zombie of a husband due to lack of sleep? Will we get to actually "see" each other more than we did with the last schedule? Will I be able to keep myself (and the dogs) quiet while he's sleeping? Will I be able to sleep during the night by myself? We're hopeful. That's all we can be. There was really NO choice in the matter, so this is something we will HAVE to make work for us. I know that the Lord will help us, because He knows how hard the swing shift was for us to get used to (we did NOT get to see each other much at all- a lot like two ships passing in the night), and He helped us through it. Lots of tears and prayers, but isn't that how we learn (at least for me that's how it works)?

My old "classroom" all packed up

As far as life for the beautiful wifey goes... I will no longer be working in Gilbert as a Special Education teacher. I got a job again as a first grade teacher in Phoenix. Such an answer to prayer. The drive each way (45 min.) was getting to me, to us. That's a lot of time in the car! So, a 15 minute drive is much better- YAY. Another really fun thing about this job is that I will be working with a good friend. Her husband works with mine and we have all really gotten to know each other. It's been awesome! Kim knew that I was looking for a job. Her school was hiring and she put a good word in for me! Without all the nitty gritty details, let's just say God sure layed out the path for this job. I will be sad to not be working with the gals in Gilbert, but we'll still get together, and there's always facebook ;)

I'll stop there on the little update, but I will do a couple of more fun ones that tell about some of the fun things we've been up to since um... October (insert embarrassed face ;) )

Update

Oh my goodness... I am pretty sure it has been FOREVER since I updated this thing... I don't even know if anyone reads this anymore, but it's still kind of fun to update (for our memories, if for nothing else!

Since I last updated this... we have been LOVING our house. We only have made a few changes to it so far, and look forward to making more as time goes on!

February 2010

Not too long after we moved in, Josh graduated from the Police Academy!!

March 2010

This was our first summer together in Arizona... and it was really fun! We enjoyed our pool almost everyday! It was a must for the temperature! :) We did go on a few different hikes, which is a fun thing to do, especially with a few trails close to the house!

June 2010

Sadly, the summer came to an end much quicker than I would have liked, and a new school year came a knockin'. Luckily I have become a professional at setting up and taking down a classroom, because guess what... I moved classrooms again this year. It was a little more difficult this year because I am sharing it with another teacher, so we had to be creative in figuring out space. Also, because of a lack of storage in our room, A LOT of my teaching things didn't make the cut and are in boxes here at the house (I guess it's a good thing we have extra space here) :)

Here's just a couple of pics of my side of the room! I'm teaching the Special Ed. Resource again this year, and actually have all of the same kids from last year!

August 2010

We added a new family member this year- this is Frank, he's a black lab puppy that joined us at the end of September. He has definitely been a wonderful addition. Gus has sure been happy to have a buddy to play with :)

September 2010

Which brings us to- today. I am sitting in the living room right now with this handsome man next to me snoring away on the recliner. He just had sinus surgery this morning, so he's out of it- thanks to some pain killers! Man do I love this guy (minus the new mustache... it was a squad contest to see who could grow the best 'stach ;))

October 2010

We have so many wonderful things planned for the next few months, and we're so excited. We have birthdays, lots of family coming out to visit and all the FUN holidays!

WOW...

Okay, so I am not a very good blogger it appears. I get on to check other blogs out sometimes, but never have enough time to actually update our own :)

Well, I'm doing it! SO... since Josh's birthday (which was our last post), we have surprised the Carroll's with a visit to town, traveled from Cedar City, UT to Phoenix, AZ, started the Police Academy, became a little bit more comfortable with teaching special ed., had an awesome Christmas with my family, began to go a bit stir crazy in the little one bedroom apartment where I could have sworn the walls were moving in on us, looked at about a billion homes, chose one we loved and put an offer in on September 8, 2009, waited and waited, and waited some more until finally on January 29,2010 we closed on our first home!

Here's a few more pictures of the home... I took these before we actually started moving stuff in!

The kitchen

The living room

The dining room

The upstairs loft

The master bedroom

Our backyard

We've been a bit busy the past few weekends doing little projects here and there, but the big one we did was painting the masterbedroom and adding some recessed lighting! It's been so much fun thinking about all the things we can do in OUR home!

Wishing my hubby a HAPPY BIRFDAAAY!

Today is this man's 26th birthday!

He is having an interesting birthday this year... he's currently packing up the U-Haul trailer to make the trek out here to Arizona to finally join me, in our new state of residence! I am thrilled to be counting down the days (3 more to go) now instead of months!! I am so excited to see him and have him live here with me! Not that that's any surprise to anyone!This is a picture he sent me while he was working one day! So cute he is... well at least I think so!

So excited to have you here babe to actually celebrate your birthday. A couple of days late isn't too bad... RIYYYGHHT?

My "Second Home" ;)

*Disclaimer- lots of pictures*

This is what my classroom looked like when we got there. Josh is posing so nicely for us in the middle of my room. I have a half classroom all to myself (which is a little unheard of in the Resource area out here). Off to the left in the picture was where 50 something MAILBOXES sat. It was a little shocking to see that many full-size mailboxes filling up this small room. Josh and I carried each one out the room and put them out in hall, so that we could actually start moving things around and being productive while Josh was still here. That's what the next picture it... all the mailboxes nicely lined up out in the hall. They actually sat out there for days, and then finally they were painted and put out in front of all the teacher's rooms. I am still not sure of the reason yet :)

I didn't get a whole lot of pictures of it before (there wasn't much too it). So here are the finished product! I am pretty excited that I am done. Next week is full of all-day meetings, so I really needed to be done. I was a little surprised that there weren't more teachers there this week getting things ready, but maybe they'll be there this weekend...

This is right as you walk in the room.

The front board. I won't be here much, but it's there for me if I want to do a whole group lesson where we're not sitting at the back table.

This is looking straight back front the door. There were two full-size whiteboards in this room (probably if there were two teachers sharing, so they could each have their own??). I didn't see the need for me to have 2 of them for myself, so I used this one as my word wall. You can also see the working areas that I have set up. Some individual desks, and a group table.

Here's the little reading area I have for the kids. I put out some of my leveled books, and some of my misc. books.

This is my desk area.

This is where majority of my day will take place. I love having the built in storage right behind me and right next to me! Pretty sweet spot for a reading table if you ask me :)


This is right off to the left of the reading table. Behind the curtains are shelves where I put all my curriculum and "teacher books". Very nice storage!

I know this is kind of a silly picture, but I basically just took pictures in a 360... and this is where it started, so it ended here :)