A Delicious Mistake

So tonight I made a delicious mistake. We had our friends Mike and Sam over for FHE (family home evening) and I was making dessert. I decided to make some no bake cookies with ice cream over them. Instead of letting the cookies cool and harden you put a scoop of it when it is warm and gooey and then put a scoop or two of ice cream on top. It is SO good! I was excited to share this treat with our friends. Well, when I went to the store earlier today I couldn't find the cocoa so I asked a store clerk. He grabbed a bag and told me it was cocoa and that it was in a bag because it made it a lot cheaper. I didn't think anything of it and went home to prepare our treat. As I was making the cookies I was at the step where you add 3 tablespoons of cocoa. Right after I added it something didn't seem right so I looked at the bag and it said the word "CINNAMON"!!! I yelled "NOOOO" and everyone asked what was wrong. I told them my dilemma and they said well lets see what it tastes like with cinnamon. I was a little skeptical but I didn't want to throw it all away and waste all the ingredients. I decided that there was wayyy too much cinnamon in there so I took as much as I could out of it. I would say it ended up being about 1 tablespoon of cinnamon. We also didn't put any peanut butter in. Peanut butter and cinnamon didn't sound too good. haha I was sooo excited when we tried it and it was actually delicious! It was actually kinda perfect because it tasted like a Fall dessert with the cinnamon.

So, if you need a new spin on your regular no bake cookies try this recipe! I'm trying to think of a good name for these. Here are a couple that we thought of: "Cinnamon No Bake Cookies", "CinnaBakes", "Oops... CinnaBakes", "No Bake Cookie Twist". What's your favorite? Any other good names that you can think of?

Ingredients:
2 cups sugar
1/2 cup butter/margarine
1t. vanilla
1/2 cup milk
1 T cinnamon
3-4 cups quick oatmeal

Directions:
Combine sugar, milk, butter, cinnamon in saucepan. Bring to boil for 3 min and stir. Remove from heat and add remaining ingredients. Stir and spoon onto wax paper to cool OR spoon into bowl and add a scoop of vanilla ice cream.

WARNING: These are very rich so you are only going to need a small scoop of it because if you put too much then it becomes a bit of a sugar overload.

Hope you enjoy this yummy Fall treat!

Pumpkin Carving

Last night Brayden and I carved pumpkins with our friends Mike and Sam Hall. Brayden was companions and roommates with Mike and is one of his best friends. I hadn't carved a pumpkin in a while and it seems like all the times I can remember carving one someone else had done most of it. This time Brayden and I each got a pumpkin and carved our own. I was a little nervous that I was going to ruin mine because I'm not the most artsy, creative, or patient person when it comes to that kind of thing. I was very happy when it actually turned out pretty good. We are still putting the finishing touches on them and haven't put candles in them yet but here is a little sneak peak...

 This ones mine!

Here is Brayden's pumpkin. Can you guess what it is? I'll give you a CLUE. He still has to do the writing on top of it but he is of course very proud of representing his team. Now Brayden and I are still trying to decide what we should be for Halloween. Any ideas??

Life Lately

Well it's been over a month since the last time I wrote! I definitely have been thinking about different things to post about but just haven't ever sat down to write them down so this post is going to be a little mix of everything.
Brayden and I are now officially back in Idaho and we are loving our new apartment. It is a definite upgrade to our first apartment we lived in up here. Brayden is working hard in his classes and currently has held onto all A's. So proud of him! Since it was a bit of a last minute decision to move back up here it was a little hard to find a full time teaching job so for now I am working part time as a Title 1 paraprofessional. This means I go into classrooms and work with students who are a little behind and need some extra help. So far I've enjoyed it and am starting to get to know the students I work with better. I am hoping that it will turn into something more full time but for now it has been awesome to have so much time to prepare and cook dinner and get other things done around the house.
 I feel like Brayden has appreciated my extra time as well because I have cooked a lot better meals than when we were first married. haha I am absolutely LOVING the "Our Best Bites, Mormon Moms in the Kitchen" cookbook that I got from our wedding. Every recipe that I have tried has turned out great! One that Brayden had been wanting me try was the chicken cordon bleu. I finally made it a couple weeks ago and it was delicious!

 Some of our other favorites from Our Best Bites are the Alfredo Artichoke Chicken Pasta Bake and the French Dip Sandwiches.

One day when I was blog hopping I saw a recipe for peanut butter cookies. What caught my eye about this recipe was that it was 3 ingredients. SO EASY! It's always nice to have some easy recipes especially when you are having a sweet tooth. 

Ingredients:

1 cup peanut butter

1 cup sugar

1 egg

this makes about one dozen cookies 

 

Directions:

Mix ingredients together

Roll into balls and place on greased cookie sheet

Dip fork into sugar (so the fork doesn't stick to the dough) and smash the cookies like so

Cook on 350 degrees for 7-9 minutes  

Let cool....

For only being 3 ingredients they turned out great and really satisfied my sweet tooth for that evening.

In other news, we have a new niece! She is soooo adorable! We got to meet her this past weekend and I can't wait to see her again.

Beautiful Mariah Rose

Summer Highlights

Sadly, summer is ending and Brayden and I are moving back to Idaho tomorrow. We are excited but sad to leave family. I'll post some pictures once we are settled up there. So, I thought I would post some of our favorite things we did this summer and that we'll miss while in Idaho.

Eat this sandwich....

 This is one mine and Brayden's favorite summer lunches. It consists of a slice of pastrami, a slice of turkey, Havarti cheese, and a couple slices of avocado. Pop this thing in the toaster oven and it is oh so good.

Hanging out with these people....

Brayden and I got to hang out with his best friend Jordan and his wife Natalie a couple times this summer. Our joke was that if one of us was at Cafe Rio we would most likely see the other. Not even joking but this happened probably about 90% of the time. We also enjoyed playing games and having movie nights with them. In this picture we went to a drive-in movie together and played games before the movie started.

Hanging out with these people as well...

We also got to hang out with Jenna's brother Matt and wife Emily. We got to play games a couple times and Matt and Brayden went golfing one day. We are soooo excited for their little girl to come in just a couple weeks. We definietly will be making a trip down to meet our new niece!

And hanging out with these people as well....

Since living in Brayden's parent's basement this summer we have had the opportunity to spend a lot of time with his family. It has been so fun being able to spend time with them and getting to know them better. In this picture we had a girls day to the farmers market.

We have had a great summer but are ready to move on to the next chapter in our life in good ole' Idaho. We'll keep updated on our adventures up there!

And happy we will be...

A year ago today Brayden proposed to me! The photo above was the last message I saw before he proposed to me. I am happy to say that his message was correct and we are so happy together. I am so happy I said "yes" to his proposal and said "yes" at the temple. I cannot imagine my life without him. I cannot believe we have been married for 7 1/2 months! I can't wait to see what life has for us in the future. Love you Bray!

Georgia Part 2

Georgia has been such fun a vacation! It was fun being able to spend time with Brayden's family. Some of the highlights from the rest of the week include: more swimming, shopping at the Outlets and Marshall's (Brayden's family is kinda obsessed with this store), getting a tour of the corporate headquarters of Chick-Fil-A, Six Flags water park, Six Flags Amusement Park, Babyland (this is where the cabbage patch babies are "born". We even got to witness a live birth! haha), World of Coca Cola (got to try a bunch of different flavors from countries around the world), Georgia Aquarium, Georgia Temple, and all of the delicious food we got to eat! Now here are some pictures for you to enjoy...

Georgia Part 1

Brayden and I are currently in Atlanta, Georgia! His parents own a condo out here because his Dad has to fly out for work here every week. The rest of his family come in the next couple days. So far our Georgia experience has been great! Today was our first full day here. We started the day off by relaxing by the pool. We got our tan on and then went for a quick dip in the pool. After we cleaned up and ate some lunch we headed to Ritas. I had heard many stories from the Allen family of this place so I was excited to try it. Brayden had discovered this place on his mission in D.C. Ritas is famous for their Italian ice and custard. We all got the "Gelati". This is where the put some custard in the bottom of the cup, then some italian ice, and then a scoop of custard on top. Mmmmm, it was so delicous!

I got the vanilla custard with cookies n' creme italian ice. Brayden got the stawberry custard with strawberry italian ice. pic After Ritas my father-in-law drove us around the Atlanta area. We went around town and did a little car tour while of course doing some people watching. Georgia has some fun people to watch. After our car tour we headed home to clean up and get ready to go out to dinner at Maggianos. I was introduced to this amazing place quite a few years ago when I visited my sister Niki in Minnesota. I had very fond memories of delicious food and so I was hoping I wouldn't be disappointed as well as not disappoint Brayden and my father-in-law. I am happy to say that we were not disappointed and left feeling very satisfied. Brayden and I both got the chicken and spinach manicotti. Yummmmm! I even have left overs for tomorrow!

If you ever have the chance to eat at Ritas or Maggianos then GO! You won't be disappointed! Now we are off to go running and work off our delicious day of food!

Boston Celtics

So when I was dating Brayden I knew that he loved sports. He loves both playing and watching them. I don't think I knew how much he actually loved them until I married him. He absolutely loves watching pretty much any sport and his favorite channel is ESPN. So since I have been with Brayden my sports knowledge has probably tripled. I know more sports teams and more players than I thought I would ever know. Brayden's favorite team is the Boston Celtics. His favorite player is Ray Allen. He always jokes that we are going to name one of our boys Ray. That is probably not going to happen but it's fun to see him think we are. haha So during the NBA playoffs the Celtics made it to the eastern conference finals. They played against the Miami Heat (Brayden's absolute least favorite team). Brayden was a true fan and watched every game. I even supported and watched a couple with him (aka me in the same room doing something else while occasionally looking at the T.V). I do have to say that this was a great bonding experience for Brayden and his sister Nicole though. Nicole is probably the 2nd biggest Celtics fan I know and that's probably because of growing up with Brayden. During the games they would go crazy and would often hear comments such as "Let's Go Ray Ray", "That was a horrible call!", "That wasn't even a foul!", and my favorite: "LeBron is such a flopper!!!". Anyways, a couple days before the final game that would tell us who would be going to the NBA finals Brayden and I went and got ourselves and Nicole Celtics shirts. We were absolutely positive this would give them the luck they needed to win. This is a picture of us after the game...

Well from the picture you can tell that they lost and we were pretty sad. Then a month later we find out that Ray Allen decides to leave the Boston Celtics and go to none other than the Miami Heat. Brayden jokes and says that was the saddest day of his life. Brayden says he will still be a Ray Allen fan just not a Miami Heat fan.

Blogging and Teaching

So I'm pretty new to this whole blogging thing. I had started a blog a couple years ago in college but probably posted a total of 6 or 7 times. haha I decided to make this blog for Brayden and I because I am absolutely HORRIBLE at taking pictures. I thought that having this blog would remind me to take more pictures and write about the things we are doing in our life. Also, my mom always asks what I have been up to and I always seem to not be able to think of what we have been doing until later after I hang up the phone. So this blog will help keep the family updated on our lives as well. You are going to have to excuse the HUGE picture of us at the top. I didn't know how to make it smaller. You are also going to have to be patient if I don't post very often. Brayden always makes fun of me because I love to look at other people's blogs. He jokes that I know all of their kids names and what their family is going to do this weekend, which sometimes is true. haha So hopefully I can put some of my time looking at other people's blogs and put that towards working on my own blog. For my first post I thought I would write about my teaching experiences so far. I have learned so much from teaching this past year. Can I just say if you ever get the chance to go thank your teachers! Teachers do SO MUCH! I thought I had a pretty good idea of what a teacher did when I was doing my course work up at BYU-Idaho and was able to go to the elementary school a couple times. It wasn't until my senior year that I truly got to see all that a teacher does. During the winter semester I took my senior practicum class. This is where I went to an elementary school twice a week all day and got to teach between 1-3 times during the day. It was a great experience and I loved my cute 3rd grade class.

Aren't they so cute?? During the spring I did my student teaching. People who know me really well know that new experiences terrify me. Anything new that I start in my life (swimming lessons, piano lessons, first day of school, student teaching, etc) I get high anxiety and feel sick to my stomach. (Side Note: one of the only new things that I didn't get this feeling about was when I was marrying Brayden. I guess that's a good sign right? haha) So basically I was terrified for student teaching. I had heard horror stories about getting a horrible cooperating teacher and coming the first day and her saying "ok here's the class now teach for the entire day." Luckily, that is not how it went at all. I was blessed to get the most AMAZING cooperating teacher. She has been teaching for somewhere around 40 years. Now knowing this you might think oh she must be one of those old grumpy teachers. NOPE! She was one of the sweetest, kindest, structured, and most helpful teachers out there. Pretty much everyone at the school would go to her for help. She even got the teacher of year award from the school while I was there. So ya like I said before she's amazing. My student teaching experience was so much better than I was expecting. Now that doesn't mean everything was perfect because by all means there were definitely some VERY hard times but it wouldn't have been a true teaching experience if there wasn't hard times. So I started out in a 5th grade class for 9 weeks with that amazing teacher I mentioned above and then the last 3 weeks I was in a 4th grade classroom. I had to switch to a different class because the school I taught at was a year round school.

My cute 5th grade class! So I realized that I just wrote a TON so sorry about that. I'll try to make my posts a little more condensed in the future! :)