Weekly, Menu 7.

This will not be a typical week as it is Thanksgiving, and I will be heading out of town Wednesday morning.

Monday:

Beef Stroganoff

Corn

French Bread

Tuesday:

Meat loaf

Au gratin Potatoes

Green Beans

12..err 6 weeks of Christmas Cookies, Week 1.

Apparently I have missed the buzz in the blogging world about the "12 weeks of Christmas cookies" challenge that some are doing. I stumbled upon it while checking out this sweet little blog and I thought, I would love to do that! Only one little problem, it is already only 6 weeks until Christmas. So, I guess I will just have to double up and try 2 new recipes a week for the next 6 weeks. The idea was to make a new cookie each week until Christmas. Since I usually have a few baking extravaganza's during the Holiday's, I would love to test new recipes that could potentially be added to my holiday favorites.

Here is Recipe #1. I picked this one for my first recipe because it's unlike anything that I usually make and it had eggnog & rum in it..done deal.

Eggnog Meltaways.

1 3/4 cups all purpose flour

1/2 cup cornstarch

1/4 tsp salt

1/4 cup powdered sugar

1 cup butter, softened

1/2 Tbsp rum

1/4 cup eggnog

1 cup powdered sugar, for rolling

In a medium bow, whisk together the flour, cornstarch, and salt.

In a large bowl, cream together the butter and sugar. Beat in the rum and eggnog.

Add in the flour mixture gradually until well-combined. Cover and refrigerate the dough an hour or until firm.

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees and line two baking sheets with parchment paper. Roll the dough into 1″ balls and place on the baking sheets about 1″ apart.

Bake 12-14 minutes. Remove to a wire rack to cool about 5 minutes before rolling the cookies in the sugar. Makes about 3 dozen cookies.

Enjoy!

Phoenix.

I had the best time going to Phoenix with The Barkshire's. I was so excited that Jeff was able to race this particular race since it is on Cup weekend and I love going to Phoenix. This weekend really reminded me how much I do love racing and love being at the race track. I was telling Shelby that it's kind of funny because I watch racing so much on TV, that when I see the drivers and crew members at the track, I feel like I know them because they are so familiar to me..then I have to remind myself that I don't in fact know them :)

The West series was scheduled to race Saturday night after the Nationwide race to bring more exposure to the series. I'm not sure how I feel about that since it didn't seem like the pro's out weighed the cons of the weekend, like the crazy down time. It was the ultimate Nascar style "sit & wait" weekend. And the race didn't turn out well for Jeff, when another car made contact with him forcing him into the front stretch wall and blowing out the right front tire while running 8th. Obviously not the outcome any one hoped for, but as they say, that's the way it goes sometimes. It was so disappointing after all the hard work it took by Jeff to get the funds secured to even be there and all the hard work that it took from he & his crew to be there.

While in Phoenix, Shelby & I spent Friday in Scottsdale doing some shopping at the Fashion Square Mall. They have pretty much every store! We had lunch at my favorite place there, Olive & Ivy and made a quick stop at Sprinkles for a cupcake. We went to the truck race on Friday night and watched from the pits which was fun and afterwards we got to meet one of our favorite people on Twitter: @Mother_Function aka Josh, Kevin Harvick Inc. employee and Kevin's better half. He was super funny and nice.

The weather was wonderful, the racing was pretty good minus Jeff's incident and we all can't wait to do it again..hopefully sooner than later.

Weekly Menu, 6.

Monday:

Spaghetti

Corn

Tuesday:

Turkey Taco's

Mexican Rice

Wednesday:

Out for dinner

Thursday:

BLT's

Tomato Soup

Friday:

Homemade BBQ Chicken Pizza

Caesar Salad

Weekly Menu, 5.

Monday:

Chicken Taquito's

Mexican Rice

Corn

Tuesday:

Spaghetti

Salad

Garlic Bread

Wednesday:

Leaving for warm, sunny Phoenix!!

Thursday:

Gone :)

Friday:

Gone :)

Pumpkin Patch.

The day before we went to Craven Farms, I got my new camera and I couldn't wait to use it! I know nothing about it, but I figure that I will learn as I use it. We couldn't have asked for more perfect weather! I brought Campbell & Cooper, Lizzie and our neighbor Erica and my Sister brought Ava along. Our Grandma Chouinard also came with us and I think she really enjoyed seeing Ava run through the patch. We got to go on a Hayride, and then pick out our pumpkins and afterwards the kids visited the animals in the petting zoo. I love going to the pumpkin patch, it's a tradition that I look forward to every year!

Halloween 2010.

For the past several years, I have been gone on Halloween, but not this year. I was so excited to be home for it and to be able to see all the kids in their costumes. Growing up in my family, Halloween was always a big deal. We always had Chili on Halloween, our whole family came over and usually lots of our friends and it was something we looked forward to every year.

This year I had Dailey's birthday party on Saturday which was a costume party so I already had my costume and decided to wear it all day on Halloween too. I went to pick up Ava with it on and She didn't know what to think :) The kids were so excited. Cooper was a Cop and couldn't wait to put his costume on and play outside in it pretending to get bad guys! Campbell decided to be a Sea Gal Cheerleader since she already had the costume from cheering this summer. She looked so cute in it ofcourse, even though she was too shy to do any cheers or cute poses for us.

I passed out the candy to all the trick or treaters and I loved seeing their reactions when I opened the door. I think I caught all of them off guard because I didn't hear many "trick or treat's" it was more like "I love your costume!" or "wow, your a rainbow" was my favorite from a sweet little boy. I think I enjoyed it more than the kids did and I was bummed when we got our last spurt of kids. I can't wait until next year!!

The best costume for the night, by far, was our 5 year old neighbor boy Kyan, as the Mad Hatter from Alice in Wonderland. So creative and authentic! Loved it.

Weekly Menu, 4.

Monday:

Meatloaf

Baby Reds

Green Beans

Tuesday:

Beef with Snow Peas

Brown rice

Wednesday:

Pasta with Tomato Cream Sauce

Green Salad

Breadsticks

Thursday:

Ritz Chicken

Cheesy Rice

Broccoli

Friday:

Home made Pizza

Salad

A Birthday Surprise.

Today is my sweet friend Stevie's 22nd birthday! Stevie and I have a lot of things in common. We both love to shop, love racing, love to cook, scrapbook, laugh, take pictures, go to concerts..you name it. When we first heard that Lady Antebellum was coming to Seattle, we both said that we were definitely going to see them. I think the concert snuck up on us because on Sunday we didn't have tickets and didn't have plans to get them. Until my brain started to think...hmmm, it is her birthday on Tuesday and how cool would that be to surprise her with tickets? I texted her to make sure she was available Monday night and when she said that she was, I told her I would pick her up at 4:30 and all I would tell her was that we were going downtown Seattle...I got online and was still able to find some AWESOME tickets.

I picked her up last night and couldn't wait until 7:30 to tell her so I gave her a card that told her we were going to Lady A. She was sooooo excited, to say the least :) We went to one of our favorite restaurants, The Cheesecake Factory first and then headed over to the Wamu Theatre.

We had such a great time! We were so close to the stage and sang pretty much every song. I would definitely see them again, especially in a venue like the Wamu Theatre. That is my idea of the perfect concert setting. Very intimate feeling. And there is just something about going to a concert that is magical to me. I can hear the same songs on the radio and like them, but when I am seeing and hearing them performed with my own eyes, I love the songs that much more.

We ♥ Lady A.

Weekly Menu, 3.

Monday:

Birthday Surprise for Stevie (more on that tomorrow)

Tuesday:

Taco's

Mexican rice

Wednesday:

Pork Chops

Broccoli

Crescent rolls

Thursday:

Pizza

Salad

Friday:

Ellensburg bound!

Fall Days.

Sunshine on your shoulders. Sweet smiling faces. Beautiful mountains. Crisp air. Yep, these are the fall days that I love so much.

Weekly Menu, 2.

Monday:

Chicken Pot Pie

Tuesday:

Filet Mignon

Baby red mash

Garden Salad

Wednesday:

Pioneer Woman Lemon Chicken

Basil Pasta

Broccoli

Thursday:

Country Style Ribs

Au gratin potatoes

Garlic Bread

Friday:

Hamburgers

Pasta Salad

On a whim.

Something I do everyday, is visit my favorite blogs. On occasion, I stumble across a new one to obsess over. That happened Saturday. And from that new blog, came another new blog, with this post. I think this woman is amazing. Or maybe she's insane? But probably, a good mix of both. I mean you would have to be a little crazy to take on that project..or just inspired maybe? Either way, I love the end result. I loved it so much that I had to find something to paint. I had just the perfect thing. My scrapbook cabinet. I got it from Ikea last year and I really do love it. It holds all of my scrapbook and craft supplies...(that I barely ever use, but shhh), it's cute and I love the color of it. So why not make it cuter, and love it even more? Well, I did just that on Sunday.

I love the end result. No, I really really LOVE it. It makes me so happy to look at. I can't believe that I did something that looks so cute. I read a few tutorials on doing this kind of project. One lady said, "your going to be up close painting it and your going to think, man this looks terrible. But just step back and you will love it". I have to agree with that. Of course it's not going to be perfect because your basically free hand painting a stencil. Not to bad for a project I had never planned on doing.

Weekly Menu, 1.

For the past several weeks, I have been doing a weekly meal plan. I find that it is so convenient to plan ahead, shop once a week and not have to think about the dreaded question, "what's for dinner?". I am gone many weekends, but generally home during the week days and have loved having my 'plan'. So here is this weeks menu:

Monday:

Pot Roast with carrots & baby reds

Garlic bread

Tuesday:

Ritz baked Chicken

Asparagus

Garden Salad

Wednesday:

Teresa's Farfalle Con Piselli

French Bread

Thursday:

Taco Salad

Friday:

Birthday dinner.

Charming.

While visiting Bakerella's blog today, I stumbled across a post about this:

Quite possibly, one of the cutest things I've ever seen. A charm, that is a mini oven, cooking a cupcake! I want this. No. I NEED this.