Happy Halloween!

Dan and I kind of failed on the Halloween front this year. I did buy some mini pumpkins to decorate a bookcase with...but that's about it. No pumpkin carving and no costumes. We did go to our ward Halloween party on Saturday. That was fairly entertaining. The best costume there was by our friends who dressed up their little girl as Amelia Earhart, Dad had a huge cardboard plane on him, and mom had a globe ball deflated and covering her cute baby bump. It was pretty awesome. Anybody have good costumes they did?

Greece and Turkey

Source: None via Ashley on Pinterest

Yeah, we just bought our tickets to go here over Dan's spring break. It's going to be awesome!!!! : )

Ma momma

This is my mom. She's pretty much awesome. Her birthday was yesterday and she got stuck at an airport with all sorts of plane issues, and then her phone died so I couldn't even call her to wish her a happy birthday for reals. Have I told you she's one of my favorite people? She's funny, she's happy, she's personable, she's smart, she's a cheerleader, she's a lover of people.... I could go on and on. But I won't. I'll just say, she's an amazing mom and I hope that some day when I have my own children I can be as fun, loving, insightful, amazing, etc. as she is. Momma, I'm glad you were borned.

Mooooore Pumpkin please!

 You know how I bought all of those cans of pumpkin? Yeah they're almost all gone already.

 This weekend I made these cookies.

They're pretty good, but I think I'd maybe add some dried craisins to sweeten it up a bit. They're kind of like eating a chewy granola bar, nothing to get too excited about, but decent.

Heirloom tomatoes deliciousness

 This weekend, I was walking through a farmer's market and decided to try out these "heirloom tomatoes" everyone seems to rave about.

 I do think they're delicious--maybe not $2 a pop delicious, but they're definitely better than regular tomatoes... more real.

 So of course I made bagels with tomatoes. Do you guys eat this? This is a somewhat staple in my family.

 Bagel, cream cheese, tomato slices, and a little salt and pepper.

Perfectly yum!

Columbus Day

I was in desperate need of a little break from the crazyness at the hospital. Thank goodness for Columbus!

I looked at recommendations for restaurants here, and we decided to go check out Mary's Fish Camp. The Lobster rolls are very very good, but I think we'll wait to go again when they're more in season and a little less expensive. We also had the oysters... I'm not sure if they were good because I discovered that I think oysters are disgusting sooooo.... yeah, if you like oysters, maybe they're good there? It ended up being a lot more expensive than we'd planned on but that's because we got the disgusting oysters and then the market price for the lobster rolls was pretty high. Oh well, the lobster rolls were quite yummy and you could tell there was a whole lobster in there=yum!

 My coleslaw was also very good, nice and tangy with minimal mayo=perfect!

 Afterward we went and walked a few blocks down and over and saw the Huxtable residence! The Cosby Show was based in Brooklyn, but this was the outside of their home.

 Then we went and walked around Washington Square Park.

Dan hadn't been here since he was in high school. Crazy huh?

I wanted to be that girl sitting on the grass reading and listening to the jazz

A very patriotic Washington

Jazz players. The guy was somehow playing harmony with himself--he had two trumpets (?) going at the same time!

Ma handsome man

I need a haircut. Any recommendations?

We wandered around, went and looked in some shops, and headed back home. It was a perfectly gorgeous day!

Conference Thoughts...

This is what I was thinking about when watching Conference the other weekend.

1. The Lord makes you enough for whatever He calls you to do
2. You don't have kids because they're the cute new accessory, and don't delay them until it's the "perfect" time.--it will never be the perfect time (but I still think you can be smart about it, just don't delay for some more the more worldly reasons)
3. Whenever we have a little girl, Dan is re-reading the talk by Sis. Dalton
4. You can be a missionary every day

Sunday afternoons

Yup.

Sunday Dinner

For dinner Sunday night, we had our friend's the Hernandez's over for dinner. Patricia and I met at Bellevue, she trained me and we worked on the same unit for the first 6 months until I started bopping around to all the units.

Anyways. For dinner I made this soup. Tomato Tortellini never tasted so dang good! I didn't think to take a picture of it until we'd already put things away, but here's the residual in the bottom of the pot. It is dang good and I can't wait for leftovers. I made it with my favorite crusty french bread (I'll put the recipe at the bottom, I can't find it anymore on allrecipes.com), and with a spinach salad. Of course we had pumpkin chocolate chip cookies for dessert.

Patricia and her cute baby boy!

They brought us (me) flowers! Love those sunflowers to remind you of summer a little while longer!

Okay, here's the most perfect/easy (but time consuming) french bread recipe.

Ingredients:
1 package of active dry yeast
1 cup warm water (110-115*)
2 Tbsp sugar
2 Tbsp vegetable oil
1.5 tsp salt
3 cups all-purpose flour
cornmeal (I never have this so I never use it--no biggie)
1 egg white
1 tsp cold water

Directions:
1. In a large mixing bowl, dissolve yeast in warm water. Add sugar, oil, salt, and 2 cups flour. Beat until blended. Stir in enough remaining flour to form a stiff dough. (I put this all into my kitchenaid with the bread hook attached and let that do all the work.)

2. Turn onto a floured surface; knead until smooth and elastic, about 6-8 minutes (I usually don't do it this long since I let it go a while in the mixer). Place in greased bowl, turning once to grease top. Cover and let reise in a warm place until doubled, about 1 hour. Punch dough down; cover and let rise for 30 minutes.  (I just realized I didn't let it rise again after punching it down, I skipped to step 3--and it still turned out delicious, soooo this recipe is very forgiving : )

3. Punch dough down. Turn onto a lightly floured surface. Shape into a loaf with tapered ends. Sprinkle a greased baking sheet with cornmeal (again I skip the cornmeal and usually bake it on a slipat). Cover and let rise until doubled, about 25 minutes.

4. Beat egg white and cold water; brush over dough (very important for getting that crusty golden brown crust!). With a sharp knife, make diagonal slashes 2 in. apart across top of loaf. Bake at 375* for 25-30 minutes or until golden brown. Remove from pan to wire rack to cool.

Enjoy! So good, so easy, really forgiving recipe. Just make sure you plan out enough time for it all--the rising just takes a while.

Super cute Nephews!

This weekend Dan and I went out to CT so I could take some "Christmas" pictures of the nephews. They're soo cute! These are some of my favorite pictures of the 1849302484390 that I took.

Fun times with the babies!

Pumpkin Chocolate Chip cookies

It's not fall until I make these. Sunday I made the first batch of many I'm sure!

That pile is seriously demolished after Dan and I and the Hernandez's chowed down. Yum!

Here's the Recipe from the sweet Katie Mack:

Ingredients:
1/2 cup margarine
1.5 cups sugar
1 egg
1 cup canned pumpkin (I ended up using the entire small can--It makes them sooo yummy and moist!)
1 tsp vanilla
2.5 cups flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp nutmeg
1 tsp cinnamon
1 cup chocolate chips (I ended up using a whole bag--2 cups. It's a lot of chocolate, but I like it that way)

Directions:
Cream margarine and sugar together until light and fluffy (I usually set my timer for 4-5 minutes and let it go in the mixer). Beat in egg, pumpkin and vanilla. Mix and sift flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, nutmeg and cinnamon. Add to creamed mixture, mix well. Add chocolate chips and mix thoroughly. Drop by teaspoons onto well-greased cookie sheets. Bake at 350* for 10-12 minutes or until lightly browned. Remove from cookie sheets while warm and cool on racks. Makes a billion (or 3.5-4 doz).