Friday funnies, is this real life?

This morning Ben had to have a scan done on his gallbladder to tell us if he needs to have it removed or not. As we were walking into the building he says something about it being an hour and a half appointment... Thats cool, I only rushed to get Brody to daycare and skipped breakfast so I could get here on time, thinking it would be a quick appointment. Um no. Needless to say I was a little hungry and bored. 

So I started browsing the "humor" section of Pinterest. He had to lay under this machine thing that resembled a small space ship and couldn't move so I showed him all of the funny ones and we had some good laughs. 

And finally I will leave you with one of my favorite videos ever.

If I won the lottery...

Alright y'all, who won those millions of dollars last night? Not me, I didn't even buy a ticket. Actually I never buy those tickets, but if I do it is a scratch off. The most I have ever won on a scratch off is two dollars. Yep, big money.

Although, if I had a dollar for everything on Facebook yesterday that I saw pertaining to this power ball thing, I would have a lot of money, I'm talking like at least a hundred dollars. So I decided to do a "What would I do if I won the lottery" post!

If I won the lottery I would:

-Buy a house 

-Give all of our family a fair amount of cash

-Put a lot of money into Brody's college/savings account

-Put a lot of money into our other future kids college/savings accounts

-Put money into our savings account for medical school

-Make a generous donation to Brody's preschool/daycare

-Go on an Express shopping spree!

-Let Ben buy anything he wants

-Buy Ben that "Back to the Future" car that is coming out

-Buy a beach house/condo

-Hire a body guard because I'm sure all kinds of people would want to beat me up

-Set a fair amount aside for some plastic surgery for when I'm done having kids

Whatever is left after all of that I would put into savings to gain a pretty amount of interest.

Ok, now its time to wake up.

What would you do if you won the lottery?

Wordless Wednesday!

Knock Off Panera Bread's "Big Kid's" Grilled Cheese

Friday's are my absolute favorite day of the week. In the dental field, no one works on Friday's! And actually in my job most of the time I only work 3 days a week. Yay (although not so yay for the bank account)! It has always worked out really well because usually Ben gets off early on Friday... Well at least he used to. He just got promoted (YAY!) last week so I'm not sure how his hours will be now. 

Anyway, Friday's usually consist of grocery shopping, procrastinating school work, catching up on blogs, and occasionally going to lunch with Ben whenever he got off of work, then going to pick up Brody from school. A couple of weeks ago whenever Ben got home he wanted soup and started looking through cabinets. I had been wanting Panera Bread for a while so I suggested we go there. It was amazing. I had the vegetable soup with Pesto and half a 'big kids grilled cheese' and he had the chicken noodle soup in a bread bowl and multiple bites of my sandwich. 

I felt kind of dumb because whenever we ordered the guy was like "Do you want the regular grilled cheese or the big kids?" What? You mean there is more than one option? I went with the big kids, obvi. It was so good. So good that I looked up the ingredients and insisted that I try making it at home with my panini press (which was a Christmas present from Ben last year!). Because let's face it, panera doesn't exactly have a dollar menu and eating out gets expensive.

I just used regular Bunny bread. Nothin' fancy here. But according to the Panera menu they use Miche bread.

Knock Off Panera Bread's Big Kids Grilled Cheese

Sliced white American cheese

1 block gruyere cheese

1 block white cheddar cheese

bacon (about one slice per sandwich), cut up

butter

bread

Preheat your panini press (or skillet if you don't have a panini maker). Shred the blocks of gruyere and white cheddar cheese and mix together. Spread butter on one side of bread. Put one slice of white American cheese on the side of the bread without the butter, sprinkle bacon on top of cheese , then sprinkle some of the gruyere and white cheddar cheese mixture on top of bacon. Spread butter on another piece of bread and put sandwich onto panini press, butter side's out, for about 4 minutes, if using a regular skillet brown for about 2 minutes on each side. 

P.S. My time being Raspberry Beige's featured blog of the month is coming to an end. Make sure you check out her giveaway and maybe YOU could be the next blog featured! She has given my blog A LOT of exposure!

Pumpkin Cheesecake with Gingerbread Oreo Crust

So a few weeks ago I made a pumpkin cheesecake with gingerbread oreo crust that just didn't turn out right. The crust was as hard as a rock and I'm not sure why. So for Thanksgiving I decided to give it another shot but change it a little bit so it would hopefully be better.

The first time I used butter with the crushed up oreos in the crust. This time no butter, I think the creme filling in the cookies is enough to help the crumbs stick together. And it turned out really good. So good that I am having to force myself not to eat it because I'm already on week 3 of the couch to 5k program and I don't want to undue all the hard work I am putting in. Plus with all of the pumpkin snickerdoodles and chocolate cake I have eaten, Lord knows I do not need to add cheesecake to the mix.

I followed a pumpkin cheesecake recipe that is supposed to be like the Cheesecake Factory, which can be found here.

Pumpkin Cheesecake with Gingerbread Oreo Crust

For the crust:

2 rows of gingerbread oreos crushed up, including the creme in the middle

For the cheesecake:

3 8 oz packages cream cheese, room temperature

1 cup granulated sugar

1 tsp vanilla

1 cup pumpkin puree

3 eggs, room temperature

1/2 tsp cinnamon

1/4 tsp all spice

1/4 tsp nutmeg

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Crush up whole gingerbread oreos. Press cookie crumbs into the bottom and halfway up the sides of a greased 9 inch springform pan and bake for 5 minutes. While baking, mix all of the ingredients for the cheesecake with mixer until thoroughly combined. Make sure the eggs and the cream cheese are both room temperature otherwise it will be harder to mix. Pour the cheesecake mixture over the top of the cookie crust and bake for 1 hour. When done baking, let cheesecake cool completely and refrigerate for 4-6 hours.

Oh black Friday.

So, yesterday? Intense.

I was up at 5:30 yesterday morning making macaroni and cheese and deviled eggs for our families (I did the rest of our cooking the night before). And let me tell you, if I were responsible for cooking the whole Thanksgiving meal I'm pretty sure I would need some mental help before it was all over with. Like for real. I'm still trying to recover from just making macaroni and cheese x2, deviled eggs, chocolate cake, pumpkin cheesecakes x2, and pumpkin snickerdoodles. I think I gained a pound or two just cooking all of it.

Anyway, more importantly, Black Friday? Super intense. This lady tried to fight me over a 28 piece tupperware set for 9.98$.

KIDDING. 

We didn't go shopping until 9:00 this morning. Walmart was like super empty compared to how it usually is on Fridays and Target was semi busy. But the good news is I was able to get a portable DVD player for road trips for only 38 dollars! SCORE! Then when we got home I remembered Express was having everything 50% off so I tried to do some online shopping and the website was not working so I missed out on some deals there. But I did get Brody some new crocs! Two pairs for under 50 dollars! 

Yay for online shopping and not having to deal with people wanting to kill each other over a possessed Furby! Or having to stay up all night. Winning!

Anyway, I am off to stare at a Physics and Chemistry book. Something I have been putting off since my midterms over a month ago. Over 20 quizzes/tests to be done by December 8th? 

I got this!

P.S. CHRISTMAS IS COMING!

P.P.S I completely forgot! Remember how I am the "Featured blog of the month" over at Raspberry Beige? Go check out my interview that Amanda posted! Thanks again girlfriend!

Thanksgiving!

Because it is Thanksgiving I feel it is only appropriate to share what I am thankful for, and in no particular order (by the way this isn't my whole list there are lots more, these are just the top 10). 

Ben
Brody
My family

Ben's family

My friends

My job/coworkers
This blog and all of the people I have met so far
Facebook
Modern Family
Pinterest

So as we are all stuffing our faces today with endless amounts of yummy food let's not forget what this holiday is all about. 

And then let's remember to not punch anyone in the face tomorrow on Black Friday because they picked up the last WiiU.

I hope everyone enjoys their food coma!

P.S. Yes I am thankful for Facebook, how else would I keep up with all of those people I never see? 

Wordless Wednesday!

Introducing my main squeeze!

One person I have yet to formally introduce on my blog is the hubs. Who by the way, HATES when I call him the hubs. So I guess as of now I will call him by his real name, Ben.

Oh and he will probably kill me whenever he sees this post, not like for real because that would be crazy but he will probably be like um WHAT THE HECK?! And probably not those exact words...

So who is this crazy bearded man you ask?

Ben and I met at Walmart, had our first date at Waffle House, and got married in the woods next to our tree stand.

JUST KIDDING. Although there is nothing wrong with that... I'm a little southern so I think I am allowed to make those "redneck" jokes like that...

But we did really meet at Walmart. We both worked there and I told a mutual friend that this one guy was decent looking and not to tell him what I had said. Because you know us girls, we do that. Tell someone we think someone is cute and don't tell them just so that they will go tell them and we can find out what they think about us. We are sneaky like that.

Anyway, word got around and one day when he got off work he bought a few things and came through my line (I was a cashier). It was super awkward and he didn't ask for my number or make it seem like he was interested at all. A few days later I was talking to a different mutual friend and he told me that he was just nervous. So I said oh whatever give me his number. Of course I texted him and we ended up hanging out with friends and playing guitar hero a lot. Oh and he bought me the Miley Cyrus CD and took me to see Hannah Montana the Movie! It was serious. 

So long story short, we had Brody then got married.

Note to self and all pregos out there, Mcdonald's every single day while you are pregnant is NOT a good idea.

Yep, if this had been 200 years ago I would have been stoned to death. Or whatever they did to unwed pregnant chicks back then.

Ben takes care of Brody and I, puts our needs before his, and makes sure we are happy and have anything we need. Emphasis on the need, because I have wanted a new coach purse since we started dating and every year he tells me he will get it for me for Christmas... I'm still waiting.

First Christmas. No I was not fat I was pregnant.

I'm not saying he is perfect... He has his flaws, such as leaving his dirty socks at the foot of the bed every single night and snoring uncontrollably loud while he sleeps. But I am not perfect either. And he doesn't criticize me or freak out whenever I do something wrong or whenever the clean laundry sits in baskets for 2 weeks waiting to be folded and put away.

...

This describes us perfectly.

He takes care of all things electronics of mine. He updates my iPhone and he does all the technical stuff for this blog here you are reading, because I suck at computers. You know those amazing pictures I have of the food I have made? That would be all him. 

He is an artist, computer nerd, and one amazing photographer.

I know this is super cliche but he is my best friend. He has been there since day one, even at times I didn't want him there. He stuck by me and has always been my biggest fan (besides my parents, but that is a given). He tells me the truth when I need to hear it even if I don't want to listen and tells me my butt doesn't look big in pants when clearly it looks like a baby elephant is stuffed in there. 

Our marriage is far from perfect. And some days we have more downs than ups. But I'm so proud to call this man my husband. I love him more than words could ever say and I wouldn't trade our life together for anything or anyone in the world... 

Except maybe Channing Tatum.

Liebster Award!

The other morning as I was checking my email I saw that I had a new comment from one of my favorite bloggers, Abbey! She had nominated me for the Liebster Award! Basically, its an award passed around by bloggers to show support to the baby blogs, like mine, and get their name out there. 

So if you receive this award, there are a few rules. 

-Each blogger nominated must post 11 things about themselves.

-You must answer the 11 questions that the tagger has asked.

-The blogger must create 11 questions for the bloggers they are nominating.

-You must tag 11 bloggers with less than 200 followers for this award.

-Tell the bloggers you are nominating them, duh!

-No tag backs!

So here are the 11 things about me:

1. I am a HUGE procrastinator. I will do everything possible to put off something I need to get done. For example, school work? I will clean and cook and do everything instead of school stuff until the very last minute. (Yes I am procrastinating school work right now...)

2. My first job I ever had was working at a tanning salon. Club Sun's finest "Tanning Consultant" if I do say so myself!

3. My favorite color is yellow!

4. I have glasses and contacts but I don't wear them. I'm nearsighted so as long as I don't need to see things far away I am ok!

5. Dental Assisting school made me germophobic. Go watch the video "If saliva were red" on Youtube, and I will go ahead and say I'm sorry.

6. I was accepted to the University of Alabama my senior year of high school, its actually the only school I applied to. I started applications at other schools but never finished them. 

7. I have two older brothers. Yep, I am the baby.

8. I really want to go to Dental school. I am currently working on my bachelors degree and pre-reqs for it!

9. I never had the chicken pox until I was 19 years old.

10. I don't like bacon.

11. My favorite candy is a plain ol' Hershey's milk chocolate bar. Twix and Kit Kats run a close second though.

Questions from Abbey!

1. What are you most proud of? 

Easy question, Brody! He knows so much and he is only 2 and a half! I'm convinced he is a genius toddler!

2. Where do you see yourself in ten years?

Hopefully either finishing up school or already done with school! Maybe another kid or two!

3. How long does it take you to get ready in the morning?

A little over an hour, I usually don't straighten my hair for work since I just wear it up in a pony tail. If its a morning I actually do my hair its more like an hour and a half.

4. What are you most looking forward to about Thanksgiving?

FOOD!!!

5. What is your favorite snack food?

Depends on my mood, usually cookies and chips, unfortunately. 

6. Who's your celebrity crush?

Channing Tatum!! And my husband is very aware of this! 

7. Favorite Fall fashion must have?

I'm not into fashion all that much... I'll be lucky if I can find a good pair of jeans that fit right now.

8. If you could move anywhere, where would it be & why?

Same city, just move on the water. I have lived here my whole life and I couldn't imagine living anywhere else. 

9. How has your year been, overall?

Fast. Like seriously it is almost 2013? What??

10. Looking forward to anything in particular for 2013?
Not really anything specific yet... I guess continuing to work on school and Brody turning 3 (sad face).

11. What has been your favorite year so far?

2010 for sure. Brody was born and Ben and I got married. It was a busy year. 

Questions for my nominees:

1. If you could live off of one food for the rest of your life, what would it be?

2. What is your dream car?

3. What is your favorite holiday tradition?

4. What is your favorite candy bar?

5. If you could go anywhere in the world on vacation, where would you go and why?

6. What is your favorite book?

7. What does your blog name mean?
8. What is your favorite utensil to use in the kitchen?
9.  If you could tell your 16 year old self anything, what would it be?
10. What is your favorite ice cream flavor?
11. If your life were going to be made into a movie, who would you choose to play you?

And finally, drumroll please? My nominees:

Ashlea @ Ashlea with an A

Bella @ EMRwife

Amanda @ Raspberry Beige

Gwen @ Our Sweet Life

Erica @ Good Job Momma

Kathleen @ Betwixt & Between

Courtney @ Chase All Your Dreams

Andrea @ Andrea's Adventures

Jacquelyn @ Mommy Dramedy
Ingrid @ Talkative Teacherista
Brin @ Bold Butter Baby

Friday Funnies!

I saw this today when I was catching up on my google reader. It is way true!

Thanks, Sarah! 

Wordless Wednesday!

Oh Christmas list, Oh Christmas list...

This has been a super productive Saturday... And I haven't even done very much!

Yay!

Ben and I went through ALL of our clothes, and we have a few garbage bags full for our yard sale! I have a lot of Express jeans that are just too small and they are practically brand new, but for some reason getting back to a size 4 seems impossible, so sadly, it's time for us to break up. 

I also worked on my Christmas list today! Lifetime has Christmas movies on and I'm all ready to put up Christmas lights and stuff so I figured why not finish my list? 

List is in order of importance and, of course, is subject to change! Benjamin Taylor, aka husband, take notes!

Oh and last night I started crocheting a scarf... Why? Because I'm crazy and it sounded like a good idea! Holy cow what was I thinking? I did like 5 row's in 2 hours last night and that is all that I accomplished.

Yeah, how pitiful is that? 

 You can see my broken "enter" key in the picture above. Apparently just because it is broken I can't get a new Macbook, I have to wait for the part to come in to fix it, says the husband. Ghetto.

Also yesterday, I went to Starbucks... first time in a long time because of that one incident. I wanted to get something festive so I decided on the Caramel brulée frap. Once again I need to stick to what I know... It was alright after I got over the coffee taste that it had. 

At least it was pretty!

That's all I have for today folks, sorry for the lack of recipes lately. I'm trying this new thing where I don't eat dozens of cookies/unhealthy foods every weekend so I can hopefully get rid of a few pounds before I add a whole bunch with all the yummy holiday cooking!

50 Shades of Friday Funnies

The husband showed me this video earlier... If you read 50 shades you will probably think it is funny!

Take a picture, it'll last longer.

Oh Thursday...

Is anyone else super excited that this election stuff is over?

And no, I am not about to tell you my political opinions... There is a time and a place for that stuff and Facebook and social networking is not my outlet for "I think this... I believe that..." 

I'm just glad that I won't be getting any more phone calls from Pennsylvania and D. C. Speaking of that, the first time I got a call on my cell phone I was like "OMG I don't even know anyone in Pennsylvania I wonder who this is!!!" I was super excited...

"HI! HAVE YOU VOTED YET?! KEEP IN MIND...." End Call.

Anyway, on to more important things. This morning I did the Jillian Michael's Extreme Shed and Shred. 

Shoot me in the face. And let's not even talk about whenever I got done and I switched the TV back to cable, it was "MTV True Life: I have an eating problem" or something and this chick was ordering chicken fingers and french fries and then 2 hours later was like "Mom I feel like I haven't eaten all day can we go to Mcdonalds?!" It was cray cray. 

So, I've started a bucket list for November... 

One item on my list is to make a homemade maxi dress from a Pinterest tutorial I found. I am hoping to accomplish it this weekend so let's all say a prayer that I can do it. 

Also on my list is to try anything seasonal at Starbucks... So everyone tell me your favorite "seasonal" Starbucks drink!

Ready, go!

Wordless Wednesday, with a few words...

Since I was off on Monday my whole week is thrown off... I totally thought it was Tuesday all day today.  If someone had informed me that today was Wednesday a whole lot sooner this post would have been up before now. 

What did YOU do this weekend?

So in my last post I mentioned that I would be posting a recipe for a Pumpkin Cheesecake with Gingerbread Oreo Crust... It did not turn out very good at all. I wish I had time this weekend to remake it so I could get the recipe out but sometimes there just isn't enough time in the day, especially when you are getting used to this time change... 

So to make up for that, I will fill you in on our weekend! Yay!

Friday, I picked up Brody from daycare early and we went shopping with Nana. We had a lot of fun at the Disney store and eating at Cheeseburger in Paradise. Oh and Brody literally ran laps around the Coach store while I tried to pick out a purse... Mission unsuccessful. But all the ladies thought he was super cute!

Playing under the table at Cheeseburger in Paradise.

Saturday, Ben had to work then we went to my nephew's school for their Fall Festival! Brody jumped in the bounce house about 15 times, we did the fire safety house, and Brody got to sit in the fire truck. We also ate some Southwestern pumpkin bisque from a local bistro that was amazing!

Then Sunday, we went up to Ben's parents house for lunch and hung out with them for a bit. Brody played with his dog-cousin's, Lucy and Sam, we ate some yummy food, and Brody read a book with Aunt Stacey. 

Lucky for me, I am off work today so I can try to catch up on some school work and cleaning that I have been putting off... Which I am obviously still procrastinating since I am writing this post. Oops.

By the way, did you see the Alabama game? I fell asleep in the 3rd quarter but whenever I woke up the next morning all I had to do was check Facebook to find out what happened. Roll Tide!

Oh and Ben and I are planning on having a yard sale in a few weeks to get rid of some junk around the house. One man's trash is another man's treasure, right? I've never had a yard sale before so if anyone has any tips for us, they would be very much appreciated!

And can we talk about how Thanksgiving is like 2 weeks away. Time to start dieting to gain it all back in those few hours of eating! Woohoo!

LSWHO?

I don't really have much to say tonight.

But I will say this...

ROLL TIDE! 

P.S. Don't worry, Pumpkin Cheesecake with Gingerbread Oreo Crust and a weekend update coming tomorrow!

Thoughts and a Halloween Recap!

The other day on my way home from work I had a super random thought. Do you remember that green ketchup that was in stores for a while? First of all, um GROSS, second of all did they discontinue it? I haven't seen it in years.

I'm sure it was just ketchup with food coloring in it, but the thought of eating green ketchup I could never wrap my head around. I mean, who wants green ketchup on their hot dog?

Not me.

Anyway, on to more important things. I requested an absentee ballot this year so that I could actually vote. I have always had to work on voting days and couldn't get in to do it in the past.

 By the way, this is the first time I've ever voted... 

So as I was looking through the ballot they sent me I see that I don't get one of those "I VOTED" stickers... Not cool. What's the point if I can't even get the sticker?!

KIDDING! Sort of.

So yesterday's Halloween festivities almost didn't happen. Captain America wanted NOTHING to do with his costume... He refused to wear it, so he ended up wearing jeans and a Captain America shirt and ran with his shield between every house that we went to. I didn't get any pictures due to it being too dark, sad face.

I did however, get a picture of his meltdown in the car on our way home because I told him he couldn't have candy yet and had to wait until we got home, which was like 2 streets away.

Then after getting home...

He might have had 3 suckers, a Butterfinger, and a few chicken nuggets for dinner last night. 

On a final note, I won the blog of the month giveaway over at Raspberry Beige! Yay!!! So while you head over there to check out my HUGE button under her "Featured Blog of the Month", check out her super cute blog!

I'm off to watch my future 2nd husband Brad Paisley on the CMA's watch the CMA's... And not eat any more of Brody's Halloween candy.

Yes, I am definitely not going to do that...