Tomorrow I am 23!

We turn not older with the years, but newer every day. 

-Emily Dickinson

Hello, this is my first EVER birthday blog post!  Tomorrow<---I almost always spell this word wrong...never fails...back to what I was talking about... (Saturday, October 30th) I will be the old young age of 23!!!  Jason was giving me crap about it this morning until I reminded him he will 29 in March...yep stopped him mid sentence...it was epic :) 

I am looking forward to a fun/packed weekend!  Tonight, Jason and I are going to my parents house to celebrate with cake, ice cream, etc.  Tomorrow I have to work until 11 and then drive the cheerleaders down to Cedar Falls for a cheerleading invite, and then we are going to Jason's parents for a bit, and then we are hitting up Halloween party our friend is hosting...should be a fun actual  birthday day!  On Sunday we will be chilling at the Herrick house in CC with the rest of the family.  My niece Cici's birthday is the same day as mine, she's such a little sweetheart :) 

I thought about what I was going to blog about for my birthday today and yesterday, and I kept coming back to realizing how blessed and fortunate I am.  Most days I don't have a minute to stop and think or be thankful for all I have been given.  Today, I am doing just that.  So, here's the list:

• being at a job where I work in the same town I live in, and loving my job!
• having 2 wonderful cats to brighten my day when I come home.
• living close to my large and crazy family :) 
• getting to be a cheer coach for N-P, they rock my socks off and I couldn't ask for a better group of girls to have this much fun with!
• being where I am today, married, college degree, working, happy.
• living simply, but enjoying small treasures as needed.
• baking anything, I love my oven!
• being here, alive, healthy, spontaneous, thoughtful, positive.
• friends who know just the right words to make my day bright.
• being satisfied, with life in general.
• hot cocoa, mochas, cappachinos, hot drinks with chocolate...yes I can be thankful for this!
• my husband, the man of my dreams, who supports me through everything, and my very best friend. 

This list could go on and on....life is good, 23 is great!  I am satisfied...what more could I want?  God has blessed me beyond belief...life, love, and happiness.  All I need is what I have...

Happy Birthday to ME!

Whatever with the past has gone, the best is always yet to come.

-Lucy Larcom

PICNIK

Here are some photos I was messing around with on Picnik, if you haven't tried out this photo editing website you should!  You can do lots of cool things with your pictures! 

Enjoy your Thursday!  :)

Recipe Wednesday

Recipe Wednesday

This week I decided to make a casserole.  It turned out good, and of course I adapted the recipe to my own taste I chose to make an Italian Pasta Bake.  It is really quite tasty, not hard to make, and keeps well. 

Ok, so obviously this is NOT my picture, but it looked very similar to this one!  My lighting for my pictures of my bake was not good...so sorry! 

Here's the recipe!  I used whole wheat pasta, and it wasn't ziti, but it was tube shaped like those are.  Rotini maybe?  And I did not have any turkey italian sausage, so I used ground turkey.  I think it would have been really good with turkey sausage though! 

Italian Pasta Bake

Ingredients

1 (1-pound) package uncooked ziti (short tube-shaped pasta)
1 pound hot turkey Italian sausage links
1 cup chopped onion
2 garlic cloves, minced
1 tablespoon tomato paste
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon black pepper
2 (14.5-ounce) cans petite-diced tomatoes, undrained
1/4 cup chopped fresh basil
Cooking spray
1 cup (4 ounces) shredded fresh mozzarella cheese
1 cup (4 ounces) grated fresh Parmesan cheese


Preparation
Preheat oven to 350°.
Cook pasta according to package directions, omitting salt and fat. Drain the pasta, and set aside.

Remove casings from sausage. Cook sausage, onion, and garlic in a large nonstick skillet over medium heat until browned, stirring to crumble. Add the tomato paste, salt, pepper, and tomatoes, and bring to a boil. Cover, reduce heat, and simmer 10 minutes, stirring occasionally.

Combine cooked pasta, sausage mixture, and basil. Place half of the pasta mixture in a 4-quart casserole coated with cooking spray. Top with half of mozzarella and half of Parmesan. Repeat layers. Bake at 350° for 25 minutes or until bubbly.

I had a request to make a certain recipe for next week, so I think I will give it a try...if you have a recipe you want me to try leave a comment and I will see what I can do!

Did you know....?

A queen bee uses her stinger only to sting another queen bee.

The only king without a moustache in a deck of cards is the king of hearts.

60 percent of a Hostess twinkie is air!

A duck's quack doesn't echo, and no one knows why.

There is more REAL lemon juice in Lemon Pledge furniture polish than in Country Time Lemonade.

The average person walks the equivalent of twice around the world in a lifetime.

If you keep a goldfish in the dark, it will eventullay turn white.

Oak trees do not have acorns until they are 50 years old or older.

And one for Halloween...Pumpkin rule of thumb: the darker the shell, the longer the pumpkin will last.

Have you ever been in Aldi's?

This weekend, Jason and I went down to Cedar Falls to The Runner's Flat to get some new running shoes.
If you are into running, or are getting into it, check this place out! I highly reccomend them.  What you do is you go here and they put you into a "neutral" shoe.  Then you run in them on a treadmill while they videotape your feet and ankles.  They then explain to you what could be fixed for getting a better workout/run.  The girl helping me showed me the video, and how I was turning my left ankle in.  It was really interesting to see how they chose the shoes that I ended up buying.  I needed more support since my ankle was being weird.  Today, I decided to walk in them and noticed after 2 minutes that my left foot felt different.  She had explained that my foot was used to a different shoe pattern, so it might take some time getting used to...I hope not tooo long!  Jason got a new pair too, so we are set to run! 

After getting our shoes, we went to Buffalo Wild Wings in Cedar Falls.  Have you ever had BWW?  If not get there ASAP! 



We both had the boneless wings and ribs...they were AWESOME!!  Can't go wrong with B-Dubs!!

After eating, and listening to the crazy ISU/Iowa fans cheering on their teams, we decided to just go over to Aldi's which was right across from BWW to buy groceries.  We had planned on hitting up Wal-Mart, but sometimes I just don't feel like going there...does anyone else feel this way or is it just me?  I always end up buying stuff I don't need there it seems.  So we went to Aldi's. 

If there was one of these closer to me, I would buy from them everytime!  When I was little and my family had 6 young children, and my mom would shop here.  I remember sometimes having two carts full of groceries.  I new Aldi was cheap, but didn't realize how cheap it was to shop here.  Jason and I walked out of that store just $68 dollars less than what we came in with.  It was a STEAL!  I'm telling you, try shopping here for your groceries!  We got everything we should need for a loooong time!  Jason hadn't been in an Aldi for a long time, and when we checked out he was like, "Thank you!" to the checker, I gave him a look like "Oh my gosh, Jason."  and the checker kinda looked at him weird too.  It cracked me up, then that's all he talked about as we were leaving the store..."Only 68 dollars!  That would have been over 100 dollars at Wal-Mart!"

Sorry for my boring weekend post today...I'm going to eat my 37 cent yogurt from Aldi's now, toodle-loo!!



Farm Safety 101

Note:  No one was harmed in these pictures, but it goes to show that anything can happen at any moment.  These are pictures of my parents wagons, on my parents land.  These wagons had just been filled and were on a slight incline, nothing huge.  The right amount of weight made them coast down that incline, and one of the wagons toppled into the ditch. 

They got almost 500 bushels of the 644 that spilled into the ditch and across the road accounted for. 

Last Husky Football Game 2010

Here are some shots from last nights game against Dike-New Hartford.  The Husky's lost the game, but not before scoring 2 touchdowns in the second half. 

Of course I had to take some pics of my wonderful Husky cheerleaders! 

Andy is #30



Kindness is King

No act of kindness, no matter how small, is EVER wasted.

-Aesop

Never look down on anybody unless you're helping him up. 

-Jesse Jackson

Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle. 

-Plato

Practice Random Kindness

The Starfish Story

Once upon a time, there was a wise man who used to go to the ocean to do his writing. He had

a habit of walking on the beach before he began his work.

One day, as he was walking along the shore, he looked down the beach and saw a human figure moving like a dancer. He smiled to himself at the thought of someone who would dance to the day, and so, he walked faster to catch up.

As he got closer, he noticed that the figure was that of a young man, and that what he was doing was not dancing at all. The young man was reaching down to the shore, picking up small objects, and throwing them into the ocean.

He came closer still and called out "Good morning! May I ask what it is that you are doing?"
The young man paused, looked up, and replied "Throwing starfish into the ocean."

"I must ask, then, why are you throwing starfish into the ocean?" asked the somewhat startled wise man.

To this, the young man replied, "The sun is up and the tide is going out. If I don't throw them in, they'll die."

Upon hearing this, the wise man commented, "But, young man, do you not realize that there are miles and miles of beach and there are starfish all along every mile? You can't possibly make a difference!"

At this, the young man bent down, picked up yet another starfish, and threw it into the ocean. As it met the water, he said, "It made a difference for that one."

Kindness is King...

-Buy the persons coffee who is in line behind you in the drive thru at Starbucks.

-Open the door for someone and say hello, it might be all they are needing to make them have a good day.

-Smile. 

-Rake leaves or weed an elderly person's garden. 

-Send someone a handwritten note of thanks.

-Give up your seat for someone.

-Compliment someone who you think needs it.

-Offer to help someone who is lost, directions on how to get where they are going.

-{Insert your's here :)}



Fall favorites

Things I love about fall...

-Listening to the leaves roll around outside my office

-Hot drinks on cool days...Chai tea is my favorite :)

-Pulling out my blankets from storage

-Sweaters/Hoodies

-Pumpkin Pie

-Havesting

-The colors

-Hats and Scarves

-Boots!

-Halloween (and my birthday!)

What do you love about fall? 

Recipe Wednesday...I didn't forget!

Recipe Wednesday

Well, I made last weeks recipe (Cannoli French Toast), but used some different ingredients for filling. 
Check it out!

Have you ever had Greek yogurt?  It has a different consistency than regular yogurt, more creamy I guess, thicker for sure.  Anyway, I used one of these instead of the ricotta that the recipe called for.  This was a strawberry yogurt, and it made breakfast awesome!  I didn't add any powdered sugar to the filling because the yogurt was already sweet.

Sprinkled with powdered sugar...yum!

Just the right consistency for Cannoli French Toast!  I have also used the plain Greek yogurt in place of mayo when I make tuna and chicken salad.  It takes out ALL the fat!  And my husband couldn't tell the difference! 

My favorite thing about Greek yogurt is how much protein is in 5oz...10 grams!  That's huge!  With only 80 calories this is a great product to use!

Ok, on to the real star of this post...this weeks RECIPE!

Monster Cookies...who doesn't love them?!  I adore monster cookies!  I found this recipe and noticed that it does NOT contain corn syrup, not something I have seen before, and it also has zero flour, only oatmeal, and oatmeal is a whole grain...so they must be healthy right?? Are you with me! So I tried it! 

These. Cookies. Rocked. 

They were still chewy, with a crunchy outside...and the batch makes a TON! 

I put M&M's, chocolate chips, and Jason wanted to put in chocolate covered raisins, so we did...and they were a hit!  Here's the recipe!

Monster Cookies

1C. softened butter

2 C. brown sugar

2 C. granulated sugar

18 oz. peanut butter (I use creamy)

6 eggs

4 t. baking soda

9 C. quick cooking oatmeal

12 oz. of chocolate chips

8 oz. M&M's

optional

1 C. raisins

1/2 C. walnuts

Cream butter and sugars together; mix in pb, eggs, and baking soda until smooth.  Stir in oatmeal, then stir in choc. chips, M&M's, and raisins/walnuts if desired.

Drop by heaping spoonfuls onto ungreased cookie sheet. Bake in a 350 degree oven for 10-12 minutes.  These cookies can be frozen very well...it makes a lot of them so watch out! 



Home Sweet Home...

I just think stuff like this is sooo cool!  Enjoy these pictures from around the world!  





What a weekend!

Happenings from over the weekend....

Friday Night Football--My youngest brother, Jacob (a freshman), called me on Thursday evening and told me he was going to dress Varsity for the football game on Friday!  I was super excited for him!  He was one of 4 freshman chosen dress!  He is number 35, and Andy (a junior) is number 30.  

It was a GORGEOUS night!

Little Jacob is #35

Here they are as close as I could catch them together...

My aunt Donna, my grandma Zeien, and my mom!  Aunt Donna came up from Des Moines and brought grandma to the game! 

Greta performed a dance she learned at the little cheer clinic that the cheerleaders held.  She did great!



Saturday--Nashua-Plainfield Cheerleading Invitational --This year I was a part of putting together the N-P cheerleading invite.  We had 2 teams plus us show routines.  Cedar Falls Competition Sqaud and Union High School's Comp squad.  It was some high caliber cheerleading!!

N-P Comp Squad

Union HS

Awesome basket!

Cedar Falls



Sunday--Four Wheeling &

Grandpa and Grandma's Anniversary --On Sunday, I went to church with my family, while Jason went trout fishing in Decorah with his dad.  I then went over to my parents' farm to take pictures of my brother and our cousin Zach take their four wheelers off some jumps they made.  Some of them turned out really good!

Grams and Gramps... :)