Holiday Crafts!

Since it's now officially Fall, and Halloween is coming up, I have wanted to decorate. I am not a big fan of spending lots of money on decorations, but I love to have them! So I made my own. I got my ideas from Pinterest of course, but then I changed them more to my taste. 

First of all, I needed a wreath for my very plain looking door. My porch doesn't even have pumpkins on it, so I needed something at least to make it look like someone actually lives in our home. I have seen lots of cute wreath ideas, and it's hard to choose, but I just happened to already have everything I needed for this one!

All I needed was a picture frame and some yarn! Oh, and I used tape to attach the string to the back. I think I will probably add some felt letters saying WELCOME and maybe a spider too. :)

I've also been seeing some really cute garland ideas. I saw one that used leaves cut out of felt and strung on a piece of yarn or twine. So I adapted this idea to Halloween and used witch hats strung across my mantle. I think I would do leaves for after Halloween, or maybe turkeys. And stockings for Christmas! Felt is pretty cheap too, and it can go a long way. Which makes it nice to work with. 

It took almost a whole piece of felt to cut out 10 hats. And took hardly any to cut out the purple and yellow. I just looked online for a good hat to trace and cut it out of paper to use as a guide for my felt. To hold it all together I just used 3 stitches for each hat. That doesn't leave it super secure, but I won't have anyone bugging them at my house, so they should last just fine. 

I'm excited to find other fun decoration ideas for this season! I already have some seasonal fabric that I am going to make a couch pillow from. And I'll have to add to my wreath. I may make a different wreath just for fun and put it on a door inside the house, or just hang it on the wall. I love all the possibilities!

Lake Powell

This last weekend, my husband and I went with his family down to Southern Utah to Lake Powell. I had never been before, and I was so glad I had the opportunity to go! It is a beautiful lake! And just a little fact of the day, Lake Powell has the longest shoreline of any lake in the U.S (due to all the nooks and crannies).

We camped for a couple nights right on the beach. The kids were able to play in the water and sand all day long. My mother-in-law brought one of those pedal boats, which was fun for the adults and extremely entertaining for the kids. They took turns playing in it for hours and hours. We were also able to borrow a boat to take out. My brother-in-law took those of us who had never been, on the "Lake Powell tour". We went down the Antelope Canyon and the Navajo Canyon. The canyons are a lot longer, but we only went so far down them. These canyons are amazing to see from the rivers. The walls are huge and so smooth. It's all red rock, and beautiful! I was also told that these two canyons were where they filmed part of the movie John Carter. The path to the river Isis part I think. Here are a couple pictures.

This is our ride in the boat.

Part of Antelope Canyon.

Another part of Antelope Canyon.

If you haven't seen John Carter, or don't remember the part where they are canoeing down the river, you need to look up some professional pictures of Antelope Canyon, Navajo Canyon, and Lake Powell. It really is so beautiful!

Running up the Sand King.

This is a different part of Lake Powell that we stopped at during our "tour". This is what they call the Sand King. It's just a huge sand hill, and they challenged us to run up it. So of course we did. My brother-in-law that is with us had already done it before, but his girlfriend and I hadn't, so we went. It took me 5 1/2 minutes to get up it, and my thighs hurt so so bad! I didn't think I would make it back down without collapsing (luckily I did). I also was coughing for a few hours afterwards because I hadn't breathed that hard in so long of a time. On the way up, the sand was so hot on my feet that I ended up going a little ways on my hands and knees because I felt like my feet were going to blister. Luckily they didn't. It was a terrible, but good experience all in all. 

Standing on a big, tall rock thing.

A few of us went on a short hike the last day to this rock. The view was amazing! We climbed up this big rock, and on top of another hill. In this area there are tons of 4-wheeling paths up and down the hills and some figure 8 paths and what not. Lots of people were 4-wheeling here. 

Those of us who went on the hike. Lone rock is seen in the back ground on the left.

And Lake Powell is the body of water. In case you were wondering. :)

Besides the very long drive, this trip was so fun! Being near the water is very relaxing to me. And the sand feels so good on bare feet. :) If you ever have the chance to go to Lake Powell, you should definitely take the opportunity!

Pasta Dinner

A while ago, while on Pinterest, I was looking for different meal ideas and I came across this recipe that looked and sounded so good! I didn't have all of the stuff to make it, so I just used the recipe for a good idea of what to do and did my own thing. Here is the original recipe: http://www.bosssanders.com/2012/03/03/spicyromanochicke/

And here is what I made:

Not the best looking picture, but that's what I get for asking my husband to take it. :)

For the sauce:
Heavy whipping cream
Butter
Salt
Pepper
Parmesan cheese
Mozzarella cheese (I used string cheese I melted in the microwave before adding it to the sauce)

I have no idea what measurements I used. I just used what I had left in the fridge, which was probably 3/4 pint of cream or less. And I just took a chunk of butter and melted it in the pan. I put in a few sprinkles of salt, pepper, and parmesan cheese, and used 2 string cheese sticks.

For the pasta:
Rotini pasta (boiled till it's soft)
Sausage
Canned mushrooms
Fresh tomatoes
Cayenne pepper
Red pepper flakes
Garlic powder
Salt
Lemon juice (freshly squeezed is best)

While the pasta was boiling, I browned the sausage, added in a few canned mushrooms I had left over in the fridge (fresh would have been better). Diced the tomatoes and added them, a few shakes of cayenne pepper, very few red pepper flakes, and some salt. Then I added the drained pasta, the sauce, some garlic powder, and fresh squeezed lemon juice (half a lemon). Mixed the whole thing together till it looked yummy and served!

Notes: Since I used fresh tomatoes, the skins separated from the rest of the tomato and floated around on their own. That wasn't very appetizing, so I suggest peeling the tomatoes first, using canned tomatoes, or the original recipe used sun-dried tomatoes. Also, my sauce was a little thin so I think I could have done the measurements better. Using the original recipe would probably turn out thicker. I didn't really follow it too well, I just did my own thing. Last of all, I didn't use all of the sauce I made. It all depends on the quantities of pasta, meat, veggies, and sauce you have. And also, the thickness of the sauce. I just do it all according to taste and looks, then save left overs to use in something else!

This recipe was really yummy and there are so many different variations you could do! Use different types of meat, add in artichokes like the original recipe, use different spices, juices, and vegetables, or whatever you like! The sauce can be made spicy, or used just as the cream, butter, salt, and pepper, in order to create different types of pasta depending of what you put in it (spicy, a little sweeter, meaty, salty, etc).

I will definitely be using this recipe again! Although, I doubt I'll make it exactly the same every time. :)

Football!

A week or two ago, Trevor and I decided to go back to USU and watch a football game. Their team hasn't always been a good one, but last year they did a lot better, but still had some rough times. This year they are doing really well! They played against the Utes, and that was a very good game to watch. USU won in overtime by 7 points. I love watching football! (In real life, but not so much on tv unless I know the teams).

The beginning of the game, wearing Aggie Blue of course!

Trevor always needs his sunglasses.

After the win, the students flooded the field (I almost died jumping over the railing).

We are down in the pit with all the people.

We left a little early and got a picture above the flooded field.

That's a lot of people!

Football games are so fun! I am a little sad that we don't live in a college town this year. There are so many things going on when you're a student. I guess that now we'll have to figure out what other people do. I only know of little kids community sports, and we don't have little kids. Maybe we'll go watch the local high school play sports. That could be fun. :) And maybe we should get a dog. Everyone else seems to have one!

Mixed Berry Crisp

I don't have pictures of this, but I will tell you - It looked amazing! And tasted good too. :)

A while ago I ordered from Allison's Pantry a box of mixed berries, which included strawberries, marion blackberries, blueberries, and raspberries. I had originally been wanting to make a peach crisp, but I ran out of peaches and haven't bought any more. So I resorted to frozen berries. I baked this in a 9x6 I think.

I just pulled out enough fruit to fill the bottom (plus a little) of the pan and left them on the counter until they had thawed. I then cut the strawberries to about the same size as the other berries. I sprinkled some brown sugar over the fruit as well. (Depending on how tart of berries you use, you can adjust the amount of sugar).

For the crumble:

1 cup flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
a few sprinkles of nutmeg, ginger, cloves
about twice the amount of cinnamon
(Mix all of this in a bowl and set aside.)

In a separate bowl, blend together:

1/2 cup softened butter
3/4 cup packed brown sugar
1 tsp of vanilla

After this is blended together, add the dry ingredients and mix until crumbly. Then, simply crumble it over the fruit and finish it off with a sprinkle of cinnamon.

Bake at 375F for about 25-30 minutes.

Serve while warm with heavy whipping cream poured on top, or vanilla ice cream. Mmmm!

Notes: The only problem I found with this is that when I started working with the dough to crumble it over the fruit, it became more like cookie dough and was really hard to crumble. So I guess you could add a little more flour and that might help.
-Also, you could do this with any kind of fruit, with or without any or all spices, include rolled oats, or any other variation. :)