trying to be domestic. . .

i used to think that once i got married i would

get magical powers that allowed me to cook, clean & craft like martha stewart.

false.

during my 4 years of college my "cooking" literally consisted of

cereal, easy mac, quesadillas & pb&j.

enter married world where i literally had no idea how to cook anything.

poor logan.

i thought i was ok at keeping things clean- however

my roomates britt & paige might beg to differ:)

the truth is-if you're not a domestic goddess before you get married, nothing

changes once you have that ring on your finger.

during the first few months of marriage logan & i basically ate the same

things every week because they were easy & we were at school

all day long!

i had never used a crockpot before i got married.

i knew they apparently did amazing things, but it took me a while to figure it out.

i would usually throw some chicken, potatoes & carrots in before we left

for school, or make some sort of taco soup in like 10 minuets when we got home.

logan never complained once-bless his little heart.

i am pleased to announce that i have been trying to be more

"domestic" & experiment with some recipes.

i don't know about you-but i am NOT good when it comes to

knowing what things go together & mixing it all up & calling it good.

if i don't have a recipe to follow, i am a lost soul in the kitchen.

here are a few things i have made in the past week or so.

i may or may not be really proud of myself.

peach chicken salad:

believe it or not i kinda sorta made this up.

i grilled some chicken on the george foreman & seasoned

it with salt and pepper.

we had about a billion peaches from my grandma's tree, so i

just cut up a bunch of those and mixed it with some spinach.

i threw some almonds in there and tossed it all together.

it was delish!

chicken fajitas:

these were sooooo easy.

i cut up some chicken and and mixed it with this seasoning:

the ingredients are super simple.

1 red bell pepper

1 green bell pepper

2 limes

cilantro

looks like christmas!

i started cooking the chicken & my house literally smelled

the best it has ever smelled.

ever.

after mixing in the veggies and letting them cook with the chicken

for about 10 minutes or so, the fajitas were almost ready!

i gave logan the assignment of heating some tortillas.

i decided he was the best man for the job since he

lived in mexico for 2 years serving a mission.

after squeezing some limes and sprinkling some

cilantro on our fajitas-they were ready to be devoured.

just look at that no tooth smile.

good food=happy logan.

stuffed peppers:

i was scared to try these for some reason, but after scoring some amazing

deals on fresh produce i had to try it.

4 bell peppers

1 cup cooked rice

1 pound ground beef

(i wanted to use ground turkey but the store didn't have any!)

2 large tomatoes

1 onion

8 oz. tomato sauce

1 tsp. salt

1 tsp. pepper

1 tsp. basil

i chopped up the onion& tomatoes and started simmering

them along with the tomato sauce.

i got the peppers ready to go by chopping off the tops

& cleaning out the insides.

don't they look pretty?

i wanted to just eat them like this.

the rice was cooking in the rice cooker while i cooked the meat.

i added the salt, pepper & basil to the meat as it cooked.

when the rice and meat were done cooking, i combined them & then

i started stuffing:)

after the peppers were stuffed full of rice & meat, i added the

tomato/onion mixture on top.

then i baked it in the oven at 375 for about 25 minutes.

i made sure to put some water in the pyrex dish, & i also

covered it with foil.

when they were done baking the peppers were a darker green

color and the topping was bubbly and delicious!

these were a hit with logan as well.

i'm pretty sure he was shocked when he saw that i made them.

pumpkin chocolate chip cookies:

technically this recipe isn't a new one, but i made them for the

first time in a long time a week or so ago.

my roomies & i would make these all the time back in the day:)

1 bag chocolate chips

1 box spice cake mix

16 oz. pumpkin pie mix

just mix all the ingredients in a bowl, put dollops of batter on a

cookie sheet, & bake them in the oven at 350 for like 13-15 minutes!

they taste like fall.

in other domestic news, i decided to mix it up a little & sew some pillows

to go in our front room.

i couldn't have completed this project without the help of tanya & ashley.

ashley-thank you for literally helping me every step of the way.

tanya-thank you for doing all that hard "math" to get the measurements right:)

basically i'm slowly trying to expand my horizons by trying new things.

so far so good. . .

puppets. . .

last weekend we took wilbert & nuvia to this free event at the orem library.

it was all about puppets!
i think puppets are slightly creepy, but we thought the kids would like it so
that's all that matters, right?
when we arrived they had this huge life-size puppet.

wilbert & logan got a kick out of manipulating this huge puppet
with these long strings.
i think it was made out of styrofoam or something.
i was surprised that a lot of the little kids wanted to pull
the strings and make the puppet work.
wouldn't this huge black life-size puppet creep you out if you were a child?
yikes.

they had a bunch of puppets everywhere that were for sale that you
could try on and puppet-around with.
let me just tell you- puppets these days are expensive!
i couldn't find a single one that was less than like $30.
what is the world coming to?

it was fun playing around with these oh-so-expensive puppets.
some of us had more fun than others.

nuvia was less-than amused by all of the puppet stuff.
the above picture was the only shot i got of her smiling all day.
she just turned 10, so maybe she is a little too old for this kind of thing- it
was like pulling teeth trying to get her to try on a puppet or make one
at the little stations they had set up everywhere.

wilbert on the other hand was on cloud nine.
i kid you not, i have never seen a kid have so much fun with puppets.
he was smiling and laughing and running around wild with the puppets,etc.
wilbert is almost 12.

they had a live puppet show while we were there as well as a real-life mime!
i have never heard a kid laugh so hard in my entire 23 years of life.
the funniest thing was that wilbert was by far the oldest kid there.
his laugh kind of sounds like a chipmunk on a sugar rush. . . if that makes sense.

my inner-creeper came out when i took a pic of this
darling little asian boy playing with a bird puppet.
please tell me that there is someone else out there that takes pics
of other people's cute children.
his parents were so proud of him.
they were sitting behind me smiling from ear to ear, telling him to
look at the camera and hold up the puppet.
they were speaking Chinese, but i assume that's what they
were telling him to do.

after the puppet show we ran to macey's.
logan heard there was a sale on cheez-its.
to his disappointment, the deal was no longer going on, but wilbert had
fun following around this man in a giant oreo costume.

after mentoring these kids for a while now i have learned that
the pre-teen years are so funny.
wilbert can love puppets and people in oreo costumes, while also apparently
having a real girlfriend that he has kissed.
nuvia informed logan & i the other day that wilbert indeed has a girlfriend.
wilbert denies the stories about the kissing, but admits that he
does have a girlfriend that he hangs out with every day after school.
logan made wilbert sign this contract the other day.
wilbert wrote it and signed it, stating he wouldn't kiss a girl till he was 16.
if he sticks to his promise, logan will give him $200.

just in case you can't read the contract, let me tell you what it says:
"I Wilbert Delgado solemny swear not to kiss until i am 16.
if i follow through i will get $200.
*kiss means i cannot be kissed on the smackers until the same
age outlined in this contract".

we will let you know how it goes :)

you go girl. . .

i saw this article on my lunch break and thought it was really cool.

just wanted to share it:)

i think it's so neat how dedicated this young girl is.

i played soccer in high school--i cannot imagine wearing long pants and

sleeves during a game in the scorching hot Utah sun!

my favorite quote was when she was talking about her religion and said,

"I'm going to follow it and I'm not going to go half way".

kudos to this girl for not caring what other people think.

i'm sure people see this girl on the field and think

she is CRAZY for covering her head and wearing long sleeves/pants.

it's nice to know she is doing what she feels is right, and that

she is totally willing to be considered 'different' because

of her religious beliefs.

you go girl.

all things fall. . .

i'm so anxious for fall weather i can hardly stand it.

today i caught myself literally smiling like a fool while

thinking about walking through fall leaves.

i have issues.

i'm excited for:

1. boots

2. warm layering clothes

3. pretty leaves

4. pumpkin treats

5. corn mazes

6. halloween!!

7. fall crafts

8. turning the heater on

9. thanksgiving

10. the first snow-fall

hurry up fall!