It's Beginning to Look a lot like Christmas!

I love this time of year! I am so much happier! It's the season of giving and spending time with loved ones. It just makes me smile thinking about it!! I especially love the holiday music, movies, and goodies! (ok, you caught me, especially the goodies :) ) I will sit and cook/bake for hours with my Christmas toons blaring in the background. I also enjoy snuggling up to my husband... (when I can cuz he is always studying, especially with finals starting this week) and watching a Christmas movie!! I love love love Miracle on 34th Street, the newer version, Elf, Home Alone, and the Family Stone.

So make some delicious holiday cookies and some hot chocolate or apple cider and get snuggling!!!

Merry Christmas!

Lakers Baby!

First of all we had a great Thanksgiving! My sister-in-law, Rachel, and I made dinner for our little group. We spent three days in the kitchen and after our delicious meal was devoured we knew it was worth all the time spent in the kitchen! We had so much fun and we will make the same exact menu next year because everything was just so perfect!

Onto the main highlight! I mentioned in a previous blog post that I got Brian Laker tickets for his birthday. Yesterday was the big game!! We sat 11th row, 50-yard line! It was AmAzInG! We had such a blast! We were literally feet away from KOBE and all of the Lakers it was so much fun! (Even though they lost...It was so much fun to be there:) )

The pre-game huddle!

The view from our seats! YES! It was so wonderful and we were so lucky to be there!

KOBE BRYANT, 3-point giant!

Tip-off! My handy workmanship with the photos!

KOBE owning peoples lives! I wish I had a little nicer camera but I am glad my point and shoot could do the job!

GO LAKERS!!!!

Harry Potter!

We saw Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 1 last night at midnight!!! I highly recommend this movie!! The acting was great, best yet!! I loved all of it!! I was on the edge of my seat the whole movie! I just wish they weren't splitting into 2 movies! I could easily have sat there for 5 hours just to see the whole thing play out!!! MUST SEE!!!

Happy Birthday Hubby!

It was Brian's birthday on the 9th!! He turned 28! He is growing up so fast (he he). His birthday requests this year were easily satisfied because all he wanted was good meals to eat on his birthday! So when the day finally arrived I woke up early and made homemade waffles. Yummy. For lunch I brought him In N Out. Tasty. For dinner he wanted homemade Won-Tons! So so delicious! And last but not least he wanted Chocolate Cake with peanut butter filling... Which is exactly what I would have chosen!! I love love love chocolate and peanut butter!!

Two layer chocolate cake with chocolate butter cream frosting and peanut butter frosting filling, if your wondering how tasty it was... Let me just say it was so so so so so tasty!

(Yes, that is a Santa to the right of the cake.. I put up Christmas decorations as soon as November hit!!! )
Last but not least, I got Brian Laker tickets!!! We will be going to the Lakers/Jazz game over Thanksgiving break!

Cloak Making...

For Halloween Brian and I decided that we wanted to be Harry Potter and Hermoine... yes, we know they aren't a "couple" but they are best friends and we like to think we're best friends too! At least that was our logic anyway... he he
I looked around quite a bit for legitimate Harry Potter, Gryffindor, cloaks but they were SOo0o0o pricey! So i decided we'd make them! I am not a seamstress by any means, but I wasn't willing to pay $200 for a cloak either... so I did what I had to do.
My sister-in-law, Rachy, let me burrow her sewing machine and it was off to the races!!

We looked up online how other people made cloaks and kinda just copied.
After looking at several different pictures of Harry Potter cloaks we set out on making them!

We sewed in the red lining and it looked pretty legit!!

The final touch was ironing on the Gryffindor patch, which we did and you can see that in the Halloween pictures to come!

Harry Potter Halloween!

First of all, I hope everyone had a great Halloween!! Our's was very fun and fattening!! Love all the yummy snacks that come with that great day!
Brian and I dressed as Harry Potter and Hermoine and had a party at Aaron and Rachel's house where we played Minute to Win It games!! So super fun!! I have some great video footage too!!
I love Halloween!! Favorite time of year!!!

Brian and my nephew Luke were both Harry Potter!!

Spencer and Amy were Shaggy and Daphne from Scooby-Doo!

M niece Sarah was a Geisha, her costume is AmAzInG!

This is most of the gang in their get-up!! Super fun night, can't wait until next year!!

My sweeeet tooth!!

O gosh... is it really that time of year?? When everything I can imagine to make I want to make it with pumpkin! The other day I made a pumpkin cheesecake with a graham cracker crust, it was delicious. BUT (small confession) it was my first time making a cheesecake so I made a rookie mistake and pulled it out of the oven a hair too early... Needless to say everywhere but the middle set just fine... Taste was there though!!!
Another confession, I love anything chocolate and peanut butter!! I have loved this combination since before I can remember. And it's not just like an occasional craving, it's more of a, "what can I make or bake or buy to satisfy this massive craving of peanut butter and chocolate?" (most everyday) Well, I was perusing one of my favorite blogs to find wonderful recipes and found, Dark Chocolate Cupcakes with Peanut Butter Frosting!! Thinking it was too good to be true I read over the recipe. I have a pretty good eye at discerning between a good recipe and an even better one... But this one checked out!! I made those delicious little pieces of heaven today and I was not disappointed!!

(picture taken from the blog)

Picture of mine (not as pretty, but I'm still figuring out how to make frosting pretty)...With Brian's big boy bite taken out of one!

I know I got his stamp of approval, he loves chocolate but his favorite is when he gets a really chocolaty rich flavor, these accomplished that!!!