Hair Donation!

It's been in the planning stages for quite some time, but now it is done.

I cut off all of my hair!!!

10-11 inches gone.

In just a few snips, it was gone!

And now it's so short and light! 

I probably lost 5 pounds in a matter of minutes!

The only down side to this endeavor is that I will now suffer from bedhead.

I think I'll manage!

Some lucky cancer patient will receive a great new wig!

Merry CHRISTMAS!!!

Instead of trying to get cards to all of our friends and family and risking neglect and hurt feelings, we have emailed and blogged our Christmas card this year!

Click to ENGLARGE

YAY!!!
So right now I'm 9 weeks along.
And I realize that some of you may have suspected before now given a seemingly non-chalant remark regarding "ginerale and saltines," however, I regularly eat saltines and ginerale when I am not feeling well.
Also, this is not really a true indication of how my preganacy is going so far. It's really been quite mild.

So we'll keep you updated on how things are going, and you're welcome to follow along!
We're really excited about this new adventure, and we're glad that we can share it with you!

Grades are IN!

So, only one pre-Christmas and After Thanksgiving post to say that the grades are in and I've GRADUATED!!!

SCREENSHOT!

There's lots of white space after the grades, but yay!!!!
I improved my GPA by .01!!!
I'm graduating Magna cum Laude!
YAY!!!

So, as far as my baking desires and plans, all is being fullfilled.
Mom and I are mking oreo and cake balls, some coconut chocolate bars, various cookies, apple and pumpkin pie, and who knows what else.
It's going to be great!

So until Christmas, have  great time preparing for Christmas!

Adventures in Baking

So remember that little list at the end of my last post?
Well, this week I began checking off some of those items.
First I made the Cranberry Muffins with Orange Marmalade Glaze.
They were DeLiCioUs! Especially while they were still warm and fresh! So good and easy that I forgot to take pictures.

Then, I made the pumpkin chocolate chip cookies.
What a fiasco! I have never before made a bad cookie! I will NEVER use this recipe again. The author of this particular recipe attempted to make the cookies healthier by using less sugar. And maybe I did something terribly wrong in translation, or there is some little tip that she forgot to mention in her directions, but my cookies were awful.
Making them was fine.

This is a very typical pre-baked cookie shot. 

One would never suspect that something was wrong.

They came out like this:

They look like normal cookies, but not like normal PUMPKIN cookies, which really isn't the end of the world.

The flavor was great--enough pumpkin and spice, but they weren't puffy. 

And even when I baked them longer, they were still a little mushy. I deduced that this was the result of too much pumpkin.

My solution was to add a tad bit more flour. 

The next batch (3rd--pumpkin recipes make TONS of cookies) was less doughy, but still not puffy.

So I added maybe an 1/8-1/4 teaspoon more baking soda. 

And those came out like this:

As you can see, more poofy, but not really enough. I baked the last 2 batches without further adjustment because they tasted fine. 

Then, to my horror, after fully cooling, all of the cookies took on a dry-overly-floured-almost-sour (like baking soda) taste. This included the first few batches of cookies. 

All in all, I probably messed up huge somewhere. And the amendments I made to the recipe probably added to the chaos, but I honestly don't think that 2 Tbs of flour and 1/4 tsp baking soda would really make cookies that tasted that bad.

I've made pumpkin cookies before, and they were fine. I obviously just don't agree with this recipe.

So I threw away probably 30 rock-hard, too-much-flour tasting cookies.

That was sad.

But I have 3 more 29 oz. cans of pumpkin, so I'm bound to try again sometime.

So, wish me better luck in future baking endeavors. 

We'll call it all part of a learning experience :)

How to Be a Lego Pirate

Warning: There are lots of pictures, but honestly, words are not enough for this coolness!

So 11 days ago I was a Lego Pirate for Halloween!

No, I can't take all of the credit for my ingenious idea.

My friend Tanya Sanders always has super clever Halloween costumes, and once she was a blue lego piece. Thinking this was awesome, I decided to take it a step further. Peter had recently found a pirate lego key chain. This was it. I could still be a person and a lego!

So I enlisted Peter's help and we got to work--which all seemed to take place late at night.

He Measured &

 He Cut

 And then he Glued

 Checking for fit

I must say, I think I make a sweet pirate!

And then there was painting. This was my first experience with spray paint. All I can say is it was tiring and didn't work quite as well as anticipated. Oh well.

 I totally wrote lego on the back using a ton of painting tape--doesn't work quite as well with drippy spray paint.

I used a "Marks-A-Lot" Marker to fix the weird spots, and then it was finished!

Me after finishing:

I painted my face in the morning--Lego men are yellow. It wasn't quite the right yellow, but options are limited when it comes to Halloween makeup. Then there was also the problem of getting it off. It was on there good!

 And me in full costume at work---where I won 1st place in the costume contest!!!

So there's my sweet Halloween-spirit.
Now that it's the second week of November, I'm definitely in the mood for baking.

Things I intend to make very soon:
Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookies
Braided Cranberry Bread
Fall colored Oreo Balls
Sweet Potato Casserole
Apple Pie
Chicken Divan

It's all going to be so delicious and you should all be jealous!