Our Wedding Day--Part 3--Scenic Pictures

A special kiss in front of a lovely background of mountains


This is my absolute favorite photo from the whole day--I know I've shared it here before (on our anniversary), but just couldn't resist posting it again. This was one of those pictures that wasn't even posed, but was caught at just the right moment, and I love it!! Sometime I want to have it enlarged to poster-size, framed beautifully, and hung above our bed.


Me with my attendants and flower girls


The whole wedding party

Our Wedding Day--Part 2--Reception Pictures

A close-up of our cake . . . it had a sort of monogram of our initials around the sides of the next-to-lowest layer.


Eating the cake--it tasted as good as it looked! :)


Riding away in our getaway car--it was actually an old restored Ford pickup that one of my dad's friends lent for the occasion! (We didn't go far in it--just a few miles down the road.)

Looking Back 6 1/2 Years to Our Wedding Day--Part 1

I've been inspired by Erin, who recently posted pictures from her wedding on her blog. Today I scanned in a selection of photos of our wedding day, and hope you may enjoy seeing them. I hope I don't annoy anyone by posting so many--I got a little carried away, LOL! Looking at our wedding pictures always makes me feel nostalgic . . . I can't believe it has been over 6 1/2 years since we "tied the knot." :)

We didn't actually hire a professional photographer for our wedding, but instead asked three of my uncles to take pictures for us. Between the three of them (who are all good "amateur" photographers!) we ended up with some very nice shots.

My sister arranges my veil before the ceremony


Preparing to walk down the aisle with my Dad


P.S. I must apologize for the hugeness of all these pictures!! The amount of KB per photo is actually rather small, but in the translation from Photobucket to here, they came out BIG!! (I use Photobucket to load my pics because the Blogger picture thingy doesn't work with Safari on my computer, for some reason.) Well, at least no one will have to squint to see them, LOL! :)

From Spring . . . to Winter . . . to Spring again . . .

This has been one very strange winter so far. A couple weeks ago, we were having temps in the high 40s. Last week was cold, and then we got snow over the weekend. I just went out to check the mail, and it's in the high 40s again, and muddy. If Sam wakes up from his nap before the sun goes down too far, we may just have to take a walk and take advantage of the gorgeous day.

It's nice to have some quiet time to write here, enjoying the sunshine pouring in the windows, and enjoying the fun sounds of my Dean Martin CD, "Dino," crooning in the background.

We had a lovely Valentine's Day. Actually, Jim and I got to have our own "date" on Monday, as well. Following my appointment with Sherry, we went out to eat at a diner (neither of us was dressed for a fancy place, especially Jim, who was still in work clothes :)). Then we went and did a tiny bit of shopping. We enjoyed checking out the new Lowe's in the same town where we ate, and we found a nice rug for the bathroom there, as well. It's a very nice store! I found a tub I wouldn't mind having (dreaming, dreaming), and of course Jim had fun looking at all the tools. :)

Yesterday, I spent a lot of time straightening up the house and preparing our special dinner, which I will share the recipes for below. I made Herb-Roasted Game Hens, Twice Baked Potatoes, and homemade crescent rolls. For dessert, we made simple ice cream "parfaits" with Blue Bunny "Peanut Butter Panic" ice cream, Oreo crumbs, peanut butter chips and white chocolate chips, and hot fudge sauce. Jim and I each gave each other a nice romantic card, as well. Sam obliged me by taking a 3 hour nap in the early afternoon, allowing me plenty of time to get things ready ahead of time. This really helped cut down on cleanup time after supper! When he woke up from his nap, he was raring to go. I put him to work, "helping" me make the rolls. We made a big mess, but he sure had fun "cookin," as he says! :) Here's a pic:

I also must highly recommend Martinelli's Sparkling Apple-Cranberry juice. We enjoyed it with our dinner and it is super yummy, and 100% juice, as well! A litte pricey at over $3 for the bottle, but worthwhile for a special occasion!

This morning, Jim surprised me with a gift--two 14" deep dish Bakalon pizza pans! Now I can make the deep dish pizza the proper way! I'm going to try out one of them tonight, which I know will make him very happy. :)

Here are the recipes I used for our dinner:

Herb-Roasted Game Hens (from the March/April 2001 issue of Quick Cooking magazine)

2 Cornish game hens (20 oz. each)
2 tablespoons butter or margarine, melted
2 garlic cloves, minced
1 teaspoon dried basil
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon rubbed sage
1/2 teaspoon dried thyme
1/4 teaspoon lemon pepper seasoning

Place hens, breast side up, on a rack in a shallow roasting pan. In a small bowl, combine the remaining ingredients. Brush over hens. Bake, uncovered, at 350 for 50-60 minutes or until juices run clear. Yield: 2 servings.

Butter Rolls (from my bread machine cookbook)

2 tablespoons sugar
1 teaspoon salt
2 3/4 cups bread flour
2 teaspoons active dry yeast
1/4 cup water (room temp)
1 egg
7/8 cup milk (slightly warmed)
1/4 cup butter, softened

1. Measure all ingredients into bread pan.
2. Select dough setting.
3. Press Start.
4. When cycle finishes, press Stop and remove dough.
5. Shape as desired.
6. Bake at 350 for 25 to 30 minutes.

I shaped them into crescent rolls. I just rolled the dough into a 12" circle, brushed it with butter, and cut it into 12 wedges with a pizza cutter, then rolled them up starting with the large end and ending with the pointy end. The book said to let them rise till doubled in size, but I missed that part and just went ahead and baked them, and they came out huge and beautiful, so it was a good thing I didn't let them rise any more. However, I had also had some "fun" with the dough--I doubled the recipe and added too much water, and then I had to add more flour after it had finished its cycle--so that may be why mine came out nice and big anyway. You would just have to see how yours looked, to determine if they needed to rise more or not. Anyway, these came out really yummy and I would definitely make them again!

Twice-Baked Potatoes (from The New Best Recipe cookbook)
(I cut this recipe in half since only Jim and I were eating them)

4 medium russet potatoes (7 to 8 oz. each), scrubbed, dried, and rubbed lightly with vegetable oil
4 oz. sharp cheddar cheese, shredded
1/2 cup sour cream
1/2 cup buttermilk
2 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened
3 medium scallions, sliced thin
1/2 teaspoon salt
Ground black pepper

1. Adjust an oven rack to the upper-middle position and heat the oven to 400 degrees. Bake the potatoes on a foil-lined baking sheet until the skin is crisp and deep brown and a skewer easily pierces the flesh, about 1 hour. Setting the baking sheet aside, transfer the potatoes to a wire rack and let cool slightly, about 10 minutes. (Just a note: I baked the potatoes for about 1 3/4 hours at 350 instead, since everything else I was cooking had to bake at that temp.)
2. Using an oven mitt or a folded kitchen towel to handle the hot potatoes, cut each potato in half so that the long, blunt sides rest on a work surface. Using a small spoon, scoop the flesh from each half into a medium bowl, leaving 1/8 to 1/4 inch of the flesh in each shell. Arrange the shells on the lined baking sheet and return them to the oven until dry and slightly crisped, about 10 minutes. Meanwhile, mash the potato flesh with a fork until smooth. Stir in the remaining ingredients, including pepper to taste, until well combined.
3. Remove the shells from the oven and increase the oven setting to broil. Holding the shells steady on the baking sheet with an oven mitt or towel-protected hand, spoon the mixture into the crisped shells, mounding it slightly at the center, and return the potatoes to the oven. Broil until spotty brown and crisp on top, 10 to 15 minutes. (I found that even using my low broil setting, it only took about 5 minutes, so watch them closely!) Cool for 10 minutes. Serve warm. Serves 6-8.

Here's a picture of our feast:

Plans for Valentine's Day

For any other married ladies out there, I was wondering how you plan to honor and spoil your husband for Valentine's Day? I was blog-surfing a bit a few days ago, and came across this contest on the Choosing Home blog. (Hat-tip to Crystal for letting her readers know about this!) I don't know if I'll come up with anything creative enough to participate (and I definitely won't be creative enough to win a prize--I know this, because I'm having a very hard time coming up with ideas that will be a really fun date for my hubby). If it was spring or summer, then I know he would love a shooting date in the backyard, or going to the swimming hole at the river together, or going for a hike . . . but winter is a hard time for me to think of ideas. If I wasn't pregnant, then a cross-country ski outing or going skating would be fun--but I'm too nervous about falling to want to do either right now. Anyway, here's what I have planned for V-day so far: Make him a special breakfast, serving it to him in bed if he likes. Or maybe take him out for breakfast (unless he takes me out to dinner on Monday night, which is a slim possibility--I have a midwife appt. that afternoon, and we're leaving Sam with my parents, so it's possible we may go out, but I'm not counting on it.) Tuck a love note in his lunch box. (I usually do this anyway, but this time I have a special love note that I made in our Sunday School opener a few weeks back.) If he happens to be home for lunch, I'll just prop it up against his glass at the table. Make a special dinner. I already have the main course planned: Cornish hens. I had asked him what he would like for V-day dinner and he hadn't decided; then I saw the Cornish hens on sale last week, so we both thought that would make a nice (and easy!) dinner. I will make twice-baked potatoes and salad to go with them, and probably rolls. Then I still need to come up with a special dessert. After that, hopefully an early bedtime for Sam, and then plenty of snuggle time--maybe I'll bring out the dessert then, with candles and sparkling apple-cranberry juice. It will be fun to have a special date! Oh, and I'll plan to dress up a bit, hair arranged nicely, jewelry, perfume, etc. I'll also get him a mushy card for him to open that evening.

Now, I would love to hear others' plans and ideas--maybe I'll even borrow some of them, LOL! :)

Not a good week for pinching pennies!

We haven't intentionally splurged this week, but it's been a weird week in a couple ways.

On Monday night we discovered that we had accidentally deleted all the pictures stored on our computer--I say accidentally, because although we deleted them intentionally off of our iPhoto program, we thought we had them safely stored on our external hard drive. Sadly, being the non-computer-experts that we are, we were mistaken, and WHOOSH--they had vanished off the computer!! We hadn't yet gotten around to putting them on a CD (our own fault--procrastination) and now over 1000 photos from the past 18 months (mostly of Sam) were gone. We were very sad, to say the least! But fortunately, we do have relatives whom we had emailed many of the cutest pictures to, who would be willing to make a CD of them for us, so at least we wouldn't lose the entire record of Sam's past year and a half.

Then we found out through Jim's brother (who is a computer expert!) that there was a program we could download that would probably be able to retrieve most of our pictures. This program costs around $100, but we decided we had to try; that it would be worth that to get our pictures back. We downloaded it--it scanned our deleted files--it found TONS of stuff, but so far we haven't yet found our pictures. We are still hoping they are hiding somewhere among the retrieved files, but after searching through stuff most of the day on Weds., Jim decided he needed to take a break from it and go back to it later. So that was our first big expense of the week.

The next thing that happened (yesterday) was that we received a credit card bill for our Amazon credit card, which we thought we hadn't even activated yet! We had never even opened the bill we got from them last month (because I in my blonde-ness thought it was just a credit card ad) and here we were socked with a $15 late fee, bringing our bill to something around $99. WHAT? For a card we hadn't activated?? After a little checking, we discovered that we had used the credit card for our last Amazon purchase, without realizing it--apparently it is all too easy to activate! It was an order Jim had placed, so I'm just guessing at what happened (because he doesn't remember), but I'm assuming they have one of those drop-down boxes for you to choose your payment method, and apparently the Amazon Visa was probably the one already selected. Not looking closely at that (since we have a Visa debit card too), one would probably just assume that it was our debit info. there and place the order. Oops. Not that I am blaming my dear hubby!! I have no doubt the same thing would have happened to me if I was placing the order. But that was our second big expense of the week. Of course, if we had been on the ball, we would have remembered to record the charge in our checkbook, and then would have had some question marks going up when it didn't show up in our bank records . . . but as is all too often the case with us, we forgot to record it at all. Thus, the surprise of a bit more money dropping through the holes in our pockets . . . :(

Oh well, some weeks are just like that.

On the upside of things, Jim is hard at work making a bunk bed for Sam, and it's turning out beautifully! And speaking of our little guy, he is a continual joy to us (as well as a continual challenge!) Here is a picture of him sliding down our old mattress after we replaced it with the memory foam one. This was one of his greatest delights until yesterday, when the mattress finally disappeared from our bedroom. Mommy was happy to see it go--but I think Sam and his daddy will miss the slide!! Anyway, I love the expression of sheer delight on his face here:

Recipes for your enjoyment

I was craving Chinese food this week, so I ended up making my own! Unfortunately I didn't have time (or ingredients) to make some of my favorite things, such as egg rolls or crab rangoons . . . but I did make some Sweet and Sour Pork and Fried Rice. I love how colorful everything looked on the plate! Here are the recipes:

Sweet-and-Sour Pork (from the September/October 2005 issue of Quick Cooking)

2/3 cup packed brown sugar
2/3 cup cider vinegar
2/3 cup ketchup
2 teaspoons soy sauce
1 pound boneless pork loin, cut into 1-inch cubes
1 tablespoon canola oil
1 medium onion, cut into chunks (I left this out for Jim's sake--he prefers most things without onions)
2 medium carrots, sliced
1 medium green pepper, cut into 1-inch pieces
1/2 teaspoon minced garlic
1/4 teaspoon ground ginger
1 can (8 oz.) pineapple chunks, drained
Hot cooked rice, optional

In a small bowl, combine the brown sugar, vinegar, ketchup and soy sauce. Pour half into a large resealable plastic bag; add pork. Seal bag and turn to coat; refrigerate for 30 minutes. Set remaining marinade aside.

Drain and discard marinade from pork. In a large skillet, cook pork in oil for 3 minutes. Add the onion, carrots, green pepper, garlic and ginger; saute until pork is no longer pink. Add reserved marinade. Bring to a boil; cook for 1 minute. Stir in the pineapple. Serve with rice if desired. Yield: 4 servings

Homemade Fried Rice (from my mom)

1 cup uncooked rice
2 1/4 cups water
1 teaspoon salt
4-5 slices bacon, diced (I just cook them first, then break them up into smaller pieces--seems easier to me that way)
4 eggs
4-5 scallions, sliced
soy sauce
any leftover meat, cut in tiny pieces (optional)

Combine rice, water and salt in heavy saucepan. Bring to boil; cover, reduce heat and cook on low for 20 minutes.

In heavy skillet, cook bacon until crisp. Add scallions and cook till tender. Drain off some of the bacon fat, leaving a bit for flavor (or if you're not using a non-stick skillet, you may want to leave more to help with cooking the eggs in the next step.) Slightly beat eggs; add to skillet. Stir to scramble eggs. Add cooked rice and optional meat; mix. Add soy sauce until rice is as brown as you like it. Cook over low heat 15-20 minutes. Serve piping hot! Yield: 4-6 servings

Here's another recipe that I made last week. It turned out yummy, but I did have a little trouble with it. The recipe called for a 9" springform pan. My smallest one is 9.5", so that's what I used. I STILL had too much filling for the pan, and some of it ran over and burned on the oven floor. So, I personally would recommend using at least a 10" pan, or maybe even larger, if you have one! This is from the December/January 2006 issue of Taste of Home magazine.

Peanut Butter Cup Cheesecake
Prep time: 20 min.
Bake time: 55 min. + chilling

1 1/4 cups graham cracker crumbs
1/4 cup crushed Oreos
1/4 cup sugar
6 tablespoons butter, melted
3/4 cup creamy peanut butter

FILLING:
3 packages (8 oz. each) cream cheese, softened
1 cup sugar
1 cup (8 oz.) sour cream
3 eggs, lightly beaten
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 cup hot fudge ice cream topping, divided
6 peanut butter cups, cut into small wedges

In a bowl, combine cracker crumbs, Oreo crumbs, sugar and butter. Press onto the bottom and 1 in. up the sides of a greased 9 inch (I recommend 10+ inch!) springform pan. Place on a baking sheet. Bake at 350 for 7-9 minutes or until set. Cool on a wire rack. In a microwave safe bowl, heat peanut butter on high for 30 seconds or until softened. Spread over crust to within 1 in. of edges.

In a large mixing bowl, beat cream cheese, sugar and sour cream until smooth. Add eggs; beat on low speed just until combined. Stir in vanilla. Pour 1 cup into a bowl; set aside. Pour remaining filling over peanut butter layer.

In a microwave safe bowll, heat 1/4 cup fudge topping on high for 30 seconds or until thin; fold into reserved cream cheese mixture. Carefully spoon over filling; cut through filling with a knife to swirl. Place pan on a baking sheet. Bake at 350 for 55-65 minutes or until center is almost set. Cool on a wire rack for 10 minutes. Carefully run a knife around edge of pan to loosen; cool 1 hour longer.

Microwave remaining fudge topping for 30 seconds or until warmed; spread over cheesecake. Garnish with peanut butter cups. Refrigerate overnight. Remove sides of pan. Yield: 12-14 servings

Please excuse any spelling errors I may have made here--I was typing in a hurry, trying to get this posted before Sam wakes up! :)

Why I love living in a place with four seasons . . .

Sometimes you get to enjoy beautiful scenes like this!