Devilishly Easy

Easy recipe for the day: Devil Pumpkin Cake Cookies (yeah, I made up that name... like it!)

Seriously, this is so easy! 

Ingredients

1 (15oz) can pumpkin puree

1 box Devil's Food Cake mix

Directions

Mix together the pumpkin and cake mix until moistened. 

Drop spoonfuls onto a greased cookie sheet and bake for 7-8 minutes at 350° F.

And that's it! They make the softest, fluffiest cake cookies you've ever had. The only thing that would make them better? A handful of chocolate chips... but, hey, I like my chocolate! Oh, and milk! Drink a glass of milk with them!

Also for today, I tried a new hair-do on Aurora. She wasn't quite as cooperative as the other day so it's not perfect, but she's still perfectly cute! Please don't judge the dried snot or the chocolate remains on her face... you can only wipe a nose so many times and what can I say? She liked the cookies!

Oh, and while Cedar thought it was Winter today with their 11+ inches of snow, St. George thought it'd better stick with Spring rain showers mixed with sunshine. I love St. George!

Recharged

We had the opportunity to visit both of our families in Cedar City on Tuesday and Wednesday, and while it didn't go quite as planned, it was SO AWESOME to see our families! We've been missing those people!

Poor Aurora has been growing four new teeth in on the top so she's been absolutely miserable for the past week; extremely stuffed up, ear infections, sick belly, the works. She has a sore throat from coughing and hasn't wanted to eat or drink anything. Plus, she threw up in the car when we got to Cedar and kept us up ALL NIGHT on Tuesday night... so we also took a trip to her old pediatrician there to make sure she was alright. Thankfully, she is just stuffy which is the cause of all our her troubles, so they did a deep suction on her nose and she was SO much better for the rest of Wednesday. She even slept all night for us on Wednesday night! Hallelujah! 

Despite those few things, we had such a great time! 

We got to meet our cute new nephew, Lucas, and he is so wonderful! When we took pictures of the cousins together, Aurora absolutely loved being able to snuggle with her arm around Grace and her other hand holding Lucas' hand. 

This is such a fun time in life with our siblings and us having kids around the same age. It's crazy to see how much our families have grown over the years AND how the children (us) are becoming parents and the parents are becoming grandparents! Life is sure moving along and we're just doing our best to keep up! 

We realized we now have a niece and a nephew on each side of the family. We are loving it! 

Over the time we were there, we were able to:

•Have Dan help his dad, Steve, deliver packages for his courier job while I spent time with my sisters and my parents

•Try out a new recipe (Ranch Pork chops) with Dan's family

•Hang out with Dan's brothers and visit with his dad, Shon

•Have Dan help Jeremy give his dad, Steve, a priesthood blessing for comfort and health

•Take turns trying different methods of comforting Aurora as she screamed the entire night... finally resulting in me taking her on a drive at 6:00am so we could get some peace... bright side? I saw the beautiful sunrise

•Eat breakfast at Denny's with Dan's brothers, Caleb and Ryan (Caleb missed school because he had to catch up on sleep from the Aurora all night crying thing)

•Go to that lovely doctor's visit for Aurora

•FINALLY TAKE A NAP (only 1 hour but, hey, I'll take what I can get!)

•Eat dinner with Dan's family at The Pizza Factory and Kaela even came with the kids so Aurora got to see more cousins! We miss living by them!

•Play games and chat with my family... we played Quelf Antics and laughed our butts off at my mom's interpretive dancing skills, Becca's humming skills, Steph's song writing abilities, Erin's artistic renderings, Dan's miming expertise, and me trying to play Jingle Bells using my mouth as a kazoo! haha If you are now curious about the game, go play it!

•Get pushed around in a toy baby stroller... oh wait, that was just Aurora!

•Get a much needed early bedtime and a full night of interrupted sleep at my parents' house

We got home this morning just in time for me to shower before Abi got there for me to babysit! And let me tell you, that mini-vacay must have been just what we needed to recharge our batteries, because today went great!

Dan got a nap, 

I played with the girls and picked up my friend's foster daughter from school,

I tried a new hairstyle on Aurora and she actually sat still long enough for me to do it (!),

Abi got picked up and we took the other ladies with us to Smith's to go food shopping, 

We got all the food on my list plus a bit more for THE EXACT amount of money we had planned (Boom, baby!),

We had dinner from Arctic Circle since we were starving (Yes, we're those people that spend money on food shopping only to become hungry faster than we can cook it and eat out...),

We got to chat with our friend, Kara,

I cleaned out the fridge AND the pantry (Go me!),

I made dinner to send with Dan to work (Cheesy Chicken & Broccoli Casserole),

Aurora actually ate and drank stuff today (It's the little things!),

Aurora went to bed on time... peacefully,

Dan got off to work on time,

and I'm blogging!

Next goal? Get Liz to sleep before midnight!

I Like Yo Bangs, Gurrrl

Uhm... sooooo after having bangs now for a total of approx. 12 days... I kind of hate them. They are seriously a pain. Especially when swimming. Hence, the ridiculous photos of me at my swimming pool haha BUT just try to overlook that small fact and check out the cute peoples I took swimming with me! This was my first time using the pool at our condo and it was so much fun and such a beautiful day. 

AND after swimming, I made a yummy dinner of what I like to call "Cheesy Rice Casserole" and when Dan got home from working (aka playing in the dirt/landscaping haha), we ate it and then he played Grand Theft Auto on the PlayStation while I played Bejeweled on his Kindlefire. I finished out the night by falling asleep on the couch when we tried to watch The Fast and The Furious: Tokyo Drift. It was grand ♥

Cheesy Rice Casserole

3 cups Minute Rice + 3 cups water

1 can cream of chicken soup

1/2 can 2% milk

2 or 3 stalks of celery, finely chopped

1 can white chunk chicken

2 cups shredded cheddar cheese

Season Salt

Dried Minced Onion

Salt

Pepper

1/2 cup crushed sour cream & onion chips

1. Make rice according to directions then put in a mixing bowl to combine with other ingredients

2. Mix cream of chicken soup with milk until smooth and add to rice

3. Add in celery, chicken, and cheese and fold into rice mixture until combined

4. Add seasonings (to taste) and mix in

5. Put in a 8x8 glass baking dish and cover with crushed chips

6. Bake in oven for 10 min on 375° F

7. Enjoy!

In other news, I finally saw The Lord of The Rings for the first time on Sunday and it was pretty good. Lucky for me, Dan's parents own all of them so all I've got left to watch is the third one haha

Several Things

Several things happened last night. Some were yummy, some were painful, some were beyond awesome, and some were just...fun haha
1. Let us begin with "yummy": My mother-in-law's bf, Mark, made steaks for the fam last night and I had to work so what happened? Dan brought me some for dinner! Mmmm!
2. "Painful": After Dan brought me dinner, we were closing up. Each night we have to take the drink heads off the soda machines and wash them in soda nozzle cleaner mixed with water in a 5 gal. bucket... So, I was in the back getting the bucket of water to clean them and I started heading back up front to get cleaning with the bucket in my arms. Little did I know, there was a small puddle of water on the floor. I stepped right in that puddle and then both of my feet came out from under me... I tried to catch myself on the wall and proceeded to punch the wall instead and wack my elbow on the floor as I fell, dumping the entire bucket of water all over myself and the floor. I was soaked.  Let's just say, my butt and elbow hurt something good today haha
3. "Beyond awesome": Becca got her wisdom teeth out yesterday (poor girl haha) so Dan and I brought her some sherbet ice cream when I got off work at 11pm. We were debating whether to go that late or just go tomorrow but boy am I glad we went when we did! When we pulled in the driveway there was a new car parked in front of us and we couldn't figure out who it was... until someone started peeking out the front window of the house to see who was there. It was my cousins, Melissa, Nick, and Alex and my Aunt Lisa!! They had just driven down spur of the moment from Spanish Fork to test out the new ride! Ahhh! I only saw them for a moment but it totally made my night! (Love you Henrie's!! So glad we saw you guys!)

4. And now for the "just...fun": After we hit up my family's house, we went to Dan's mom's house to drop off Christina and have Cody cut Dan's hair. Chrissy spilled the beans in the car that they were planning to put designs in Dan's hair and I was totally against it! I was picturing random bald spot designs and I was NOT up for that haha but they did it anyway and it actually doesn't look bad! It's kinda fun. Cody cut Dan's hair and then cut a star shape into it. Not even any giant bald spots! haha What do ya think?

Popcorn

Saturday was my first day of work at the movie theater.
I worked at Stadium 8 and I loved it!
Even though the floor got so slippery from popcorn oil that I almost fell and I got kamakazee'd by a burning hot popcorn kernel to the neck and I dumped half of a 5-gal. bucket of ice all over the soda machine, I felt like the day went well overall. haha
I loved all the people I got to work with during my shift and I got to hang out with my sister, Becca, at staff meeting. That's right, we're co-workers... it's pretty boss.
So I'm excited to do it all again tonight!

Also, I curled my hair today. I'm feeling very "Samantha Who?-ish". haha

P.S. Dan and I were so tired yesterday that we skipped church and took up residence on our couches all day long. We watched 16 episodes of Vampire Diaries in a row... Please don't judge us. We're only slightly addicted to that show... slightly...

Smelly.

It's raining outside today and it smells so pretty and springy!
Nature, you can bring me all the rain you want! Just NO snow. Thanks.
I really do love rain. I can't pinpoint for you why it is so awesome, but it is just so refreshing.
Dan is outside doing some landscaping in it... and I'm at work.

Speaking of work...
I got that job at the movie theater! That's right.
Boo-ya! I was SO un-necessarily nervous about my interview, it wasn't even funny. HA.
Seriously though.
That was my very first interview and I must say, I aced it. (Bragging moment)
I think that what really brought it home for them was that I said my favorite movies included The Emperor's New Groove and Despicable Me.
Hil. Ar. I. Ous.
And they agreed. haha

Also, I bought some new shampoo and conditioner, some mousse, a new comb (so I can fluff up the volume), and some volumizing powder today and I feel like a new woman!
I can finally start doing my hair like the hair salon did it and I'm loving my hair cut even more.
If you're looking for some volume in your hair, you really ought to try got2b Powder'ful.

They introduced me to this stuff at the hair salon and I'm diggin' it.
Cheap, so easy to use, and it doesn't make your hair feel all nast' like hairspray does.
Also, it smells nice and, apparently, I'm all about the good smells today.