What we've been up to

We've really not been doing anything super fun lately. Mainly working and filling out paperwork for our up coming adoption. The result will be amazing, but the paperwork can be daunting!
Waymond did fixed the back of our garage, but I'm guessing he didn't think it was too fun!! Here are a few pictures of the process.

















You can see that our neighbor's dog wanted to come over to help!

















He fixed our water erosion at the corner of our garage.



















This is a bonus picture of the tree in our front yard. I took the picture last weekend and the tree has already lost all of it blooms. We've had a bit of wind this week!

Super tasty curry in crock-pot

Here is a super tasty recipe for all our Curry lovers. It comes from allrecipes.com and it's so tasty. Even the left overs the next day were tasty. If you have a crock-pot you have to give this one a go! Slow Cooker Butter Chicken.
We of course made a few substitutions that I will share. First we used chicken breasts because we had them, I used three (fairly large ones), we also didn't have the tandoori masala so we put a bit more of the curry powder and the garam masala. We also added a sprinkle or two of ground cardamon along with adding the pods. Also I will add, that I wouldn't use Light Coconut Milk, but you could give it a go, but I'm guessing it wouldn't be quite as lush! I would also like to try adding another half an onion and mushrooms if your eaters will allow! Waymond isn't a big fan of mushrooms, but I think it would be great in this dish.
Next time I will double this recipe. The two of us plus a friend had it for dinner and then we both had it for lunch the next day and it was finished. I think both of us would have had it for another lunch if we had enough.

Strawberry Jam

I'm looking for an amazing strawberry jam recipe for summer canning. I'd like to get a tried and true recipe from someone instead of randomly picking one from the internet. Anyone have an old family favorite? I looked online today and found a few with high reviews but if someone is willing to share their secret family recipe with me I'll take the secret to the grave!

Cake Balls - its a real thing!

A couple of weeks ago I baked some cupcakes for a birthday for a co-worker. I used a cake recipe that is super tasty, however I guess it is just too moist (sorry Jeny) for cupcakes because they didn't rise at all. In fact some of the cupcakes sunk in a bit. A friend was over the evening I was baking them and she was giving me suggestions on what to do with them. I just hate serving something that looks so bad! They tasted good so I hated to just throw them away. So, I packed them up once they'd cooled and went to bed. The next day I remembered the website that a friend forwarded me with the cake balls on it (www.bakerella.com) and knew what I was going to do with my sunken cupcakes! When I got home from work I took all the papers off the cupcakes, made the icing and mixed them together, formed the balls and popped them into the refrigerator. I then went to our small group's dinner. When I got home I melted every piece of chocolate in our house (almost literally) and dipped the balls in. And, viola cake balls! I only used half of the icing recipe so I tinted the other half pink and topped them with a bit of pink frosting in honor of the birthday girl at work. Oh my these were super super tasty! Too bad Waymond was out of town when I made these and he didn't get to eat one until they were a bit old. I will be making these again and will never have to throw away cake ever again - Thank you bakerella!

So tasty

If you need a little extravagant treat, you really need to get you one of these:










Waymond got some in a gift basket and I snagged one. I've been eating on it for a couple days now and it is amazing! I break it out in the afternoon while I'm working away at my desk. It's dark chocolate, caramel popcorn and almonds! I wouldn't recommend eating the entire bar in one setting or looking at the nutritional info on the back! But so so so good!!

I'll post my latest baking adventure this week. Cake balls, check them out at http://www.bakerella.com/category/pops-bites/cake-balls/.

New addition

Added another blog to the blogs we visit section on the right. It's the blog for the Adoption Agency we are working with! We are starting down the road! Our application is in and the next round of paperwork is almost done! We'll keep everyone posted on the progress. We are not exactly sure how long the process is going to be, but we do know it will be more paperwork! We are ridiculously excited about this whole thing!

Have you tried...

We were at the Grocery Outlet this last week getting some cereal and I found some Coconut M&Ms. And they are TASTY!! I emailed the Mars Corp and told them they need to make Coconut Almond M&Ms. mmmmm!

A friend let us try some of her bacon chocolate, and believe it or not it was pretty tasty. I'm not exactly sure it's something I would eat all the time, but an occasional piece wouldn't be bad.

Newest addition

Here's the newest addition to our bathroom upstairs. They are ninja toothbrush cleaners. They have those lights that kill bacteria. Found them cheap at woot.com! They are super cute!

LOST

We're going to watch some LOST tonight with friends! I'm excited to finally get some resolution with this show! Hopefully the last season will be full of answers!

Goodwill

I went to the Goodwill Outlet on Saturday. I'm not sure exactly why the Goodwill has an Outlet or if they have them everywhere, but there's one in Tacoma. They sell most everything by the pound and the heavier the item the less you pay per pound. So I got an entire shopping cart of clothing items for $22.00! Seriously, my cart was full and I only went down two isles. I mostly bought stuff that I could make bags out of, but I also found a jacket and dress that I'm going to wear. And I found this awesome shirt that I hope one of my nephews can fit into. I bought two pairs of brand new jeans that I'm going to turn into skirts. The jeans are extremely large. So large that by cutting off the legs and opening them up, I'll be able to sew them together and it will fit around me. So, I'll have two new jean skirts. And the jeans still had the tags on them!

This is what I found: three vintage pillow cases, a striped full size flat sheet (great for the inside of bags), two pairs of huge jeans, a jacket, a dress (brand new - still had the tag), a shirt for one of my nephews, two kids shirts, a black velvet jumper (that will be amazing as a bag), two wool sweaters, two men's button up the front shirts (insides of bags), a batman sheet (for Stacy at work). I think that's it, but I could be missing something.

If you live in Tacoma, it's at S 27th & Yakima - right before you go over the new bridge over I5. Really you should check it out. But you do have to dig. Everything is in bins.

Zippers

So I took the plunge today and cut my sweatshirt right up the middle. Since the sweatshirt was orange it was difficult to find a zipper that matched so I went with white. Most of the American Apparel sweatshirts these days have white zippers.

I should have taken a before picture, but it just looked like an orange hoodie.

If you look closely you can tell the two sides of the pockets don't line up, but I'm not super disappointed for my first attempt!

I also worked on a new skirt today that I don't love. I'm not sure if it's the fit or the pattern. I'll give it a go and see. If and when I wear it I'll try to remember to take a picture.

Cookies

Last night Waymond had a meeting so I made chocolate chips cookies while he was out. As I was thinking what recipe I would use I thought, "Cooks Illustrated!" I had never tried a cookie recipe from Cooks Illustrated, but everything else I've ever tried has been amazing! I have an online subscription to cooksillustrated.com so I can access all of their recipes (which I would HIGHLY recommend). I found a chocolate chip cookie recipe that is super tasty. And, one of the crazy things is that you melt the butter, but the cookies don't turn out flat. Oh, they were good. I put oatmeal in half. If you're on cooksillustrated.com they are called Thick and Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookies.

The skirt

So here's me in the jean skirt I made. Not the best picture, but it was after work and I was ready to put some pajama pants on! You get the picture. The skirt is super comfy, but I wore tights and they are never comfy!!

Breakfast of Champions

Here's Waymond's breakfast of champions this Sunday morning!

I made a cake yesterday from a cookbook I checked out of the library, Organic and Chic. It has some great recipes in it. She makes a chocolate cake Twinkie. She developed the recipe one day when her son wanted to buy Twinkies at the grocery store and she thought she could make a tastier version.

So this morning as I was heating water for tea and Waymond said, "I think I'm going to have a piece of cake for breakfast." And, I said, "I thought you would."

It's nice to have a husband who loves food. I bake a cake from scratch and he's happy for days! :o) And, eats on it for days! He'll probably have coffee and cake for breakfast tomorrow too!

It's a good relationship, I love to bake, Waymond loves to eat what I bake! It's good!

Coffee Lovers

I'm more of a tea drinker these days. One of the reasons it's so good to have a husband who is addicted to and LOVES coffee is that when I have a hankering for a latte he's right there making me one (and himself an americano).

















The finished product. He's learned a lot over the years with my five years baristaing and all our friends who are/were baristas. His foam skills are amazing now. He's been practicing for years. I love some good thick foam on my lattes.


















This is Waymond's set up. We go to the Business Cost-co for syrup. It's so much cheaper!!