The Cooking Fiasco

So I’m not sure when, but at some point in the last couple weeks I either saw what’s known as Puppy Chow or someone mentioned it, but I’ve been thinking about it!  I finally decided I would make it, and I went to the store and bought all the necessary ingredients, remembering I had powdered sugar at home.

Now if you’ve never made Puppy Chow, it’s a really simple recipe, that you can find here.  It probably takes about 10 minutes to make, and it’s worth it.  So yesterday, I started making this.  As I was melting the chocolate and peanut butter, I went to pour the powdered sugar into the ziploc bag to toss it all in during the final stages.  Only to my surprise, I didn’t have powdered sugar at all.   What I thought was powdered sugar was actually flour.  Well dang.  So now what should I do??  I decided it would be best for me to run to Publix and grab powdered sugar.

Now It’s 6pm and I’m supposed to meet my mom and Victoria at 6:45 – so I start rushing!  I get back from Publix, and I open the garage door.  To my surprise our sweet chocolate lab comes darting out at me… Apparently, in my hurry to head to Publix, I left the door into our garage slightly open.  As soon as she heard the garage door open she came running out to greet me.  So as I’m trying to pull the car into the garage, she is sprinting circles around my car.  I obviously don’t want to hit her,  and she was listening so well as I kept trying to get her to go in the house…  Finally I rolled down my window, and I made her sit next to my door.  I inched forward all while telling her to stay so I wouldn’t hit her.

6:20pm –  I have powdered sugar and I go to finish my recipe!  I get everything reheated, mixed together, the kitchen cleaned up,  and I walk out the door at 6:35pm!  Mission Accomplished!

As I’m driving,  I realize I completely forgot to add the butter and vanilla into the recipe.    I guess in my hurry I either got distracted or pregnancy brain got the best of me.  I would still say this turned out, because I don’t think you can really mess up peanut butter, chocolate, and powdered sugar… but next time, I will make sure my powdered sugar is actually powdered sugar, and that I add in all the ingredients!  Cooking is a lot more simple when you do it the right way…

Christmas 2014 Recap

When Paul and I got married, we decided it would be easiest to split holidays with our parents by alternating.  The first year of marriage, we spent Thanksgiving with his family, and Christmas with my family.  This year, we obviously switched.  We think this is the easiest way to separate out holidays, especially since my family lives 5 minutes away, and his lives 12 hours away.  For Christmas this year, his family came down to Florida to stay with us.  So the Monday before Christmas, his parents, brother and sister-in-law and their 2 kids packed up the cars and made the long trip from Virginia to Florida!

We had so much fun the whole week!  We were really busy and on the go for most of the week!  On Christmas Eve we headed out to the beach for a little while, before stopping at his Nana’s for lunch.  (Yes, in Florida, we can go to the beach on Christmas Eve.  It’s okay if you’re a little jealous)  Then after lunch, we headed to church for the Christmas Eve service.   When we got home, the first Christmas surprise was waiting for us…

Apparently, Laila was so excited for Christmas she couldn’t wait either… Fortunately, nothing was ruined except for some chocolate and candies which left her bouncing off the walls on Christmas Day.   While trying to figure out who’s present was what, we found a shaver.  This was the mystery present of 2014.  Kelly didn’t buy a shaver for Adam.  Mom didn’t buy one for Dad, and I didn’t buy one for Paul.  So who’s shaver was it?  It took us about 10 minutes to figure out that we were holding presents for Uncle Ronnie.  This is going to be a Christmas Eve that we talk about years down the road, still laughing at the chaos our sweet, “well behaved” chocolate lab caused.

Christmas morning, Paul and I woke up at the crack of dawn (really, like 5:40am) and headed over to my parents.  We’ve always done Christmas really early, and while I was still planning on having to wake everyone up, they were all waiting for us on the couch when we got there with coffee in hand relaxing and hanging out.  I suppose Paul and I should have known that there had to be at least 1 kid of my sister’s that would be awake.   We read the Christmas story and started opening presents, which nobody could do without the help of Kennedy saying, “Oh Auntie, I can help you open that…” and so on.  Little girl knows how to sweet talk.   Also, we are the corny family that decks out in onesies for Christmas.  It started as a joke one year, and now it’s a tradition.

Then we headed back to our house around 8:45 just in time for everyone at our house to be waking up.  Our nephew, Jackson was so excited about his presents and he could not contain his excitement.  Seeing how excited our nieces and nephews get on Christmas makes me so excited for our future Christmas’s with kids.

After Christmas, we headed to Sea World!  I don’t care how old you are, seeing wild animals is always cool.  The dolphin show is always our favorite, but the exhibits are so fun to see.  After a long day of walking though, theme parks take it out of you!

We even got a great family picture before the day ended!

It was a little chaotic with so many people in one house, but even with the chaos it was so fun having everyone in town.  Paul and I really loved being able to spend Christmas with everyone, and create new memories together.   It’s hard when we only get to see other a few times a year, so being able to spend a week together during the holidays was a great way to bring 2014 to a close!

Benadryl to the Rescue

I’ve posted previously about our chocolate lab, Laila, here.  Well, we didn’t make it very long before she was post worthy again.  We made it a little over a month with a healthy girl.  When Paul and I went to bed Sunday night she was happy and healthy.  When I woke up on Monday morning to this face, I’m sure you can imagine my surprise.

Check out the snout on that girl!! She looks like she might as well be a cartoon dog like Goofy or something! (sorry for how dark it was – but it was 6:30 in the morning). I immediately freak out, I do not do well when there may be something wrong with people/animals I love… God help me when Paul and I have actual children.  I woke Paul up and I started taking pictures and giving Laila Benadryl… AGAIN!  My friend’s brother is a vet, so I wanted to document everything so she could get some insight from him. Lo and behold – the vet says she is having an allergic reaction and it probably isn’t necessary to take her in unless it kept getting worse or she started puking, etc.  This made me feel better, but as Laila’s swelling went down, her hives came out.

This poor girl just can’t catch a break!

Luckily, the swelling in her snout has gone done.  Now we just have to wait out the hives!  We are pretty sure she got bit by something this time, and unless something seriously changes in her condition she won’t be making a vet visit this time.  Paul keeps joking that we are going to have to drop her off with his parents in Virginia next week until the Florida summer has passed and the bugs/plants are gone so she can safely return home… This is not happening.  She’s my protector when he’s gone!

So almost 1 month to the day – Laila has made her second blog appearance… and not for the best reasons!  Paul and I are hoping she will be back to normal by Thursday before we leave for Tampa on Friday!