Dane County Fair

Monday already. So glad I don't have school on Monday's anymore- well at least for another 3 weeks before I start up again. Did everyone have a good weekend? Yesterday was a pretty lazy day around here. Made 4 jars of Bread & Butter Pickles and wrapped a bunch of presents, that's about it.

A couple of weeks ago was the Dane County Fair. We've gone on Sunday the last couple of years but not always with the same people. This year we went with the Moore family and with Scott's parents. I got some sugar covered nuts (yum), the Moore's purchased some tastey chips, and Jim & Pat bought some yummy wine slush stuff. And of course Connor had to go win his "fishy" friend! We only ever stay a couple of hours but it's always a lot of fun. I really wanted to take one of the cute bunnies that I saw home! The animals were probably the kids favorite part.

The Girl With The Dragoon Tattoo

Purchased some fun stuff for the garden today, yay! Can't wait to get it all planted. Should probably be able to do it this Thursday because Scott & I have off work to celebrate our anniversary. Can't believe it has already been 4 years since we've gotten married, time sure flies by!

So Easter weekend I made my first "purchase" at the local RedBox - I say purchase I actually goggled a coupon code and received the movie free. I really wanted to go see The Girl With The Dragoon Tattoo in theaters because I had just finished reading the book around the time that the movie came out - I just never got around to it though. Although the movie didn't follow the book exactly (what one does?) I really enjoyed it. Scott really didn't know what to expect with the movie (never read the book) but he really enjoyed it too. He enjoyed it enough that he is now on the wait list to get the book on CD version of it so he can compare. Now I'm going to start reading the second book and can't wait until the second movie is made!

Disney

Got some Rhubarb today from a co-worker, can't wait to make some Strawberry Rhubarb Jam! Will start it tomorrow morning so I can can it tomorrow. Last year I only got 2 - 16oz jars of this, I'm making them 8oz jars this year so I'll probably end up with only 4 (unless I get another batch of rhubarb later). This tasted so good and the kids liked it too so I'll probably end up using a bunch of it next fall for Connor's school lunches.

It's been 3 weeks since we were in Disney - we were down there Sunday-Thursday. Sunday night we went to Downtown Disney, Monday was spent at Animal Kingdom, Tuesday at Magic Kingdom and Wednesday at Hollywood Studios (formally MGM). We had a blast every day and it was a lot of fun and I'm so glad that John & Carol took us - however I should have listened to them and just taken Connor out of school for a week instead of going during Spring Break, it was just too busy to really enjoy all that Disney has to offer. I'm glad we went though and I can't wait till we get to go again - just not during the week before Easter. Oh, and FYI - sports star sighting - Gregg Jennings from the Green Bay Packers was at Magic Kingdom the same day we were!

Barbaque Jack Chicken

So Miss. Savannah decided she didn't want to take a nap this morning so hopefully that will mean she'll take a good nap for grandma this afternoon........otherwise we're going to have a very crabby baby on our hands! Oops, I mean toddler! She's not a baby anymore!

So last week I turned to our Taste of Home Cookbook again and turned to page 63 - Barbecue Jack Chicken. Chicken Breasts, Pepper Jack Cheese, and BBQ Sauce. How easy can a recipe be? I followed the recipe in the book exactly and used THIS BBQ Sauce as the topper. Overall it was a very easy and yummy recipe however we had to cook it for a lot longer than is stated in the book.... probably because we used whole chicken breasts instead of half chicken breasts and Scott didn't know what broil meant (lol, we've never actually had to broil something, but I at least knew what it meant - so it had already been in a couple of minutes before I got home and fixed it.). I would probably make this recipe again, maybe try a few different types of BBQ sauce since the flavor of BBQ sauce can be dramatically different.

Pizza Sauce

Can you believe tomorrow is February already? And guess what? We already have our taxes done and they will be mailed out today, so excited! Going to be paying off the CC, put a chunk of change in savings for Germany (hopefully going there June 2013), and now we're looking into replacing our flooring on most of the main level in our house, yay!

So on the 22nd, Jessica came over and we made pizza sauce! We had 15 pounds of tomatoes left in the freezer, and with removing those I was finally able to unplug the fridge in the garage which will hopefully save us some money! So after thawing, removing skins, removing as many seeds as possible and blending all the tomatoes we added 2 packs of Mrs. Wages pizza sauce (and all the ingredients it asks for), garlic powder & some oregano. We ended up getting 12 - 8 oz jars from the batch, so we each got 6! We actually just used our first jar last night and made a pizza, and it was AMAZING! That brings me down to 5 left. If anyone is interested in purchasing one through AJsCanning, let me know and I can get it posted on the etsy site, otherwise I'll just eat it all myself, yumm!

Happy New Year

Did I mention I went to Urgent Care last week because of my toe? I hurt it pretty bad on the stairs, they took some xray's, and sent me home saying everything looked fine. Well, guess what? I got a letter in the mail yesterday saying when the radiologist looked over it there was a slight fracture on the outside of the toe........ no wonder it still hurts so flippin bad! Oh well, nothing they could do about it.

So 2011 has come and gone and we are now sitting a few days into 2012. What did you do for New Years Eve? We made some great food (Mozzarella Sticks, Coconut Shrimp, Cheesy Salsa Bread - this was a recipe we found on the back of the Beer Bread Value Pack, Garlic Garlic Dip, and ate some homemade Salsa), watched Pirates of the Caribbean, and then watched the ball drop (actually we watched it twice). So it was a pretty quiet but fun night for us. Except Savannah, we all made it until midnight (thanks to a long late nap from 2-5). Who all made New Years Resolutions? I did, and I actually wrote them down this year. They include:

1. Lose 14 pounds (BY: Exercising at least 4 times a week, eating a salad at least 3 times a week, and cutting out all products with MSG)

2. Yell Less (I get carried away sometimes and tend to yell a lot - mostly at Scott)

3. Clean the house more - this ties in with #2 because a lot of the time I yell because I'm stressed out about our house looking so bad, so I figured if I just spend a little more time every day cleaning the house I'll be less stressed.

4. Continue being a genius at school - Graduation ETA is May 2013, and if I continue getting all A's in my classes and re-take a Psychology class I took back in Fall of 2004 and get at least a B on it, I'll graduate with Honors!

Somewhat achievable goals, right? The whole point of resolutions is to make the New Year an even better year than before by bettering yourself. Hopefully I can accomplish most if not all of these!

Miss. Savannah's TuTu's

Ran to MATC this morning to return my rental book, sell a few other books and purchase one of Scott's book's he needs for next semester. I actually left with $21, I think that's a first! But it's probably because I sold 3 books and only purchased 1 book, lol. The 3 books I needed and the 1 other one Scott needed I purchased off of amazon and saved almost $100! I also couldn't sell my Marketing Principles book back because of water damage, BUT every page is still there and you can get to every page, so if you know someone who could use it let me know and I'll sell it for pretty cheap, otherwise I'll list it on Craig's List.

So over the past several day's I've decided to make and start selling TuTu's. Why? Because I like being creative and I love TuTu's! I've already opened my Etsy Shop and started a FB page for it. So now I have 2 shops, lol, I know, but I can't help myself. I need something to do that satisfies my inner creativity. I love canning with Jessica, so we will continue AJsCanning (FB & Etsy) but that requires a lot more work and preparation than TuTu's. There probably wont be any TuTu's for sale until the beginning of 2012, I'm in the process of getting some Valentines Day TuTu's together, but when you decide to make a purchase use code: BLOGGER10OFF to receive 10% off your purchase (This is good for Miss. Savannah's TuTu's & AJs Canning). I'm also thinking about running a contest for Free Product once I've reached a certain amount of fans on FB. I'll let you know what I decide, but in the meantime go LIKE both shops!

Pumpkin Butter

A pretty relaxing day around the house. Scott & the kids went over to the Moore's for the football game while I stayed home and made some zucchini bread, took a bath and read my current book. The weekend is almost over but thankfully this is a short work week, only 3 days. Scott has all week off, lucky! And hopefully he'll be getting some last minute things outside done and also get new brakes on his truck.

So last week Jessica & I opened up our Etsy shop - AJsCanning - and going with a suggestion from our friend Carolyn I decided to look into Pumpkin Butter. I had a few pumpkins still sitting around that I needed to do something with so this seemed like the perfect thing! I got the recipe from PickYourOwn.Org like I get a lot of my recipes from. Instead of letting it cook for only about 8 hours, I cooked mine for about 24 hours but that was the only difference I made. I made a total of 12-4oz jars and 8-16oz jars. All 12 of the 4oz jars are now on our Etsy site waiting for you to purchase it. My house now smells like Thanksgiving and Pumpkin Pie!

Lace Leggings

So yesterday was the first time in over 2 weeks I didn't make a post. Yesterday was a very busy day! I added some more items to AJsCanning (so check it out!) and also I had dinner at the in-laws, went to the grocery store, had a Marketing assignment due last night and then I stayed up late to watch the 2 hour Private Practice.

So awhile back there was a contest to win a pair of free Lace Leggings. It required my lovely family & friends to "LIKE" Lace Leggings and mention that I sent them there, with a minimum of 5 referrals. Well I believe I must have been the only person who saw the contest post because I am the only one who had any referrals and I had more than 5, so I got a free pair! Today is the first time I've put them on Savannah, they are a little big because I got the toddler size (18month-3T I believe) so she can wear them as long as possible. They are super cute! Thank you all who helped me out to receive these super cute leggings. I may have to buy a few more pairs in the different colors. If you are interested you can contact Lake Leggings on Facebook.

AJs Canning

Savannah is sleeping and Scott & Connor are watching wrestling. I still need to do some Marketing homework tonight but am just playing around on the computer instead. There are so many interesting things you can find online and I really enjoy exploring the internet. To bad I can't get paid for playing online! (If you think of a way I can, please let me know! lol)

So Jessica & I have started talking about the possibility of selling some of our caned goods online, so today I decided to set up an Etsy Shop called AJsCanning (Amber, Jessica, get it? I know, not very creative, lol, but whatever!). It's a work in progress and things will be updated as much as I have time to do so. Also I have to decide how much and of what we want to sell, for now I just put up 1 jar of our wonderful Apple Butter. Is there anything specific you would like to see for sale? If so, I'll take it into consideration and try to get it added as quickly as possible. And if you decide to make a purchase since you're a wonderful viewer of my blog type the coupon code Blogger10OFF and get 10% off your purchase!