Sunday, July 24, 2011



Super cute right?!

Here's how this cute little scene is made!

The trees are sugar cones.
The fire ring is the leftover part of a cut sugar cone.
Use chinese noodles for the firewood and leftover rolled starbursts to cut flames. 
The sand is just a mix of crushed vanilla wafers and famous chocolate wafers.
The log is just 2 marshmallows drizzled with chocolate frosting. 
And the plate to lead you to your campsite...just a pretzel "glued" with frosting to a vanilla melting wafer. 
The fishing poles are wheat sticks with left over flattened starbursts.
The water is decorating gel tinted blue. 
Found a box of bunny crackers to add to the scenery and goldfish for the water.
Use 6 large cupcakes and 11 regular size cupcakes.


I would recommend using vanilla cake mix (or chocolate) and vanilla icing, bought from the store. Like I posted before, semi-homemade is easier, faster, and yummy!

Hot Cool Treat for Summer

Grilled pineapple with ice cream on top!!!! 
Can you say YUM!?


The glaze consists of brown sugar, spiced rum, butter, and vanilla
It gets brushed onto the pineapple slices, which are grilled until browned with some light charring. 
(Sam's change: If you don't like the charred taste, which I don't, then you can use a George Foreman Grill, to get the same results!)
The pineapple was finished with vanilla ice cream and toasted coconut.
The other change that I would recommend is that you could make an ice cream pineapple split using this recipe. Add some chocolate and strawberry ice cream, and cherries. Also, don't forget the nuts, which could be mixed in a variation of the pineapple coating to give the split a cohesive taste.
Hope you enjoy!!!


I found this recipe here


Tuesday, July 19, 2011

Love is battle. Love is War. Love is growing up. ~James Baldwin

I think that a lot of people lose sight of the fact that the marriage is more important then the wedding, and personally, I don't want to be one of those people. So in honor of keeping your spouse before your wedding I am posting quotes from the book 1001 Things Happy Couples Know About Marriage (Like, Love, Romance, & Morning Breath). And I will be posting some of my favorite questions that J.D. and I went through and answered in the book 356 Questions For Couples

Think about it, if love is war, and most people say that it is, then the better you know the person that is fighting along side you, then the better off you will be. And I think that knowing your partner does not mean that you are better equipped to demolish them in a fight. I think it means that you know have the knowledge to stop a fight, to say that I love you more and care about you more, then I care about this fight. Will that thinking work all of the time? Don't be naive, of course not, but it will be useful and help you feel closer. And how fun is it to learn new things about the person that you are with? The best!

"You need to know you're promising 'till death do you part.' Not 'till the good times end.'"

"You need to know you're choosing the person you'll spend the rest of your life with. And still make passes at when you're both on walkers."

Question:
What is anything, do you feel you need to sacrifice of compromise by being a part of our relationship?

-Trust me when I say that you need to know the honest answer to this question. IF, and that is IF, you or your partner feels that they are sacrificing or compromising to be with you, then you need to share and you need to know. This is how resentment starts, and it is ugly and the destructive.

Question:
Would you be willing to adopt children if you or I were unable to have children or our own? Would you adopt even if we could have children? Would you prefer surrogate motherhood or fatherhood to adopt?

-I feel that this is an important question that does not have a right or wrong answer. What it boils down to, is that this is one of those big things, that having differing opinions could be volatile. And it is important to know what your partner is and is not willing to compromise on.

"You need to know to try and look good at home. Don't just put on stretch shorts and a Grateful Dead T-shirt and assume you look fetching"

-I love that quote because so many people have problems keeping the illusive spark alive in their relationship. Take pride in how you look. I don't look nice all the time, there are days when we sit around in a big heap on the couch, being lazy, greasy, and content. Some times those days are necessary, but when that becomes your routine, then there is a problem. Don't be complacent. This is a lesson that we are still ironing out.

"You need to know how to express heated emotions without cursing, yelling, make accusations, o throwing things. Even though they are all effective when you were a teenager."

-This is very important because when you yell and curse and hurt the person that you are with then you have dented them. Each relationship starts out new and fresh. Every fight leaves a mark, you can buffer it out, and rework the metal but the mark is still there. Big hurtful things leave big awful dents, and are hard to fix. Would it be easy to fix a car if the bumper had been totaled in an accident? Rework each piece, piece by piece? No it wouldn't and things would never be the same, so be careful and loving. If you wouldn't talk to a stranger on the street that way, then why are you talking to someone that you love that way?

That is all for now, maybe I will try to post something like this every week or two? What do you think?

Wednesday, July 13, 2011

How Well Do You Know Tradition?

Soooo I am not crazy, and most times if you have to disclaimer that, then, well, maybe you are? But I swear I am not. I was never one of those little girls that planned out my perfect wedding when I was a kid. I played with Barbie dolls, I played in the mud, and I had a great imagination, but planning some future fairy tale wedding was not something I dreamed of.

Now that I am at a point were I will be getting a ring soon and have discussed getting married, I kept asking myself, what do I really know about weddings? And honestly, I don't know much. So I did what any half normal, half crazy, very nervous girl would do, I went out and bought some books. One of the books that I purchased was Anti-Bride: Etiquette Guide - The Rules - And How To Bend Them. It is an awesome book! And it is by no means anti-bride or anti-wedding, it is just all about helping people understand that they can have a wedding however they want to.

I am a big believer in tradition, but I don't know if all of the traditions with weddings are really for me. For instance, who pays for what:

Bride's Family

  • Invitations, announcements, and other wedding stationery
  • Wedding consultant
  • Location rental for both ceremony and reception
  • Food and Drink
  • Musicians
  • Flower arrangements (not including bouquets for bride and bridesmaids, corsages for mothers, and boutonnieres for groomsmen)
  • Wedding photography
  • Groom's ring
  • Gifts for attendants, parents, and groom
  • Bridesmaid's luncheon
  • Attire for bride and parents
  • Travel to the wedding city and lodging for bride's wedding party and close family


Groom's Family

  • Bride's ring
  • Marriage license and other legal documents
  • Gifts for attendants, parents, and bride
  • Officiant's fee
  • Bridal bouquet, boutonnieres for best man and groomsmen
  • Attire for parents and groom
  • Travel to the wedding city and lodging for groom's wedding party and close family
  • Rehearsal dinner
  • Honeymoon
  • Groom's family photo album

Seriously though, I know that neither my parents, nor J.D.'s parents, have the money to pay for ALL of that, and I know that we also don't have that kind of money. So I have to be thrifty and efficient with the way that I decide to spend our money, and yes I did word that correctly. J.D. is not an uninvolved man by any means, and he openly shares his opinions about what he likes/dislikes, but because he is a rockstar, and he knows that a wedding will be more important to me then it will be for him, he gives me the final veto and say so. He is sweet and I love it! And don't worry I know that it would be his wedding too. I have know idea what we are going to do yet.