Success!

For some reason, I always procrastinate with ordering Christmas cards. In the past, it slips my mind until the week before Christmas so I frantically head to Walmart to print a picture. This year, I decided I was going to be ahead of the game, and I just ordered my Christmas picture/card on Shutterfly. I feel so accomplished...it's the simple things in life.

Instead of trying to get a good picture with Truman this year, we just decided to put several pictures on the card. So much easier! Below are some of our attempts from last year. Truman loved it!

These are some of the pictures we did NOT choose.

This is one of my favorites!

Truman doesn't like to be held down...obviously.

Our final choice, even though Truman had sad ears.

Family fun time

Erica's parents

My mom and I

We had a special treat this weekend, because my parents came to Norman to visit. We actually had our 2nd annual joint family football/Using weekend. Wow, that's a long title. We started this "tradition" last year when both Kev's family and my family came to our house for a cookout, then the guys went to a football game and the girls went to USing. It was such a hit last year, we decided to do it again this year.

Kev and his dad

The moms

Seth and Lisa

Kev's amazing one arm shot...it's a gift.

The guys at the game.

The only major stressor of the weekend was...you guessed it...Truman. We had high hopes because he has been more behaved recently with guests, however this was not a weekend he decided to be on his best behavior. It all started when my parents walked in the door and he literally went crazy...jumping on them, licking, biting...it was total chaos. I like to think it was Molly's fault (my parents' chihuahua), but she honestly did nothing wrong but walk in the door. I'm not sure what came over Truman. Whatever it was, it was definitely not good.

Don't let this innocent face fool you!

I was nervously anticipating when everyone was here on Saturday, including our 2 year-old nephew. Truman actually behaved better than I was anticipating but did something totally unexpected. When everyone was gone to the game/USing, we just let Molly run around and she peed in our living room. The girls made it back before the guys, and as we were chatting at the kitchen table, I watched in horror as Truman hiked his leg toward the coffee table. I think I was truly stunned for a moment, unable to say anything, because I thought surely, surely he did not just pee in our house. He hasn't peed in the house since he was a puppy! I mean, seriously, he just learned to hike his leg and pee like this past month (we thought maybe it had something to do with getting him fixed). So I run over to punish him, and to my added horror, I realize not only has he peed in our living room, but he peed on Kevin's mom's purse!! What are the chances?! Of all the places in all the living room, he chose her purse. Thankfully we were all able to laugh about it, but we are definitely watching him like a hawk now! Life with Truman is never boring!

Fall work

As I posted in my last blog, I love fall. But today, I was reminded of one aspect of fall I don't like as well...all the leaves on the ground. Kev and I decided to tackle the big chore of raking and bagging the leaves in our backyard. One word...exhausting. We live in an older neighborhood so we love the big trees in our backyard, but it is incredible how many leaves they make. We tried to pretend like we were doing a roadblock on the Amazing Race (love the show), but that lost its glamor after awhile. Truman tried to do his part by eating all of the sticks out of our leave piles, but it still took forever.

So you'll be happy to know we pushed through and bagged all our leave piles. Except there are two very defeating things about raking leaves: 1) you can't get all the leaves so it doesn't look like you've accomplished that much, 2) one of our trees still has lots of leaves on it. Oh anticipation of more raking and bagging. Fun times!

Beautiful Fall!

Kev and I love the fall! What a great time of year...the weather is perfect, the leaves are changing, holidays are right around the corner. What's not to like? Recently, we have been taking advantage of the beautiful weather by reading outside on our deck. As you might imagine, Truman is thrilled to have company outside. He is so excited, that as soon as we get outside, he begins eating all of the acorns off our deck. I never see him eating acorns unless we are outside with him, and no matter how much we tell him no, he continues to eat them.

So not only is it extremely annoying to hear him noisily eating the acorns, but being the concerned owner that I am, it has made me very nervous. I'm afraid he will get a bowel obstruction because he has eaten so much junk and then will need surgery or something crazy like that. He is truly a crazy dog (after this post you might be thinking I am crazy as well).

Eating a large stick (in addition to acorns).

Finally settled down for a little sun-basking.

Mums on campus.

Did I mention I love the fall?

Cooking--Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Muffins

I've been completely fascinated by cooking blogs recently, one of those being the pioneer woman. If you haven't checked out her blog, you probably should...it's pretty amazing (thepioneerwoman.com). She actually was in OKC last week because she just released a new cookbook, and I went to her book signing. Before you think that is cool, we didn't actually ever make it to the front of the line because the line was sooo long! After we stood in line for a full hour, we realized we didn't really care enough to get her signature because we were starving. Who would have thought you could get so famous by having a blog?

So the issue I have with all of these cooking blogs I've found is although the food looks absolutely amazing, it is terrible for you! It might be my fatal flaw but I have a hard time even wanting to make something with a cup of butter, much less eat it. I've decided that some people can make these decadent desserts because they have self control. My idea of self control is not having decadent desserts in the house.

So for people in the same boat as me, I thought I might occasionally post good recipes I've tried. I look for 3 things in recipes:

1) simplicity

2) healthy (at least somewhat)

3) ingredients I can get at 1 store (I mean seriously, who has time to go to multiple locations? I'm thankful to make it to one place once a week.)

For my first recipe to post, I tried these Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Muffins this last week. I definitely did not come up with the recipe, and my sweet friend Amy actually reminded me of it. They are unbelievably easy and a great fall snack. Hope you enjoy!

Cake mix (either white or yellow, I used yellow)

1 can Libby's pumpkin

1 egg

Miniature chocolate chips (I used semisweet, as much or as little as you like)

Mix all ingredients together. I cooked them in a mini muffin tin, coated with nonstick spray. Just cook according to the cake directions and serve. They are a great size to just pop in your mouth. As a variation, you can substitute a spice cake mix and cook in a bundt pan.

October events

So, I've been meaning to post for awhile. I don't know how people do these daily or every other day posts. Our life is definitely not exciting enough! One exciting thing we've done is we went to the U2/Black Eyed Peas concert at the OU stadium a week ago. We're actually not really U2 fans, but big bands don't usually come to Norman so we figured we should take advantage of the opportunity. We downloaded their new CD and their greatest hits CD, which of course made the concert much more enjoyable because we could actually sing the songs. I've been listening to them ever since! It was so much fun! I've also had a very difficult time getting the Boom Boom Pow song out of my head and I only know one line...so annoying.

We also got to spend some QT with our nephew. He actually just had his second birthday, and he is so darn cute. He is going to be Wubbzy (don't kid yourself, I definitely had to look up how to spell that) for Halloween. If you don't have children like us, you may be thinking, "Who the heck is Wubbzy?" I know I thought it. Webbzy was definitely not in existence in my day. He kind of reminds me of Sponge Bob. Anyway, my mother-in-law made his costume and he loved it! He was like a little Sumo wrestler running in to people and falling on his chest because he had the extra padding.

He's so happy in his costume!

He loves his "Kevie."

I loved his tail! It is a hanger that she covered...so creative!

Lastly, I wanted to include a new picture of Truman because he is so darn cute! Almost every morning when we come to let him out of his cage, we find him totally covered with his blankets, including his head. His nose is the only thing poking out. So cute, our little dog child!

Austin!

So after Kev and I had our miscarriage, we received some great advice from another couple who had gone through a similar circumstance to plan frequent getaways. We thought this was a fabulous idea. This summer we didn't have to plan much because we got to go to California with Kev's family then Alaska with my family. So for the month of October, we decided to make a trip to Austin, the enemy's territory. We were able to stay at a bed and breakfast in Travis Heights, the oldest neighborhood in Austin according to the B&B owners, which was down the street from the capitol. Saturday morning we went for an amazing run on their trail by the river...there were tons of people with their dogs, strollers, etc. I wish Norman had something like that...Truman would love it!

Austin was a very interesting city. We thought we would post photos of several things we found interesting.

We went into a store called Uncommon Objects, and Kev decided it should be our goal to find the MOST uncommon object and take a picture of it. We thought this small, old mannequin was pretty unusual. Don't lie, you know you want it for your home.

There were tons of these huge, yucca-like plants that we thought were totally fascinating. Kev wanted to pretend like it was attacking him.

An interestingly shaped sign.

On S. Congress, they had these odd mobile homes set up selling food. So we decided to try the one that sold cupcakes. Funny story...while we were waiting in line for our cupcakes (yes, there was a line), a girl cut in front of us to ask the cashier if they had Wi-Fi. Really? Do you really need to ask? Does it look like they would have Wi-Fi at this place?

Of course we had to visit the University of Texas. This was their stadium, but the whole campus was HUGE. We went on game day so we saw lots of burnt orange and white. Boo!

We had a great time and can't wait for our next getaway!!