Better Late Than Never

Happy Thanksgiving :)

My mom and my grandma

Me and my grandma

From the top of Camelback Mountain

My uncle likes to steal the shot sometimes!

There aren't many photos, but it was a good time with family.

I hope you had a great holiday!

The Usual Sunday Madness

It's Sunday again!

I'm doing the usual Sunday festivities: studying and homework!

Here are some photos from this week:

Got my Christmas sweater for this year!

Whoops ;)

Pretty little peek of a sunset last night

Free Sprinkles Cupcakes for wearing ASU gear

to their Scottsdale store last night.

It was for the rivalry game against U of A which...

WE LOST :(

It was a very good game though. It went down to the very last play.

I also got a pumpkin cupcake with cinnamon

cream cheese frosting. It's got a turkey candy on top! So cute.

I almost died, it was so delicious!

Thanksgiving is this week! I am so very excited.

Not only for the feast, but for family time.

I love my family dearly and am so glad we are so close.

This year, we're planning a tacky Christmas sweater surprise.

I got my sweater (above) and on Thanksgiving all the cousins are hammering out the details.

We plan to bring them on Christmas and go change all at once then just come out in them.

I'm stoked! We're all about a year apart so we tend to get along very well.

It goes my brother Josh (22), cousin Mike (21), me (20),

cousin Sarah (19), cousin Chelsea (18), cousin Jessica (15)

who will be 16 on the day after Thanksgiving, cousin Connor (15),

and last but not least, cousin Sophia (11).

This is us last year (missing Sarah).

Mike, Connor, Jessica, Chelsea, Josh, me,

and Sophia in the front.

Looking at this picture, I realize we all look completely different now!

I'll try to get a photo this year to post later :)

Have a good Sunday!

Procrastination

So this is what I'm doing instead of writing my paper.

HELP ME

It's Wednesday!

Hello! How is your week going? Mine's going alright, thanks for asking ;) Today is my day off, thank goodness. I will be working on a research paper all day. Yippee!

I went to the store the other day and got some Greek yogurt and granola for a yummy and healthy breakfast. But I accidentally got plain yogurt instead of vanilla, so it's super tart and weird tasting. For breakfast today, I thought I'd try adding brown sugar and some cinnamon. It turned out delicious! I recommend trying it.

Greek yogurt with brown sugar and cinnamon with

oats and honey granola cereal

After breakfast I went outside and played with the dogs for a little bit.

(You'll have to excuse the dead grass!)

Koda's foot and tail

 Koda and Chloe :)

 Model pose!

Grrr

Her nails still have polish from when

I painted them forever ago!

And now, paper time! Have a good Wednesday!

PS In case you were ever wondering, YES Nutella and
peanut butter toast sandwiches are the best thing ever!

'Tis the Season...?

Could it be? Holiday season is upon us? For me, I think it is. I just got back from the store and couldn't help but get some winter essentials.

White hot chocolate with whipped cream and sprinkles

Cider scented candle

Peppermint M&Ms

And some silly little snowflake earrings

(PLEASE EXCUSE MY FEEBLE ATTEMPT AT HAVING COOL PHOTOS)

Jumping the holiday gun?

Maybe, but who cares!

Winter time is my favorite time of year!

What's yours? :)

Relaxing Sunday

Overall it's been a pretty good week! School was a little crazy for a few days, but I'm lucky and a couple of my teachers extended project due dates :) I was able to focus on school without being stressed about it (for once)! I could get used to this. Anyway, I've had a good weekend with true friends and I couldn't be happier :)

Just look at those faces!

Friday was Veterans Day and I proudly sported my American flag pin :)

And just because I feel like sharing how adorable we are ;)

This was taken October 1, 2011 at Austin's FMTB graduation.

I miss him so much lately and it's only been 5 weeks since he left for Japan.

Two years is going to go by so slow.

Enough complaining!

I'm so proud of him and excited that he gets the opportunities he does.

And I can't imagine my life without him.

Love you babe ♥

You can find me relaxing on a lazy Sunday watching some football and hoping for more rain!

Have a good Sunday!

A Piece of History

Tonight in my Children's Lit class, we had a special guest. Ninety-two year old Mas Inoshita is a World War 2 veteran. He was a part of the 442nd regiment, a group of Japanese-American soldiers who left Japanese internment camps to fight for the United States Army. They are one of the most decorated groups in US history. It was truly a memorable experience meeting and visiting with him. I feel very fortunate to have had this opportunity. Time to share with these heroes is dwindling down and I am so very lucky to have met him. Here is a photo of him with my class!

There's a First Time for Everything

Today marked a first. I'm not happy about this first but it had to happen sometime. I got my first bad haircut. I can't really call it that though, because it's not like my hair dresser did something wrong. I just thought I wanted it way short, but it turns out...I HATE it. Everyone's saying it looks fine and I shouldn't be worried but I just don't like it! I know it's silly, but I was so excited to get my hair looking like usual instead of super long and roots grown out like crazy. Then I have to go and overdo it! I guess it will just take some getting used to. But I can't lie, I can't wait until it grows out in about a month or so!!

Here's what I was aiming for.

And here's what I got.

I know it doesn't look like that much of a difference, but an inch or two is a lot when hair is as short as mine! Anywho, time to stop being a baby and enjoy a night out with people who don't care if I got a "bad" haircut! :)

Red Velvet Pancakes

This morning, I decided to be Betty Crocker and make red velvet pancakes! I found the recipe on Pinterest and went to the store to get the necessary ingredients and get started!

Ingredients

2 cups all-purpose flour

2 teaspoons baking powder

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon salt

6 tablespoons granulated sugar

4 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder

2 large eggs

1-1/2 cups buttermilk

1/2 cup sour cream

2 teaspoons red food coloring (I only used 1 teaspoon)

4 teaspoons vanilla extract

1/2 cup chocolate chips (doesn’t matter what kind you use)

Directions

Combine all dry ingredients in large bowl and set aside.

(Egg, buttermilk, sour cream, food coloring, vanilla)

In a separate bowl, whisk together the egg, buttermilk, sour cream, food coloring and vanilla.

Add wet ingredients to dry, and mix just until combined. Add chocolate chips and fold in batter.

Pour about 1/3 cup onto medium/high griddle and lightly brown on both sides.

Sprinkle powdered sugar on top and serve with maple syrup.

These pancakes were pretty delicious! Like I said above, I only used half the amount of food coloring. I also had to add some regular milk in there because the batter was so thick it wouldn't even fall off the spoon! Besides that, everything worked out pretty good. I couldn't even finish my plate because they were so richly delicious. Throw in a glass of milk and you've got yourself a great weekend treat!

Happy November!

I had a great Halloween weekend and fun time passing out candy last night. Unfortunately my street is the main street of the neighborhood so we don't get too many trick or treaters, but we take good care of the ones we get with full sized candy bars!

I enjoyed a cookie and dark hot cocoa while passing out candy. It was a nice night after a stress filled work day.







Anyway, as I was sitting at work, for some reason this image-(Melissa McCarthy as Megan from Bridesmaids)-popped into my mind. I started laughing to myself in my cubical. Sometimes it really is the small stuff that makes you smile!

The new month marks the use of the red holiday cups at Starbucks! I enjoyed a mocha on my walk to my class this morning. It was pretty chilly out!

After my last class tonight, this was the sunset. I absolutely love living in Arizona. One reason is these sunsets!








Have a good night :)