i love...

9/29/12

All of the sudden, it's fall!

It's official, dear reader, fall is here! How did this happen? Didn't we just finish school and weren't we just saying hello to summer? Even though it doesn't seem right for fall to be here yet, I'm glad of it. I'm glad of it because I love how the leaves turn multi-colored, how the sunsets are unordinary and beautiful, how cool breezes whistle by, how I can cuddle up with my oh-so-small blanket and read a book, how I can make “fallish” food, and how I can finally pull out my collection of sweaters.

Let’s face it, half the reason we all love fall so much is that we can where sweaters, lots and lots of sweaters… more the better. :) I have two drawers dedicated for holding my sweaters. I don’t buy them all; I get some from my sisters, some from Christmas, and some from thrift stores. Every outfit post I do this season will have me wearing a sweater… you can count on that!

My brother got homecoming king at our high school! Not this brother, Noah, my other brother, Isaac. Noah was just modeling the crown that I said looked like they got in the Christmas clearance...

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9/20/12

No Bake Cookies recipe

This is a recipe that is not only super easy and fast to make, but the results are delicious. When I say easy, I mean you add this, that, and your done! When I say fast, I mean they only take 30 minutes at tops. And when I say they are delicious, they are delicious!

You probably don't know this, but my brother, Isaac, likes food (especially sweets)... a lot! He has been begging me to make twinkies for... lets just say a long time. I haven't tried jumping over that obstacle yet, but I thought for now, I would make him these cookies, which he also loves! I made them, and right when they were cool enough to eat, there Isaac was, gulping them down one by one... So, long story short, he was very happy with the cookies.

TIP: when you are cooking the mixture, make sure that it does not boil too long, or when the cookies are cool they will be dry and crumbly. You're looking for a shiny and moist cookie.

No Bake Cookies

recipe from a family friend

1 batch makes roughly 20 large cookies

2 cup Sugar

1/2 cup Milk

1/2 cup Butter (1 stick)

1/4 cup Cocoa

1/2 cup Creamy Peanut Butter

3 cup Quick Cooking Oats

1 teaspoon Vanilla

1/4 teaspoon Salt

Cook sugar, milk, butter, and cocoa over medium heat until it boils. Turn the heat down to medium-low and let boil for 1 1/2 minutes. Remove from heat and add peanut butter, oats, vanilla, and salt. Mix until combines. Spoon onto wax paper and let cool.

It is as easy as that! Enjoy them!

P.S. Do you notice anything different about this blog... ah, maybe the design? Yes, I finally finished it. I must say I'm very much in love with it. :)

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9/14/12

Messy bun tutorial!

Hey-o! Here is the tutorial, finally!

A messy bun is my goto hairstyle. Whenever I'm having a bad hair day or if I'm running too late to do anything else, this is what I do. This hairstyle takes me about 3 to 5 minutes and I just love the look of it. When I first started doing messy buns... they were awful, but practice does make perfect. So, don't feel that you can't do this, you can, it just takes some practice!

One thing while doing messy buns, is sometimes they look more like buns than messy buns. To try to stay away from them just being a bun, don't make them too tight, and don't be too picky about loose ends and weird clumps. Those loose ends and weird clumps are what make the messy buns!

Also, I find if you have straightened your hair before doing this, it doesn't work that great, it just looks spiky. Trust me...

I hope you find this tutorial helpful, and if you have any questions, just ask. :)

MESSY BUN TUTORIAL

You will need:
hair band (if you have thick hair like me, you should you use a thick one, so the messy bun isn't sagging down)
bobby pins (You should not need to use any bobby pins for the bun, but if you need them for your bangs ect.)

Step One: Pull your hair up with your hands to where you want your bun, I prefer mine at the crown of my head. Now take your hair band and messily make a bun.
Step Two: Gently tease your "bun" to get all the hair that is about to come out, out. Don't over due it though to where you have no bun left. It should look something like this...

Step Three: Now, take pieces of that loose hair and twist them, then wrap them around the bun. Then when you wrap it around, tuck the hair under the hair band, which should be hidden under the bun. It is okay if little ends are showing though, it makes the bun more "messy"!

There you have it! Your messy bun!

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9/7/12

What I wore // to a wedding + links

dress: hand-me-down, cardigan: Jcrew, heels: Jcpenny's, earrings: they were my grandma's

Hello, hello!! First of all, I would like to say that I'm sorry for not posting much last month, more like the whole summer. I am hoping in the next month or two that I will be able to begin posting more, and hopefully in the next month I will be able to get my new blog design up! I have been thinking for a while of changing my name, but I have decided against that, so just a new design...

I'm really excited for the posts to come, I'm going to have... a messy bun tutorial, my sister and brother's senior pictures, and probably a recipe... :) Yes, I'm doing my siblings' senior pictures!! I'm super duper excited about it! I think I'm going to begin doing them on Saturday. My brother wants his pictures to be very extravagant, so I'm trying to get my creative juices flowing... (eeks!) Oh, and go check out this girl's outfit! Cardigans... the best!

and now to the links....

fish tail braid how-to

heart pocket dress

this bird print

cookies and cream popcorn recipe

beautiful seascape

polka dot sweater? ah... yeah!

coral loafers

Good night and have a lovely weekend!!!!
Joanna Pin It

8/23/12

Awesome and Awkward Thursday 1

You all probably know of the famous Awesome and Awkward posts that a lot of people have been doing lately, well, I thought that it would be fun to do on my blog! I probably won't do it every week, but if you think it a success I might try to do it once in a while. :)

I started school this week! It's going well so far and I think overall it is going to be a good school year. Have you started school yet? Were you looking forward to starting? Even though I loved having that summer break, I was ready to get back into the old school routine.

Okay, enough school talk...

AWESOME

Messy buns-Self explanatory everybody.

These nights-They are so quiet (except for the saccades that have moved into our woods), cool, and all around lovely.

Photgraphy-I love it more everyday...

Maxi skirts-As much as I love them, I still don't have one yet. But, Jordan (a.k.a. sister-in-law) and I got some fabric that we are planing on using to make maxi skirts sometime soon. So my closet shouldn't be missing a maxi skirt for long. :)

Sleeping on a trampoline-My friend and I did it a couple of weeks ago!!! So fun... but very cold!
When a cat has a milk goatee.
Getting baby chickens-adorable!

AWKARD

Running in heels.
Having a cow sneeze in your face-It happens very frequently to me. I'm just petting their head then they get the sudden urge to sneeze... in my face.
Walking through Goodwill with shoes that rub the skin off your heels-Yep, this happened to me last week. I'm sure I looked ridiculous! I was on my tip toes and limping through the aisles...
Silence in a conversation.

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8/9/12

Sick

Right now I am sitting at the computer... with a head that feels like a ballon, a cup of tea, and a belly full of m&m cookies.

My sister Mary, her husband Cody, and my brother Noah all came down with the cold on tuesday. I was hoping that I would escape from the cold, but alas, yesterday morning I woke up with a sore throat. After having a throat that felt dry and hurt every time I swallowed the whole day and night, I woke up with no sore throat but a headache and a stuffed up nose. Oh, how I hate the feeling of having a cold. You can't sleep, you can't taste food (the worst of all), and you don't feel like doing anything except sleeping and watching movies.

I think after I push this button that says "Publish" I will grab some lunch, put out meat to thaw for supper (we got meat from a bull and pig yesterday!), then maybe read or watch a movie. If I read I will start Persuasion and if I watch a movie, well... I don't know what I will watch. Any suggestions?

Hope you are having a lovely rest of your Thursday!

P.S. We are supposed to get some strong storms this afternoon. Oh, I hate storms!

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8/7/12

looking back at summer

Wow, can you believe that summer is already over? It seems like we were just putting our school books away and planning everything that we were going to do this summer, and now to think that it is already over... it's sad really. I'm glad, though, of the few months that we did get off from school.

Even though this summer seamed very short, a lot of things happened in it. First off, I got my first DSLR camera. I love it, and I take it with me practically everywhere. A little while after that my sister had her second baby. His name is Bruno and he is the chubbiest and cutest baby ever, well... he ties for first with is big brother. Then there was my brother's wedding, which was very fun and exciting. They now live in a little apartment about 500 ft from our house. Yeah, my brother didn't go very far from home... but thats okay. Other than those things, we've gone to a cousin's wedding (we have another this Saturday), had lots of birthdays, and tons of fun!

Now that summer is over I will have to get back into the old school routine and look forward to next summer and hope that it is as good as this one was...

How was your summer?