Parents in Training... sort of

Yesterday Dan and I went to visit my older cousin Steven and his wife Carrie and their 7 month old twin boys Riley & Logan. We spent the entire afternoon playing with them. They are, without a doubt, two of the cutest babies I have ever seen in my life.

Carrie and Steven let us feed the boys (Dan fed Logan and I fed Riley - Riley cried and didn't really cooperate but Logan ate like a champ) and BOTH babies took naps while I was holding them... I was dying from the cuteness. I am now experiencing a bad case of baby fever. I tell anyone who will listen that I don't want a baby... but I do. Just not now. For now I'll settle for playing with other peoples babies. 

Family is very important to me and I was really happy to see my cousins and spend time with the babies.

Now Dan and I are home and waiting for this hurricane we are supposed to get. It's not bad yet, just raining some and I think the wind is starting to pick up so I guess we will see how it is tomorrow. I'm already getting cabin fever - not a good sign!

Pretzel Button Cookies

I've been spending a lot of time on Pinterest lately, pinning recipes I want to try, DIY projects that look fun and easy, and home decorating ideas that make me so excited to one day own my own living space (poor Dan, I don't think he realizes how insane I might go with paint colors and interior decorating).

I wanted to make something sweet - but something easy too. I am not the best cook but have been looking to practice for a while and figured I'd start slow and work my way up. (The goal? To be able to cook a turkey the first Thanksgiving we live in a house - however, my mom may need to be my co-pilot on that one).

I found these Pretzel Button Cookies on Pinterest and thought "this looks so easy" and it was! I've made them twice already - but be warned, they are very dangerous. I have to keep them put away or else I will mindlessly eat all of them in one sitting - they are that yummy. They are a PMSing girl's DREAM - salty and chocolately? Amazing.

You only need 3 ingredients (that's what appealed to me the most):

• Pretzels (you can use the square snaps pretzels or circle pretzels. I used the square ones because I couldn't find the circle ones at Giant)
• Hershey Kisses (you can use any flavor but I went with the classic plain boring chocolate)
• M&Ms (just the plain ones but any color. I just got a regular bag but for Christmas I plan on getting the Christmas M&Ms)

Pre-heat your oven to 200 degrees.

Grab a cookie tray and line it with parchment paper (parchment paper is my best friend - practically no mess and no clean-up) and place the pretzels down.

Then unwrap the Hershey Kisses and place 1 on each pretzel.

Place pan in the oven - but make sure you keep an eye on it. You want the kisses to start melting JUST ENOUGH so they still retain their shape but you can easily place the M&Ms on them. Depending on your oven it could take a few minutes - mine took at least 5-7 minutes.

 Take out your melty but still shaped kisses out of the oven. Start taking the M&Ms and slowly and carefully place each M&M in the center of each kiss and push down slowly to spread the chocolate. If you notice the kisses aren't going down easily you may need to put them BACK in the oven for a couple more minutes. This happened to me the first time I made these.

Ideally, they should look like these babies above. Let them sit so the chocolate can harden again (fridge works best) and then try not to eat all of them in one sitting.

Seriously, try. It's really hard.

And the best part? Each one is only about 31 calories.

I know, these aren't hard to make so I can't really consider myself a baker. But it's a nice small stepping stone. This week/weekend I want to tackle my mother-in-law's family recipe for butter cookies. I have Halloween cookie cutters and everything!

Considering this is supposed to be a blog about how I'm trying to be a good housewife, I hope to post my successful (and not so successful) cooking and baking attempts.

Now I am going to try and not eat all these pretzel button cookies I made yesterday..... :)

Fall Walk

It's was such a nice weekend - warm and yet the leaves were falling and trees are changing and it looks like it should be cool and breezy. Not going to lie, I have been waiting forever for fall and cold weather so I can wear all my coats (who has 3 winter coats? not me) but weather like this is pretty nice too. We decided to take advantage of it and took Max on a walk around our apartment complex.

Instagram is fun in fall.

I am so surprised Halloween is next week already - where did the time go? Normally I spend a month and a half thinking of Halloween costumes but this year I've barely given it a thought. Does this mean I'm getting old?

I like to run.

I can't run very fast and I usually can do a good mile to 3 miles per run but I love it.

It makes me forget about everything. Every problem in my life magically goes away and all I can think about is the music in my ears, my feet hitting the pavement, and the endorphins rushing through my body. Sometimes I run through Valley Forge park. Valley Forge park is beautiful but the hills - oh my gosh the hills. It's tough. But I always manage to get through them.

Yesterday Dan and I took the dog there and I went off on my own and did 4 miles through the park. It was long, tiring, but exhilarating. My life has been sort of a mess lately and I've been avoiding running but yesterday we went and I just ran. Four miles later and I felt better.

I have a 5K tomorrow and I've been dreading it but after that run I am looking forward to it.

 Sometimes it feels like I'm running through a forest in a fairytale.

Sometimes I miss living by the beach but sometimes I am very happy I can run through a national park and see things like this.

Edit: Right as I hit "publish", I received a reminder email about the 5K tomorrow. Coincidence? :)

I have a story for you.

Once upon a time (okay, more like 6 years ago), I met a boy.

His name was Daniel and we became friends.

Our friendship eventually turned to "more than friends" - meaning he took me to the movies, kissed me goodnight, and he my parents and I met his parents.

After a couple years we decided to move in together and we lived with our good friend Wayne. We adopted a puggle named Max (you'll see a lot of him on here) and enjoyed our life together.

Wayne eventually decided to join the army reserves and Dan and I decided it was time to get our own place. So we did. Before we moved in however, Dan had some other plans.

On December 3, 2010, Dan proposed! It was really quite cute.

We had a long engagement and spent the next 18 months planning our fantastic wedding, moving and making our apartment a home, and I lost 60 pounds (yes, 60 pounds! But more on that another time).

We got married July 14, 2012.

(Our wedding was pretty great - and our marriage? Even better.)

Now we work, live, and try not to stress about money. I am trying to learn to cook, trying to keep our apartment clean (why does a tiny apartment feel so BIG sometimes), and keep myself in check with eating healthy and exercising.

I'm not perfect and this blog won't be either - but I hope to share our life together as a new married couple, my attempts at cooking and cleaning, my thoughts and opinions on life in general, and my new found hobby (running). 

So here we go....    :)

Seriously, how cute is he?