Valentine's Day Recap

For Valentine's Day I threw my annual cookie decorating party. This is the third year I've done this and even though its a lot of work to make so many cookies it is always lots of fun! I wanted to change up my usual party food and try some new things so I made deviled eggs and caprese skewers. The deviled eggs you've seen before, they're a favorite for John and I, but they're new to the party rotation. My usual party food consists of very southern style appetizers, you know, anything made with Rotel :)

 I also did something new with the cookie dough this year, I dyed some of it pink :)

The infamous cake pops also made an appearance at the party. A friend of mine was dying to make these so we gave it another shot, we made them previously for a baby shower and they weren't so successful. I'm not sure they were so successful this time either, I think I'm ready to give up on cake pops, just not my thing.

Unfortunately cupcakes didn't seem to be my thing this year either! I make strawberry cupcakes with cream cheese icing all the time, they are my absolute favorite. I have been baking for probably the better part of my life and I have NEVER seen frosting melt off a cupcake! Apparently my apartment was so hot and or humid that the frosting would not stay on the cupcakes :(

Here's what my kitchen looked like after the party, also a bit of disaster but fortunately Rosie was happy to help clean up :)

 For the actual day, John and I had a very nice dinner at home :)

I made pesto for the first time, it was pretty simple but I'm not sure I'm the biggest fan, I think I like my pasta a little saucier :) We also had strawberry salad, deviled eggs, bread and John's newest fave, dill butter. We ended the evening with chocolate covered strawberries, so yummy!

Catching Up

Ok, so I guess I took a break for Christmas and never really came back. Part of my absence is because I got an Ipad for Christmas and haven't been using my laptop since. The drawback there is that I can't get pictures directly from my camera on to my Ipad to blog. Anyway, here are some of the highlights from the past couple of months...

Before Christmas we took John's brother and sister-in-law to Carnegie Hall to see Handel's Messiah, it was a really neat experience!

For Christmas we went down to AR for probably the longest we've been since we moved to NY, I think it was almost two weeks!

Rosie even got to go down with us since we were going for such a long time. She did really great on the flight and loved getting to play with all of her cousins :)

John got an antique gun for Christmas from his grandfather and we got to do a little shooting!

After the excitement of Christmas there hasn't been much going on but I've been loving my latest knitting project :)

Hurricane Weekend

Well we made it through Irene and we never lost power, thank goodness! For the most part it just seemed like lots of wind and rain but Rosie did hide out in my closet all weekend long. I put one of her beds in there but apparently my bin full of scarves was much more cozy :)

Being sequestered in our apartment all weekend got really old really quickly but I did manage to do a few projects :)

I ordered these decals from Etsy months ago but this was my second attempt at actually getting them up on the wall. The first time I thought I could do it using just the level on my Iphone.....wrong! I had to buy a large straightedge so that I could actually line these up across the wall, I did still use my Iphone level though :)

I also finished knitting a blanket that I've been working on since around Christmas! Silly me thought one color would be boring and that I could just revise a pattern to fit what I wanted, wrong again. Although this is only two colors the way it's knitted I actually had six balls of yarn going at the same time! It got incredibly frustrating to untangle all of that mess every few rows.

I just finished knitting the blanket, I haven't sewn in all the loose ends yet so it's still not quite done but soooo much closer :)

It was quite a week with an earthquake on Tuesday (which I did not feel) and a hurricane on Sunday, who would have imagined such things in NYC. I'm looking forward to a nice calm, uneventful Labor Day weekend :)

Wedding Weekend

For Memorial day weekend John and I rented a car and drove down to DC for my cousin's wedding. We left Friday after work with the entire rest of the population of Manhattan, it took us an hour just to get off the island. Once we did though traffic wasn't bad and I managed to immediately scope out the nearest Sonic :)

We got in really late Friday and then got up early Saturday for the Indian ceremony. I had never been to an Indian wedding ceremony and it was really neat to see. Unfortunately I didn't take any pictures until Sunday at the reception.

My cousin Michael and his beautiful bride Shelli

Me and John

Below is my cousin Laura who works in NYC but used to live in Boston and recently moved to DC, it's quite the commute every week but I love having her here. We get to hang out and usually get dinner once a week; who would have thought two girls from AR would be hanging out together in NY!

We took Rosie with us to DC too since we rented a car. She had a blast in the hotel because it was carpeted and she could actually get traction :) There was also a window all the way to the floor and this is how she spent the entire weekend!

You know me, any trip out of the city makes me happy and this one was particularly nice because I got to fit in lots of my favorite things I can't get in NY (ie. Target, Kohl's, Sonic). John even got to go to Chick-Fil-A, one of his faves although he doesn't like to admit he likes fast food :)

All in all, super fun holiday weekend!

Wintertime Blues

So I'm self diagnosing myself with seasonal affective disorder. The winters are so much longer and more intense here than I'm used to, it really starts to drag me down :(

For example I have so many things I want to blog about and all January I just couldn't motivate myself to do anything, and I mean ANYTHING, I haven't cooked in at least two weeks! I'm feeling a little more positive today though because John and I just booked a flight to San Francisco for later in February and I'm soooo excited! I've never been before and it should be around 60 degrees and there definitely won't be snow!!!
It has snowed so much this winter. I think we got about 18 or 19 inches last week which put the total for the year way higher than last year and it's not even February!

On the up side, Rosie LOVES the snow :)

If you're familiar with my blog you've seen lots of pictures of Rosie on the bench at the park. For some reason she really likes to be on the benches but with so much snow that's a little hard to do. Luckily Rosie found a new way to be on the bench. The line that she's standing on below is the top of the bench!

Here she went all the way over the bench and into the fenced area behind it. The snow she's standing on is probably about 30" high! The first step over the bench she actually sank which was so funny to watch her dig out of. I feel a little like a crazy person because I just stand in the park and laugh at my dog :)

Rosie wasn't too interested with this bench, but she did end up finding the only bench seat that was clear later :)

And We're Back

We had a fantastic Christmas back home in Arkansas, it just ended up being a few more days than planned since NY got 20" of snow and all of the airports closed! We were able to make it back late last night after our original flight back earlier in the week was cancelled. We got lucky and got stuck in Little Rock and not some connecting city. We also had all of our bags when we got home which was not the case for lots of people judging by the sea of luggage at the Newark airport last night!

 

Poor Rosie had to be boarded for a lot longer than I would have liked. She's completely exhausted and has slept non stop since she got home, fingers crossed that she won't get sick again like last time (I'm convinced she picked up the bug while she was boarded at Thanksgiving).

Here's a couple of pictures from the walk home after picking Rosie up. 

She sooo wants to play in the snow! Here are a couple more random images.

The tree at my mom's Christmas morning, yes that's like a ten foot tree. She actually thought John could just reach up and put the angel up when we first got there. I think she underestimated how tall it actually was :) 

John likes to play with sweet baby Austin, doesn't he look so cute! 

Clearly we had fun back home :) We got to see lots of family and friends but no matter how long the trip is it seems like we never fit everyone in. I just haven't quite figured out how to get the scheduling down, I'm definitely working on it though!

The halls are officially decked!

I put my Christmas tree up a week ago and immediately got it decorated. The rest of the apartment however didn't get touched until this past weekend. We had quite the eventful week last week and by eventful I mean a sick puppy dog and going through four rolls of paper towels in five days!!! I'll let you use your imagination :)

Thankfully Rosie is feeling much better and I spent the weekend washing everything in the apartment and then finishing the decorations. Somehow I managed to get splinters in one hand, cuts all over the other and my back is killing me, but everything is clean and decorated. Lets see how long that lasts!

 My attempt at making another wreath this year. I should really suck it up and buy a wreath form instead of bending wire hangers together because each year my wreath comes out more oval than circular :(

John definitely thinks I'm a crazy person since I sat on the floor for hours bending coat hangers and cutting up tree branches! I think there was even a "no, seriously WHAT are you doing?" 

 More creative use of the tree branches

This year's addition to the decorations. I love these because they're not so traditional and they weren't too expensive either, always a plus!

And of course I have to give credit to the man who made all of this possible.....my awesome husband who carried our tree six blocks home (as you can see its not a small tree)!

Rosie's New Friend

A couple of weekends ago we kept our friends Susy and Ryan's dog Darby. Darby is a beagle too but she and Rosie had never met before that weekend. I was a little concerned because sometimes it takes Rosie a little while to warm up to other dogs but she and Darby hit it off immediately.

Here's a video of the two of them playing together. What cracks me up is that there is absolutely no noise except for their nails clicking on the floor!

They would play like this for 20 minutes or so and then crash and nap for a while. Here's Darby taking her nap on one side of the couch, Rosie was on the other end and I was in the middle of two tired puppies :)

They repeated the cycle the entire weekend, it was pretty hilarious. Rosie definitely has a new friend!

Yay Spring!

Ok, its not technically Spring but the weather has been really nice the past couple of days. There aren't really any flowers blooming or anything but its certainly warm enough to hang out outside without a giant coat.

Rosie and I have been taking advantage of this nice weather and the extra evening daylight by going to hang out at Madison Square Park after work. She's super excited because the squirrels are still out since its still light. Today we sat on the park bench and she searched the lawn desperately for squirrels. She eventually saw one and lunged onto the sidewalk. Unfortunately there happened to be a woman walking by at the same time and the lady freaked out a little since it appeared that my sweet little dog was ferociously lunging at her :)

On to things besides squirrels that we happened upon in the park....I don't know what these people were doing but it certainly looked hilarious. They were all blindfolded and holding on to the person in front of them. I guess walking around NY blindfolded is good for your karate (or taekwondo or whatever) skills :)

Happy Birthday Rosie!

My sweet little baby is 5! Rosie's birthday was this weekend and I can't believe how old she is. I think I'm actually in more shock that she's five than I was on our fifth wedding anniversary. I guess that's a little weird but it seems like not to long ago she was so tiny and the cutest puppy ever.


Rosie wouldn't get near her dog treat until I blew out the candle. John tried to make her sit near it for a picture but she was just so pitiful looking. For her birthday we took a long walk and went to Madison Square Park and let her chase pigeons and squirrels. After the park we went to a fancy dog store and got her birthday treats. The box even came with a candle to go in the bone, how cute!

Rosie also got a new bed for her birthday. I found it for pretty cheap considering how expensive dog beds are and she seems to like it. I think for a dog she had a pretty great birthday but now she's laying by the door wanting a walk so off we go.

Dog Park

Rosie’s first trip to the dog park…she wasn’t impressed and stayed on the bench next to John the whole time.

Rosie

Rosie has found her favorite spot in the new apartment!