I Love Waffles! -and our fall party

I got so excited because Ben bought me a new waffle maker two weeks ago. I didn't get my hopes up too high because we have had about 4 waffle makers. The first didn't work at all, the second didn't get at all hot enough so the waffles came out flat, the third cooked the front of the waffles but nothing else. So with the arrival of the fourth maker I was expecting another disaster

......but.........finally success!!!!!

Beautiful golden brown, crispy on the outside and soft on the inside waffles.



This past Saturday my sister in law Megan and I threw a fall party (the first of many we hope). We had mostly family and a few friends attend. We were thankful for a little turn out as it was our first party and we were a little behind on the planing front. We had a pretty good spread of food. We had spices cider, chicken teriyaki skewers, pizza with ghostly shapes on it, fruit and some other things. (i didn't snap the picture until after we ate)


I had seen a picture on a Womens Day Magazine of a neat cake so I thought I'd have a go at it. I changed it a little bit but here is my version of it (Ben suggested the red bat eyes).

Megan made some great cupcakes, little pumpkins and some very cute owls.



After we ate we went out on the porch and carved some pumpkins.

Mikalea found some dirt to play with - as all kids tend to.


Here are the pumpkins all done- the photo was taken at night so it took a few times to get a great snapshot.

the two pumpkins on the bench to the left turned out really cool even though you cant see them in the pic - they were matt and vals - matt did a reeses cup and val did a witches cauldron.

It was so fun to carve them - i think it has been 5 years at least from the last time i carved a pumpkin.


After that we came inside and started making some caramel apples - I had to look up a recipe cause I had never made caramel apples before. Thankfully the caramel turned out great - we had to make a second batch cause we had so many apples. Yummy!!!

I don't like much of anything on my apples other than caramel- so I just put some fun little sprinkles on mine. We also had cookie crumbs, chocolate jimmies, white chocolate, mini m&m's and i think a few other things.


So fun!!! I hope that things turn out just as good for next year!!!!!

Conference Sunday- Photo Updates

Hello all, so there have been many photos that I have taken and not yet posted. I figured today would be a good day for these. Per my fathers request there are photos of our new door along with some others.

Lets start with the oldest first.........


This is one of my sweet nieces - Emma- this was back in July when most of the in laws were in town for the Keeffers anniversary party. Emma and her older brother Trey stayed the night at our house. Ben and Trey were playing video games down stairs -boring- so we went upstairs and watched Ever After. Emma said she had a loose tooth and it had been that way for a while. We tried a few things first but after nothing made it fall out she had me yank it out. I do have to say I was more freaked out about it than her. (I know I am a nurse but teeth/mouth things in general freak me out, I have a love hate relationship with my dentist - sorry cousins) We put it in one of my ring boxes so the tooth fairy could come give her some money. He He He that was the first time I pulled a tooth other than mine.


These are from the first demolition derby that I attended in Aug at the Weber County State Fair. It was a lot of fun and we got some extra entertainment thanks to some crazy white trash people started fighting after a bad crash. The bad crash resulted in one of the drivers getting knocked unconscious. He ended up being ok and only needed a few stitches (they found that out after they life flighted him out).

now some sad photos....


Here is our precious family dog Duke. Most of you know these are photos from the day Steph and I had to do put Duke to sleep Aug 18 2010. I am balling my eyes out as expected. He was a great and sometimes frustrating, he lived a very long life and traveled across the country more than most dogs. Not much else I can say about him with out getting myself sad.

So now getting up to today, conference Sunday. I woke up thinking about pancakes, then I remembered we didn't have syrup. So I started thinking about making my own, which led me to think about making raspberry syrup which then make me think about crepes.


So for our conference Sunday brunch I made Ben and I crepes with homemade raspberry sauce and cream filling. We also got out the Nutella and some powdered sugar for fun. I know they weren't the best crepes in the world but pretty good for my first go at them.

So now the photos of the door. Our old door was great except for the fact that after three packs of weather stripping you could still see daylight around the whole thing.

-the old door-


So a few weeks ago Ben and a guy who lives in the apartments where we used to live fixed it.

Turns out our door was square (which we knew) but the doorway was very very messed up so they squared up the doorway and re framed it. They also were able to shoot that fun foam stuff in so hopefully it is much tighter of a seal this winter.

So here is our new fire proof door.

We have to repaint the plastic that surrounds the glass because even after priming it the paint pealed right off. We also have to put our knocker and kick plate back on.

Ben also installed a storm door....


We have the screen in the storm door right now because the beautiful beveled glass pane won't fit by (we have to call Pella for a replacement). Hopefully this week we can get a replacement and get the glass in place.

Hope you all have a great week-