Merry Christmas!!

Merry Christmas!

Love,
The Carrs

High hopes, sad turnout

I always have high hopes for my cooking endeavors and normally it doesn't turn out too great.

On Saturday, I attempted to make three different kinds of cookies (pink meringue, Reese's snacks and Oreo balls) for a cookie exchange we went to on Sunday and to give away to a few other people. I ran into a few problems.

Like these pink meringue cookies that I've made about a million times...They all crumbled yesterday.

Out of the two dozen I made, about six were "give-away" worthy.

And then I had some problems overheating the almond bark, proceeding to ruin it, and then attempting to use it again, to make these Reese's snacks. I promise they turned out great (see picture further below) and I did not serve these (see directly below) to guests. It took me a few tries to figure out how to dip the crackers into the almond bark and still get them to look decent, but I finally figured it out!



Kody always enjoys taking pictures of the great messes I make in the kitchen while I cook. But he made up for his mockery by washing all the dishes for me!! Isn't he amazing!


While these Oreo balls weren't the prettiest, they were a hit at the cookie exchange party! They're super easy and delicious and I think I'm making more soon!


One of the ladies in my Bible Study hosted a cookie exchange party, so we got to take home a plate of amazingly delicious cookies! Check out the pretty white with sprinkles Reese's snacks at the top of the plate! Told you they turned out fine!

Long time ago-Thanksgiving

Many years ago...or about four weeks ago...we spent an awesome four days in Puerto Rico visiting Kody's parents for probably the last time.

I didn't do very well documenting the trip, but I do have a few fun outtakes from our Christmas picture taking adventure. The Christmas card you all received just had the good ones, but I've got the real "blackmail worthy" ones.






Maybe they're just all really bad of me...

Well, here's the one good on that made it onto my camera:

The cost of living in Chicago

- Leaving for work early and arriving a half hour late because the roads are a little wet and cars can't go over 35 mph when that happens - 30 minutes

- Not knowing whether my morning commute will take me 45 minutes or an hour and 45 minutes - 45 minutes

- Leaving work early to go to a dentist appointment and missing the appointment by a half hour - 30 minutes

- An hour and 45 minute commutes homes, which cause me to miss dentist appointments - 1 hour and two more months without going to the dentist

- Getting up at the crack of dawn (6:15 a.m.) to leave for work at 7 a.m., which is before I would normally even get UP for work, anticipating an hour and a half drive - 1 hour of sleep

- Arriving at work a half hour early because the drive didn't end up being that bad at all - 30 minutes

- Not knowing what time to leave for work tomorrow morning - 45 minutes of sleep

- Not knowing what time I will arrive home from work tonight - 45 minutes of time with Kody

- Rain/ice/sleet/snow/drizzle/blizzard all in one day - 3 hours of future work on our cars

- Having better jobs, an awesome place to live, great friends and a wonderful church - Priceless

Baking day!

A week ago I put my cooking skills to the test when I had a cooking/baking extravaganza on a Saturday morning while Kody was at work. Since both of us get home relatively late, it's nice to have easy, quick things to cook for dinner. But this normally means doing some work beforehand.

Here's the master list of what I accomplished:
- Brown 2 lbs. hamburger meat
- Cut up and cook six split chicken breasts
- Make chicken broth out of chicken bones
- Make spaghetti sauce out of hamburger meat and use the rest for chili
(Do millions of dishes)
- Cut up pineapple
- Marinade frozen chicken tenderloins for later meal
- Make four batches of homemade pizza dough to freeze
(Do lots of dishes)
- Bake two loaves of banana bread
(Do lots of dishes and take a break)
- Make The Pioneer Woman's blackberry cobbler
(Leave rest of dishes to finish tomorrow)
(Sunday - Finish dishes)
(Monday - Finally finish cooking)
- Make healthy blueberry/raspberry/blackberry muffins
(Finally fully clean up the kitchen ... on Thursday night ... with the help of my hubby.)

I've heard these mass cooking days are tiring and I definitely felt it! And food didn't even sound good after I was done making everything!

Here are some of the fruits of my labor:

Two loaves of banana bread

Yummy blackberry/raspberry cobbler still in the oven. I learned what self-rising flour is too!

Four loaves of quadrupled yeast homemade pizza dough. I ran into a little problem when I quadrupled the recipe and proceeded to quadruple the yeast. My little loaves didn't like staying packed into saran wrap or the Ziploc bag I put them in. Instead, they decided to continue to grow and grow and take over the freezer. I think after a week, I have them under control. Lesson learned: Even when you quadruple (or double) a recipe, you don't need to quadruple the yeast.

And lots of action on the stove with the spaghetti sauce simmerin', the hamburger meat cookin' and the chicken boilin'.

It's definitely been nice to have this food around. We've enjoyed muffins and banana bread all week, had delicious chili for dinner and leftovers, making chicken enchiladas for dinner tonight with the chicken, have leftover spaghetti sauce for a future dinner and lots of chicken broth for future soups and recipes!

What was I thinking?

It all started with an innocent voicemail from a friend.

"Hey Kate, this is Emily! We've been playing phone tag for so long! So I've got a proposal for you for next May. Call me back!"

Then...

"Hey Em, this is Katie!" "Katie, are you pregnant!?!" "No! But I thought you might be!!" "No!" "Oh, well, what's happening next May then?" "Do you want to run the Illinois Half Marathon in Champaign next May with me?" "Um, sure! I've been thinking I should do something like that."

And that's how it all went down. And now I'm wondering what in the world I was thinking. And I haven't even started training yet! That won't even start for another like three months!

But as of last week, I am officially signed up to run the Illinois Half Marathon in Champaign, Illinois on May 1. 13.1 long miles.

Now, you may say, Katie, you ran track in high school and college, you'll be fine! But let me tell you...the most I've ever run is six miles and that was VERY slow. Before that, I'd only run five miles once in my life (in high school). And at this point in my life, I'm lucky if I run two miles twice a week.

Oh, this is going to be so interesting!

Thankfully, I think I'm going to be running it with three of my closest friends from Omaha (shoutout to Emily, Sara and Molly!) and we're going to have a little reunion in Illinois and die together on the race course. All other Smartgirls are invited to join in our misery!

As Sara said today in an email: "It follows my theory of friendship: doing horrible things together (hazing) = bonding = lifelong ties. Right?"

Sounds right to me!

I love moldy fruit!

I should clarify ...

I love pints of raspberries and blackberries and bags of bananas that have a few moldy pieces, but are marked down to $0.57 per pint!!

Love it!!

I got all of this fruit (eight pints of raspberries and four pints of blackberries and a large bag of bananas) for about $7.50!

I'm so excited! I'm planning on making some of The Pioneer Woman's blackberry cobbler, baking some muffins and maybe a few other things this weekend and freezing the rest! Perfect for smoothies and "fresh" berries during the middle of the winter!

And now, because I'm obsessed:

Isn't she so tiny and adorable!! Definitely missing my niece and nephew!

Most precious baby ever...

And of course I'm not biased at all!

Last weekend I got to meet my three-day old niece, Addison Grace Nichols, and it was definitely love at first sight.

Just look at that beauty of a baby and how can you not fall in love?

I spent the quick weekend holding and rocking my niece and playing outside with my nephew. Here are a few pics to recap:

Elijah, Daddy and Gramps after raking a yard full of leaves. It was really cute before this picture because Elijah was copying exactly how my dad was sitting on the ledge, but we weren't able to get a good pic of it.

Elijah plowing through my neat pile of leaves.

Playing on his slide.

The little man himself.

Elijah and Addie helping Daddy play Dominion.

Can't get enough of those little hands!

Mommy and baby.

Elijah holding his little sister.

I got to experience my first attempt at getting a baby and a toddler and an adult to smile all at once for picture. This is the best we've got and it only took about seven takes!

And then the best picture of all:

Elijah being an awesome big brother and gently loving on his little sister before church on Sunday.

Welcome baby Addie!!

Welcome the newest member of the Nichols family!!

Addison Grace Nichols
Born November 4 (on her due date!) at 9:40 a.m.

And I get to see her this weekend!! So more cute pictures to come!!

Happy shopping trip!

After about a year of couponing, it seems like most trips I still don't have the touch. Inevitably one or more of the coupons don't work for some reason or another, I can't find the right product, I don't remember the correct rules, don't plan ahead enough and end up buying too many things I don't need and not enough of the things I do need.

There's been many a time where I've ended up spending waaay more than I thought I was going to and even a few nights where the tears flowed after a failed shopping trip. But my extremely patient husband is always there to comfort me and tell me it's okay that I spent $20 instead of the $5 I was originally planning on spending.

Well, tonight, there was victory!! Hallelujah! Finally!

Now this may look like small, and it is, but it's trips like this that keep me going!

So tonight's trip to Walgreens included these items:


My grand total: $3.53

Yay!!!

Using coupons I was able to get four free cans of tomato soup (which we love!), three free cans of Hunt's tomato sauce, two free Herbal Essences shampoos and one free bag of Ricola cough drops. I paid $1.39 for the other bag of Ricola cough drops and $2.50 for the other Herbal Essences. And I got two dollars back because of a deal with the Herbal Essences!

So, including my $2 in Walgreens "bucks," I only paid $1.53 for all of that!! Yay!!

Then I went to Meijer to buy a few necessities (chicken, fruit, etc.) and came home to find out that we're almost out of milk and out of eggs, bread and trash bags. All of which I didn't buy at the store.

Just when I think I'm getting good, I realize that I"m really not that good.

Pioneer Woman

A while ago, I ran across a blog called "The Pioneer Woman." Over the past months, I've loved reading about her travels, new recipes, cows and horses, her favorite things, how she fell in love with Marlboro Man and so much more. I strangely feel like she's a friend of mine and she's definitely one of the most hilarious people I've ever "met."

Well, when I realized her new cookbook was coming out right near my birthday, I quickly introduced Kody to The Pioneer Woman and just last night this arrived on our doorstep!

I am so excited to try some of her recipes like Patsy's Blackberry Cobbler, Cinnamon Rolls, Perfect Pot Roast, Sherried Tomato Soup, Chocolate alla Betsy and Chocolate Sheet Cake.

Ahh, I'm so excited! Thank you so much Kody! You're the best hubby ever!!

New Mexico!

I love a good vacation and last weekend was definitely a wonderful vaca! Kody and I took a break from the constant Illinois clouds and rain to visit sunny and warm New Mexico and see some of Kody's family.

We enjoyed a nice drive in Nana and Papaw's new SmartCar.

I got my first taste of Dion's! It's a pizza/salad chain in Albuquerque that Kody had been telling me about. It was a fun dinner because all of Kody's aunts, uncles and cousins came to join us!

We enjoyed the beautiful mountains and went on a walk in the desert behind his grandparents' house.

But the best part of the entire trip may have been the $37.10 that I won at the casino! Nana took Kody and I gambling and apparently I had the magic touch. Kody did not. I am thinking about quitting my job and taking up gambling. What do you think?

And with my $37, I went shopping in Old Town Albuquerque and bought these!

Moccasins! I think it's some sort of initiation into the Carr family that you must own moccasins, so I guess I'm officially part of the family!

Fall happiness

Oh man, I love fall. I love the colors, the smells, the fun fall activities, wearing sweatshirts, college football, hot apple cider and hot chocolate and freshly baked pumpkin seeds.

We had some of our new friends over two weekends ago (Sorry this post is a little delayed. I was trying to think of something clever to add to it, but it never came and then we went out of town. So here you go.) and participated in some fun fall-ness.

The girls cleaned the insides of those pumpkins out pretty well.

While the boys concentrated hard carving creative designs.

And then we enjoyed sitting around a fire in the backyard on a finally beautiful fall night.

The whole group with our beautiful pumpkins!

Tim and Sarah Taylor - friends from Olivet that happen to live right near us!

Joe and Lauren Breeden

Confession time

This "incident" actually happened earlier this week, but I still feel the need to confess to the public, or whoever you are who reads this.

Last Wednesday, I made this Parmesan chicken pasta and neither Kody or I were feeling it that night. I ended up eating some of it for lunch the next day and it tasted pretty good! But we just weren't feeling it last Wednesday.


So instead, we ate this:

A delicious chocolate cake that we made specifically for our dinner that night.

We caved

We debated and debated. Visited and tried it out. Almost talked ourselves into it, then talked ourselves out.

But in the end, our desire for supposed great deals, fun shopping trips and cool things we wouldn't normally buy won out.

And just one week after we made a promise to live more frugally. Ohh, what happened?

Well, Costco happened.

We are now the proud owners of Costco Wholesale Executive Member cards.Not just GoldStar members or business members, but Executive Members.

It all started when we moved to St. Charles and drive past the pretty Costco building every day on our way to work. Then Kody's parents came home and we took a splurge shopping trip with their membership. What topped it off, though, was the convincing lady that stopped by Kody's vet clinic last week offering what was obviously a deal we could not pass up. So, we caved.

So, while our executive membership may have cost a bit more, Kody likes to remind me that we get 2% back on almost all Costco purchases. He tells me this means at the end of the year we'll get $50 back, whether we spend that amount of money at Costco or not. Additionally, we got a $20 gift card to Costco, a coupon booklet, 50 free 4x6 photos and a super-duper Costco cookbook, which actually has quite a few good recipes. (If all of you "regular" members got all of those things with your cheap "regular" membership, please just don't tell me.)

Well, we were quite excited about our new membership, so we took a trip to the store last Wednesday to try it out. Here's a few of the things that we came home with:

Amazing pita chips that I could eat all day long. We already threw away the box, so I'm not sure the name of them. Hope we'll be able to find them again!

Beef steak strips and teriyaki chicken for some quick meals after work when we don't really want to cook. Necessary? Definitely not. Handy and really nice? Definitely yes. Frugal? Ehhh, I won't answer that.

Of course, a six pound bag of gummy bears. Which will probably only last until the end of this weekend.
And lastly, 32 cans of Coca-Cola goodness.

We also bought some steaks which will probably still be around next summer seeing as snow has hit the Midwest a little early this year. Goodbye grilling, hello hot tub and fires in the fireplace.

Also with the membership, we got a coupon booklet, which I love! So we have our eyes on a few things for next month. Yes, our next trip will probably have to be next month. Our $200/month grocery budget can't handle weekly $75 Costco trips for food we don't need. :-) We're hoping for some French onion soup and potstickers, which Kody loves, and Olay moisturizer and Brita filters, which I can't seem to find good deals on anywhere. And yes, all of those items come with coupons!

Will we probably spend more money than we should? Yes. Will we save much money? I say probably not. Will we have a lot of fun buying really fun things? Definitely.