{Weekend} Busy Saturday

Saturday was a busy day! I guess that's just a theme in our lives lately. First I met up with a friend who gave me her extra ticket for the Mizzou Homecoming game and I couldn't pass it up! As many of you know, this is our first year in the SEC and we haven't been doing well. However, we won! So we're not the worst team out there.
 
After that, I ran home, grabbed Lily and went to work to help out in our first Safe Trick or Treat. We thought it would be a great idea for our students to be seen in the community and offer a great service to the kiddos in town. We kept it simple and we hope it grows in the following years. We had door decorations and candy at each classroom for kids 5th grade and younger to come to. Our students did a great job and it was fun to see the little ones.
 
Of course, Miss Lily had to come participate too. She is a fairy (I forgot the wings in the car but she didn't care) and she helped pass out candy. She was terrified of the school mascot (a big bird) and so she stuck to me even though she has met some of the students before. She did eat her share of candy and the rest is now in her treat jar (except for the chocolate that may or may not be eaten by a parent or grandparent...). I promise to get better pictures Wednesday for the real Halloween Trick or Treating.

{Family Fun} Papa in a Basket

Wednesday and Thursday saw Parent Teacher Conferences for me, so on Thursday while Doug was playing rugby, my parents came over to babysit. When I told Lily they were doing this, she said "babysit? I'm not a baby!" I guess I hadn't used the term before that she remembered.

Anyway, after coming home Thursday I saw that Lily was keeping Papa pretty entertained (and I'm guessing worn out too!).

This was the first thing... they were hiding. I love that their hands are the same and you can see Lily's smile. She is definitely a Papa's girl!

Please excuse the mess, this is where we spend the majority of our time at home so it sees a lot of toy action!

And this is what happens afterwards... my dad gets stuck in the laundry basket as it slides further and further down his shoulders as Lily sits on top. She was having a ball!!

{Family Fun} Pumpkin Patch

Last weekend I wrote about how busy our weekend was but never published the photos. Well, here I am, a week later and never had the time. Busy weekend, busy week I guess!

Some how my phone (which took all these photos) doesn't like to upload to Blogger in the same order as they were taken, even though I attach them that way. So, here are a bunch of random shots from the day...

They have some cute cut outs that we've been putting Lily in for years. Some day I'll make a side by side comparison for all the shots.

Busy Weekend

Doug's parents came down Saturday to watch Lily Saturday night so we could go out with my family to the benefit concert put on by my brother's friends' group (in honor of my brother with all proceeds going to gastric cancer research through Jimmy V). Saturday afternoon we all went shopping (Doug's parents, me, Lily and Doug) and then came home so we could get ready.

Here's the group at dinner. We went to a local restaurant that was my Uncle's favorite. He passed away almost 2 years ago and they still keep his mug at the counter filled with all of his little trinkets.

Aunt K., Uncle C., Mom, Dad, me, Doug, Aunt S., Cousin S., Cousin L

And then we went to the concert. The first few groups/bands weren't really anything special, and we didn't know them, but these guys were some of my brother's best friends. They've been performing for years and even made a CD awhile back. The jerseys were my brother's and were given to them after he passed away. They put them on part way through the show. It was sweet. I also really like the guy's shirt in the back ground. He didn't know my brother but he showed that he still cared. The shirt says "Cancer can kiss my ass" What was even better was that the bar below this one heard that we were doing a benefit concert and gave some of their profits from the night to help reach the goal. I haven't heard what the final amount was but last year's concert raised $1400.



I'll post the Sunday's events later. It includes a trip to the park, a view of the Missouri River, the Pumpkin Patch and lots of Lily! If you follow me on Facebook, Twitter or Instagram, you've seen most of them.

{Family} 10 Years

10 years ago (a whole decade!), Doug and I were introduced by my then roommate, Rachel. I had broken up with my boyfriend of 1 1/2 years (a long time to survive high school, freshman year, and time away) and was kind of hanging out with another guy. She thought I needed someone new, someone better, in my life. She was working with Doug at the time.

Fast forward 10 years later and here we are - a whole life time away from where we started. A lot has happened in those 10 years...

Here are some of the big (happy) highlights:

We moved back to my hometown after I switched colleges.
We got married, May 2006.
Bought our first house in July 2007.


Move in day, July 2007 - I definitely need a new picture!


On a road trip to Colorado in 2007 (don't worry, we were both passengers)
Gave birth to Lily in May 2009.


Other things..
Jobs - We've both switched career paths. He started out in communications, I started in graphic arts. We've had various jobs over the years. He worked in radio and TV and a few random jobs too. I worked at the bakery (which I loved!) and a jewelry store, plus some randoms. We've seen our ups and downs through jobs and have hopefully (I think so) found our forever careers instead of just a job.
Family - it goes without saying that we've lost many family members. We've also gained a few - every one of Doug's cousins and sister have been married since we've been together and there are now 6 babies on his side, all under the age of 3 1/2. My family has seen a few weddings and only one baby (besides Lily). Let's hope the next decade sees more babies (and not just from me, but I'd like one more!).
Friends - as with anyone over a span of 10 years, we've lost and found new friends. My closest friends are those that have been in my life forever (I was 3 when I met two of them, 16 when I met one). Doug has seen many friends come and go through college and moves. It's sad, but a part of life. We have some new friends that we've both made through work and I've really gotten along well with two of my coworkers and enjoy my time with them. I look forward to becoming better friends with them and hopefully getting our families together as continue working together.
Pets - we adopted our first animal, Taz the cat, in April 2003 and that was soon followed by Rugby in 2004, Zoey in 2005, Marty and Freckles (frogs) in 2006, Rocky in 2009, and Beefy and Krypto in 2011. It also includes random other pets such as fish and two other frogs but I don't remember them all. We had my old cockatiel for awhile too but gave her to a friend of my mom's.

We definitely have plans for the future!
Another baby
More house renovations - complete kitchen gut job, bathroom gut job, bedroom renos, etc.
Trips (hopefully some overseas)
... and who knows what else?!





{Lily Lately} Painting

Last Christmas, my dad made Lily an easel. It has a roll of paper on one side and a chalkboard on the other. Both sides have a tray, as shown below. My mom bought her paint cups with lids (that I love and will buy a few more of for other colors) and some paint. She kept pretty busy this year with the chalk board and coloring on the paper roll but today she really wanted to paint. I've let her paint before and so have my parents, so I knew she'd be good to go once I got the supplies ready. I let her use my paint brushes since I have a lot, but I may buy her some of her very own some day. She does a great job with paints and even exclaimed "Blue and yellow make greeeeen!" Ahh, she's already smarter than my students when it comes to color mixing!

{Food} Sopapillas



My aunt and uncle invited the family over last night for homemade chili rellanos and we all ran with the Mexican theme for dinner. My mom made sweet potato burritos and there was chips, salsa, guacamole, beans - everything!

I wanted to try to make the sopapilla cheesecake that's all over Pinterst. The problem is that the recipe calls for canned crescent rolls and I'm not a fan. Sure, it would have been extremely easy but I HATE artifical flavors (especially butter, which is in most of them) and the fact that they add caramel coloring (which has been linked to causing cancer). So, I set out to find a recipe online that was from scratch. Since when did "from scratch" mean adding a few ingredients to a box mix? If so, every single dinner I ever create is "from scratch"... anyway.. I found an easy sopapilla recipe and made two batches. I didn't necessarily set out to make two but I was afraid my yeast didn't work in one, so I made a second to then find out both worked extremely well. So I made a batch of sopapillas (above) and a pan of the sopapilla cheesecake.

Here are the recipes:
Sopapillas - great recipe, however I added the sugar to the yeast first, waited a bit and then added the butter. I did that once, followed the directions once and my version of butter later made the dough raise a bit more. These make a lot. I'd recommend cutting them into squares or "chunks" and frying them in small batches. I only used maybe an inch of oil in a smaller saucepan and so I threw in maybe 5-8 chunks of dough each time, all about the size (before frying) of a half-dollar or so.

Sopapilla Cheesecake - this is where I substituted the above recipe for the crescent roll dough. I simply let the dough raise and then rolled it down to a 1/4 inch then cut to fit in my pan. It needed to bake a little longer and I baked it at 350 for 30 minutes so maybe 45 or so to test. But we were impatient and so this may be something I try again to tweek. It was good though! I also used a lot less butter, just cutting little pieces (maybe 1/8" thick, 1/2" by 1 inch in shape) and dotting around the pan, every couple inches. There was a large puddle of butter in a dip of the dough. I also just poured the cinnamon and sugar on top then dotted with the butter. It worked really well.

(Sorry the second picture can't enlarge, Blogger seems to hate my photos.)

{Life Lately} Busy Busy!

I've mentioned that we're super busy during the week but now we're picking up on the weekends too! This weekend had two events at the same time but luckily (kinda), one got cancelled due to the weather. So now it's dinner with the family! Next weekend is the benefit concert for my brother. The weekend after that has two events again. And the theme continues right into November where of course everyone seems to get busy. And then there's Christmas right around the corner. WHAT?! I haven't even started THINKING about it, let alone buying anything.
Yesterday after picking up Lily, Lily asked "We stay home?" Wednesday and Thursday both saw busy afternoons that weren't really planned and so she was looking forward to some down time. I think all kids (and adults) need that. We didn't do anything special last night together either. Doug was gone to a football game for his school and so Lily and I got some pizza and she asked for a "Banana, strawberries and raspberries" for her dinner. We then watched some of her Minnie Mouse DVD and played together. She's all about hiding under her blankets so now with the bigger ones we bought, we can both do it a lot easier than those baby blankets.

Instagram photo - Lily's first (ever!) ring pop.
 I love that photo! For the longest time, Lily never had candy. It was her second Halloween, when she was almost 1 1/2 when she had her first sucker. We still try to limit the candy but she does get some suckers now. However, this was a new experience. She loved it! We went to a volleyball game on Thursday at my school and she loved to see my students. They loved her too and even asked about her on Friday. I just love this photo (with a slight filter) that really pops the blue of her tongue and eyes.

If you're an Instagram user, follow me at thebrickbungalow - I take a lot of photos with my phone!

{Family} Support for Cancer Research

I haven't mentioned much on my blog about my brother's passing. He was a private guy and didn't want people to know about the cancer so I never wrote about it when he was here. I haven't mentioned much since then either as a way to respect his wishes.

2009 - jumping off our cliff at our favorite lake, he was always the first to jump in to "test" for me and our cousins

Needless to say, we all miss him every much. He was a great brother, son and uncle to Lily.
2009 - pass the cranky 2 month old Lily, he was so in love with her


His friends are having a benefit concert in our home town and I hope that you all can help us raise some money. Yes, many of you aren't around here but here's a link to the donation site if you feel like donating. I know it's a lot to ask, don't feel pressured, but it's for a great cause and foundation - The Jimmie V Foundation.

{Flowers} Gerbera Daisies

I dug up my daisies in hopes of wintering them over in my classroom. Wish me luck. And if they don't live, it's not the end of the world.

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