Miscellany Monday :: Happy Halloween!

one.

This is my halloween get up. I got it at BabyTalk on Etsy. I personally love it, it makes me smile and giggle and smile and giggle some more.

two.

I don't know what it is about the Washington Huskies but they pretty much beat my alma mater in everything this past weekend...major thumbs down. I cannot wait for college basketball to start!

three.

I successfully maneuvered my hubby's powerstroke and a large gooseneck around their family ranch this past weekend after a day of non-stop raining on Wednesday. I'm just impressed I never got it stuck, there were a few squirrely moments but we made it through. On my last expedition of dropping of the hubbs and 3 other riders off to bring 3 unruly bulls he said to me, "You're going to have to go through that once spot by Luke-Lilly tank." I said, "What spot?" he said, "You know the one my dad yelled at me at yesterday." {We didn't get stuck perse but had to unload 7 horses to get through it. I figured since it had been a day since then of drying and I would be empty I would be fine.} I said, "Okay, I think I can handle it." I ended up okay and by the end of the day realized there's no mud that God, me and 4 low can't handle :)

four.

28 weeks today. Yep, that's me. I cannot believe the third trimester is here. I still cannot believe how blessed I've been with such an easy pregnancy. I hope this doesn't come back to bite me on the next pregnancies...

five.

Remember I mentioned I had my glucose test the week before last? Well, last Monday they called and said it was high so I had to take the "real" diabetes test which consists of actual fasting {so not fun} and 4 times of blood drawing over a 3 hour period...that was last Wednesday and I'm still waiting on my results. Good news is for 4 draws I only got pricked 6 times by the NL :)

Happy Monday, have a blessed week!

Link up with Carissa over at Lowercase Letters!

WYB? :: Friday Rancher Funny

The Montana Department of Employment, Division of Labor Standards claimed a small rancher was not paying proper wages to his help and sent an agent out to investigate him.
 
GOV’T AGENT: “I need a list of your employees and how much you pay them.”

RANCHER: ”Well, there’s my hired hand who’s been with me for 3 years. I pay him $200 a week plus free room and board.

Then there’s the mentally challenged guy. He works about 18 hours every day and does about 90% of all the work around here. He makes about $10 per week, pays his own room and board, and I buy him a bottle of bourbon every Saturday night so he can cope with life. He also sleeps with my wife occasionally.”

GOV’T AGENT: “That’s the guy I want to talk to - the mentally challenged one.”

RANCHER: “That would be me.”

Miscellany Monday

Link up with Carissa at Lowercase Letters.

uno - Pregnancy Update

So I'm at my doctor's office getting my normal check up, had my blood drawn for my glucose test no biggie and I ask her about getting a tour of the hospital. She said, that I'm more than welcome to do it sure. Then I look at her and say, "Well, I guess they aren't going to make me walk around by myself right?" She laughed and said, "Definitely not. You don't show up in labor and they say yeah room 450 over that way, good luck. They will escort you around." Totally made me die in laughter but who knows I may go peek around if it's conveinent and see if there's a snack room I need to know about :)

Also, in regards to getting my blood drawn, praise the Lord the needle lady stuck me right on the first try! Here's how in the past the situation would happen: 

Needle Lady (NL) {In her strong Romanian accent}: What arm has better veins?

Me: Well, I've given blood out of both usually either works.

NL: Hmm, okay let me check...{she looks at both, wraps a rubber around one arm, does the same with the other} Okay, lets do this one. {She stabs me, blood doesn't flow, she jabs it around some more, I wince and then she takes it out.} I'm going to try the other arm.

Me: Uh, okay.

NL: Make a fist. {She jabs me, stabs around AGAIN.} You have some scar tissue in this arm.

Me: Yeah, that was from the last time I had to get my blood drawn here and you jabbed me 4 different times.

NL: Oh.

Needless to say, she's not my fave person in my doctor's office. I'm just happy that since this is her ONLY job there that she finally did it right on the first try for once!

dos. Carving Pumpkins

My wonderful hubby went to our nephews on Thursday and carved pumpkins. They are the cutest, the boys that is and the pumpkins look great too!

tres. soccer time

On Saturday I headed up to my parents to watch my nieces and nephews play their AYSO soccer games. It totally took me back to my childhood. I started playing AYSO when I was 5 and then joined a club team at 10, after ten years of wonderful memories and a lot of weekends in Phoenix at tournaments I called it quits when I got to high school. I'm so happy to see them full of energy and out there kicking the ball. The two youngest are on the same team and we watched them practice for 30 minutes and then they had their game {5 minute quarters} totally adorable. My niece scored 4 goals! One might have been for the other team but it happens sometimes when you're trying to get the ball away! And my nephew scored one!

The first and third kid are mine.

The older niece had a game at the same time in another town so my dad took her to her's. She scored the first goal of the game and her team won as well!! The oldest nephew had the afternoon game and his team put up a good fight but lost by one. 

Side note: On Friday at my great-aunt's funeral my little nephew said the cutest and funniest thing. We had just said goodbye and I was walking to my car. I said, "See you at your soccer game tomorrow." He said, "Okay, will you bring my cousin to it?" Rubbing my stomach I said, "This cousin?" He said, "Yeah." {Like umm hello auntie anna get it together.} And I said, "You bet he will be there!"

Cuatro. Desk Hunting

So now that we have an "official office" in the house we decided we would like to get an "adult desk." That's what I call it anyways. Something a little bit larger than my little kids oak desk I used in college. It's served it's purpose but we think it's time to get something a little bigger. Recently, I went on a hunt to all these furniture stores and design places on my way home. While out and about I didn't exactly find a desk {actually I only saw one} but I did find an entertainment center! While this has been on my list for some time I was giving the desk priority...however, when you find something you love you just got to go with it, right? :) I talked to the hubbs and he was all for it. We finally got to the store together last Monday and wouldn't you know the one piece I wanted had a "hold" tag on it. They said someone was coming back at 4pm and if they didn't show up we could take it. Fifteen minutes later the new owner came for it...

But have no fear my friends because they take orders and we got to place ours and I got to make a special request so it's exactly what I wanted! The drawers instead of solid wood will have pretty little punched mexican tin. {People in the SW know what I mean}

So what this means is, now my tv will be sitting on a big hunk of love wood furniture and I will be mailing bills from a tiny oak desk. The desk hunt continues...

Miss America is right on track!

Turquoise Thursday :: Everything Turquoise

I highly recommend if you love turquoise like myself signing up for the free emails from Everything Turquoise. It's a super fun blog that is updated multiple times a day and then the email brings 3-4 pretty items to your inbox each day. For instance the email last night included the following:

Royal Icing Dress

Peacock and Flowers Percale Cotton Duvet Cover

Dalloway Side Chair

Fun eye candy for sure! Also, be sure to visit Decor by Color to find other color related blogs!

Happy Thursday!

It's Monday and it's full of Miscellany

Link up with Carissa.

That's right it's Monday folks. Here's the low down on my life.

I slept so wonderfully last night. Honestly, I haven't had a good sleep like that in far too long. However, today I seem to be missing my energy/motivation...have you seen it?

Friday night we had some friends over for some carne asada. I feel like the house got "broke in" with seven kids running, dancing and bouncing off the couch.

Saturday, I had a baby shower for my hubby's cousin's wife. {make sense?} It was at my MIL's and was lots of fun with good food. That apparently wiped me out, along with going to bed much later than usual on Friday, so I took a nice long nap when I got home. This made me very productive Saturday evening but pushed my normal bedtime a tad bit later...

Sunday was my hubby's birthday. I couldn't sleep and woke up and headed to the grocery store at 5:30am...I'm a freak yes I know. Seriously, best time to shop I loved it all quiet and no lines. Came home and whipped up some biscuits and gravy for the birthday boy. We went to church and came home for some downtime and prepping for his family to come over for birthday lunch.

I apologize for no photos but the menu included: chips/salsa & pita chips/costco jalapeno artichoke dip for munching; ribeyes and asparagus on the grill, green salad, hominy/green chile dish {recipe below} and bread. For dessert the hubbs requested from his mama banana cake sans frosting, fortunately for me and everyone else but my nephew Jake she brought frosting along for us to put on our own pieces and I whipped up some homemade butter pecan ice cream which was a big hit.

All in all a fun weekend of parties and lots of food. Lots and lots of food. Topped off with a really good nights sleep so I'm ready to tackle this week of November magazine design and layout with one auction in northern Arizona sprinkled in the mix!

Baby A is moving all the time now. I am thoroughly enjoying every little kick/movement. He literally just moved as I typed that last sentence...earlier this morning part of my left arm was on my stomach as I read in a magazine and his moving was actually physically moving my arm!!

I have my glucose test this Thursday and am not thrilled about getting my blood drawn by the in-house needle lady...I will share with you a story about her another time. In a nutshell, I don't mind getting my blood drawn -- if you know how to work a needle.

Hope all is well and cooling down in your part of the country!

Hominy/Green Chile Dish

{At a county meeting last Saturday the hostess whipped this up and apparently learned from her MIL and Grand-MIL, it's a family dish}

Get your good ole crock pot out, gather some hominy, green chile, an onion, a package of bacon and garlic salt. That's it folks. I tried this recipe with no recipe. She just told me what was in it and I went to it.

I bought the ginormous gallon can of hominy at my wonderful local hispanic grocery store {Food City} and then a relatively large can of green chiles. Diced up an onion, drained the hominy, chopped up the green chile and mixed it all together with lots of garlic salt and some pepper. Previously, I had cooked the bacon crisp {that's the key part, cook it crispy} I chopped that up as well but only threw in half so I had some crispy pieces to throw in at the last minute, I just wanted to make sure the bacon flavor got in there. I cooked it up on low for a little bit and served right out of the dish. It's a great substitute for a potato dish in my mind and the leftovers I just ate with my lunch were delish!

Wordless Wednesday

Miscellany Monday

mm1.

I had a lovely weekend and cannot believe it came and went so fast. Friday, my dad got an award from the Ag 100 Council as the Agriculturalist of the Year. Pretty exciting. It was nice that our whole family was able to make it. And perhaps the best part was it took place at the ag center {an extension location for UA} in my town. So only a five minute drive and the family came over afterwards to check out the house. My parents have both seen our new place but my siblings hadn't.

mm2. 

Saturday took me to a county meeting for work. I have to tell you the member's home it was at was just wonderful. I of course snapped dozens of photos but my camera is not with me. Their home is an old school house built in 1910 or something and they renovated it about six years ago. It is a perfect ranch house.

mm3.

Thursday night I saw my most favorite of bands, David Crowder. Unfortunately, he didn't come on until 9pm so Shamarie and I had to call it quits at 10pm since we had 40 minutes and an hour {for her} to get home...he was as always amazing and super impressive.

mm4.

The nursery is getting stacked and piled with baby books and potential decorating items. Fortunately, for my little cowboy I already owned a bit of cowboy decor so now it's just picking and choosing of what I have to put up and around. I don't want to hang anything yet until I have the furniture so potential finished room pictures you probably won't see until I'm 38 weeks along...

Branding irons, hooks, photos of my hubby from HS :)

More photos/art, books - lots of them. New ones and old ones.

mm5.

After church and breakfast with my hubby I finally hung some more items around the house. I'm starting to feel like it's kindasorta complete. But I know it's really a work in progress. In the afternoon I met up with my sister to see The Help. Great movie, I highly recommend it. I was going to try and read the book first but that didn't happen. Speaking of books while in Ohio the other weekend I read the Lone Survivor by Marcus Luttrell I HIGHLY recommend you read this. I'm telling you life changing people. I already had a great respect for our military but this has taken it to an entirely different level. Read it. Seriously.

mm6.

After a couple weeks of my baby being the size of a papaya apparently now he is the size of an eggplant. Which is super appropriate since I'm making my favorite eggplant and lamb dish tonight!

I tried to put Carissa's box up to link to her but it's giving me fits...so anyway go link up with Carissa at Lowercase Letters!

WYB? :: Food Safety

Happy Friday to all of you!

Today I wanted to share some basic kitchen tips when it comes to preparing meat. In addition to safeguards and regulations currently in place you at home have the power to prevent a food-borne illness. It's easy, remember the Four C's.

• CLEAN: wash your hands, utensils and surfaces. Always use clean utensils on cooked meat and be sure to clean with hot soapy water any surface that was touched with raw meat.
• CHILL: Always be sure to refrigerate your meat properly. When defrosting do so in the fridge, not on your counter.
• Don't CROSS-CONTAMINATE: Never use a cutting board that had raw meat on it for fruits or veggies. Never ever put cooked meat where raw meat previously was.
• COOK: Always cook your meat to the proper temperature. Steaks and roasts are a minimum of 145° and ground beef is 160 degrees. Safe and Savory at 160°. {This means if you don't own a meat thermometer...get one!}

In fact leave a comment if you don't have a meat thermometer and I will randomly draw for a winner next Friday!

Turquoise Thursday :: Compliments

Sorry I've been really MIA on my TT posts lately. Today, I'm going to switch it up a bit and post things that go well or compliment turquoise, in the home or on your person :)

Fiestaware

Pick your poison :) really these can be mixed and matched for a party on your dinner table!

Brown is an easy "go-to" with turquoise, but what about lime green? Personally, I love it. This Peacock Bedding from King Ranch is beautiful!

Lane Boots

What's not to love about boots that all have turquoise soles?!

No one does multi-colored jewelry better than Rocki Gorman and her Rockandy.

Red is an obvious color that is bff with turquoise. As seen here in the Pendleton Muchacho baby blanket.

I've shown this before and I'll show it again because it rocks. Simple and sweet, black leggings and that turquoise just pops in this King Ranch Embroidered Tunic.

By far my favorite tee of the Fall 2011 Double D Ranchwear line, Just for Kicks. Talk about making a splash with orange, red, turquoise - totally genius.

Old World Console from Rios Interiors has just a splash of red and turquoise on the drawers. Simplicity at it's finest.

*Special shout out to my friend Amanda's mama who suggested a post about colors that work well with turquoise. I see a lot more of these in the future!*