Disney Bound

WE did it! We booked another Disney vacation.
My mom, Lucy, Blake, and I are all going down end of November to early December.
We are going to spend a few days in the parks and then head out on a four nigh DISNEY CRUISE!!! So. EXCITED.

I have been a little sad lately, after returning home in February from a FABULOUS Disney vacation with some dear friends I literally had no idea when I'd be returning to Disney. It was a bit sad.

This year in the midst of trying to get things prepared for the rest of the year and trying to plan out vacation time, with a limited number of Sundays off I have to carefully plan what I am doing with them. My husband is out of vacation time and I still had a couple of weeks left to use up. I REFUSE to waste vacation time, even if it means sitting at home and crocheting, making photobooks, cooking, and cleaning.

After talking with my mom and my husband, my mom and I decided to go down to Disney during the Christmas season. We are leaving Marc behind as he needs to work.

We are spending four nights at the Polynesian Resort and then taking a four night Very Merry Christmas time cruise in the Bahamas.

I have been on one previous Disney cruise back when I was in high school, so my memory of the trip is a big vague. I am excited for the chance to take a trip with my mom and kiddos.






In the mean time I will be working on:

• outfits for Lucy and Blake
• a couple shirts for mom and I
• pirate costumes
• our fish extenders gifts
• finishing our February WDW trip photobook

Anyone have any upcoming vacations?
What are you excited for?

{Cupcakes: Disney's Peanut Butter Cupcake}

I have caught the itch for the trend of cupcakes.
I love how each individual cake looks nice as opposed to when you cut a cake it looks awesome as a whole but the individual pieces do not always look so stellar when they are being served.

This winter I have really taken seriously my love of cupcakes and have started to learn how to frost/decorate my own as well as bake my own from scratch. {I know they probably don't taste all that much different and maybe not even better, but I love knowing I created something from square one} Pinterest has a TON of fun ideas, the problem is some of them are just pictures while other include the entire recipe. I have an entire Pinterest board dedicated to cupcakes. I {and my mom} are always pinning different cupcakes, some people are ridiculously creative.

A couple weeks ago Lucy, Marc, Dakota, and I met up with Cubby {my brother}, Al {Cubby's girlfriend}, and my parents in Minneapolis to celebrate my Mom's 60th birthday. I offered to bring the cupcakes {what's a birthday party w/out cake?!}.

I found THIS pin on Pinterest, which lacks any directions just has a picture.
They claim to be Disney's Peanut Butter Cupcake. {I would LOVE to learn a ton of Disney parks recipes}

I made a chocolate cake from scratch
Put mini peanut butter chips inside the cake
Baked them
Made a homemade buttercream frosting
Sprinkled with a few mini peanut butter chips
Drizzled melted peanut butter chips {I add a tiny bit of oil to my melted chips}
Drizzled melted chocolate chips  {I once again add a tiny bit of oil to my melted chips}
Added a mini Reece's Peanut Butter cup to each cupcake

In retrospect: the pin put the peanut butter cup on then added the two drizzles


We brought a dozen to Minneapolis and a dozen to a St. Patty's day party
We had zero left at the end of the weekend, so I am calling it a success

Do you like to bake?
What do you like to bake?

Crocheted hats

   My library on Ravelry is longer than I can imagine. While I was in the hospital with Lucy and on bedrest before her arrival I had my Ipad and I apparently put a TON of patterns in my ravelry library and in my ravelry que (thankfully 99% of those patterns are free) and I have a mission to test out some of these ridiculously cute hats. I must admit that I have my go to hats, the ones that I ALWAYS make, because I love that I can almost do them from memory, I know that they will turn out (as long as I don't pick ridiculous colors), and can whip through the patterns quickly. However, I want to expand my repertoire and improve my crochet skills this winter. One of the arenas that I really am not all that good at nor do I really even like to dabble in is putting things on hats (I like when the design is built into the hat so I don't have to attach copious amounts of extra stuff) - soooo I am forcing myself to work on this. I saw that I had put this adorable hat Minnie Mouse Hat in my library from Repeat Crafter Me. My only problem was that I really like having ear flaps on hats for Lucy, so I combined the Minnie Mouse hat with the pattern for the Penguin that I also had in my library (fear not at some point this penguin will be made as well) and I knew I had something going for me.

    I like the way this hat turned out, I have a few things I would probably do differently next time, minor tweaks, like not mixing all the yarn colors on the strings but rather making each strand of the braid one color. I wish I had left myself slightly longer strings to attach the polka dots on the hat at the bottom. Live, learn, and stand corrected next time. I made this hat in the 3 to 6 months size in the hopes that it will fit my 4 month old soonish - she is now just popping out of the preemie sized hat I had made her. She does have a newborn size hat that we leave at daycare all of the time (because I don't want to be the parent who consistently forgets to send a hat to daycare with my kid - plus it gives me an excuse to have two hats for her).  I have a plan to make a bunch of hats this winter using a wide variety of patterns which excites me and makes me a little nervous, however, here goes nothing. I am going to get all these little balls of scrap yarn used up so I can buy new and start fresh (there is something glorious about that in my mind).

 

Next up, I think will be a ladybug hat.

I am sure you will get copious amounts of pictures of hats and crochetedness (I am sure that is a word - I am at least going to call it one) on the blog this winter. 

Ten Months as a MRS

I just realized I missed our 9th month update. Life was nuts.

The Wonderful Things:

• We have gotten some spring days! but they are few and far between.
• My husband brought home two movies this past month for me (which we NEVER, or rarely hardly ever buy movies, mostly because we Netflix 99% of our movies or borrow from friends) and he got me the new Hunger Games movie and Frozen (LOVE THEM BOTH)
• We are making some serious progress on the basement. We insulated the basement ourselves and we don't hate each other like everyone told us we would. I would dare to say we even had fun doing it. We like doing projects that are within our abilities, we know when to call in a professional. We aren't above hiring someone else to do pieces of it.
• We went to Chanhassen Dinner Theater's version of The Little Mermaid, soooo wonderful
• We both had birthdays (Marc's is 4/3 and mine is 4/5)
• Our chickens have been shipped and should arrive tomorrow or Thursday - you have been warned that there will be a chick explosion on my page
• Marc has really gotten into woodworking/building things (he built our chicken coop) and it has been really fun to watch his skills develop and some of the fun stuff that he has built 
• once the weather gets nice and he can be out in the garage a little bit more I imagine he will be even more happy to be out there and it will be more fun to hang out there with him, I don't love hanging out in the cold 

The Things No One Ever Tells You About:

• It is hard to make decisions about how you are going to finish off your basement. Certain things I just don't know what to choose (yes, I know, first world problems) 
• which tub/shower to pick shouldn't be this hard
• which color of off white you want your primer to be really doesn't matter
• When boys are sick the world ends (I know I have had this one before, but seriously)
• I know being sick sucks and actually he did much better this time than before but still when boys get sick the world ends
• How amazingly wonderful it is when for a few hours you are totally caught up on all of your laundry, washed, dried, folded, and put away
• really I just feel wonderful whenever my house is totally clean
• Marc really is pretty good at helping with keeping our house clean 
• he really really really likes to vacuum, seriously, and takes it upon himself to vacuum up golden retriever about every other day - I will happily scrub the bathrooms to not have to do golden retriever every other day

The Miscellaneous Things:

• I still wish my family lived closer
• I am jazzed our basement is coming together, it will be AWESOME when it is finished.
• I am excited for Easter
• The camp I help to co-manage almost has a full summer calendar and that makes my heart happy because now we don't have to fret about meeting budget and what not

One Month Until the Wine and Dine Half Marathon

Be prepared that this coming month and probably for many a day following my trip there will be LOTS of Disney and runDisney talk on my blog. Today we are exactly one month from the Wine and Dine half marathon - which will be the second half of my Coast to Coast medal!

I am beyond jazzed for sure.
Our hotel reservations are made.
Our dinner reservations are made.

I am nervous about the late night run.
I am in bed normally by 10.
I am nervous about the different time of day.

I will over pack because I will question the weather.
I will carry on my beloved shoes and my hopeful running clothes.
I will pack copious amounts of  memory cards for the photos I will take.

I will continue to log the miles in the days to come.
I am running the Fargo Mini-Marathon the 19th of October.
I am running the Crosslake Monsterdash the 26th of October.

I AM RIDICULOUSLY EXCITED!



Do you have any races coming up that you are over the top excited about?
Do you get to run outside in the winter months or are you suck on a treadmill too?

Disney 2011 Photobook

Click here to view this photo book larger

I finally got around to finishing my vacation photobook from last December. Yes, it took me a year, partially because I forgot that I hadn't finished it yet. My friend Suzi and I always make a photobook of our trips together, so we have been working on this one together. It is such a great memory and I LOVE looking through previous photobooks, I thought I'd share this one with you. I can't wait to share my 366 in 2012 photobook! Seriously jazzed every time I update it and can't wait to order it - I am still a little impressed with myself that I have managed to take a photo every day this year (some are definitely better than others but still I am impressed with myself). 

Training Plan

There is something utopic about planning for future races, there are the things I hope for (much fast times and personal records), the plan that seems totally do-able at the start (clearly not considering life, the weather, or any injury that will inevitably happen), and there is the excitement of upcoming races. I think I have most of my races planned out for the summer and into the fall. I need to fill in a few more races in September, November, and December, but I am excited to say that I am finally going to earn my coast to coast medal in 2013.  Ever since I heard of this medal I have wanted to earn it. I signed up for the Tinkerbell Half Marathon this coming January.

I just sat down and mapped out my training plan up through this race. I worked my schedule so that it easily fits the other races that I am registered for. It will take dedication to be committed to my training schedule, particularly since I have a couple mission trips this summer.

Note to self:

• you will miss some of the training runs and cross trainings that you have planned - it'll be okay
• keep dreaming big - keep challenging yourself - keep working hard
• update your ipod - stop being lazy - you know you are sick of the music on there
• this is a challenge between you and yourself - don't compare yourself to others - you are unique and you will have great victories and great challenges - embrace them - grow from them
• update your ipod - seriously - get it done