Score!

On the way to Utah for Thanksgiving, we stopped in Cheyenne at the Sierra Trading Post store, where I found these little beauties. I've always loved Cole Haan shoes, but they have always been (and will always be, I'm sure) WAY out of my price range. I have been meaning to get a new pair of black heels, and had decided to take the plunge and go for the uber-trendy pointy-toed variety. You can imagine then how thrilled I was to find these gorgeous shoes for such a great price (check out the MSRP!), and what was even better was that they rang up at $39.95! Sweet!

Dang Paparazzi

" No pictures, please."

Fang

Do you see it? One little pearly tooth, peeking up from the lower gum. Sharp as the dickens, too! If anything, it only makes Maren cuter. We've taken to calling her Fang.

I'm Maren the Sailor Man! -toot toot-

Last night Maren had spinach for the first time. I doubted she would like it, as the other green veggies she's had so far (green beans & peas) are coincidentally the only food she hasn't eaten with great gusto. I don't blame her, the green beans and peas were absolutely revolting. They smelled nauseating and tasted even worse. So I was shocked when she seemed to not only tolerate the spinach, but she actually liked it!

That and the apples/blueberries she ate for dessert should lead to a very, uh, festive diaper sometime this morning. Ick.

Thrift store finds of the week

I ~heart~ thrift store treasure hunting. Here are this week's spoils:

A pink vase with pale blue-gray flowers. The flower centers still have remnants of the orginial glass glitter. The glaze is completely crackled, but I love it. Very Shabby Chic. Price: $3.99

A vintage printed Christmas tablecloth. Love the graphics! The colors are still pretty bright. There is a stain, so I'll try to soak it in some Oxyclean. Even if it doesn't come out, I'm thinking I can still display it folded. Price: $.99

Good hunting! Five bucks can buy me a lot of happy.

Mmmmm....cookies....

Got this yummy recipe from my friend Kim P. a couple of weeks ago. She brought me over a half dozen cookies when she came to visit teach and I promptly ate them all. It's funny, I HATE pumpkin pie (no, on second thought, loathe is more accurate) I loathe pumpkin pie, but I like pumpkin bread, muffins, and cookies, especially when there are chocolate chips involved. It's a texture thing with the pie. That and the smell. Ew. Pumpkin pie stench.

Pumpkin Cookies
Kim Powell
Makes 20

1 c. sugar
1 c. pumpkin
½ c. oil
1 egg

2 c. flour
½ tsp salt
1 tsp cinnamon
2 tsp baking powder

1 tsp soda
1 tsp milk
1 tsp. vanilla

1 c. chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 375.
Mix together first 4 ingredients in the mixer bowl.
Mix together dry ingredients, then add to the wet ingredients.
Dissolve soda in milk & vanilla. Add to mixture.
Stir in chocolate chips.
Bake at 375 for 10-12 minutes

The cookies are very moist and cakey. The batter will be very sticky and moist.

This is me! 

Vacuuming in high heels & pearls: Diary of a Suburban Housewife

Vacuuming in high heels & pearls: Diary of a Suburban Housewife

So here we go, the very first entry in my very own blog! I'm hoping I can get the hang of how to use this darn thing. I've been wrestling with a webpage for my daughter, and the program provided to build the webpage appears to have been written entirely by monkeys (monkies? monkees?). My patience with figuring this stuff out is pretty much shot at this point, so I'm hoping this is much easier and more user-friendly. And by user-friendly, I mean "the words pretty much leap directly out of my brain onto the screen".

The purpose for this blog? Well, everybody else is jumping off a cliff and it looks like fun. No, really, I am just vain enough to think that anybody cares what I have to say about anything! I've been keeping a blog of sorts in my brain for a while now, and so I need a place to post pictures of my exceedingly cute baby, bore readers with the minutiae of my everyday life, and pontificate on a variety of topics. Heck, I need a place where I can use words like 'pontificate'. If you're not interested in anything else, just stay for the baby pictures. They're exceedingly cute. You can hold me to that.