new blog....

I have made the leap...my new shop & blog name is (drum roll please....)

the Prairie Fair 

all future blog posts (as well as all past posts from this blog) will be located at the Prairie Fair Blog. Things are very much under construction there right now but will be looking pretty soon!  Hope to see you there! :)

public service announcement...

Please bear with me for the next week or so....I'm in the midst of a major blog and shop overhaul & even a name change! (still working on that one, very difficult...)  Looking forward to new photos for the shop, adding some new products, a blog makeover...super excited!!! :)

Meet Rufus...

Rufus is the newest member of our family.  He is a black-footed ferret.  He and the cat love to play & fight; the dogs ignore him & vacate the premises whenever he is out of his cage.  I swore to Cory that we would never have a pet ferret in the house but his little raccoon eyes won me over.  He sleeps about 22 hours a day in a hammock in his cage.  He has successfully mastered the arts of eating from his food bowl, drinking from his water bottle & grabbing then playing with the toys hanging from the top of the cage, all without leaving said hammock.  I have a stuffed raccoon that he always steals & drags around.  Once he even tried to squeeze it through a hole in the wall (that he made himself, thank you very much).  He has foiled nearly every attempt to keep him in the cage.  How can something with such a small head & therefore brain, untie knots? 

red pepper soup...

I was actually pretty excited the first day it felt like winter last week...I've been waiting for the cold weather to make all my favorite winter foods, particularly the soups!  This creamy, roasted red pepper soup (a Giada recipe) is super easy & very healthy!  If I've made a batch just for Cory and I, we freeze half for an easy dinner another night - definitely a favorite in our house :) You can find the recipe here or on my recipe box page.  Enjoy!

road trip...

We're headed to Lake Sara for the weekend to meet up with our friends from St. Louis.  One of my goals this year is to visit the lake at least once every season...winter: check!  After a week of sunny days with temps in the 50's, we have been blanketed in snow and the temperature is barely in the double digits.  It will be a cozy weekend with lots of time spent inside - we have already discussed reading time and a mandatory pajama-style uniform.  It's group hibernation really :)

our big day...

The happiest day since I've been away from the blog was definitely November 5, 2011...that is the day that Cory & I got hitched!  Yesterday I got all the photos & above are a few of my favorites - our photographer was Michelle E. Swierczek, I loved working with her & all the photos are fabulous!  I'm working on putting my 100 favorite photos here & will be sharing more about the planning and the big day here on the blog :)

back in the game...

me & Avry, my niece

Wow, I haven't written here since last summer.  Where do I even start?  I guess just like you start anything else - one step at a time.  I'm working on a few things....a little blog re-design to freshen things up, taking new photos & adding some new products to my shop, sharing the story of the last few months, and of course I have made some resolutions for 2012 & I can document that process here.  Even if it takes me a little while to get it all sorted, updating here regularly is part of the plan....stay tuned! :)

Where did I go?

The past few weeks have been crazy!  And I neglected the blog for more than 3 weeks...oops!  As planned, we went to Lake Sara with my family to celebrate the 4th.  We did a lot of swimming, jumping, ice cream making, napping, eating, and fawn-watching.  The fawn up there was only a few feet from the house!  I love my family soooo much & it was a great weekend.
The next week Coco & I babysat my nieces Addie and Avry while my sister & brother-in-law went on a much-deserved cruise!  Wow, exhausting.  Everyday I dropped them off at a home daycare before work & picked them up after.  Avry was teething, Addie is 2, and we all ended up getting really bad colds.  It made for some late nights & I was completely wiped out.  But I love love love my nieces to bits so it was super fun to be with them.  Plus Cory got a diaper-changing lesson & even held down the fort by himself a few times so I could nap! Adorable :)  Our first day back home I missed them so much!  I think my body held out on the cold until I was able to actually be sick, because sure enough I felt like absolute crap all of last week.  I went to "Harry Potter church" on Sunday morning with Cory & my 2 awesome cousins from California who were visiting.  We had a jam-packed weekend with pool parties, mini golf + pizza, and a birthday bbq so a 10:30 a.m. show was the only time we could make it.  It was a sob-fest.  We loved it, I would watch it again right now if I could. 

Road Trip!!!

After work tomorrow we are heading off for the lake!!!  I'm looking forward to getting out of town for some swimming, hammock time, watching fireworks on the water & hanging with my family.  I will be back with lots of photos after the weekend!

Recipe Share: Spicy Pork & Sesame Ramen

Slightly adapted from a recipe in Let's Cook Japanese Food...

1 teaspoon sesame oil

4-6 strips of bacon, fried then crumbled

1/2 pound ground pork

1 tablespoon chili bean paste

1 teaspoon finely minced garlic

2 packages instant ramen

3 cups chicken broth

1/4 cup sesame seeds, toasted & ground

2 green onions, minced

Hot chili oil

In a frying pan, cook the slices of bacon and set them aside.  Wipe out the pan leaving some of the bacon grease and add the sesame oil.  Over medium-high heat, brown the pork breaking it up with a wooden spoon.  Add the chili bean paste and the garlic and continue to cook until the pork is cooked through and is very crispy.  Remove from heat & set aside (I recommend draining both the bacon and the cooked pork on a paper towel).  Cook the ramen according to the directions but discard the flavor packet.  Once cooked, drain the ramen noodles and set aside.  Divide the ground sesame seeds between two large bowls and then pour half of the chicken broth into each bowl.  Add the noodles, then top with the cooked pork, crumbled bacon & green onions.  Drizzle hot chili oil according to your taste & enjoy!!  This is one of our favorites :)

P.S.  I can usually only eat half a serving but the leftovers reheat really well & can be eaten the next day for lunch!