Thursday, December 27, 2012

New Orleans Bowl!

Man it has for sure been a crazy busy couple of weeks. Right before Christmas I went to New Orleans with some friends for ECU's bowl game. This was the first big game I have been to without my parents or as a part of the Marching Pirates. Even though everyone I went with except one was in the band with me haha. Band nerds unite! Even though ECU did not win the game we still had a great trip and alot of fun. The car rides were kind of long but it was worth it to hang out with some friends I hadn't seen some of them in years! Here are a few of our pictures! 

These first two are from Natalie and I's pre road trip dinner with her family. We went to look at Christmas lights. 

My favorite haha

Group shot before the game!


We got photo bombed but it was kind of a cute picture still! 



We were right behind the cannon at first! 

PeeDee!


Did I mention that we were on row 2? And right next to the band which was ok by us since we are all band nerds!


Group shot! Aaaarrrggghh!




Post game but before dinner and fun!

Group shot in the hotel lobby before dinner.




We had an awesome waiter so we needed a picture with him!

Yet another photo bomb! That was awesome!


We found the perfect blues bar for Pirate fans!

Cheese! 

Christmas Crafts

Hello everyone! I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas! Now that Christmas has past I can finally post pictures of the crafting I have done before the holidays. All of my crafting was presents so it was a little hard to post pictures before the holidays. I have gotten really into the whole mesh wreath making. To buy one of these wreaths in the stores is like a good $50 or so, but it looked easy enough to make so I thought I would give it a try. There were also tons of diy instructions on Pinterest. If you want to learn how to make your own you can google it or if you are as addicted to Pinterest you can check out links on there. With it being so long ago when I started them I do not remember what links I watched first. 

This is the ECU wreath I made for my Mom. She already had a Christmas one so I went with ECU instead. Go Pirates!

This is the one I made for my Site Super Visor at my practicum site. I had shown her pictures of the others I had made and she tried making her own. So I made one for her :)

This one looks kind of crazy. I made this for my oldest sister Jennifer. I need to get a picture of it hanging either on her door or in her house. Then I don't think it will look so crazy. But this one took forever to make! I took it apart like 3 times!

I made this one for my middle sister Erin. She also had a Christmas wreath so I decided to make her's more winter than Christmas. The ones like this are really easy to make. 

Wednesday, December 19, 2012

Holiday Favorites!

Hello everyone! I told you I would be back more now that I am not stressed about classes and studying!  And as promised I have been doing alot of baking. One of the wonderful things about Christmas is you can bake a bunch of different things and it is totally ok! The first thing I have made this year is Snicker Doodle cookies (the recipe calls them Santa's SNICKERS Brand Surprises but thats too complicated) and Almond Cookies. I also made a sour cream pound cake but I don't have a great picture of that one... Maybe I will still share it ;)

Snicker Doodles
Ingredients:
- 2 sticks butter (softened)
- 1 cup creamy peanut butter
- 1 cup light brown sugar
- 1 cup sugar
- 2 eggs
- 1 tsp. vanilla
- 3.5 cups all purpose flour (shifted)
- 1 tsp. baking soda
- 1/2 tsp. salt
- 1 package (13 oz) SNICKERS Brand Miniatures

Directions:
1. Combine the butter, peanut butter, and sugars using a mixer on a medium to low speed until light and fluffy.
2. Slowly add eggs and vanilla until throughly combined. Then mix in flour, salt, and baking soda.
3. Cover and chill dough for 2-3 hours.
4. Un-warp all the SNICKERS.
5. Remove dough from refrigerator. Divide into 1 tbls. pieces and flatten.
6. Place a SNICKERS in the center of each piece of dough.
7. Form the dough into a ball around each SNICKERS.
8. Place on a greased cookie sheet and bake at 300 degree for 10-12 minutes.
9. Let cookies cool on baking rack or wax paper.
*Makes about 2 dozen cookies

Almond Glazed Sugar Cookies:
Ingredients for Cookies:                               Ingredients for Glaze:
- 1 cup butter (softened)                               - 1.5 cups powered sugar
- 3/4 cup sugar                                             - 1 tsp. almond extract
- 1 tsp. almond extract                                 - 4 to 5 tsp. water
- 2 cups all purpose four                              - Sliced almonds
- 1/2 tsp. baking powder
- 1/4 tsp. salt

Directions:
1. Combine butter, sugar, and almond extract in large mixing bowl. Beat at medium speed, scraping bowl often, until creamy. (1 to 2 minutes).
2. Reduce speed to low; add all remaining cookie ingredients. beat until well mixed (1 to 2 minutes).
3. Roll dough into 1-inch balls. Place 2 inches apart on cookie sheet.
4. Flatten balls into 1/4 inch thickness with the bottom of buttered glass dipped in sugar.
5. Bake at 400 degree for 7 to 9 minutes or until edges are very lightly browned.
6. Cool 1 minute; remove from cookie sheets. Cool Completely
7. Stir together all glaze ingredients in small bowl, with wire whisk.
8. Decorate cooled cookies with glaze and sliced almonds. Glaze sets up quickly so frost and decorate a few at a time.
* Makes 3.5 dozen.

Sour Cream Coffee Cake
Cake Mix:                                                       Topping:
- 1 cup butter                                                  - 1 cup chopped nuts
- 2 cups sugar                                                - 1/4 tsp cinnamon
- 2 eggs                                                         - 2 T. brown sugar
- 1 cup Sour Cream                                    
- 1/2 tsp. vanilla
- 1 tsp baking powder
- 2 cups flour
- 1/4 tsp. salt

Directions:
1. Mix together ingredients for topping and set aside.
2. Cream together butter and sugar until fluffy.
3. Add one egg at a time and mix until smooth.
4. Mix together sour cream and vanilla and fold into butter mixture.
5. Sift together baking powder, flour, and salt and fold into mixture.
6. Grease flour tube pan. Pur 1/2 batter, 1/2 topping, 1/2 batter and rest of topping.
7. Bake at 350 degrees for about an hour. Make sure it is done.
8. Cool completely and remove from pan.

Monday, December 17, 2012

I Passed!!!!!

Well I have officially heard gotten my test scores back from my comps exam and the NCE and the good news is I PASSED!!! I have never studied for anything so hard in my life. It just goes to show how some hard core studying can really pay off. For those of you who don't know my crazy study method.... I made about 1000 note cards... no I'm not joking. I turned the Encyclopedia of Counseling into note cards. I am very much a visual learner so writing the questions out helped me alot. I seriously thought about burning the note cards after the exam but they took me months to make so I couldn't do it. In stead I have passed them along to another girl in the program and told her to just keep passing them along. Hopefully they help other ASU counseling students as well.

Man it has been a crazy month or so! I thought the beginning of the semester was crazy with studying so much but the end was way crazier! Between finishing up classes, finishing my practicum, Christmas, and trying to pack to move it has been nuts. And for a little while I didn't know if I was going to be moving to another place in Wilkesboro or if I was moving back home. Well I'm moving back home which is not totally a bad thing, even though a job would have been nice.... one more semester!

So yes I am now back at home and getting ready for the final leg of masters program.... internship. Even though I am a little bummed I didn't get the job I am trying to remind myself that it just means God has something else planned for me and maybe I will get lucky and get a job in one of the school systems I really want. I will be doing my internship at Fuquay-Varina Middle School. I am pretty excited about it because the counselor that will be my supervisor really wanted an intern and is working on a plan to help me learn as much as possible in one semester. I doubt I will get to be as creative as I was at my practicum site in the elementary school but I am really wanting to do an expressive arts group so who knows. I am trying my best to live one day at a time and not stress too much about the future. Maybe that should be an early new years resolution...

Be on the look out for some Christmas cookie recipes as I will be starting to bake probably later today!