Pumpkins and More!

These are our pumpkins! Ben carved the spider and I carved the witch. We had fun. Ben was a super speedy carver. Seriously, he got his cleaned out before I even had the whole cut out of the top of mine!
Me and my pumpkin.
Ben and his pumpkin.
Ben and I went to our ward trunk or treat the night before Halloween. We ran the bean toss booth for the kids. We were a doctor and a nurse. Ha! Imagine that! Ben just wore what he was wearing that day, he had his cargo pants, a nice t-shirt and his white coat and stethescope on! I wore my turqiose scrubs that my mom scored for me after I had my first knee surgery forever and a day ago. Sorry, we forgot to take pictures of ourselves! These are some of our friends in the ward, Ben Adams and Najma Usmani. I just loved their costumes, the sunflower and the lady bug!!
At the trunk or treat. Nice face Ben :P
What do you think? Do I make a good scarecrow? Wait, if I am supposed to be scaring away the crows, why is there a crow on my shoulder?

A Birthday!

I almost feel silly saying that I only turned 21 on my birthday last week. Sometimes I really feel like too much has happened in life already for me to only be 21, seriously! Anyway, I just thought I would put a pic on here and take the opportunity to thank everyone for your love and well wishes. It was a great day thanks to you all. My girlfriends, April, Tiffany and Jaime, took me out to lunch and Ben came home early so that we were able to spend more time together than usual. Lots of family called as well. Thank you guys for making the day special and for making me feel loved. Ben took me out to dinner and he got me this ice cream cake, yummy... there is a funny story about ice cream cakes on my birthdays, maybe I will tell it another time :)

Almost Homeless...

Ben and I found out that we are moving to SALT LAKE CITY, UTAH next year for Ben's third and fourth year rotations!!!!!!!!!!!!! OK, here's the crazy story of how this match all panned out and why this post is titled the way it is.....

So, all the families put in their top 6 choices for places that they want to go to for rotations. Our first choice was Provo, Utah because I REALLY need to finish school and we would be closer to our families. There were 5 spots available for Provo and 8 people put it as their #1 choice. All of our other choices were very competitive as well. We had a few sites in Ohio, Kirksville, and Salt Lake on our list. Everyone wanted all of these sites! Anyway, from the mock matches, where they test run everyone's choices, we got Provo about 63% of the time; we thought we were doing ok. Come the real match, those people who don't match at all (don't get any of their 6 choices) or those who got their 4th, 5th, and 6th choices were called Wednesday night. Everyone was stressfully hoping that they didn't get called. Well, we got the dreaded phone call as well as four other families we know well. We didn't match at all to any of our 6 spots. That night we started to fast.

There was a meeting the next morning at 7:00 am for those who got called. They listed their top 3 spots that they wanted to petition to open a spot at and then drew a number. The number was what position you would be in for your petition choices. Thankfully, Ben drew number 1 and we were the only ones who put Utah sites down to petition. The dean over the petitioning, Dr. Suzewits, then made calls all day long trying to get the Directors over the rotation sites to open up another site in Provo as well as the sites for the other 7 seven families.

We got a call that afternoon at about 4:30 that the Director in Provo was going to have to sit down with the other Utah Directors and see what they could do. We were told to keep in mind that it wasn't sounding optimistic and that there was no time frame for how long it would take them to get back to us. At this point I was ready to break down again. I was trying soo hard to trust Heavenly Father that He had a place that we needed to be, but I was looking at the possibility of not finishing my degree for quite some time since we will be moving for the next two years and then again for Ben's residency after that. Transferring to another university would be really messy and time consuming. Anyway, to wrap things up, we were pretty upset and praying and fasting for a miracle. We ended up having an incredible experience.

After I got home from work, Ben and I knelt down to pray after fasting. We were both feeling so abandoned. About twenty seconds after we prayed, Ben's phone rang and Dr. Suzewits explained to Ben that Provo couldn't open a spot, but Salt Lake could. Seriously, what a miracle. It was one of those moments when you just think, "Whoah."

We are probably going to live in Sandy and both Ben and I will just have to commute a little ways for school and rotations, but that is totally fine! I know that Heavenly Father was watching over us; how could we ever deny it? Three other couples that we know are going to Salt Lake and a lot of our friends from med school and undergrad will be in Provo. Plus, we have family scattered all throughout the valley.

Now we are just praying for the other families that didn't match and are still waiting to hear about the places that they want to go. Good luck to all of you.

Thanks goodness for the power of prayer. Almost homeless...if not for the love of a kind Heavenly Father.

Soooo.......... SALT LAKE HERE WE COME!!! AND BYU, I HAVE MISSED YOU!!

Sorry this post is so long!

Wisdom Teefers!

After months of headaches from my wisdom teeth coming in, (we sure hope it was the wisdom teeth causing the headaches!) I finally got them pulled last Friday. We decided to just get it over with. We called the oral surgeon's office last Monday and there was an opening on Friday! It all happened so fast, but it needed to get done. Of course, we had to drive 2 hours just to get to the oral surgeon; that's Kirksville for ya. Ben was so sweet and took a lot of the day off from studying to drive me there and back and take care of me the rest of the day. He went to the store and got everything I needed and even set me up with a ton of episodes of "Gilmore Girls" so that I had something to do. Thanks so much for taking care of me Ben. Anyway, I thought I would post some pics of my fat chipmunk cheeks to give you all a little laugh today. Ben and his friend nicknamed me "Theodore" for the weekend :) I also vaguely remember Ben singing the theme to "Chip and Dale: Rescue Rangers" while I was in and out of sleeping on the way home from the surgery. Haha, funny funny.


I use this towel to wrap the ice in and tie it around my head. So far, it has been constant icing for my face.

Try to win a free handbag!

Go to this link below and sign up to win a free handbag. They are giving out one free handbag every hour of the day! Check it out. I know I like free stuff :)

http://www.handbagplanet.com/

Happy Halloween! A Simple and Thrifty Way to Decorate this October!

Hello Everyone! I have been getting into the spirit of fall and the upcoming holidays and thought I would post some of the fun things that I have been piddling with. I don't really have much to spend on extra things, so I had fun being crafty mostly with things that I already had around the house. I saw these cute jars at an arts and crafts fair in Kirksville a few weeks ago and my friend and I thought, "We could make those!" So I found a bunch of old jam jars I had saved, some black spray paint I had around the house, paint I had stowed away, and some extra raffia from something or another I can't remember, and made these little jars.



Then I found this glass container and these inexpensive Halloween bags at Wal Mart and created this little number. I mixed candy in with it to make it more festive :) There is candy stowed away in the jars, so if you are at our house in the next few weeks, dig in!



Then I found a chrysanthemum plant on sale at the local grocery store (most grocery stores have them on sale now, I know Wal Mart and HyVee do), and arranged it with a stool I already had, baskets I already had, leaves from our yard, a .99 cent scarecrow pick from Wal Mart, and pumpkins. Inexpensive and easy! That's how I like it! I like the seasonal feel of decorations, they add a little extra something. So just thought I would share a fun way I tried to do that without spending an arm and a leg.

Yummy Yummy Says My Tummy

Just thought I would share another recipe with everyone. You know how hard it is to find a homemade brownie recipe that actually rivals the stupefying paramount of box brownies? Seriously, I don't know how in the world they get box brownies to taste so amazing!! I have found a brownie recipe that I really like and comes pretty darn near box brownies when baked right!

5-Way Fudge Brownies

1/2 c butter or margarine
2 ounces unsweetened chocolate, cut up
1 c sugar
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla
2/3 c flour

Melt butter or margarine and chocolate in a medium saucepan over low heat. Remove from heat and stir in sugar, eggs, and vanilla. Beat lightly by hand until just combined. Stir in flour. Spread batter in a greased 9 by 9 pan (I use glass). Bake in a 350 oven for 20 minutes. Cool in pan on wire rack. Spread Chocolate Glaze over the cooled brownies, if desired. Add other ingredients from variations listed below, if desired. Cut into bars.

Notes:
1. I like mixing the chocolate glaze and chocolate chunk brownie recipes, except I usually just use milk chocolate chips.
2. I usually set the timer for 20 minutes but watch and check the brownies. Usually it takes a little bit longer than 20 minutes in my oven, but it depends on the oven! Plus, I like them gooey, so it depends on how you want them.

Chocolate Glaze:
Cook and stir 3 tbsp butter or margarine, 2 tbsp unsweetened cocoa powder, and 2 tbsp milk in a saucepan until the mixture comes to a boil. Remove from heat. Stir in 1 1/2 cups powdered sugar and 1/2 tsp vanilla.

Caramel Nut Goodies:
Prepare fudge brownies as directed, except stir in 1/2 c chopped pecans into the batter before baking. Sprinkle batter with 1/2 c mini semisweet chocolate chips and bake as directed. Combine one 61/4 ounce package of vanilla caramels and 2 tbsp of milk in a small saucepan. Cook and stir over medium-low heat until smooth. Drizzle caramel atop brownies.

Peanut Butter Brownies:
For frosting, beat 1/2 c peanut butter in a medium bowl until fluffy. Gradually add 1 c powdered sugar. Beat in 1/4 c milk and 1 tsp vanilla. Gradually beat in about 1/2 c additional powdered sugar to make of spreading consistency. Spread frosting atop brownies and sprinkle with 1/4 c finely chopped dry roasted peanuts (I like it without the peanuts).

Chocolate Chunk Brownies:
Prepare fudge brownies as directed except stir in 2.2-ounce milk chocolate bar, coarsely chopped, and one 2.2-ounce white chocolate bar with almonds, coarsely chopped, into the batter (I like just using a milk chocolate bar).

Creme de Menthe Brownies:
Prepare fudge brownies as directed, except omit vanilla. Stir 1/4 teaspoon mint extract into batter. For frosting, beat 1/4 c butter in a medium bowl until fluffy. Gradually add 1 c powdered sugar. Beat in 2 tbsp green creme de menthe (I just use mint extract or real essential oil peppermint and add to taste). Gradually beat in about 1/2 c powdered sugar to make of spreading consistency. Spread atop brownies. Melt 1 ounce semisweet chocolate and drizzle over brownies.