Chex Mix and Crafts

Good morning!

On Sunday, I headed down to my sister's place for a day filled with homemade Chex mix and crafts. My mom, sister, and I have been making homemade Chex mix each year since Andrea and I were little. It's a snack that we always look forward to and the bags that we produce rarely make it to see Christmas Day. 

We all brought a few ingredients and got to work! We made three batches so that we each could take one home to share with our husbands. Each year we make the classic recipe that is on the back of the seasoning packet, but we also make a few changes:

• We add Kix and Cheerios (or Joe's O's this year)
• Extra pretzels
• Extra wheat Chex since those are our favorite
• No bagel chips

This is how we've always done it and it is so good. I love all of the flavors and textures that are in each handful.

Check out my sister's huge measuring cup--that baby holds 4 cups! I mixed and measured all of the cereal and dry ingredients while my mom and sister melted butter mixed with the seasoning packet.

Stirring it all together to ensure an even distribution of flavors. You'd better believe we snacked on the dry mix a bit before tossing it into the oven to bake.

Working on batch two! By the third round, we had quite the system down!

My mom poured the mixture into baking pans before tossing it into the oven--stirring the mix every 15 minutes for even coverage.

Finally it was done! It made the house smell so good!

Crafts

My sister and her husband are picking up their new puppy tomorrow! His name is Hurley and he is a mix of a chocolate lab and a Corgi. From the pictures I've seen, he is adorable! They already have his bowl, food, collar, etc. all laid out and ready for him. I can't wait to meet this new addition to their family on Thanksgiving.

My whole family puts their trees up before Christmas--not just me! How cute is my sister's purple and silver themed tree? Please ignore the fact that I cut off the star at the top. Gah!

While the Chex mix roasted in the oven, we helped my mom with a Thanksgiving day craft. Well, my mom and I worked on them--my sister surfed the web and ate Chex mix while watching us do the crafts. 

My mom needed help creating and assembling little paper turkeys as placeholders for our Thanksgiving dinner. Speaking of which, we'll be headed to my in-law's on Thanksgiving day and my parent's on Sunday. Twice the celebration!

It was fun to sit back and do a craft while chatting with my family. I haven't done a cute project like this in so long! I often forget how fun it is to create things off screen rather than just on the computer.

We munched some salad while we worked--we weren't too hungry after all of that Chex mix so we kept it simple.

I cut out the turkey beaks and had way too much fun with them before they were glued down...

Seasonal candy was also consumed during the craft.

The finished product! We made 12 altogether and the letters stand for the initials of everyone's name. Here are the Laura and Andy turkeys. 

The whole army! Hopefully they stay strong this Thanksgiving so that we can use them again next year.

Today

Well, I'm off to go get ready for the day. Thankfully it's a short work-week this week and it's already almost half over. I'm working on some holiday e-card designs with animated snowflakes falling down and so far they're turning out well! This is a client that I don't usually design for, so it was nice to switch things up with a totally fresh look rather than a standard corporate style.

After work, I'm hitting the stores in search of some new jeans--the zipper came off the track of my favorite pair so they're kind of useless now!

Do you have name cards on your Thanksgiving table?

Homemade Chex mix fan?

When does your Thanksgiving break start?

Hawaiian Honeymoon Part 1

Good morning!

Yesterday on my way home from the gym, it began sleeting and by the time I arrived home and showered, it was full-on snowing! We finished decorating our tree before heading out in the snowy weather to attend the Saturday evening service at our church.

We went to the evening service since I'm headed over to Andrea's place this morning to make some homemade Chex mix with her and my mom. It's a family tradition that we've had ever since we were young and I hope to carry on the tradition when Andy and I have kids. You know, in like 10 years or so.... ;-)

Before I head out for the day, I wanted to share some more honeymoon photos with you guys! Let's have at it!

Hawaiian Honeymoon

My family, minus Andrea's husband, Andrew, since he was at Air Force training that day! He came to the reception though.

(Source)

After the wedding and reception, Andy surprised me by informing us that he had booked us a room at the Westin, which is a really fancy hotel. The room was phenomenal! Huge king-sized fluffy bed, a super modern bathroom, and room service!

They brought our breakfast into our room the next day--how fun to have breakfast in bed the day after the wedding! The rest of the day was spent running errands to pick up things for our trip.

We stopped by the mall right before they closed to cancel my cell phone account, join Andy's account, and get iPhones! These came in so handy on our trip! Andy even downloaded an app that showed us where everything was in Maui.

Our flights over there were kind of long. We first flew to Phoenix, then flew directly into Maui; however, the flight to Maui started at 10 and we didn't arrive until 2pm and we didn't get lunch on the flight, so we were starving! Plus we were 5 hours ahead on Minnesota time, so it was really 7pm our time. Talk about jet lag!

As soon as we landed, we grabbed our luggage--does anyone else freak out overtime they go to baggage claim that their bag won't be there? Luckily this has never happened to me before, but that would be awful! After exiting the airport, we headed to the car rental agency to pick up our car for the week. We got a brand new Ford Focus to zip around in while on the island.

There were chickens walking around everywhere! We were so surprised to see this!

Since we skipped lunch and didn't really eat much for breakfast, we stopped at the closest place to the airport--McDonald's! I was surprised to find out that everything cost much more in Hawaii since it all has to be imported onto the island. Everything on the menu was about a dollar more than in the states!

Also, we headed to Wal-Mart later in the week to pick up some snacks for the plane ride home and their prices were higher than usual too. It was interesting that they didn't have bags for your purchases either--you had to bring your own or go without! Crazy!

After our lunch/dinner or whatever it was at that time, we headed to our resort, which was about a 25 minute drive from the airport. I was gawking out my window the whole time with my camera--capturing all of the neat scenery, plants, and mountains that were around us! 

Our resort was so wonderful! We stayed at the Makena Beach and Golf resort for the week and loved every minute of it. 

Our room was on the very top floor, which provided us with some excellent views of the ocean and the resort grounds--including a golf course and a pool view.

The open-air resort was tropical, clean, and relaxing in every way possible. We had a gorgeous view out our balcony, and the staff was so friendly that we didn't want to leave at the end of the week.

Excited to be off of the airplane and in HAWAII!

Stay tuned for part 2!

Ever had breakfast in bed?

What do you usually order at McDonald's?

iPhones- yay or nay?

Honeymoon on an iPhone

Hi there!

I woke up much later than my usual weekend wake-up time due to a change of plans last night. I still ended up hitting the gym for a cardio and strength session, but switched things up with having a few friends over rather than hanging out by myself. Kaaren and Theresa came over for some girl chat, popcorn, and a movie.

(source)

We ended up watching one of my favorites, No Reservations, which I haven't watched in awhile but was quickly reminded of why I love it so much! The main character, played by Catherine Zeta-Jones, reminds me a lot of myself and how it's important to just let go sometimes and let life happen rather than trying to plan it out.

Honeymoon via the iPhone


Many of you have asked about our honeymoon and I'm finally ready to get these photos up! These are just the recaps from my phone, and the camera photos will be coming soon. Enjoy!

Our little guys got souvenirs from the gift shop so of course we had to have a photo shoot on the beach!

Dessert at the hotel one night. We dined al fresco under tiki torches!

The breakfast choices in the morning were amazing. It was fun to try everything!

Lots of photos of sunsets while we walked on the beach almost every night were were there

View from the route up the mountain to a winery

The gym at the hotel, which I only used a few times since we did so much walking, swimming, etc. each day

I was ecstatic when I spotted this at an outdoor shopping mall

It was great to see so much GREEN! It was 80 degrees and sunny each day--can't complain!

Authentic fish tacos--so good!

The beach where Andy's sister got married a few years ago

Inside of our open-air resort was a waterfall and indoor garden

This was the path we walked each morning on the way to the outdoor breakfast cafe

Those waffles were amazing! They even had coconut syrup to top them off with!

Bright, tropical plants were everywhere

Eating dinner at a local restaurant our first full day in Hawaii. I was a little sunburned already!

The view from our room

We had such a great trip and didn't want to leave! Now that it's getting really cold here, I want to go back to Hawaii's gorgeous weather and laid-back lifestyle! I would highly recommend it if you're looking to go on a honeymoon / vacation!

Today

Something got to our pumpkin before we could.

Not much is on the agenda for today. I'll probably hit the gym and then see what Andy's got planned for today. We still need to put the ornaments up on our trees, so maybe we'll end up doing that tonight?

Photo Challenge Day 11: Something Fun

A few weeks ago, my boss went to a leadership class at our office, and the presenter brought in a few props to use as examples of team building. She brought this lego set back to my desk and you'd better believe Krystine and I put it together lickity split and played with the pieces for a good 15 minutes while laughing and chatting with my boss. It doesn't get much better than toys at work!

Were you more of a LEGOs or a Barbie fan? I think I was equally a fan of both!
Favorite flavors and toppings for frozen yogurt?
Ever been to Hawaii? If so, what island?