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So, I have some really big plans for the near future. Assuming everything works out that is. I don't necessarily want to spill the beans just yet but I will say it has something to do with cupcakes. I'm busy planning away and hopefully soon I can tell you all about it! 

silly love songs

As you may or may not know, I am obsessed with Glee! This is one of my favorite songs from there and it shares it's name with my silly love songs posts! I have to say that I do love the original version of this song by Paul McCartney  but I do like the Glee version better. I love Blaine's (Darren Criss) voice. Give it a listen and let me know what you think! Do you like this one or the original better?

spazagna aka baked spaghetti

This is one of our favorite meals. I can make this on, let's say, a Monday and it can last the hubs and I 4 or 5 days if we just eat it for dinner. I usually have leftovers for lunch as well. I would almost dare say I like this better as leftovers than when it's first baked! I highly recommend that everyone try this recipe! I want to explain the name a little bit as well. Since this recipe is very similar to lasagna but you use spaghetti noodles we combined the two and made spazagna! Pretty clever if I do say so myself :)

Baked Spaghetti (Spazagna)

• 1 (16 ounce) package spaghetti
• 1 pound ground beef (optional)
• 1 (26 ounce) jar meatless spaghetti sauce
• 2 eggs
• 1/3 cup grated Parmesan cheese
• 5 tablespoons butter, melted
• 2 cups ricotta cheese
• 4 cups shredded mozzarella cheese

Cook spaghetti according to package. Drain and set aside. If using beef then brown and drain and combine with spaghetti sauce. Whisk the eggs, parmesan cheese and butter then toss with spaghetti. Grease your 13x9 inch casserole dish with cooking spray then spread a small amount of the spaghetti sauce on the bottom of the dish. Add about half of the spaghetti noodles to the dish and then spread half of the ricotta on top of the noodles. Next add about half of the sauce on top of that then add 2 cups of the mozzarella cheese. Repeat layers then bake at 350 degrees F for 40 minutes covered then uncover and bake for 20-25 more minutes or until cheese is melted.

the best peanut butter cookies ever

Okay, so here's the deal, these really are the best peanut butter cookies ever! I have had many a peanut butter cookie in my life because they are not only my Dad's favorite but my husband's as well. My wonderful Dad has been doing a ton of work on our house since we bought it. Updating things, fixing things and adding things. This week he's been here every day working on something, putting up fence, working on leveling the floor and hooking up water to our fridge. I decided that since it's almost Father's day and he's done such an amazing job that I would make him some of his favorite cookies. I was searching online for a recipe when I realized that I was forgetting that my Mother-in-law is the cookie queen! So, I called her up and got this recipe and everyone that has tried them has absolutely loved them.

Peanut Butter Cookies

courtesy of "The Cookie Queen" aka my Mother-in-law

You'll need:

1/2 c. butter, softened

1/2 c. peanut butter

1/2 c. sugar

1/2 c. light brown sugar

1 egg

1/2 tsp. vanilla

1 1/4 c. flour, sifted

3/4 tsp. baking soda

1/4 tsp. salt

Cream together butter, peanut butter and sugars. Then add egg and vanilla and beat until well combined. Mix dry ingredients together then add to beaten mixture. Once well combined, roll dough into 1 inch balls and roll in granulated sugar, place on parchment lined cookie sheet and press with a fork to make criss-crossing fork marks. Bake at 375 degrees fahrenheit for 10-12 minutes or until edges are golden brown. 

 Enjoy! 

strawberry pie (tart)

I found this recipe a couple of years ago and it is amazing! One of the few that I've added to my personal recipe collection. You can substitute the strawberries for any other fruit you would like. I have tried peaches and it's so yummy! 

Fruit pie (tart)

adapted from here.

• 1 package (8 ounces) cream cheese, softened
• 1/4 cup sugar
• 1 tablespoon milk
• 1 graham cracker crust (9 inches)
• 3 cups sliced fresh fruit
• about 1/4 cup sugar if using strawberries (optional)
• 
  
• In a large bowl, beat the cream cheese, sugar and milk until smooth. Spread over the bottom and up the sides of the crust.
• Dice fruit of choice and if using strawberries you can use 1/4 cup of sugar to sprinkle over the strawberries and toss to make a glaze. If using other fruit just dice and spread on top of cream cheese mixture.
• Chill for up to 4 hours then serve. 
• *Best served same day as prepared.

For graham cracker crust

1 1/2 c. crushed graham crackers

1/4 c. sugar

1/3 c. butter, melted

Crush graham crackers, combine with sugar and melted butter and press into 9 inch pie pan. Bake at 375 degrees for 8-10 minutes. Cool then add filling for pie. 

• 
  

silly love songs update

Here's an update to the last Silly Love Songs post. They finally posted a video for the Honey Bee song by Blake Shelton. Check it out, it's super cute!

Blake Shelton - Honey Bee

this weekend...

played with this little girl 

bought some yummy braums chocolate almond ice cream

went on a cupcake date with my sweetheart

whole foods date

got some more yummy treats

cookies and cream cookies

These cookies were pretty good but I think they would be even better if used to make ice cream sandwiches! What could be better than cookies AND ice cream!

Recipe found here

perfect summer side

Up until about a year and a half ago I did not like potato salad. I wouldn't even try it! For some reason I just "knew" I didn't like it. Obviously, I was wrong. Two of our lovely friends that we were having weekly movie nights with would grill every week and make us dinner. I, of course, was in charge of desserts. So, each week we would go to their house and they always grilled something delicious and the girls would make some yummy sides while the boys did the grilling. One week we went over there and they had made potato salad and being a guest I decided to try it. I loved it! Fletcher did too which is weird because he hadn't liked it before either. I had to have the recipe and now we make it all the time! So, here's the recipe for the best potato salad I've ever had!

Courtesy of our lovely friends Johnny and Mekisha.

Mashed Potato Salad

This recipe is so easy, it's really just a recipe that you don't need measurement for.

4-5 large potatoes

Mustard, to taste

Mayo, to taste

Relish, to taste

1 hard boiled egg for every 2 potatoes

Onion, optional

Wash, cut and boil potatoes until soft enough to mash with a fork. Boil eggs and then peel off the shell. Drain potatoes and put in large bowl, mix in mustard, mayo and relish to taste. Dice onion and eggs. Add eggs and then onion if you like and stir up and mash potatoes while stirring. Then viola! You have a yummy side for a picnic or barbecue! 

Vacation recap

We left for Corpus Christi on a Thursday and made our first stop at my brother's house on the way there. My niece is almost 11 and she plays softball and my brother is the coach for her team, the Sluggerz. They are pretty darn good. She pitches and let me tell you...she's way better than I ever could be. She's awesome! She's got some little muscles on those arms! Anyway, so we went to her game and they were so close to winning! They did a great job. Then we went and ate dinner and stayed the night at my brother's house. The next morning we got up and around and headed out for Corpus Christi at about 7:30. That's so early for me. Ha! But we were on our way to my other brother's house to spend the week and so my Daddy could help my brother work on his Jeep. 

We stopped a few times on the way to Corpus mainly because we had to let our dogs out but also to eat and then once to stop at a post office to mail some stuff. That was the most interesting post office experience I've ever had. My Dad and I went in so I could mail 2 packages and the lady was the nicest post office lady I've ever dealt with. First off they didn't have the right envelopes that I needed so she let us use 2 envelopes and only charged us for one and then the other package she let me mail in what it came in which I thought you could do but she said she wasn't supposed to do that. We got out of the post office spending less that 5 dollars when it should have been at least $15!! So cool, but I guess she had had a bad morning because when she got to work they found a cottonmouth in the break room!!! AH! I would have gone home after that if I were her. 

So, we continued on our trip and finally got to Corpus Christi around 6p.m. and went out to eat with my brother and his family. The next day we went and walked along the ocean and watched the wind surfers. They were awesome! Fletcher wanted to try it so bad but I don't think we would have had time for him to learn while we were down there so we just watched them. I would be too scared that the wind would carry me away! 

Each day we went and explored a different place on the ocean. One day we walked out on a super long fishing pier which was pretty cool and we went to 4 or 5 different beaches while we were there. Okay, so I had mentioned that I had never been to the ocean before and I hadn't that I remember. There's a chance I have been before when I was a baby and just don't remember but I don't count that so yeah this was an awesome experience for me. The first few days we were there we didn't go to a beach that you could swim at just random small beaches which I'm sure I could have walked in but hey, I'm kind of a scaredy cat so I wanted to wait until we went to the real beach that was for swimming. So when we finally went to the beach to swim I was brave enough to walk barefoot part of the way out into the water. I got to the point where it was a little over my knees but then I freaked myself out thinking about fish and  jellyfish touching me so I opted to sit under the umbrella on the beach while everyone else swam. Turns out that was my favorite part! I'd rather just relax on the beach with my toes in the sand than fight the waves to go out and swim. I have too much of an imagination to not think about things touching my legs and possibly stepping on something. 

One day we went to the pier to check out the boats and the Selena memorial. My brother's used to listen to Selena when I was little so I like her music now too. If you haven't heard of her then you should definitely check her out and watch the movie "Selena" with Jennifer Lopez. It's so good and such a sad story but Selena was amazing. So we went to check out the memorial for her in Corpus Christi since that's where she was from. 

After we left the memorial and were driving around downtown Corpus we saw a cool old motel so I had to snap a couple pics. Fletcher and I got to go explore some neat places in Corpus and got to eat at some awesome places while we were there. Those pics are in the last post of iphone photos. I didn't take very many pictures with my Canon because I mainly just didn't want it to get messed up with all the salty water and sand around. Also, my 4 year old nephew probably would have wanted to steal it from me like he did my phone haha! So, I just stuck with my trusty iphone and got some awesome pictures of the trip with it. 

This last photo is one I took with my Canon right after I took it out in the heat from the air conditioning. The humidity was terrible and so my camera got all fogged up on the inside but I just love how this photo came out! It looks vintage. :)  

Our trip was a success and I can't wait to go to the beach again. I'm thinking Hawaii or Florida sounds like a nice vacation for next year.... ;)

Our trip in iphone photos (image heavy)

Here are pretty much all the pictures I took with my iphone while we were on our trip to Corpus Christi.

Packing for the trip

 in the car

we ate a lot of candy on the way there, especially hot tamales 

we stopped by my brother's house to watch my niece play a softball game. this is before the game when they were warming up. she's almost 11 and an amazing softball player.  

my daddy :) 

my brother and his puppy 

 breakfast before we left my brother's house for Corpus Christi

 roadside fruit stand

 my daddy's puppy, sassy, and fletcher 

favorite road trip drink 

we stayed with my other brother in Portland, Tx. there were tons of windmills there. 

first dinner in Corpus. so yummy! 

my daddy and brother working on his jeep 

 the coolest grocery store ever. i wish we had one.

starbucks date with my love 

 finally got this cd while we were there

seashells! 

there were palm trees everywhere 

i found a stingray stinger! 

it was so windy down there and i had to wear my hair up everyday, which if you know me literally never happens. 

surfin' jesus! 

one of my favorite texas fast food places, wienerschnitzel! 

Selena memorial on the ocean 

we walked out on this. it was pretty cool.  

 feedin' the birds.

went to the beach and my brother and fletcher fed the seagulls.

i could sit on the beach all day. 

super yummy pizza

 we went walking on this trail every night. there was water on both sides. so beautiful.

fletcher and my nephew, they are buddies.  

awesome 2 story whataburger

view from the second story

we walked around the pier one night. so many cool boats. 

 tried coconut milk for the first time. 

pretty self-explanatory little burger joint. 

ate at a restaurant called doc's. so cool to be able to eat right on the ocean.

found a cool store called sun harvest farmer's market. it was pretty much like a whole foods or trader joe's.

sunrise the morning we left to head home. 

ride home. 

the hubs got a nice tan....i did not.

along with tons of seashells and sand we brought home this vertebrae we found on a beach we went to. no clue what it's from.

I didn't take very many pictures with my canon but I will be uploading them a little later for a more in depth post about our trip! Hope you all love the photos. Our trip was so fun!