Fresh Berries

I made this Strawberry Shortcake dessert just the other night. I was surprised at how easy and quickly it came together. My favorite part is the fresh berries.....and the yummy Greek yogurt cream topping.....oh, and the homemade shortcake biscuits!!!! It's all delicious! In fact Clint had 4 servings of this dessert. And that is extreme for him since he has been on this getting healthy kick. He couldn't stop himself from eating more and more. In his defense he did run extra for the next 2 nights. But I think it is well worth it! 

The recipe is of course from The Pioneer Woman and please don't judge me when you go to her link and see the picture of her dessert with a nice little dollop of cream on top. I just noticed that mine is like 3 times the size of hers. What can I say....my mother taught me well when it comes to cream toppings. And the fact that it has Greek yogurt in it somehow makes me feel a little bit better. 

Enjoy

Here is the recipe as it appears on Pioneer Woman 

Ingredients

• Biscuits
• 3 cups All-purpose Flour
• 2 Tablespoons Baking Powder
• 3 Tablespoons Sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon Salt
• 1-1/2 stick (3/4 Cup) Cold Butter, Cut Into Pieces
• 1-1/4 cup Buttermilk
• 1/2 teaspoon Almond Extract (optional)
• Berries
• 2 pints Mixed Berries And/or Sliced Strawberries
• 1/3 cup Sugar
• Zest And Juice Of 1 Small Orange
• SWEET YOGURT CREAM
• 1 package (7 Ounces) Plain Greek Yogurt
• 1 cup Cold Heavy Cream
• 1/2 cup Sugar
• 2 Tablespoons Brown Sugar

Preparation Instructions

BISCUITS
Preheat oven to 400 degrees.
Add flour, baking powder, sugar, and salt to the bowl of a food processor (or a large bowl.) Add butter pieces and pulse until butter is completely cut into the flour mixture (or use a pastry cutter if using a bowl.) Add almond extract to buttermilk. While pulsing (or stirring) drizzle in the buttermilk until dough just comes together and is no longer crumbly.
Drop in clumps on two baking sheets, then bake for 15 minutes, or until golden brown. Set aside and allow to cool completely.
BERRIES
Wash berries (slice strawberries if using) and place into a bowl. Sprinkle on 1/3 cup sugar, then add orange zest and juice. Stir gently, then set aside for 15 to 20 minutes to allow syrup to develop.
CREAM
In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the whisk attachment, whip yogurt, cream, sugar, and brown sugar on high until stiff (note: It won't get quite as stiff as regular whipped cream.)
TO SERVE
To serve, lay one biscuit on a plate, top with syrupy fruit, then top with a good spoonful of cream.

My Valentines

We love Valentines day around our house.
We feel so lucky to have people we love in our lives
And it is so fun to celebrate with those people and show them how much you really do care.
Ruby has been counting down the days to Valentines since New Years
We have all of her Valentines for school ready and we decorated her Valentines basket. (Super easy)
So she is set.
The three of us will be celebrating together this year with a special dinner and exchanging cards.
And then we have a fun weekend planned. 

I hope you have fun plans for this holiday of LOVE

I'm Back

Hopefully I can get back into the habit of this again. We ended up spending the entire summer in Utah. We just kept extending and extending. It wasn't all play though. Ruby had to get her tooth pulled and a spacer put in which added 3 weeks onto the visit and then I ended up having to get new renters into our house which meant I had to get the house ready for the new renters. And that always ends up being way more work than expected.

I have wanted to blog about everything that we did while we were there. But I haven't quite figured out where to start, it is a bit overwhelming. So today I was going through some of my videos and thought I would share those for now and then slowly catch up from there. 

These first two are of Ruby and some of her cousins doing a little 4th of July performance at the family party. 

 

 Ruby took swimming lessons for the first time while we were there and even learned how to dive off of the diving board

And this is her amazing backstroke. I was totally impressed with how quickly she caught on.

That's my girl.

A Great Man

Clints deployment so far has been tougher than either of us thought.
Originally we were just thinking ok a few short months and he will be back. He will get some great combat time and a ton of flight hours. But in the few short weeks that he has been there, his base has been attacked and he has lost a good friend.
Mat Fazzari
Mat was in the graduating class behind Clint and flew the same helicopter. He was one of the five guys that changed duty stations to Ft. Bragg to catch up with the deployment. Clint knew him at Ft. Rucker but I only met him once we moved to North Carolina and Mat stayed with us until they left for the deployment. He was such a good guy and both Clint and I were so excited for them to get back and for he and his wife Tovah and their two sons to move into our neighborhood. There was something special about Mat. We just felt like we would be close friends and we loved having him around.
His wife Tovah even came out with their baby and stayed too.
It was fun getting to know them and making plans for the future when we would all hang out together.
They were so tender and sweet to each other you could just tell they loved each other dearly. 
Mat loved my apple pie and I made it for the guys the night before they deployed and we made plans to have one when they got back.
It's so sad the losses that we all face
Especially the men and women fighting on behalf  of this country.
And they still go out and perform their duties even when faced with heartache.


This is a pic that Clint took of Evan and Mat within minutes of landing in Afghanistan

Clint was lucky enough to fly up to the services that they held in Bagram.
This is the pic that he took before the services.
(the Kiowa pilots wear the stetsons bc they are in the air cavalry)

And this pic is from after the services.
everyone attending approaches and salutes and leaves a token or memento

I have been more affected by the past several week than I thought I ever would.
It makes everything seem so much more real
Mat was a great man, husband and father and I feel lucky to have known him.
I think of Tovah several times a day and can't imagine the pain of loosing the love of your life.
Pray for the soldiers and all that they do for us.

 Ruby and I were able to come to SLC for Clint's Grandpas funeral
We are so happy to be here and hang out with family and friends. 

Ruby's Prayers

Ruby has the sweetest little prayers. I mean they aren't your typical little kid memorized prayers where they say the same thing every time. They are sincere and thought out. 

Which shouldn't surprise me one bit because that is Ruby's entire personality.

For example tonight we said a prayer with Clint....

Pretty awesome right? Cause he is in Afghanistan!!!!!

He took his iphone and he has the internet so we face time at least once a day most days it is twice. It is so awesome. It really makes a huge difference being able to see him. I think I would be losing my mind if we didn't get to.So for that I am so thankful. 

Back to Ruby's Prayer.....

Ruby has seen me at my lowest point, wanting another baby, going through invitro, getting pregnant, miscarrying, invitro again, and then nothing. She has seen the pain and suffering, so much so that any time that I cry now she automatically gets me tissue and sings me a song. Usually "You are my Sunshine" or "Edelweiss"

She will sit with me and wipe all my tears and usually tell me what makes her feel better when she is sad that she doesn't have a baby sister or brother. 

I mean c'mon is that not adorable?

So her prayers are always full of Thank You's, she even turns her wants into Thank You's 

Like this......from tonight's prayer.

"Thank you that daddy will return home safely from Afghanistan"

or 

"Thank you that I will get a little brother or sister"

When I hear that I just think it's gotta happen somehow right?

Well it won't unless we do something more than we are doing currently. So we can't wait until Clint gets home this fall so that we can start pursuing both options of invitro and adoption and see where each path leads us. Please keep us in your thoughts and prayers. Even though Ruby's are pretty dang cute I think we are going to need a lot more. And if you have any good info on either invitro or adoption send it our way. Mostly adoption since we have been through invitro twice I sorta know what to expect there. 

Lastly in Ruby's Prayer tonight she said

" thank you that Mama and Papa are together again."

Clint's grandpa passed away today and I'm sure he is so happy to be with his sweet wife again. 

He will be missed but from all that I have known and heard about him he was an incredible man and lived a long and happy life. 

We love you Papa

 

Lamp Lovin'

So this is another knock off that I did.
I had saved this image forever ago, knowing that I wanted to make this at some point, and when I had collected enough scraps of fabric that I wanted to use I got to work.

This beautiful lamp shade was originally from Anthro, but I can't find it for sale anymore so I am glad that I had saved the image.

(img Anthropologie)

And this is how mine turned out.


Pretty awesome
It was super duper easy....just time consuming. It took a couple of movie nights with Clint to get it all cut out. Once I had it cut out and it was how I wanted it I just got busy gluing those little pieces on with this product that I love. I get it at Walmart.

So there it is....an easy new lamp shade that is inexpensive to make.

Linked to:
Classy Clutter

Skinny Capri

I received this J Crew catalog in the mail this past week
 


 

And I fell in love with these immediately


The Cafe Capri

So I thought I would try it out. I had bought these old navy pants at a thrift store a long time ago and was just waiting for something to transform them. And the Cafe Capri was the perfect project.
This is what they looked like before.
Sorry for the pictures, I have to figure out where and how to take pictures at our new house and without Clint. Since he is now deployed to Afghanistan, he won't be much help to me.



Here is the after.
I like the way they turned out and for $3.00 It makes me super happy to wear them.

If you can sew a straight line you can easily do this projects.
I just grabbed a pair of my pants that I wanted the Capri's to fit like and I turned them both inside out.
then I just traced a line down the grey pants where I should stitch the seam
then I tried them on and once they fit how I wanted them I cut the extra fabric off.
And there you have it.
Super fast and easy.


Linked to:
Lolly Jane 
Today's Creative Blog 
Classy Clutter

The Big Easy

After Clint's graduation we took a quick trip down to New Orleans. Ever since we moved to Alabama I have wanted to go.....I guess we are total procrastinators because we literally left it to the last minute. But it was so fun cause we got to take My Mom and Dad and Clint's Mom and Noah which made it fun, especially for Ruby.



On the way we stopped and checked out the USS Alabama. It really was amazing.
Those ships are like little cities.
It had a butcher shop, a bakery, a tailor and so many other things that I wouldn't have even thought of.  

 

 

The whole gang walking up to the ship I thought this thing was totally cool. It is how they would keep track of who was on the boat

  I thought this thing was totally cool. It is how they would keep track of who was on the boat. If you left the boat while it was docked you would turn your name so it couldn't be seen and that is how they would know who was aboard and who wasn't

 

 

New Orleans was pretty amazing. It is kind of unreal. Like no other place that I have ever been.
There are people everywhere. And we weren't even there at a busy time.
I loved all the buildings. The architecture and all the colors. I just wanted to take pictures of everything I saw.

I did take lots of pictures of doors. I don't know why, but I love doors. 
And New Orleans didn't disappoint. I'll spare you and just show you a few.

 

 

 

Look at all of these doors.
Lovely 

 

 

Ruby even got a mask.
She loved it and of course got the only one in the store with the fringed beads.
No surprise there.
She wore it around like that the entire night

Ruby was super excited to ride the street cars because we told her that it was the same on that Tiana rode in The Princess and The Frog.

Tulane University. It was right along the street car line and It was beautiful

The last stop we made on our way out of town was this old cemetery.
I love all the history you can see and feel in cemeteries. It's almost peaceful to me.
And this cemetery did not disappoint.
Check it out.

I think I might need to hang this one up in my house somewhere. Even though I don't do crosses. So I probably won't, but
I just love the sun peaking over the cross






My cute dad giving Ruby some lesson about the cemetery



So maybe I will choose one of these two to hang in my house.
But then again it might be a little too creepy considering it is a tomb.
But don't you think they look cool.










There was this cute little prayer room there. It looked like a miniature church.
Ruby was amazed by the whole thing.



We loved New Orleans and were so sad to only have a few days there. Especially because we knew we had to get home and finish packing the moving truck and head to North Carolina.
But we were glad we decided to go and so glad that we got to go with family and friends.