Happy Hallo-weenie!!

You know what I love about Halloween?

Black.

I painted my nails black last night.

This is not my hand.

I think it makes me look a little bit goth. I like it.

I also like that I get to make my dog wear things like this amazing Dorothy costume from the Wizard of Oz.

Abby dog, circa 2008.

Another reason I like Halloween is because we get to do things like dress in funny outfits and go parading around town knocking on strangers' doors asking for candy. Ahem. I mean, the kids do.

Last night before our party.

For some reason I can't find our pictures from last year's BN Trunk or Treat. Sadness.

Halloween, 2008. Missing hubby.

Miss AJ is also getting in the Halloween spirit. Pictures of her costume will be posted Monday for Mamarazzi Monday!

She's just so darn cute.

In honor of Halloween, tonight we're having my mama's famous traditional Halloween dinner, Beanie-HalloWeenie. aka Baked beans with hot dogs in it. Classy. (love you, mom)

Reese's Pie & Monster Cookies, Oh My!

In honor of Halloween (and because Lord knows we don't have enough sweets in our house right now) I decided to make a few goodies that either use candy in the recipe or remind me of candy. I found both of these recipes elsewhere, so the credit is due to Pioneer Woman and Family Circle magazine.

If you have any parties this weekend or just have extra m&m's that you can pilfer from your kids' candy bags, then you might want to make one (or both) of these recipes!

Pioneer Woman's Monster Cookies

• 2 sticks (1/2 Pound) Butter (salted) Softened
• ½ cups White Sugar
• 1-½ cup Brown Sugar, Packed
• 2 whole Large Eggs
• 1 Tablespoon Vanilla Extract
• 1-½ cup All-purpose Flour
• ½ teaspoons Baking Soda
• 1 teaspoon Baking Powder
• 2 teaspoons Kosher Salt
• 1-½ cup Oats (either Quick Or Regular)
• ½ cups M & M's (more To Taste)
• ½ cups Pecans, Chopped (more To Taste)
• ¾ cups Chocolate Chips (milk Or Semi-sweet)
• ½ cups Peanut Butter Chips
• 2-¼ cups Rice Krispies

Preparation Instructions

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

Cream butter with sugars until fluffy. Add eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition. Add vanilla and beat.

Combine flour, baking soda, baking powder, and kosher salt. Add to mixing bowl and mix till combined. After that, add in remaining ingredients in whatever quantity you prefer. Add more nuts if you’d like, or more M & M’s, more peanut butter chips or chocolate chips.

Add Rice Crispies at the very end, mixing until just combined. Do not overmix!

Use a cookie scoop to scoop balls of dough onto a cookie sheet. Bake until golden brown, then allow to cool on a rack.

Serve with glasses of cold milk.

Reese's Pie (via Family Circle)

• 1 refrigerated rolled piecrust (from 15-ounce package)
• 3 eggs
• 1 cup light corn syrup
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1/3 cup chunky peanut butter
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1/2 cup semisweet chocolate chips, plus additional for garnish (optional)
• Frozen whipped topping (such as Cool Whip), thawed (optional)
• Chopped peanuts (optional)

Directions

1. Heat oven to 375 degrees F. Fit piecrust into a 9-inch pie plate. Flute if desired. Refrigerate while preparing filling.

2. In a small bowl, lightly beat eggs with a fork. Stir in corn syrup, sugar, peanut butter and vanilla extract; mix until completely blended.

3. Remove piecrust from refrigerator and sprinkle with chocolate chips then pour peanut butter mixture over top. Cover edges of pie with aluminum foil.

4. Bake pie at 375 degrees F for 20 minutes; remove foil. Bake an additional 15 to 20 minutes more or until knife inserted near center comes out clean. Cover and chill for 2 hours. Garnish with whipped topping, remaining chocolate chips and chopped peanuts, if desired.

MilSpouse Friday Fill-In...

Link up at Wife of a Sailor.

1. What’s the nicest thing a stranger has ever done for you?
I can't really think of anything specific, but I always appreciate it when people hold the door for me. Here's the story that goes along with it. I grew up in a town full of pretty snobby, rude people who are too self-involved to hold the door for strangers. When I went to college people would hold the door. Not just for someone right behind them, but they would literally wait for you, while holding the door.

2. If you are having a hard time going to sleep, what do you do to help yourself?
I used to just stay up and read or get on the computer and search for the end of the internet. Now, with an 8 month old baby, I don't really have that problem anymore. ;)

3. Name something that makes you wish you were a kid again.
Christmas. I love it, but there is something about Christmas morning that just makes me want to wake up at 6 am and run downstairs in my jammies to open all my presents!

4. What is something you never believed until you experienced it?
I never believed that motherhood would change me so much. Everyone says that it does, but I couldn't see how it would happen. Now that I'm settling into this life, I never believed that my priorities would shift so much from what they used to be. I can honestly say that my life is forever changed, for the better!

5. What can’t you say “no” to?
I have the hardest time saying no to D. He has this funny way of convincing me to do anything he wants! With that being said, I'm not known for being a push-over. D is pretty much the only person who can get me to do whatever they want.

Some Updates....

I wanted to update you all on a few things.

1. Thank you all so much for all your comments on the housing issue. I had totally forgotten about AHRN.com. This website is amazing!! Also, we're talking to a realtor as well, and we're trying to keep our options open. Basically, if the timing works out, we'd like to buy a house, but I'm not getting my hopes up and I was able to find several houses for rent in what I think is a decent area.

2. Thank you also for your comments and advice on the camera question. You all echoed what we were finding through our online research. I'm still not sure which one we're going to get, but that is mostly because we don't have stores here so I haven't had a chance to go check any of them out yet!

3. The class that D is in the midst of ends in just over a month and all the guys in the class (including D) are planning on growing moustaches for graduation. Ugh. There are not many things that creep me out more than a moustache.

4. AJ's Halloween costume is all ready and I can't wait to get her in it for trick or treating on Sunday!

5. I watched Rocky Horror Picture Show today after not having seen it in years. Man is that a weird movie.

6. Our neighbors moved out of their half of our duplex a few weeks ago and since the housing company is renovating the houses in our neighborhood (and we live in a not-yet-updated house) I didn't think we'd be getting new neighbors. Well, today a moving truck pulled up and started unloading. We have new neighbors, folks! I'm kind of happy (because they could be friendly!) but also kind of nervous. Our last neighbors were super quiet, and we never had any issues with noise. I don't forsee these neighbors being rowdy, but you just never know. I really hope they're quiet, especially since the bedrooms are the rooms that share the wall and I don't want AJ's nap schedule to get interrupted.

Anyways, that's all for today, folks. Tomorrow is MilSpouse Friday Fill-In, so make sure you come on back tomorrow morning!

**Sorry if this post was disjointed and confusing, we have a lot of "plans" (<3 the Army) that are up in the air right now and I'm just all over the place lately.

Housing Woes...

So a while back I blogged about how we were planning to buy a house at our next duty station. We had decided that we were ready and since we kind of know that we're going to be stationed there on and off for the rest of D's career it seemed like a good time!

Well, then we got to thinking about it and since D is going to be TDY en route for 2-ish months during the PCS we decided to wait. We were planning to live on post for a year and then buy a house. We have orders so we started the application process for living on-post in hopes that we'd be able to get on the wait list sooner.

When we checked online, the wait list said 6-12 months depending on which neighborhood we were interested. Typically the list that is posted online is kind of embellished so that they cover their butts and don't tell you its going to be a 3 month wait and then you end up homeless for 6 months. When I called the housing office yesterday to ask a question the receptionist informed me that the wait is indeed 6-12 months. For realz. Ugh.

That means that if we want to live on post we're going to be in lodging a hotel for the entire wait. We can't stay in lodging on post because we have a dog and most of the on-post lodging does not allow pets. Double ugh.

Needless to say, our plans have changed again and we're now looking at both homes for rent and homes for sale in the area of our next duty station. To say I'm getting stressed out would be an understatement. For some reason I'm having a really hard time finding quality home rentals in our price range. I've gotten some advice on neighborhoods to look at, but I can't find any homes in those areas that are for rent within our BAH.

What's a girl to do? How do you find housing when you PCS? Do you move and then look or do you have an idea of where you'll live before you leave your current duty station?

Also, totally unrelated!! Grab my button from the right hand side.... ---->
Thanks to Erin from Moore To Love for helping me out again!

Calling All Photographers!!

My Father-In-Law is getting us a camera for Christmas and I need help! I have no idea what the best Digital SLR cameras are or even what features I should look for.

I'm hoping that some of you may be able to help me figure out what types of things you have found necessary and what features we should not worry about. We also aren't set on any particular brand or model, so if you've had good or bad experiences with any of them, or maybe are loyal to a certain brand for some reason, I'd love if you would share!

Keep in mind that I'm totally a photography novice and this will be basically the camera that I "learn" with, so I don't really want anything super crazy nice, expensive, or hard to use.

I also am not sure if most DSLR's come with a lens or not. Can someone shed some light on this for me or perhaps explain? From what I've seen several of the lower-priced cameras include a lens, but some don't so I'm not sure. Oh, also, have I mentioned that I don't know what I'm doing?

I looked online at consumer reviews last night and it looks like there are 3 or 4 models that are consistently recommended, but I thought I'd ask all my lovely readers what their opinions are, since I know some of you are crazy good photographers!

Anyways, thanks in advance for your help! Oh, and if you know any super-awesome photographers who don't read my blog that would be able to help, send them my direction! I can use all the advice I can get.

Mamarazzi Monday

It's Monday again and that means its time to show off all the fun and exciting things that happened over the weekend! If you want to join in, head over to Household 6 Diva to link up!

Climbing on the bed.

Who, me?!?

I also had a video to upload for you all, but Blogger took forever to upload it and then in the end, it wouldn't let me upload. So annoying.