The summer is ending...

Well the summer is finally coming to an end. We are moving home from South Carolina this week!! I really can't believe it's here! Tanner and I are beyond excited to go home and see all our family and friends. We have missed everyone so much!! It has been a cool experience living in the South for the summer though, but.... now it's time to go home!;) I have a million little things I have been wanting to paint and craft up, but now it's to the point where I can't buy anything else because we have zip no more room in the car. Ha ha we have to load everything in our car that we own out here and haul it back to Utah. Not to mention we have a good 38 hour drive... that is if me and Tan don't kill each other first;) The other day I wanted to paint this cool rug, so I went out and bought a whole bucket of paint... then I could't find the right rug for the project. Now I have to throw away that whole dang thing of paint!!! Grrrr. So the fun creations will be soon to come. For now I have been whipping up some yummy food that you HAVE to try!!

(Sorry that I don't know how to take profesh pictures, and all these pictures look pretty crappy!)

So the other day Tanner tells me that his favorite dessert of all time is Rhubarb Pie. What the? I have never seen or heard of "rhubarb" He said his grandma grows it in her backyard and she always makes it. (Then I got scared because making anything that Grandma Sunnie makes... you just can't compete with that, she's an awesome cook!!) Well I went on the hunt for rhubarb. Super hard to find. Only a couple grocery stores had it in stock. This is what I found...

It's like long red celery pretty much. Anyways I ended up making this pie (pulling it out of the oven at 2:04 am of course) and Tanner told me it was the best thing he had ever eaten in his life. (I almost cried tears of straight up joy) This was the best news ever!!! I have now named this pie, "Tanner's Rhubarb Pie" it will always be the number one dessert recipe in my cook book from now on:) I had never made a pie before this and I seriously loved making it. There is something very therapeutic about creating a yummy pie!!

TANNER'S RHUBARB PIE:
-1 recipe for a double pie crust (my recipe is what made this pie!!)
-3 eggs
-2 cups white sugar
-1/4 cup all purpose flour
-1 tsp. vanilla extract
-3 Tbl. milk
-1 Tbl. butter
-4 cups diced rhubarb
-I added about a cup of strawberries (optional)
Roll out pastry for the bottom crust, place in pie dish. Put rhubarb in crust. In a large bowl beat eggs slightly. Mix in sugar, flour, milk, vanilla, and butter. Pour mixture over rhubarb. Cover with top crust and seal edges. (I did a lattice pie top)
Bake at 400 degrees for 50-60 minutes. Let cool.
(My pie crust recipe seriously made this pie. I had flour all over the floor and on my face and every where. It was a mess!! So I will show you how to make that another time;)

(Yeah don't have a rolling pin, so don't mind the vivint water bottle...)

It was very tart but sweet and tangy!! So freaking yummmyyy!!!

I created this dang good glaze to put over salmon a while ago. I decided I need to share it with everyone so you can experience the heavenlyness!!

SALMON HONEY SOY GLAZE:
(This is all "abouts")
-2 Tbsp. honey
-2 Tbsp. soy sauce
- 1 Tbsp. vegetable oil
- 1 tsp. lemon pepper
-just a splash or two of worcestershire sauce
Whisk it all together and you're good to go! Use a little pastry brush to coat all sides of the salmon. Keep coating it with glaze while grilling it. I use my cast iron skillet, and put a little bit of butter (or olive oil) in the pan so the salmon sizzles with crispiness ;) Throw in some mashed potatoes and parmeson asparagus and you have one killer yummy dinner. Enjoy!

Hey and don't judge the plastic 50 cent plate we have going on right here...

Holy Crap Yum

Soooo I love to make bread. I have even come up with a few reasons why you should make bread:)
1. Your house smells like pure heaven
2. It tastes like pure heaven
3. It even looks like pure heaven
It's basically like you are in heaven if you make this bread...
It has taken me a while trying out lots and lots of recipes and trying new tricks and nicks, this at that... BUT I have finally found the perfect one!!! I call it dun dun dun "Pure Heaven Honey Wheat Bread"
1 (.25 ounce) package rapid rise yeast
1 teaspoon white sugar
1/2 cup warm water (110 degrees F/45 degrees C)
1 (12 fluid ounce) can evaporated milk
1/4 cup water
1/4 cup melted shortening
1/4 cup honey
2 teaspoons salt
2 cups whole wheat flour
3 cups bread flour
2 tablespoons butter
Now here's how to do it!:
Step 1:
Dissolve yeast and sugar in 1/2 cup warm water.
Step 2:
Combine milk, 1/4 cup water, shortening, honey, salt and wheat flour in a bowl. Mix in yeast mixture, and let rest 15 minutes.

Step 3:
Add bread flour, Knead dough 10 - 15 minutes.
I like to use:

Step 4:
Place the dough in a buttered bowl, and turn to coat.(I use olive oil) Cover the bowl with kitchen towel. Let dough rise for 45- 60 minutes, or until almost doubled. (I turn my oven on to 200 to let it warm up. When it's time for the dough to rise I turn the oven off. Your dough always needs to rise in a warm place)

Step 5:
Punch down, and divide dough in half. Roll out each half, and pound out the bubbles. Form into loaves, and place in buttered 9x5 inch bread pans. Butter the tops of the dough, and cover loosely with plastic wrap. Let rise in a warm area until doubled; second rise should take about 30 minutes.

Place a small pan of water on the bottom shelf of the oven. Preheat oven to 375 degrees F (190 degrees C).
Bake for 25 to 35 minutes, or until tops are dark golden brown. Butter crusts while warm. Slice when cool.

I hope this helps a tad!?! Now go run along and make some yummy bread and fill your tummy with PURE HEAVEN!!!! This seriously is one of my most favorite thing to just snack on:)

So This bracelet is pretty funky right? I just kinda threw it together. I like the yellow band, it gives is some fun color!

It was mine and Tan's 6 month anniversary yesterday, so I had to put a pic of us and say I love him! Marrying him was the best thing I could have ever done for myself... He took me to this cute little restaurant (the kind with the tiny little lamps with fire in them) and I loved it!! Last night he asked me... "so on our 2 1/2 year mark do we celebrate too?" haha made me laugh, I said no only the BIG 6 MONTHER!!! Well I love ya...
-McKenzie

Some New Stuff...

So I thought I would do a some blogging today... whoo hoo! Well first I love this day because it's my best friends birthday!! Yay for birthdays, love ya Jess. It's also a good because I woke up this morning and I had a dream about Optimus Prime.(Don't be judging me!!) The husb and I went and saw Transformers 3 last night. I have to tell you that I'm Optimus's biggest fan.... not to mention shia labeouf (I just had to google his name. At first I had it spelt "Shilo Bluff"... Sad.) eye candy was in the movie!!! Tan was holding my hand though and he's my new Shia, so I wasn't drooling as much as I was in the first two movies...;) Anyways that was fun! Nothing to exciting here in SC. It's getting pretty dang hot though. I'm still not used to the humidity yet. The hot air gets so thick its hard to breath sometimes! So I have a pretty great story to tell you all. Saturday night me and Tan headed to good ol Wal-mart to get food for Sunday. (We had the missionaries over for din) There we were walking up and down the isles of wally world when over the intercom we hear "if you are the owner of a honda civic with Utah Tags, please go and tend to your car in the parking lot" Me and Tan look at each other, and Tan books it out there. Low and behold my bright, smart, wonderful husband didn't put the parking brake up (it's a stick shift, so you have to put the brake on!) and our car had just rolled to the other side of the lot. Angles must love our car and us because that parking lot was pretty dang full!! We have no idea how on earth it didn't hit anything or anyone!! Anyways we got a good laugh about that one... So if you ever see silver Honda just sitting in the middle of a parking lot, feel free to give Tanner a call and save Wal-mart the trouble of having to tell us over the intercom. Well I love you!!
-McKenzie

Soo this is how I used the "BABY Mod Podge" and there is cute prego Mikey!! I know some people are judging... but this is what I call the "dollar store/ hobby lobby/ I didn't bring much out here to South Carolina to decorate and have a really cute baby gender party for Mikey" so this was as good as it got. But it was fun having everyone over eating treats. Wait and did I mention she is having a GIRL!! So that's exciting:-)

OKAY so don't you just love these little beauties??? I always love to wear funky clips in my hair... but then it's like "hey Anthropolgie $30 cutest clip ever, see ya money"... these little things? Probably about 12 cents each!! I just think they are so freaking cute! OH and oh so simple to make... It took me about 8 minutes, seriously. I'm defiantly not a photographer, so sorry these pictures don't quite do them justice.

I found this pretty little thing at a thrift store for $1.00!! Tanner helped me take it all apart...if you can't see, the plug is completely ripped of this thing! So now the fun part... I'm going to fix it all up! I'll show you next time what I created. Love you!

New with the Blogging....

Okay so I can't believe I just got a blog... I don't even have a baby or a little family to tell you all about yet! SO... I guess your just going to be stuck hearing about me and Tan... I don't have a baby YET, so Tanner is my world right now, and I like it that way for now;-) My friend or cousin or whatever she is... Mikey, shows me all these fun creations on blogs and so now I want a blog of my own. (Whitney threw in some inspirational words too...) So here I am and I just can't wait to create some fun things. First I'm going to tell you a little bit about that guy up there in the canoe... he's my cute little husb Tanner. Or I guess he isn't small at all, he's actually really really tall, 6.5' tall. But hey I like his long lanky body. I know every girl who ever reads this is wishing that they got to marry him...  I guess I beat ya to it;) and guys, I KNOW your thinking the same thing about me... HA HA;) I really am in love with all of his guts though. He proposed  to me on October 28th. The canoe, rose peddles and his cute face melted my heart and now I'm hitched to him forever! Hey the BEAUTIFUL ring he had custom made for me wasn't a bad reason to say yes to marriage though either right? Well I'm joking of coarse, but seriously if my ring had guts I would love it's guts to pieces. Anyways, me and this boy have been through a million roller coasters over the years... and now we are married and the roller coasters are still comin... I will have met him four years ago this September. In that time, Tan went on a mission, I graduated high school, we both went to college, got married on January 13th 2011, purchased our first car, and now we are living in South Carolina for the summer:)
I'm still trying to figure out this whole blog thing, how to make it look cute, what colors to use, etc. I'm not going to lie, its a little confusing... SO bear with me until I get this all down! I did figure out how to put my FAVORITE songs for the time being off to the side if you want to check them out...
Mikey is finding out what gender her baby is this Saturday. We are having a "baby guess sex party" for her at my house with the wives. Anyways we are "creating" some fun things for the party so I will post those up soon:) You are excited right??? LOVE YOU, but love Tan more.
-McKenzie