Shopping for a Cause!

My Family & I made the front news of both the Albany Democrat Herald & Gazette Times news paper just under the crease! It was a very well wrote story by Kyle Odegard who also braved the Black Friday crowds with us!

http://democratherald.com/news/local/article_37f6b310-35e0-11e2-b3fd-001a4bcf887a.html

It was so sweet of someone to care about our family story & that Community Outreach got to have their story out there also! More people need to know what they can do & this is a fun way to give back! Thank you again to everyone involved! Also thank you to my wonderful Mom Linda & Aunt Luann for giving our families the wonderful tradition, memories & ability to continue this amazing gift of giving! I have to say now that I'm older I grow to love Black Friday shopping almost more than Christmas Day!!

Thanks"giving"

This is one of my favorite weeks of the year! Thursday thanksgiving we stuff our face with food, Friday is shopping till we drop, & Saturday is Civil War football! Mostly because of the Black Friday shopping I get to do with my entire family & the yummy pumpkin pie! I'm super excited today, we just received our adopted family from Community Outreach and we got a single mom with 5 boys! It's going to be so much fun shopping for them, It's our tradition every year for as long as I can remember, this year something extra special is happening. My family & I get to share our tradition with the community, the Gazette Times & Albany Democrat Harold want to join us on Black Friday to experience it & possibly do an article about us! I mean how cool is that! I hope more people get to make a new tradition of there own & help there community! It's something fun that we love to do & we never wanted any recognition from it, but its nice that someone thought our story was special!

On another note I'm nervous for our Civil War it's going to be a close game I feel & since I'm a Duck that works & spends most of my time in a Beaver town ;) I really need my duckies to win big for me so I don't have to take a bunch of trash talk from people lol! Go Ducks!

Fall time is my favorite time!

Don't get me wrong I love summer a lot but fall might have to be my favorite since its socially acceptable for you to bake & cook everyday & people will eat it now too! I also finally have time for more blogging. What a whirl wind of a summer & Indian summer for that matter. My annual Halloween/ zombie shooting party is coming up on the 31st! I love to see all the little kids dress up and this year instead of just letting them grab a handful of candy I have decided to make little goodie bags with candy and toys in them! Super excited for that plus as always Mike & I will be dressing up! This year we are going as Marilyn Monroe & JFK conspiracy style, I'll have pill bottles in my hair & as a bracelet Mike will have 1/2 a brain sitting on his shoulders! Last year we dressed Tajuan up so where thinking this year T-man might have to be the "second shooter" lol! It's a perfect plan and I'm über excited! Thank goodness for Pintrest I have been fringing fun Halloween food ideas on there!

Speaking of pintrest I made Pumpkin cookies last night from a yummy recipe floating around on there! I'll share it with you right now...
I cut this cookie recipe in 1/2 just cause it makes a lot!

The BEST Pumpkin Cookies EVER
adapted from Salted Sugar yeild: about 5 dozen cookies

 Ingredients:

•  2 cups sugar (1cup)
• 2 cups shortening (1 cup)
• 2 cups pumpkin (the can should say 100% pure pumpkin…don’t accidentally buy the pumpkin pie filling! You don’t want the sweetened stuff) (1cup)
• 2 eggs (1egg)
• 2 tsp. vanilla (1tsp)
• 5 cups flour (2 1/2 cups)
• 4 tsp. baking powder (2tsp)
• 1 tsp. salt (1/2 tsp)
• 2 tsp. cinnamon (1tsp)
• 2 tsp. baking soda (1tsp)
• 2 tsp. pumpkin pie spice
• 2 tsp. nutmeg(1tsp)
•  ¾ tsp. cloves
• used a 1tsp of all spice in replace of the pumpkin pie spice & cloves

Directions:

• Preheat oven to 350° F.
• In an electric mixer, blend shortening and sugar.
• Add pumpkin and mix.
• Add eggs one at a time, mixing after each one.
• Add vanilla extract and mix.
• In a separate bowl, mix flour, baking powder, salt, cinnamon, baking soda, pumpkin pie spice, nutmeg, and cloves.
• Add your dry ingredients to the wet ingredients one cup at a time
• Bake at 350°F for 10-12 minutes (I found that mine were perfect after 12).
• Meanwhile, make your frosting 
• Once cookies have cooled, frost and add your favorite festive sprinkles. Enjoy!

Vanilla Butter cream Frosting  
*If only making this frosting, make one and a half recipes. Makes a lot I cut in 1/2

• 4 ¼ cups powdered sugar
• 1 stick of butter
• 1 tsp. vanilla
• ¼ cup half and half
• add orange food coloring for a festive touch (I did 8 drops yellow, 5 drops red)

They turned out very good!

The little bit of frosting on them was to die for! Its a nice small & quick recipe for that pumpkin craving! A little fun fact the picture of the cookies was taken with my new iPad! I am in love with it and do everything on it even though it supposed to be for work!

Happy Birthday to my Mom!

Tonight I am hosting a birthday dinner for my wonderful mom who is proudly turning 49! She does not know it yet but I am starting to think this is even better than 50, she has been a San Fransisco 49ers fan for so long that I think being 49 is awesome sounding because now when people ask she can say 49..ers lol! I think its appropriate to have a dinner tonight and watch our 49ers stomp on some Lions in the Sunday night game!


The Girls

A little craft project I did recently for someone's wedding shower was an idea I found on non other than the infamous Pintrest! I took a plain glass candle holder from the Dollar Store, wrapped rubber bands around them, and picked up spray paint from Michael's craft store along with a candle holder tray. I spray painted the glass in brushed metal carmel with the rubber bands on, doing 3 coats because you want them to only show light through where the rubber bands are...

Let paint dry over night then remove rubber bands. Note: over a garbage can because they leave little flakes all over including your fingers. Wipe off gently with a dry paper towel to remove any flakes.

Don't they turn out so neat! I was way excited, I had to make some for my mom too! Another thing you can do to go along with it is put whole coffee beans at the bottom only a 1/4 full and place a vanilla tea light on them. As the tea light warms up it warms the coffee beans around it and makes the room smell like warm vanilla coffee!



Warning a sad & heartbreaking post...

 I don't know if I shared this already but I brought home my dog Jazz from the farm a couple months ago. She is 16yrs old and had a very good life but farm life is hard so I thought for her remaining days she would love to come live with us where we could give her constant attention and she could be inside! In love, In love she was it was so hard to get her to go back outside while we were at work lol!

Yesterday was a hard decision to make for me, and I didn't want to do it but she is my dog so I was the only one who could make the choice. Jazz had cancer and the only bad thing about bringing her home with me was all the rich senior food, treats, and city water speed the process up a bit. I know it seems weired to say that but unfortunately the heather she got the more it gave cancer a chance to thrive. She was still very happy here moving around waging her tail and it was hard to tell she was in pain except she had a bleeding tumor that had taken over her in tire right eye, & into her right gums, There was no denying at this point that it had to be painful. It grew very fast everyday more & more I waited as long as humanly possible before making the call. She is resting next to her sister Kibbles (my sisters dag) at our farm.

I am a new Auntie!

My boyfriends sister had her baby little baby girl on Aug 21st @ 9:19am. We are just so excited she is finally here and so far its been 6 days shes been here but we are loving being Uncle & Auntie Emm!

For being a 1st baby in the family she did not talk very long to come into this world! She made up her mind of when she was going to be here and nothing slowed her down!

A very happy Uncle

Peyton & Uncle Mike

Uncle Mike & Auntie Emm

Auntie Emm & Peyton!

Uncle & Mommy w/ Peyton!

We have had a whirl wind summer that's why I have been MIA from blogging and I would not except much more from me until fall lol! I have lots to say but not enough time to get it out in text!

My little Sister graduates College..Tear!!

On June 17th my little sister Natasha R Mackey born in 1990 graduated from Oregon State University! I know what your thinking how could this be that kids born in the 90's are graduating college, I know right scary! Her ceremony was very special cause the gest speaker was the first lady Michelle Obama, so it was wonderful to get to see her revive a daploma in this once in a life time opertnity! Seeing my sister so happy and excited was moving, I dont think I have ever seen that big of a smile on her face for a whole 7hrs lol!

Standing in line to be seated!

Time has just moved by so fast, I swear it was just yesterday that she graduated high school or even just yesterday that I graduated high school. No no no its been 6yrs since high school for me, where dose it all go from here? Well here is my little sister, I just dont think im ready to let her be this old. Plus her 22nd Birthday is in two weeks...WHAT! No wonder I have gray hair!

Michelle Obama speaking

Cold Michelle, Mom, & Aunt Luann

Me & Dad

Me & Mike

Mother & Daughter

Dad, Tush & Mom

Aunt Luann, Tush & Uncle Donald

I cant say much more about it cause ill start crying but we are all so proud and what an amazing little sister I have!