Harley gets a brother...

Well.....yes.....it is true. There is a new member of the Haddon family. Meet Harley's new baby brother, Beast. (haha....beast)

Beast is a Lhasa Apso. You may be thinking, "What is a Lhasa Apso?" They are a lot of the time show dogs, and look like this:

Yikes...right? Well Beast is first of all black as you can see above...and also his hair will stay shorter than that! He is really hard to get a picture of, because he is 1) A puppy and runs around and 2) is all black and hard to distinguish between puppy and other objects! So I tried to google Lhasa apso puppy to give you an idea on his size and body and this is the best I could find, but he is a little bigger than that. But body wise, you can see what they look like without all the long hair haha.

He is very low to the ground (like Harley can stand over him) But wide and so soft and flat on top. With a cute little apple bottom rump! I tell Chance he reminds me of this guy off of Beauty and the Beast:

The puppy ottoman, Sultan...ha:) Only because he is just like that dangit! He is super snuggly and low to the ground and shaggy....and he sits on your feet! The guy at the pet store said they were literally used as feet warmers because they love to come plant themselves on your feet. He is super sweet so far....Chance and I were really worried about bringing another pet into the family, but .... I'm always "on the verge" of course! If you want the story though, it started when I was running errands for work and decided to stop in with a co-worder at Petland. I was looking at the puppies for fun and I saw this sweet boy! I asked to hold him and after a few licks I was ready to take him home:) Chance has been wanting another dog pretty bad and we need a medium sized dog still because of the apartment. I put a hold on him so that we could have 48 hrs to think about taking him without anyone else buying him. I told Chance I had a surprise and after a blindfolded ride to petland I showed him the pup! Chance LOVED him. We were actually going to get him and sell him to his best friend, Troy, because he has been wanting a really good dog like Harley, but after talking with Troy, he decided he wasn't ready yet...Chance was happy! We waited to pick him up until yesterday, because we had some company and I didn't want to be potty training with guests. And NO he wasn't a million dollars. He actually was older than all the other puppies (about 4 months) so they really wanted him to get a good home and sell quicker. He was priced at $950 the DAY BEFORE I came in and they took away all the normal pet store guarantees and mish mosh and sold him straight up and out the door for $250! Clearance puppy! Beast was named by Chance and Harley is getting along great. We got a hot pink kennel for Harley and gave Beast the black one. I also got a bunch of new toys so Harley didn't feel trumped. We also have been giving Harley extra love and attention so that she isn't sad about the new addition. They have been definitely figuring out the older sister, little brother dynamic...annnnnd I just realized that I am talking about these two like they are my children. Yikes...I am that girl right now. Stop it. Stop it. It's better than having a baby right away ...right? RIGHT? What if in these years of waiting to have kids I have like 10 puppies? My house would be covered!!

I would need so much food!!!

Ok...I promise right now before God and the world wide web that I will have NO more pets until I have a house and/or a child. Ok...whew! I feel better. Plus that gave me an excuse to post super cute puppy pictures:) Anyway, Beast is potty training like a champ! We brought him home and had a pretty rough first day and thought about taking him back (not gonna lie) but today he has rocked it! Pottied all three times he was taken out and hasn't chewed a single thing other than a toy since we brought him home! Also hasn't barked...and slept through the night with no potty in his kennel! I am basically the dog whisperer it's no big deal. I SWEAR that Jesus has given me these dog training magic skills since I went through every single birthday and christmas begging for a puppy. Now I have two amazing pups that are well trained! Almost. Beast is also great because he warms my feet obviously, and he is hypoallergenic (like Harley), doesn't shed (even though he has all that hair!), and hasn't been one of those crazy barking little dogs! Beast is just ....well, a little beast:) His nicknames so far have been Beasty boy, Furby ferbs (because his big round eyes and smooshed face look like those toys, ya know?),

.... Monster, sasquatch, squish face, and teddy bear. I'll keep ya updated, but so far he is learning just as quick as Harley did! Hopefully I am not dreaming that this can work out....and don't worry sisters and parents....no more surprises.....for now.

Gotta start somewhere

Yes this is another craft. GOSH. Lay off! :) Here is how this one began...my best friend Erin (married with a 10 month old, went to high school with her) and I hang out with her husband, my husband, and our other best friend, Michael, EVERY Sunday night. It's kinda Jersey Shore style in that we all bring something and eat dinner and hang out from about 7 to 11 and catch up on each other's lives. Total family dinner tradition. We usually order out from somewhere or all bring something to add to a meal. I always look forward to Sunday nights!

Well since I am all married now and trying recipes, Erin and I started talking about how we need to start trying recipes together and build a little recipe book for ourselves. Not like some legit book, but just start conglomerating some recipes (old and new) and saving them! Sunday nights prove to be perfect timing for this adventure. So I decided CRAFT TIME! It's weird though, I looked all over for cute recipe storage things and cards and separators and apparently people do not store recipes in this fashion anymore! Or maybe I am looking in the wrong places! I happened to find some cute boxes on clearance at Michael's craft store and some fun recipe cards on sale to go with them (for $1!)....

Kinda fun, right? The sayings on the recipe cards are pretty cute. There were a couple other different ones too. So then I went searching for some separator tab things (like appetizer, desserts, etc) and nothing! AH! I was so frustrated! I still got the boxes and cards, one for me and one for Erin. So I looked EVERYWHERE. No luck. While I was at Joann's fabric feeling pretty down about this whole deal I stumbled upon this really cute paper:

The stripes are the backside of it but I really liked the pots and pans on the other side! So again...wheels got turning and I decided I was going to make my OWN tabs for the recipe box. Then I wanted something to kinda differentiate the tabs from just a card stock piece of paper. So then I found these:

They are photo corner things that you are supposed to use in scrapbooks for corners of pictures and stuff. I thought, hey, this could work. I don't know why I got fixated on this project but I wanted to surprise Erin with a fun gift to start our recipe trading. So I tried a few different ways until I finally found the right size that would fit in the box but also stick up a bit from the recipe cards. Everything sounds so simple but I always think I am going to do something in 15 minutes and it turns out to be an afternoon. So I cut part of the stripes from the back, glued to the top of the pot and pan side, wrote the description on the tab, cut the tab to stick out, added the photo corners, and then laminated to help stand out more. Result:

I did five tabs. Starters, Entrees, Side dishes, Sweet Treats, and Family Recipes (cuz my mom is AMAZING and she needs a whole section!). I separated the new recipe cards with the tabs I made and here is what it looks like in the box:

So I hope Erin likes it! I made two identical ones for us:) Because that's what best friends do people...they match. ;)

Housewife-ness

Alright, so I am sooo not a cook. I can't like decide to put things together on my own without someone or something telling me what to combine. So, cooking freelance....not so much. Following a recipe...finding out that I'm good at following directions! Thank you mom for always teaching me to follow directions:) I haven't been cooking dinners yet really, mostly because I haven't even organized our wedding gifts, but I HAVE been finding some pretty awesome dessert recipes on Pinterest! If you don't know what that is, go find out, it will take over your life facebook style. Lots of fun creative ideas to look at and try. I haven't tried anything TOO risky yet, but I have tried two of the dessert recipes. They both turned out! Like turned out well enough that I could share them with people besides my husband! SCORE! The first one I tried was the Smore's bars below. AMAZING. Super easy after doing the recipe once you pretty much know how it goes. They were a HUGE hit at Bible study and I even baked a whole other one to take to our boxing coach! (Weird taking a super rich dessert to a gym haha...but he asked so I felt I had permission!)

They are way good to eat right out of the oven because they are all gooey and melty, but actually the next day they are all cooled and you can cut them into bars that stay all together and are SOOO good. And not so messy to eat the next day. Anyway, here is the website I went to for the recipe: http://http://www.the-girl-who-ate-everything.com/2010/07/smores-bars.html And here are a couple pics I snapped while in the process of making mine. I know I know...looks easy right? Well I still feel accomplished for not having someone standing there walking me through it:) So there!

Then I made these crazy sweet Oreo cupcakes...

Here is the website I stole the recipe from: http://annies-eats.net/2010/06/02/cookies-and-cream-cupcakes/ Not gonna lie, I can only eat like half of one of these. They are SO rich! BUT....hear me out. They are super fun to share because everyone loves them if they weren't the ones making them! ha:) NOOOO I don't make people desserts to make them like me .......gosh! This was a pretty ridiculous recipe of mixing things, adding half of other things, mixing more things but only partly mixing it, then adding more, then mixing all the way, etc....in other words, don't try to follow this with too much wine in you:) Super good batter too if I might add. I swear I would rather eat batter of ANYTHING than the real thing. No sign of salmonella yet! The surprise at the bottom is that you line the bottom of the cupcake liners with a half oreo, cream side up! Super fun and stays crunchy!

So here is what the batter looks like all mixed

And the inside obviously you can see that above in the picture from the website....these I was very proud of because I accomplished my second recipe from Pinterest as well as used a wedding gift from my sisters, Laura and Susan, for Chance to take them to work with!!! How cute am I having a cupcake carrier!??? Ha ok just kidding I'm getting too excited. Chance was so pumped to take them to his team at work and he would text me throughout the day with updates about compliments on them! I am so pathetic! I feed off of this! Please don't judge me.

One of the ladies at his work even came back for another one AND asked for the recipe!! WHAT???!!! From me!? Ya....no big deal. So here is the first ever Mrs. Haddon recipe that was shared with some lady at Chance's work:)

WOOT!!!! Okay so that is my cooking experience lately. Chance probably wishes I would generate some of this energy towards dinner.....oops!