Welcome to Sam's Club :)

I got the job!
I am now a people greeter at Sam's Club. 
I go to an orientation session on Thursday.
Woo-hoo!
:-)

A Wedding, Job Interviews, and A Trip Home

No recipe this time, just life updates. Jonathan and I were planning to go home this weekend for one of my close friends' wedding and a family reunion. However, as I was packing up our stuff to leave on Friday, I got a call from Sam's Club!! They wanted to know if there was any way I could come in on Sunday for interview! So, we went home anyway, but had to skip the family reunion today to make it back to Athens in time for the interview. It went really well and I am going back tomorrow morning for a second interview. Hopefully, I will know tomorrow whether or not I have the job! So please keep your fingers crossed for me!
The visit home this weekend was great; we got to see our family and friends, and eat LaHa! Can't wait to see the family again :)
The wedding we went to this weekend was the wedding of my good friend Chelsey and her fiance John. It was a great wedding and everyone looked so beautiful and handsome. Congratulations Chelsey, love you! Jonathan took their wedding pictures, as a favor to Chelsey, so he may edit a few of those and post them on here, they turned out pretty good.
We also got to spend a good bit of time with Callie and Andrew this weekend, so that was very fun! I enjoyed staying up until 3:30 playing the wii with Callie while Jonathan and Andrew chatted like girls and eventually fell asleep. :)
Hopefully I'll have some good news to share tomorrow!! :)

A Post for Your Sweet Tooth...(Part Two)

 Jonathan LOVES pecan pie (so much that between Thanksgiving and Christmas, he probably ate two whole pies by himself), so after making that cherry pie that he "didn't like" I decided I would be a nice little wife and make him a pie he likes.

Pecan Pie 

2 eggs (lightly beaten)
1 cup light corn syrup (I only had about 3/4 of a cup so I added a little Maple syrup to balance it out--too sweet, don't do that :)
1/4 cup sugar
2 tablespoons flour
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon vanilla
1-1/4 cups broken pecans (I used 2 cups because we love lots of pecans)

Preheat oven to 375. Prepare your crust. I used a GV refrigerated pie crust, (but you can use the frozen pre-made crust). Mix all of the ingredients (except for pecans) really well. Then gently stir the pecans in. Pour into the pie shell. Bake for 40-50 minutes until filling is set. To keep the crust from burning, cover the edges of the pie crust with aluminum foil until about halfway through baking.

I got a thumbs up! Woo-hoo! Now you know you want to know how good that tasted. Go ahead, make one! :)

A couple of weeks ago, we had dinner with some great people, Claudia and Damian. We took a blackberry cobbler for dessert and it was very good, but not as good as the homemade pizza and salad Claudia made! Since I have no idea how Claudia made the pizza and salad, I'll stick to the blackberry cobbler. We have had this cobbler a few times, and each time it is more delicious than before. (We got the recipe from Jonathan's aunt but we've altered it just a tad to fit our taste.)

Blackberry Cobbler

3/4cup flour
1/2 cup sugar
1 stick butter (melted)
1 bag frozen blackberries
1 refrigerated pie crusts
3 teaspoons of water for bottom of pan/dish

Preheat oven to 350.  Mix flour, sugar and butter. Then, mix in the still frozen blackberries. The mixture will not coat the blackberries, the berries just "sit within" the mixture. Place the water in the bottom of the baking dish, then pour in mixture. Now you can either create a lattice top, or just place the whole crust on top, trim the edges and cut slits in the middle for venting. Jonathan insisted on doing a lattice top. (It was easier and quicker than we thought!) (We learned how here.) Bake for 40 minutes. Serve warm with ice cream.

Ok ok, so I know that there's no finished picture. (We literally had to run out the door as soon as the timer went off!) But I assure you, it was beautiful and delicious! (Right before we ate this masterpiece, Damian took a picture, so if he emails it to us soon, I'll post the after pic.) Go ahead, make one! :)

I know I haven't uploaded any Makenzzie photos as promised, so here is a sneak preview of a coming post :)

That other little cutie is Holland Cobb, another precious child you'll hear a lot about :)

A Post for Your Sweet Tooth...(Part One)

**Edit--I previously had the cake cookie recipe as having 1 box of yellow cake mix, but it is 1 box of LEMON cake mix. Thanks Betsy :)

Alert the authorities: Kelly is updating! :) In this post there will be (in no particular order) a cherry pie, a pecan pie, a blackberry cobbler, and lemon cake cookies. Each one is simply delicious! Tonight I tried to make a yellow cake w/ chocolate icing, both from scratch. Didn't turn out so well. It's so awful, I'm not even going to post a picture. I mean, it tastes pretty good, but it looks horrible. Anyway.....All of the things I make are simple and easy, you won't find any super fancy stuff here...yet. I hope to upgrade my cooking/baking skills over time, but right now, we'll stick to the easy classics. Here we go!
I made these lemon cake cookies one night when I was feeling really snacky for something sweet, and I wanted to get rid of the lemon cake mix I had. Not only did Jonathan and I love them, Makenzzie enjoyed a few too!

Lemon Cake Cookies

1 box lemon cake mix
1 package cream cheese
1 egg
1/4 cup butter

Preheat oven to 375Mix butter (melted), cream cheese (softened at room temp.), and egg until well blended. Stir in the cake mix 1/3 at a time. (Seriously, doing this makes them so moist!) Cover batter and chill for 30 minutes in the fridge. Spray a cookie sheet with cooking spray. Scoop up a spoonful of the batter (which should be slightly firm and stick, not liquidy) and roll into a ball with your hands then place on the cookie sheet. Do this with the entire batch. (It took me two pans full to cook the entire batch).  Bake for 10 minutes or so until the cookies are slightly browned on the bottom. I didn't do it, but I suggest sprinkling a little powdered sugar on top. Enjoy!

These cookies are so yummy! And they stayed pretty fresh for about a week. Go ahead, make some :)

Ok so, I LOVE cherry pie. I don't know why, I just do. And Jonathan doesn't like it! So as we were grocery shopping a couple weeks ago, I got Jiffy pie mix and cherry filling! It was so very delicious.

Cherry Pie

1 Box Jiffy Pie Crust mix
1 can cherry pie filling (whichever brand you want, we got great value :)

Make pie crust according to the box. Spray pie pan with cooking spray then place dough in pan, cutting off excess around the edge. Pour can of filling into crust, then top with top layer of crust. Trim the excess dough and pinch edges together to create a seal. Using a sharp knife, create a few slits in the middle of the pie for vent holes. Bake according to crust mix box. Let it cool slightly then enjoy! (Ok ok, so this is the easy pie way out, but hey, I technically made that crust by hand! :)

Nom nom! This cherry pie was so delicious. Jonathan actually had a few pieces so it must have been good! Go ahead, make one! :)

I still have a pecan pie and blackberry cobbler to post (along with a delicious pork chop dinner) but it's getting late, so I'll post some more tomorrow! Hope you enjoyed the post!

The Life of a Slacker...

I am such a slacker. I really need to update this blog. I have about oh, 5 posts worth of food pictures on our camera. Just wanted to let you all know that I haven't quit yet, and I will definitely have a couple of posts up by the end of the weekend. Look forward to some delicious looking cookies, pork chops, pecan pie, etc. Plus tons of cute pictures of Makenzzie from her visit here a couple weeks ago! If you're reading, please comment, I'd love to know who's reading  :) Check back with us later!