Poppy

I'd like to take a moment to introduce my new best friend, Poppy.

Haha...yes she's a dress form...but I love her! For my birthday last fall, Jake gave me money to buy myself a dress form. I did a lot of research and got some good advice from my mama, and ended up going with a Uniquely You pinnable dressform. This thing is awesome! The form is foam, so you can fit the cover to your body, then zip it onto the dress form and it will mold to the cover, to make a perfect match to your body! And if you gain or lose weight, just alter the cover. And you can pin straight into this form, unlike the hard plastic forms.

I haven't had much free time to play with Poppy, but I did make my halloween costume on her, and she is currently wearing a little black dress that needs to be hemed.

Lucky

As I feared when I REstarted this blog, I had nothing exciting in my life today to blog about, so I'll just brag about the fact that I live in Montana.

I have to say, so many military wives here in Great Falls do nothing but complain about the lack of shopping, cold weather, abundance of snow, and that there is never anything fun to do. I say, any place you go is only as good as you make it. I'll admit, the shopping isn't as good as a big city...but there is a small mall, some bigger stores like Old Navy and Target, and lots of fun little boutiques downtown. Anyway...doesn't everyone shop on amazon these days? Yes it gets cold and snows alot...so take up snowboarding! And as for the comments that there is never anything fun to do...that is just false! There are lots of museums, beautiful parks, car races at the Speedway, a large Farmer's Market every weekend in summer, fun community events downtown, the River's Edge Trail along the Missouri River, always shows, plays, or concerts, and the Montana State Fair is hosted here every August!

And...tons and tons of these...

Now accepting visitors!

Book Club

A group of my friends started a book club last February. We call it "Who Picked This Book!" and meet once a month to discuss the previous book and to choose the next book. We really do spend most of the time talking about the book, but it's a bunch of girls so we also have a little girl talk. Here is a list of the books we have read so far:

Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen
Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet by Jamie Ford
One for the Money by Janet Evanovich
Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett
The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins
In the Shadow of Gotham by Stefanie Pintoff
The Unit by Ninni Holmqvist
The Chosen Soul by Heather Killough-Walden
Perfect by Ellen Hopkins
Busted Bronco by Joe O'Brien
Blindness by Jose Saramago
& currently reading Wife by Wednesday by Catherine Bybee

I won't bore you will a review of each book, but I will tell you that I highly recommend:
the entire Hunger Games series (I promise it's not just for teens)
One for the Money and the rest of the Stephanie Plum series for a great laugh
and Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet if you are into history

The last 2 years in photos

Wine & Food Festival February 27, 2010

Malmstrom Spouses Club Wine Social March 4, 2010

Erin's 24th Birthday May 8, 2010

Eclipse Release Party June 29, 2010

Gormley's Housewarming July 31, 2010

Washington Road Trip September 26, 2010

Glacier Hiking Trip for my 26th Birthday October 3, 2010

Corn Maze October 16, 2010

Thriller Performance October 23, 2010

Jamie's 80's Halloween Party October 29, 2010

Harvest Howl Rotary Fundraiser November 5, 2010

Harry Potter Release Party November 20, 2010

Thanksgiving with the Crandall's November 25, 2010

Thanksgiving with the girls November 27, 2010

60's Murder Mystery Party December 5, 2010

Families of the Deployed Troops Party December 18, 2010

My 1st Annual Christmas Cookie Exchange December 12, 2010

Christmas with the girls December 23, 2010

Christmas morning December 25, 2010

Pin-up Photo Shoot January 10, 2011

Jamie's Sock Hop Birthday Party February 5, 2011

Deployment Homecoming April 6, 2011

Brandi's Rock Princess Birthday Party April 23, 2011

Easter Hat Party April 24, 2011

Erin's Cupcakes & Cocktails Birthday Party April 30, 2011

Janie's Bridal Shower May 26, 2011

Janie's Bachelorette Party May 28, 2011

Our 2nd Anniversary July 4, 2011

Brandi's Baby Shower September 25, 2011

Jamie's Toga Halloween Party October 28, 2011

Going out Halloween October 29, 2011

Malmstrom Spouses Club Volleyball Team November 2, 2011

Brandi's baby (Anna Marie) November 3, 2011

Jake got a deer November 6, 2011

Nutcracker with the girls November 30, 2011

Erin's Murder Mystery Party December 2, 2011 (I was a lifeguard, Jake was an animal rights activist..ha!)

My 2nd Annual Christmas Cookie Exchange December 18, 2011

Christmas with the girls December 21, 2011

Jake says I need to start blogging again.

Yeah...so I obviously don't have as much free time as I did in Italy...hence very scarce blogging. Oh those were the days...sleep in...work out...clean house...blog...and have dinner ready when he got home. I have to admit I did enjoy my time as a stay at home wife, but having a second income is so much more practical.

Every once in a while, I think about this blog and consider starting it up again, but I can't help but thing that my life is too boring and I would have a hard time coming up with something to type about, but Jake mentioned to me this evening that our family really liked reading my blog to keep up to date with what we were up to, so I'm going to give it another try.

Another Update Post

Since it has been so long since I posted any news, I should start back where I ended with my last "update post"

I got the job! I'm working at the CDC (Child Development Center) on base. In fact, I've been working there for about 16 months! It's a great job and wonderful to be able to work on base, but it's not quite what I had in mind for myself when I went to college to get a math degree. But at this time, it works for me! I work in the 1 year old room and have decided that age is the absolute CUTEST age for kiddos! But don't worry, no little Maggies or Jakes will be running around any time soon!

We are still loving the house in Montana! Last summer we did some work inside. We painted the living room and guest bedroom, and did quite a bit of work in the bathroom. Each room will later have individual before/after posts.

As for the rest of our summer, we pretty much hung around Great Falls. We ventured to a few other cities in Montana, and each of us got to go home for a visit, but my visit was for a funeral, so it wasn't exactly a fun trip. I did still get to see the family and feel the Missouri humidity for a few days!

In August Jake left for a deployment to Afghanistan. He was gone for 7 months, 3 weeks, and 2 days...not that I kept track or anything! Really though, the time did fly by! I have a great group of friends in Montana that kept me pretty busy! I'll post photos of some of our fun events!

My friend Jamie's husband was also deployed so we joined Weight Watchers together and both lost a lot of weight! I lost 26.8 lbs total. I'll admit that I gained a little back since he got home, but I'm still feeling good about it!

Jake bought me a kindle! I love it! I used it all the time while we was gone, and even joined a book club, but for some reason now that he's home, I just don't get the time to read as much.

Jake got home in April...and he got straight to work on his baby...his 2000 Pontiac Firebird Trans Am. Honestly, I'm glad he has that thing because while he is in the garage, I can work on my own hobbies....sewing and now card making. Jamie sells Stampin' Up products so I've become a papercrafter! I'll post some of my creations in a future post!

That brings us up to this summer. I'm still working days at the CDC, but I got a part time job for evening and weekends selling tickets at the Voyager's games. The Voyagers are a minor league team affiliated with the White Sox. It's a pretty short gig, 53 games from the end of June to the beginning of September. I've only worked 3 games so far, but it seems like it will be fun and it will be great to have that extra play money! I sit in the ticket booth for a couple of hours and then can get into the games for free!

Next week, the 4th of July, will be our 2nd anniversary! We are celebrating again with the 3rd Annual 4th of July BBQ! I'd like to keep the tradition going and have a BBQ every year. I got Jake lots of Trans Am related gifts, some vinyl decals shaped like the firebird emblem, a nice metal sign with all 4 generations of the Firebird, a neon Pontiac clock, a Trans Am coffee table book, and a Fossil Chicago Cubs wallet. They are slowly being delivered and I'm so bad at keeping presents a secret that I've been giving them to him as they arrive. He already stuck one of the firebird stickers on his laptop and loves the metal sign! The book and clock should arrive today!

Now that you are updated, here come the photos!

Easy Beef Burritos

I'm a lame blogger. I haven't posted in over a year, but I finally have internet at home, so I'm planning to try to get back into blogging.

As my first post back, I would like to start off with an awesome easy recipe. Jake found this crockpot recipe and it became a new favorite.

Ingredients:
2-3 lb boneless beef chuck shoulder
large jar of salsa
flour tortillas
optional toppings (we had shredded cheese and sour cream)

Directions:
Cook beef and salsa in a crockpot for 8-10 hours on medium heat.
Take beef out and pull apart with two forks, then mix back in the salsa.
Cook another 2 hours on high. (we only cooked an additional 30 minutes because we were hungry!)
Serve on tortillas with your choice of toppings.