Time flies when you are having fun!

Daisypath Anniversary Years Ticker

January 27, 2006

January 27, 2006

About Me

My photo
I am Brooke. I love my husband. I love my daughter. I love my job because I can pick and choose my schedule and stay home with Harper the majority of the time. I love to do DIY projects. And I love my life!

Race Track

Race Track
Juan, Camie, Josh, Me

CPK Goodbye dinner

CPK Goodbye dinner
Josh, Erin, Brooke, Josh, Brandon, Camie, Juan. Right before we moved to Texas from Cali.

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Thursday, December 31, 2009

2010

So here are a few goals for the year 2010.

  1. Eat healthier than I do now (I think I eat semi-healthy right now).
  2. Cook one meal a week for 3 months out of my Cook Yourself Thin cookbook.
  3. Work out at least 4 times a week.
  4. Dessert once a week, preferrably on Sunday.
  5. Read each Sunday lesson before Sunday.
  6. Pray morning and night every day.
  7. Read my scriptures every day (and finish the Book of Mormon by May)
  8. Read two books a month (I know, isn't that sad that I don't read a whole lot)
  9. Save 10% of Josh's income each week and 100% of my income each week.
  10. Continue to build my food storage and have a 1 year supply by the end of the year.

What are your 2010 goals?

Tuesday, November 17, 2009

Look what I came home to today!

Yes, I came home to shelves inside my food storage room! I am so excited. Josh is not quite done with it, but that's only because he ran out of the L-shaped things that hold the shelves (I don't know what they're called) and we cleaned Home Depot out of those the other day when we were there, so we have to wait until some more come in. Bummer. But I have PLENTY of shelves to get me started on my food storage, considering the fact that right now my food storage pretty much consists of the 72-hour kits that I made at Super Saturday, plus a few odds and ends, here and there. But, YAY for shelves, and a husband who is very handy! P.S. Maren, if you have anything you ever want done, feel free to ask Josh, he likes to do stuff like this.

To the left in the picture is where there still needs to be shelves put up. And, there are my 72-hour kits.

Monday, November 16, 2009

Food Storage Made Easy

So, as some of you know, I've been working on my food storage. I found this wonderful website that has been very helpful in not feeling overwhelmed in starting a food storage. One of the steps to take is to (obviously) have somewhere to store the food/water. We have a very small house and not much storage. We decided to open up underneath our stairs so we can have some extra storage space for the food storage. I'm so excited for it to get finished. And I love the space because it's downstairs, very close to the kitchen so if I ever need to get anything, it will be fairly easy.

Josh started working on it on Friday (basically I came home to a house that was covered in dust from him cutting a huge hole in the wall). I was very excited, though, cuz I've been asking him to do it for a few weeks now, but he's just been so busy at work to start. So on Saturday, we went to Home Depot and got the majority of the supplies we needed.

First, Josh had to rewire a few things so that there wasn't an electrical wire right across the middle of the entrance. He also put in two lights and a light switch.

Second was to clean up all of the trash that the workers who built our house decided to leave in there, since we would never know.

Third was to lay some 2x4's down so that we would have something to nail the floor (which is just made out of plywood) into. You might wonder why we didn't just use the concrete as a floor, and I'm not quite sure what the answer is except on the Food Storage Made Easy website, it says not to store your water directly on concrete, so we raised the floor a little and put down plywood. I'm definitely going to get some type of cheap rug or something to put on top of the walking area so that I don't get splinters while I walk on it.

That's basically all that's done right now. We still have to put up the shelves (which he hopefully will get home early enough to do today) and then we need to find a door that will fit the hole in the wall. We are hoping to find one standard but since the door is going to be pretty short (I will have to get on my knees in order to get in) we might have to special order one.

YAY for food storage. I will definitely post pictures of the finished product, but as for now, this is what we have finished. I'm so excited.
Here is the big hole in the wall. This is right inside the hole to the left. This is where we plan to store our water. You can also see where some of the wiring that he did.
In this picture, Josh is hammering down the floor. You can also see the light he put in.

Same as the picture above. Where he is sitting right now, though, you can actually stand all the way up back there, so I'm excited for all of the storage that I am going to be able to get out of that part.


It's a lot bigger of an area than I had expected. I can't believe we haven't opened this space up sooner. I'm excited.

Sunday, November 15, 2009

Super Saturday





Yesterday was Super Saturday at church. It was a lot of fun! I made 2 Christmas Card holders (I was going to give one away, but I haven't decided to who yet). I also made a "The Liddell Family est. 2006 sign) 2 72-hour kits and a Christmas card. It was a good day. Here are the pics.
This is the first Christmas card I have ever made.


2 72-hour kits. I'm so excited to be working on food storage.




Card holder #1



Card holder #2



Here's the established sign I made. Sorry it's sideways, it won't let me rotate it...I don't know why. It's a bit irritating.

Wednesday, October 28, 2009

Some exciting news, although a little late.

I know...I am a lame blogger lately. I don't know what my problem is.

So, here's the latest news. As most of you know, I've been in school for court reporting for the last 5 years (yes, it really has been that long). I've been close to being done for a while and last Thursday I passed on of my mocks, which is a big test that basically is the ticket to taking the state test. Now, I do have to pass 3 mocks, so I've got one down and two to go, but I am seeing a light at the end of the tunnel and it's really GREAT! I'm so excited, as is Josh since he's been waiting for me to get done with school before he goes (thanks for being so patient, honey). That's basically the only news I have. I have to pass the two more mocks before November 26th, and I totally think I can do it. Wish me luck.

In other news:

Do you remember this post that I did a month or so ago. Well, we got two more caricatures back today. We have started on the celebrity caricatures and the ones that we got back today are of Jim Carrey in Ace Ventura and Audrey Hepburn. They turned out so good! I'm excited about getting the other ones back. The next two are going to be Danny Devito as the Penguin in Batman and Angelina Jolie in Mr. and Mrs. Smith. I'll post some more pictures of these once we get a few more back and start getting them on the wall.

Brad gets home from his mission in Piura, Peru in less than two months already. We are really excited for that. I can't wait! I can't believe it's already been two years. Crazy!

Thursday, October 1, 2009

Cooking Yourself Thin

So, I bought the Cook Yourself Thin cookbook, and I really enjoy it. I haven't tried everything but I will share a few of my favorite things.

This is what we're eating tonight. It's the Southwestern Turkey Burgers. We have tried it a few times, and I absolute love it. Josh really likes it as well.

Now at first glance, I would never have wanted to try a turkey burger, but I just happened to have everything for it the first time I made it, and it was one of those days that you just didn't have anything to make, so I ended up with this. And it was really, really good. Very flavorful! We even had the sweet potato fries, and they were good, even for someone who isn't a huge fan of sweet potatoes. The only thing I didn't like about those was that they come out kind of soft, and I haven't quite figured out how to fix that, but besides that, they were great.

We're not having the sweet potato fries tonight, because I'm too lazy to go to the store for just two sweet potatoes, but here's the recipe, in case you're interested.

Serves 4

Calories per serving, turkey burger: 342

Calories per serving, sweet potato fries: 89

For the sweet potato fries:

2 sweet potatoes, 1 tablespoon olive oil, 1/2 teaspoon chili powder, 1/2 teaspoon garlic powder, 1/4 teaspoon salt, plus more for sprinkling, Juice of 1/2 lime.

For the turkey burger:

1 1/3 pounds lean ground turkey, 1 4-ounce can diced green chiles, drained, 1/4 teaspoon salt, 1/4 teaspoon black pepper, 2–3 spritzes canola oil in a mister, 3 ounces 50%-reduced-fat pepper-jack cheese, cut into thin slices, 4 whole-wheat Kaiser rolls, Romaine lettuce leaves, Tomato, slicedRed onion, sliced1/2 avocado, sliced

1. For the sweet potato fries, preheat the oven to 425 degrees.

2. Wash and dry the potatoes and, with the skin on, slice into 1/2-inch-thick rounds; cut the rounds into 1/2-inch-thick finger-shaped pieces. Toss the potatoes in a bowl with the oil, chili powder, garlic powder and salt.

3. On a baking sheet, spread the sweet potato fries in a single layer and roast, stirring every 10 minutes, until brown and tender, 30 to 35 minutes. Remove from the oven, transfer to a platter or bowl and sprinkle with a little more salt.
Recipes From This Episode

Meanwhile, in a large bowl, mix the lean ground turkey with the diced chiles and season with salt and pepper. Shape into patties and refrigerate until ready to cook.

5. Heat a large grill pan or nonstick skillet on medium heat and spritz with canola oil. Add the turkey patties to the grill pan and cook until browned on one side, about 4 minutes. Flip, reduce the heat to low, cover (if using a skillet) and cook until the juices run pale pink, about 4 more minutes. Top with the reduced-fat pepper-jack cheese during the last minute.

6. Toast the rolls in the oven or in a toaster oven. Alternatively, grill them 1 minute on each side.

7. To assemble: On a platter, place the fries and a burger on a bun and top with lettuce, tomato, onion and avocado slices. Squeeze lime juice over the fries and serve.

Hope you enjoy!

Wednesday, September 23, 2009

Media Room




So, after a lot of bumping heads on how to decorate the media room, we have both come to an agreement, and I must say, I am pretty excited about it!

We got a caricature for our one year anniversary at Universal Studios: Hollywood, and who would have thought that that would become the inspiration. Well, it has.
We decided that it would go well in the room since it has a movie theme, Spiderman, and since it was a cartoon. So, we decided to go this way all around. We are going to have a total of 3 caricatures that are of us in different superhero movies. Here are the other two. We just got them in the mail two days ago, and love them.
Batman and Catwoman

Iron Man and secretary

These are going to go right next to each other on the wall as soon as you walk in the room. You can see that wall in the below picture. There's one caricature already on the wall, the other ones will be on either side of it.Then, on the large wall that is totally blank right now, we are going to have caricatures done of our favorite actors/actresses in our favorite movies. Also, on the wall right next to the curtains, we are going to have a caricature done of our favorite TV show, Gilmore Girls, with the whole cast.
I think it's going to look really good when it's done. Although it will be a work in progress because we can only afford to do about 2 caricatures a month. Still super excited, though!



My family

So, sometimes, this is what I come home to, and I just love it!

Shocker Collars

My poor dogs not only have had to wear shocker collars for their underground fence but now, may I introduce you to the barking collars...



Yes, maybe you think we are bad owners, but let me just explain. When we first got the dogs, we would let them go outside and they would just stay in our yard, without the shocking collars for the fence. Well, as they got older, they wanted to expand their horizons, which lead to them pooping in neighbors yards, going across the street, etc. So, much to my demise, we got the shocker collars and the underground fence. I am definitely now a fan.


It was really great to be able to let the dogs outside and not have to worry about them. I'm sure they have enjoyed it as well.


The neighbors...not so much.


I think they would rather have poop on their yard then have to hear them bark one more time. Not only are they sick of it (they haven't said so, but who wouldn't be annoyed at constant barking) but so am I. So, we finally gave in and got them barking collars. So, yes, they have to wear two collars now when they are outside instead of one. They should have pretty strong necks pretty soon, cuz I'm sure they are heavy.


Now, before you go on and think we are bad owners, let me assure you that we take all precautions to make sure these things are okay for the dogs. Maybe these pictures will help you understand what I mean.







Yes, third time's a charm. He finally barked loud enough for it to work...the red light shows that it's working.

Thursday, September 10, 2009

Cinnamon roll with a side of dessert.

So, we walked around the Riverwalk pretty much all day in San Antonio. After all was said and done, we decided to go to Lulu's which has the largest Cinnamon roll. For some reason, can't quite figure out why, we decided to walk there. Now, I know a mile doesn't seem like a long way...but after walking all day, it definitely was. We were all the biggest complainers! But we made it, and the cinnamon roll was actually very delicious. It was featured on the Food Network. So, here are the pictures from that.


Before we dug in. This is what 3 pounds of cinnamon roll looks like:
After we devoured it. We couldn't even finish it between the four of us. I just couldn't believe they asked us if we wanted one or two...

Now, on the way home, walking was much easier. I think it's because we sat about an hour, and had a bunch of water. So, we get to the car, I look down, and a bird pooped on me! Seriously! So, I drove home the entire way from San Antonio to Kyle trying not to accidentally touch it or get it anywhere in my car. It was pretty much disgusting.

3-D ride.

It was kind of a lame ride, but here's the pics.

Guinness World Records

So, Jordan and Cody, Josh's sister and her husband, came down to Texas over Labor Day weekend. We did a few things, including going to San Antonio, where we went to visit the Alamo, just because we could. We also went to the Guinness World Records, and also a place called LuLu's that has the biggest cinnamon rolls...3 pounds!

Guinnes World Records:

Here, we tested our passion factor. I must say that I believe this little machine...here's what we got.

Jordan got Lousy
I got sexy. (That's why I believe it)

Cody got lousy (hey, at least Jordan and Cody match)
And Josh got cold.
A few other things from Guinness:


Here's how we compare to the largest man.
Here's Josh compared to the shortest woman.

We played a bunch of different video games.

Twirling basketballs on our fingers.

I think this is a statue of the size of the largest man.



Josh pulled the tail at his own risk, and if I remember correctly, it mooed and tooted.

Monday, August 24, 2009

100th post.



I was looking through my latest pictures and found a few things that I haven't yet blogged about, so here it goes:

Chloe and Otis...

Well, as you mostly likely know, we have two dachshunds. One girl, and one boy, Chloe and Otis. Well, as you can imagine, when Chloe goes into heat, things get a little complicated. We have to keep the dogs separate because Otis goes nuts. All he wants to do is be around her, etc. (We learned this once before, and were going to get her spayed, but never got around to it, unfortunately) So this time around, we kind of new a little bit more about what we were doing. We would keep one inside while the other went outside, they would sleep in separate kennels, and when they were in the house together, we would just keep a good eye on them.

So, this lasts about 3 weeks, and that's kind of annoying, but we learned to deal.

Well, I thought....

So, I'm on my way home from work, or my parent's house, or something, I don't remember and I get a call from Josh and he starts telling me that he let the dogs outside together by themselves for just about two minutes (I think he's saying that to make it sound better, but it was probably longer) and he goes outside to check on them and apparently they are stuck together. So I tell him to get them off of each other. He says, I can't it will hurt Otis. Well, I'm just thinking that he didn't want to be around that and didn't want to deal with it, so I was kind of annoyed that he wouldn't just take Chloe and Otis apart. So, I got off of the phone annoyed, and continued on my way home.

Well, I get out of the car and walk up to the back door (our garage is in the back of our house) and I see the dogs laying in the grass next to each other so I say, "Hi Chloe and Otis." Well, Otis, or course, jumps up all excited like normal to see me, and then I see Chloe kind of trailing behind him, so I look closer, and they really ARE stuck together...

I was frantic and looked up on the internet to try to figure out what we could do. Little did I know that it was normal...I had NO IDEA that that's how it worked. Apparently the male swells inside of the female to help ensure breeding. Weird...anyway.

So, now Chloe is spayed. The next day after this happened, I called the vet to see if there was anything we could do because they are brother and sister and we didn't want to have a puppy litter with dogs that had problems. They told us that we have 3 weeks from when breeding took place to have the female spayed. So, that's what happened. We found out later that she wasn't pregnant, which was great.

She absolutely hated the cone. I felt kind of bad, but she wouldn't stop biting at her stitches. Although she did end up scratching at them a lot, but I couldn't really help that.

Thank goodness we don't have to worry about this anymore!

Saturday, August 22, 2009

Curious

Just curious if anybody really reads my blog anymore, since I am a very crappy blogger these days...

Not my fault, though. If something exciting would happen in our lives, then I would be all about the blogging, but, since nothing seems to change these days, the blogging just doesn't seem like a lot of fun.

Tuesday, August 11, 2009

Family Reunion

Here are just a few pictures of the 2009 Liddell Family Reunion.