Enter: The King Kong of All Brownies!

These are one of my favorite things ever...and soooooooo easy. I just had to share.

Make brownies. Either from a box or from scratch. I usually make it from a box because it goes a little faster.

Cook and cool.

Spread one jar (7 oz) of marshmallow cream onto cooled brownies.

In a saucepan, combine 2 cups of chocolate chips (the recipe I used calls for semi-sweet, but I always use milk chocolate...) with 1 cup of peanut butter. Melt over low heat. When chips are all melted, add 3 cups of Rice Krispies. Stir all of that together.

Spread Rice Krispies on top of marshmallow cream.

Chill. Cut. Enjoy! (Keep these in the fridge.)

Seriously--these are the best things ever. And for family that reads this, you can thank Shari (Cordova) Hale for the recipe. I got it from her.

:)

Christmas and Other Crafting!

I have been REALLY into crafting lately. I don't know if it's because I'm pregnant and so all of a sudden I have an urge to become much more domestic or if it's because I'm not in school so I don't have a constant load of homework keeping me busy...perhaps a bit of both. I saw a really cute tutorial here: http://www.bystephanielynn.com/2010/04/recycled-plastic-bag-wreath-earth-day.html at Under the Table and Dreaming. I could not find the foam wreaths anywhere, so I searched online for similar ideas to see if I could improvise somehow. I found the idea to make a wreath base out of a hanger, and I thought that was a great idea because, really, who doesn't have a million gross old hangers lying around??? This is my failed attempt at a circle:

Ughh....the thing I found online told me to cut the hanger at the bottom and loop the ends around each other (maybe to make it smaller??). After the above happened, I really didn't see the point in having a smaller wreath, so I decided to grab another hanger, bend it into a circle, and just use extra bags. I think it turned out to be the PERFECT size, and I'm way happy it worked out. I think i ended up using about 30 grocery bags...give or take ten either way...

I hung it on the front door, and since it's made with plastic bags, it can live through all sorts of weather!! This is one time I wish our door wasn't white, because it kind of blends in....but oh well. That's another day's project I suppose.

Next on my "to-do" was to fix this wall....

It has looked pretty empty since we moved in, and I've been wanting to do something there but just didn't know what. We went to Wally World the day after Thanksgiving and found packages of ten frames for $7! I bought two, and Scott didn't believe that I actually could find a use for 20 picture frames in our house. I was planning on doing some sort of collage on the wall, but I decided that I wanted to do something Christmas-y for now to make our house a bit more festive! I just printed off letters from Word to spell "Merry Christmas" and taped them to scrapbook paper to cut them out. Thank goodness I thought of doing that, because drawing bubble letters has always been a challenging experience for me...Anyway, now our house looks a little more ready for the holidays and I was able to take the two pictures we had and put them on other walls to make it look a little better all around!

I've been really into babies lately.......Ha--understatement! Obviously I can't think of anything but babies lately, so I've been looking at a lot of baby crafts. I have plans for a crib bedding set, a baby afghan, baby hats, baby mobiles, baby toys, baby shoes (maybe? I've heard that these are kind of really hard...so we'll see...), and these burp cloths that I already started on. One of the girls I'm in Young Women's with just adopted a baby boy and the President is due with a baby boy in a couple of weeks. I wanted to give them a gift that they would actually use and think was cute, and I kind of wanted to make something. So....i pulled out my sewing machine for the first time ever (thanks, Mom), bought some fabric and thread, and went to work. I bought some cloth diapers, cut fabric the same size, and sewed binding around the edges. Sounds easy, right? Ummm....have I mentioned I haven't really sewn much of anything since I was about nine years old?

Side story--when I was five I went to a quilting club with my mom. She would quilt with some cute old grandmas at a church every Wednesday, and I would go with her. Usually I would color (with my favorite glitter crayons) and find missing needles that the old ladies couldn't see. Eventually I got the idea that I wanted to make a quilt of my own. My mom let me have some fabric and probably helped me cut it, but the blocks were about 2 inches square. Imagine a five-year-old who can't even cut a straight line trying to use a sewing machine to sew a straight line. I got so frustrated when none of my strips of fabric matched up that I gave up on the quilt, but I did keep practicing on my mom's sewing machine--not that I made anything; I just thought it was a really awesome grown-up toy and couldn't believe my mom let me use it. When i was about nine or ten I decided sewing wasn't really my thing so i gave it up.

So....it took a while, but I finally got into the groove of using a sewing machine again after my 13 year interim. I finished six burp cloths (three for each friend) and put one set with a binky and a clip and the other with a package of bottles. I've got to tell you, I'm pretty proud of myself for these! I'm working on the others now for our little guy but decided to embroider "Little Fiebs" on the diaper side to make them even cuter! So they're still in the process of being finished.

I ran across a tutorial on how to make these fabric flowers a few weeks ago and decided to try it. It was really fun and sooooo easy, so I made a few. I put one on a bobby pin and the others are still sitting around waiting to be used....I was wanting to put them on a plain tee from Downeast Basics or something, but so far haven't even made it to the store to get a shirt.
I also saw a tutorial on how to make this necklace (sorry, can't remember where...) and decided to try it out. I made it with the same old tank top I made the pink fabric flowers with and an old necklace that I cut up.
I had a little problem getting it to stay turned the right way when I was wearing it, so this is the only time I put it on. I did wear it for a few hours, but I'm going to have to do something to keep it under control before I wear it again.

Incidentally, this is the night before I dyed my hair dark again! Bye blonde Brooke!

Pictures, FINALLY!

Okay, so I'm going kind of blog crazy lately....I know you're all probably in shock. This one is a whole bunch of random updates, because I finally uploaded some pictures!! Here we go.....

Scott and I went to a murder mystery dinner a week or two before Halloween (Yeah, so

me of these are that old...). Scott's character was a 20-something Irishman and I was a 50-something English prude who ended up being the murderer!! Not the first time I've been a killer in a murder mystery either......I don't know what that's supposed to mean!

On my birthday Scott took me out to dinner and a movie. We ate at Asian Star...

Then we went to a movie--Life as We Know It--where we took this picture...

and I wanted a picture of the movie (we were way early and I was getting a little bored....). We ended up with this weird one that I just had to put up.

I think it was a preview for Harry Potter or something, but it just looked CREEPY!

We grew a garden this summer (which I thought I took a couple of pictures of, but apparently I didn't...). We grew watermelons, pumpkins, squash, and green onions. We tried to grow carrots and cucumbers too, but they just turned into weeds. We did get a couple of watermelons and squash and a LOT of pumpkins! We carved a couple of the pumpkins but gave most away. This is one of the watermelons we grew!

This is the Harry Potter watermelon:

And these are some pumpkin seeds (I somehow missed getting pictures of actual pumpkins that we grew....).

Well...I have a couple more pictures that I want to put up at some point, but unfortunately it won't be today. I've got some errands to run and then I'm headed to Temple Square with the young women in our ward to see the lights!

Officially Christmas Season

Scott and I put our Christmas tree up last Monday...I know it was before Thanksgiving, and usually I'm not for jumping the gun with Christmas decorations, but we were both getting so excited and didn't know when we would have time to put up our tree if we didn't do it last week. I thought it turned out really cute!! Especially since this year we can actually plug in the lights! (Last year in our apartment we didn't have outlets in the living room [or anywhere in the house, including the bathroom for that matter.......])

We set up our little Christmas village underneath (since we already bought our Christmas presents for each other--new couches!--and won't have much to put under the tree).

It snowed all weekend and we have a good foot or maybe even two here! It's so nice to look out

the window and see how beautiful the world is today!! Especially because I don't have to go outside in it!!

We love you all. Merry Christmas!!!

For all those who just love Rachel's BLOG

I somehow accidentally posted a blog of nothing a second ago...I really don't know what happened. Anyway...back to what I was PLANNING to blog about today...

To those of you who don't know, my sister (Rachel) has been living in Memphis teaching high school, and has had a multitude of encounters with big, nasty, gross, disgusting bugs while she's been down there. She's blogged about a few, and I, as I'm sure many others, have been extremely grossed out by the pictures she has posted. Yes, pictures. Of big, nasty, gross, disgusting bugs--cockroaches and wasps are the ones I vividly remember.

So yesterday, as I was trying to prepare dinner, I pulled my crock pot out. I love using my crock pot. It's usually fast to just throw everything in and then you just wait :) I especially love crock pot-ing on Sunday mornings so that by the time we get home from church the house smells delish and dinner is ready. Last night I was going to try a recipe for "Honey Baked Chicken." Sounds yummy, right? I pulled out my chicken, my honey, some paprika, and a few other ingredients...I take the lid off my crock pot, happen to glance inside, and see a HUMONGOUS spider just hanging out in the corner of my crock pot!! Gross!!!!! I'm sure Scott thought I had found an intruder in my crock pot the way I screamed. I don't know how I had the presence of mind not to drop the whole thing on the floor, but I was, in fact, able to set it back on the counter.

Scott--hero of mine--came and killed the thing for me. As I was washing my crock pot for the second time (just to be sure there was no spider poop leftovers...), my thoughts started racing to how many times a bug has crawled (or worse, pooped) in/across/over something I cook with! I'm sure that the cooking process kills all the germs, but STILL!! I don't know how that spider got in my crock pot. It had a lid on it. So that makes me nervous about even more items in my kitchen.

I am officially grossed out.

For all those who just love Rachel'

Birthdays in the air...Everywhere I look around...

So, Scott's birthday was last Friday. Last year I had a really hard time deciding what to get Scott for his birthday; he doesn't really like to read, I didn't think he would enjoy a DVD, I knew nothing about golf, so I wasn't about to go there, and the only other interest I really knew of was crackers and cheeseballs...

This year I made sure to get a bunch of ideas from him, and, even though he had some idea of what he was getting, I think he was still fairly surprised! I surprised myself with some craftiness that I didn't know I had in me...when I went downstairs to grab some wrapping paper, all I could find was some random, teal-colored paper, and I didn't really want to go buy some more, so I decided to make do.

After wrapping up his putter, I realized that teal was one of the Miami Dolphins colors (p.s. the Dolphins are his favorite football team; I found this out sometime after his birthday last year...). So, I decided to take the paper and draw the dolphin logo on it...I figured it couldn't be THAT hard. I thought I did a pretty good job--it may not be the cutest dolphin ever, but it's only a little ugly, and since I don't consider myself an artist, I thought it was pretty crafty of me.

Enjoy :)

Scott told me he showed this to one of his coworkers, who thought it looked like a humpback whale...yeah...it kind of does. But look at the perfection of that circle!! ;)

time for ketchup!...(get it, like catch up)

I have been looking ALL over for my camera cord this morning so I could upload all the pictures we have on my camera, and after finally finding it, I remembered the camera didn't have batteries in it. So then the search for batteries began. We have 4 AA rechargable batteries that we usually have to juggle around. Surprisingly, there were no batteries in the x-box controller, but I eventually found two that i was SURE would have some charge in them. Alas, they did not. I have no idea where Scott put the other batteries, so, unfortunately, we will all have to wait for another day to see the pictures from the exciting adventures of Super-Scott and his damsel (who is quite often) in distress.

Can I just say that working at home is the best! On Monday, I got most of the laundry done that has been waiting for me, practically taunting me, for a while now. I love getting up and going to work in my pajamas, and then when I'm done working I can get ready for the day. I can take a break to snack or watch Oprah, and I don't even feel bad about it! I just started doing medical transcription full time this week, so I don't know if it's always going to be this nice or if sometimes it might be a little more stressful, but I'm loving it so far. As for my other job (bleh.), I'm still doing the accounting for the law office, and it's okay. I only have to go in one day a week, so that shouldn't really be all that bad. My boss is supposed to be hiring someone that I'll be training, but I have this nagging feeling that he's not looking for a replacement...

Scott just started school yesterday, so it's going to be another super fun semester of not seeing each other...He has all of his classes Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, so it shouldn't be as bad as the last couple of semesters. And I'm not taking classes this semester, so that will be nice.

Scott's job is still keeping him really busy. He's on call all the time, and the past week or two the computers have been crashing in the middle of the night, almost every night, so he gets a nice, loud, alert so he can go fix it. Last night he told me he wouldn't blame me if I slept in the guest room. I had half a mind to tell him that he should be the one sleeping in the guest room, but then I realized how much I'd miss him if I woke up and he wasn't next to me, so we decided to both just stick it out. Luckily, I'm usually pretty quick to fall asleep after being woken up in the middle of the night, so it worked out alright.

We took a road trip to Colorado again last weekend. WOW that trip seemed long! Scott drove the whole way, 8 hours there and 8 hours back. I love him for it; he knows how much I dislike driving. We went to a Colorado Rockies game on Friday with Chad and Braden, and on Saturday we went to the BYU vs. Air Force football game with Chad, Candace, Kenzie, and Braden. We had a really great time, and had the greatest hosts we could ask for. Thanks Chad and Candace!! On the way home we stopped in Laramie to visit my best friend, Shelley, who I haven't seen in ages. It was so fun seeing her--too short, but really good.

It's nice being home again, and it's even nicer to think we don't have any long road trips looming in the near future! Don't get me wrong, I really love to visit family and friends, and if it takes a while to get where we're going it's always worth it, but I am sooo sick of driving!!! It feels like that's all we've done all summer! So until next year, friends, you may just have to come visit us. P.S. You're always welcome at Chez Le Fieber!

**More to come, hopefully with pictures...

Guess who's back...back again?

Well, looks like I let you down again, eager blog-watchers! With two blogs in May, I bet you thought I was on track to become a blogging fiend! Sorry, but it just so happened that June was a *little* crazy (and, of course, by little I actually mean that we were torn in a thousand different directions!!!)

So...here's what is new in the simple life of the Fieber family:

I got a new calling...as an advisor in young women's...!

I planted a garden--carrots, cucumbers, onions, watermelon, squash, and pumpkins. So far the only things really growing are the watermelon, pumpkins, squash, and weeds...

The raspberries in the backyard are taking over!! We've gone out to pick them three times now, and every time we get more than the last. They are absolutely delicious, and last weekend I made some raspberry jam, raspberry-peach jam, and a yummy raspberry pie. Aunt Connie came over this morning to get some, and she will be back this weekend to help us out while we're in Colorado!

Scott and I started school. He is taking a math class, and I was taking a business law and ethics class. Scott's doing pretty well in math (I won't say he's enjoying it yet, though), and I withdrew from my class. I actually really enjoyed it, but I found out that the school redid my major, so I don't need the class anymore. I think we're only going to get 40% of our money back for the class, which really stinks, but it's better than nothing, so we'll take it.

I went to two family reunions a couple of weeks ago. First the Baird reunion in Driggs at Grandma Katie's cabin, then to some other part of Idaho (I never did catch exactly where it was that we were...) for the Stewart reunion. It was really fun to spend some time with all my family. Even the 18 hours I spent in a car was worth it. Rachel came up from Memphis, and we rode most of the way with our parents. I really missed Scott (he had to stay here for work and church meetings), so I ended up coming home just a little early...haha I guess I'm still a newlywed! It made me realize how devastated I would be without him in my life. I'm definitely hooked on him!

The next weekend, we went to Evanston for Scott's mom's birthday and the fourth of July. We went up to the Uintas for lunch and 4-wheeling. It was really a lot of fun, and I'm really glad that I got so lucky to have such wonderful in-laws!! The fourth of July show was just incredible! Evanston is always a good bet for a fun fourth, but this year I thought it was so much better than usual!

I had two nephews turn one year old at the beginning of this month, and holy cow, are they cute!!! We went to Asher's birthday party and got to see him learn how yummy frosting can be. It's too bad we couldn't go to Tyson's too, but I'm sure it was just as fun!

Let's see, what else..................I got another job...!! I got hired on with the transcription company I did my internship with! So now I'll be typing for an orthopedic doctor and I'll also be typing up some physical therapy notes. I just started this week, and was worried that maybe it would be more than I can handle. I'll have to keep you posted on that.

I'm really excited to go to Colorado with Adam and Jamie this weekend! We're leaving tomorrow and I just can't wait. As long as Scott's x-box controller hasn't used up all of our batteries, there will be pictures to follow our trip!

<3/bruk>

NEW YORK, NEW YORK

I know these pictures were a long time coming, but here they are!!!

This one is Scott and I right before we left for the airport. We had a red eye flight to NYC, and we just had to cut our wedding cake before we left (so what if it was a couple of hours premature...right?).

The topper is from a little party Scott's company had for us when we got engaged. I don't know why we kept it, but it came in handy :)

We got into the city at about 7:30 a.m. and didn't have time to take our bags to our hotel, so if you see pictures of us with all our belongings, that's why...

Here's a picture of the (sideways--still having some technical difficulties I guess...) Empire State Building through our bus ceiling window. We didn't get a chance to go to the top. Bummer. :(


And if you look closely you can see Scott in the middle --------> of this one. Downtown New York is sooo BIG!! It was so much bigger than it looks like in the movies.

We had a blast, but it was freezing all day! They predicted snow, but luckily Washington D.C. got all of it and New York was spared.

Here we are at the NBC Studio building. We were freezing by this point, and had to find a place to warm up. It was actually pretty cool. They had a bunch of memorabilia from The Office, SNL, Friends, and other TV shows to buy, and the logo we're standing in front of was full of M&M's! (As if I wasn't hungry already, geeze...) They had some booths where you would stand in front of a green screen and get your face on a movie poster or Good Morning America. Best of all, it wasn't zero degrees inside!!!

My favorite part of the whole day was the cruisline out to the Statue of Liberty. We took the Circle Line (as seen in One Fine Day, f.y.i.) and cruised all around the island. We took a bunch of pictures of Lady Liberty, but this is probably the best. Near the end of the cruise, the sun was setting, and everything looked so spectacular!! The buildings were all shining, the water was glistening, and out on the water it was easy to see the city in perspective with the rest of the world. I know these are just a few of the pictures from our weekend, but I hope everyone gets an idea of the busy whirlwind that is NEW YORK CITY!!

blog in 60 seconds

we went to robin hood last night--it was a really great movie! we both liked it a lot...ready for robin hood 2 anyone?!?

we've been pruning peach trees, raspberry bushes, and lawns. I LOVE SUMMER!!

i finally found an internship for medical transcription--i'm working for a clinic in texas! via the internet of course :)

scott's promotion has been postponed another two weeks...raise and all :(

i got pink extensions put in my hair--just a few. i decided it would be fun to do something a little different for the summer!

we miss our family!!! i decided this week that i wish we could make a town with everyone we cared about, so that our friends and family would all be in one place!!

It's May already?!?!?

WOW!!! Time's fun when you're havin' flies! or...is that how it goes...? hmmm...anyway...

I can't believe April is over. It feels more like February than April with all this snow! We've been busy; Scott more than me. He got a big promotion at work! He's now the "database administrator" at SecureAlert. Snazzy, right? He's pretty excited to not be on the phones anymore, and he's learning a lot from the IT guys.

The same week he got the promotion at work, we got a call to go meet with a member of the Stake Presidency. Scott got called as the 2nd counselor in the Elder's Quorum. I guess we're fully integrated into the ward now...lol. He'll be great in the calling I'm sure, but I'll miss him in primary...I'll be braving sharing time alone for at least a while. The plan for now is that he'll still be teaching our class with me, but it's still up in the air.

Last Saturday we went to Orem to hang out with Adam and Jamie. We went bowling and I, unfortunately, was not much of an "alley cat." Both games we bowled I got below 100! Everyone else did WAY better than me, but it was way fun. After the game we went to Macey's grocery store and Adam and Jamie bought me a Kong Kone. Holy smokes I've never SEEN an ice cream cone so humungous!!! It lasted me two days!

We're looking forward to going to Evanston to see our moms this weekend!! I wish we could make it home more often. I haven't been to my parent's house since Christmas, and we've only been to Scott's parents' house once since then!! You would think we lived in Memphis, Texas, Colorado, or somewhere...

Over and out. We love ya!!

I've been neglecting my blog...

To those of you who still have an interest in us after all this time, I promise I'll give updates more often!!!

Let's see...Scott and I have both been SOOO busy the past few months. I took 18 credits, and Scott took 17. He worked full-time, and I was working 25-30 hours a week. We hardly ever saw each other, but we did find a weekend to fly to New York, compliments of Paula and Wade. The trip was really fun, and if I can figure out how to upload pictures I'll put some up...

We both finished school this past week, and we'll be taking the summer off! Hopefully we'll be able to visit some family and hang out together. He's not going to be spending all summer doing Aflac this year, so we should be able to have more time together than last year.

Scott is doing really great at work, and this weekend he's even testing out some new hardware...I wondered when he first walked in the door if he'd had a run-in with the law because of the ankle bracelet he was wearing. I guess he and eight other people he works with are wearing ankle bracelets all weekend to see if the new gizmos work. Hopefully this thing doesn't become a permanent accessory...