Mississippi State Fair

I am so excited about this time of year! I love when the weather turns colder and the State Fair comes to town!

I haven't been in years and I'm so excited to go this year! On my way to work, I drove by the fair grounds to see the progress of the set-up!

Bryan, ehm ehm, doesn't particularly like the fair all that much. (But we are going to go this year because I LOVE it and think it's so fun to ride rides and eat amazing fried food on a stick!)

Sorry the pictures are awkward. I was driving.

Dad gets Married

My dad got married last night to Angie. Here are some pictures!
All the girls went yesterday morning to get manicures and pedicures.Brittany, Charlie, Me, Aimee, and AngieApparently my dad proposed while watching 'The Deadliest Catch' so this was their joke and his cake.

Meet Tucker

Since the architecture school went out of town for the night, I'm puppy-sitting for Martin's dachshund, Tucker. We went on a fun walk. We played 'roll-on-your-back'. We read a magazine. We, nope... HE ate some dog food...

He was really excited when I first got there. Then I think he got really confused. He would run to me, then to the door, then to Martin's room, then to the window, then back to me, then do it all over again. I kept telling Tucker that his dad was coming home tomorrow, but I don't know if he believed me.

Anyway, we had a fun time, but due to the fact that we cannot have animals in our apartment, I had to leave him for the night at his own house.

Now we're pretty much BFF!

Autumn is coming!

Autumn is my favorite time of year, hands down. I love watching the trees change colors and loose their leaves. I love the weather turning from hot to cold. I love this time of year and it's coming! I saw some amazing fall colors at the produce stand today!

The Maco

Maco: \ma-ko\ n. a large manly taco

as compared to my less-than-manly tacos (left) are Bryan's Macos (right)...

This is Not a Test...

It's alarming to be startled awake by sirens then to open your eyes to see strobes of red and white light totally illuminating the room in which you're sleeping.

We heard sirens about 3:45am this morning. When we looked across the street we saw three fire engines with fire fighters dressed to fight fires! It was an adventure for about 20 minutes then they left.

Meredith, what happened over there last night?!

Sewing Saturday

Since Bryan spent most of the day at the architecture building, I worked on the sofa and watched stupid girly movies!

I sewed the back panel and made a green pillow!

Shannon, I found a face in Parker's burger last night! He even has a little cheese tongue.

Sofa Spectacular

I got a job! Such an answered prayer! I'm starting next week!



This week I've been working my fingers to the bone (not really) re-upholstering my sofa... you remember--- The sofa I rescued from the Chinese food restaurant by our old house? Yep, that one. Still working on it. Actually I've finally gotten plenty of free time and a working sewing machine (thanks mom!) to actually work on it. I'm excited about how it's coming along. It won't look like a church pew very much longer! Gah... the fabric on there right now is TERRIBLE!
I got another black and white fabric that has organic shapes that will wrap the entire back panel and arms of the piece and the geometric fabric will continue up the back of the sofa!

Baby Henry

Welcome to the world Henry Micah Verwiel!

I just got to talk to Brandy! Everyone is doing great! Henry was born at 5:24pm and was 6lbs 12oz!

Congratulations Jared and Brandy (and older 'sister' Rahab)! We love you guys and are so excited to love the newest member of your family!

Papua New Guinea

I've been working on a portfolio for all of my photography lately since people have been asking what kinds of things I shoot. We thought it would be easier to just show them, or at least have something to show them. Anyway... I was going through some of my older photography this morning, particularly my pictures from Papua New Guinea, and I found a few that I wanted to share!

Party Time/ Go Everybody, Go

We went to Bryan's grandparent's house last night for his cousin Ivy's 15th birthday and his grandpa's 86th birthday!

Liam might be one of the cutest babies ever!He and Bryan had a lot of fun playing together.
Little girls set up play dishes into a tea party. Boys set up play dishes into towers.And Bryan sets up play dishes into the most logical and organized order possible.Here's Andrew in the middle of his rendition of 'Cary is a party pooper.' And to wrap it all up, we had a family dance party! Everybody got a turn to break it down :) It was so good to see everyone! I'm glad Whitney got to come up with Andrew and Liam. And Cary and David came up for the day too-- Hopefully we'll get to see you again soon!

Burn After Reading

We all went to dinner last night at the Frisco Deli. We're still trying out new places around the Jackson area. It was good. Sandwiches and BBQ.

This is a regular sized spoon--- Sully just has big sausage fingers that dwarf all silverware.Anyway... We ate dinner, went to Cold Stone and got ice cream, then went to see Burn After Reading by the Cohen Brothers. It was hysterical! We all really liked it.

Who doesn't love a little caffine?

I came into the living room last night to find my sweet husband quenching his thirst with a 2 Liter of Coke. He didn't drink the whole thing by himself nor did he drink it all in one sitting, but I thought it was funny. We're really not the 'drink-out-of-the-container' type, but every now and then you just gotta cut loose and go crazy.

Look, Ma, no cavities!

Would you like to buy a box of girl scout kuhhh kheees?

When I was little, I had a 'retainer' thing in the top of my mouth that was supposed to create more room for my top teeth. It also made me have a strange speech impediment. Now, every time I say the word 'cookie,' I think of that retainer. I pronounced it 'kuhhh kheee.' (really airy and probably a little bit spitty) I did sell over 350 boxes of girl scout cookies that year, so I feel like people either felt sorry for me or the impediment wasn't nearly as pronounced as I thought.

So... All that to say, I made cookies today.

I know I have advocated this recipe before, but I've never posted the recipe on my blog. It is Laura's recipe all the way, but I have been making it for several months (always to take somewhere so I won't end up eating the whole plate by myself) and EVERY single time I've made them at least one person eating them has asked me for the recipe.

So here it is:

1 c. sugar
1 c. light brown sugar
1 c. vegetable shortening
2 eggs, lightly beaten
1 tsp. vanilla
1 1/2 c. flour
1 tsp. salt
1 tsp. soda
2 1/4 c. oatmeal
1 bag peanut butter/chocolate chips (you can buy the bag that's got them combined. Of course you can also choose to use peanut butter OR chocolate instead of both of them but the big hit is usually the combination bag.)

Combine sugars and shortening. Add eggs lightly beaten with vanilla. Add flour, salt, and soda. Mix well. Stir in oatmeal, and PB/chocolate chips.
Spoon on cookie sheet and bake at 325 degrees for 8-10 minutes

(eggs-schmeggs... you should eat some of the raw cookie dough before the last step).

Because my sweet honey doesn't like chocolate--- he gets a special batch with only peanut butter chips!Look at my oven! It has a light!! and a rack that is wide enough for a full size cookie sheet!!!Now- the hard part is always choosing which one to eat first! I guess it's not really that hard- I love chocolate and peanut butter and oats and sugar so I better go with the top one that has all of those things. Bryan will go for the other one though! Whew- thank goodness there won't be a fight!