Weekend, weekend, weekend!

Note: you must say the title of this blog post like the typical "Sunday, Sunday, Sunday" quote from ads.  Ha!

Anywho, what a great weekend.

Let me just give you a long little recap.

Friday night:

¤  I spent the night hanging out with my family for my sister's birthday.  We had some awesome chinese chicken wings and DQ ice cream cake (my husband says 'shame, shame', but it was my sister's birthday, come on!).  

Saturday:

¤  While Nick had his training all day for his new job at REI (totally awesome), I spent the morning at the Fun with the Fuzz 5k in Bellingham.  It was actually my very first 5k and it was so much fun.  My mom and I went together and we speed walked the whole race (with a time of 45 minutes, woot).   I didn't take any pictures (shame on me), but I got a super awesome t-shirt (that ISN'T cotton) and some great food afterwards. 

¤  My next 5k will be in 2 weeks with my mom again.  I'm really excited because 5ks have such a great vibe.  Also, I'll try and take a picture next time.

¤  After the 5k I hung out with my brother the rest of the day playing video games and watching The Expendables (watch it if you haven't).  We picked up Nick partway through the day and made awesome burgers and watched the Robot Chicken Star Wars.  We're both fans of Star Wars parodies.  They are hilarious!


Sunday:

¤  Nick had to work again in the morning, but I woke up with him at around 7 and got so much done around the house!  I also started this incredibly cool project (which will be finished sometime this week along with a great post about it *fingers crossed*).  

¤  Once Nick got off work we went Costco/Safeway shopping and headed out to Larrabee State Park (which is only a 20 min drive from our house).

¤  Nick wanted to explore some of the rock climbing spots around there and so I just tagged along and enjoyed the scenery (and possibly took some cool action shots).

Us at the bay.  Larrabee State Park!

Action shot!

My husband is a BA.  I don't know how he does some of the stuff he does.

¡Que bonita!  I love the ocean.

¤  Last night was the night where we also finally got our dryer! Yay!  Now we can do laundry (once we get the right cord for it). 


I hope your weekend was just as excellent and hopefully even more excellent than ours.  Until next time!

Money envelopes

Do you have a certain way you organize your finances?

We have a way that we do ours.

It all comes from Dave Ramsey.  Nick's parents made him read the Total Money Makeover.  If you haven't read any of Dave Ramsey's books, I highly recommend you read them.  I read that book after Nick and it was a total eye opener.  We now pay most things in cash and use an awesome envelope system. 

Well, I wanted to share you this sweet envelope system we have going on and the cute envelopes that I recently made to go with it!

 

I found this great template for envelopes at Kelleigh Kratslaff Designs.  She has a shop where she has a FREE envelope template.  Check it out here.

I just printed out the template, cut it out and traced it onto each piece of paper that I wanted to use.  I used some pretty heavy card stock so that way my envelopes would last longer through normal wear and tear.

Once it's traced you need to fold on the dotted lines.   Fold the sides in first.

Then fold up the bottom section (it's the side that isn't pointed).  Then glue on the bottom edge onto the side flaps.

That's it!  I attached a little label to all of my envelopes and holed punched the bottom to put on a binder ring.

Ta-da!  That's it.  We now have an envelope for all of our expenses that don't HAVE to be paid online.  Our rent and utilities have to be paid online.  But, our grocery money for each week, internet money, gas money, etc. is all in our handy-dandy envelopes.  

It's so much easier to have a set budget for all of our expenses.  It allows us to save up a lot more a lot quicker. 

Anyways, I hope you enjoyed that little tutorial and can gain something from it.  Is there a special way that you organize your finances/money?

Cardamom Pecan Coffee Cake

My husband really wanted to make something with cardamom (he loves cooking with different spices/herbs) for a family get-together.  His first idea was to make a cardamom peach cobbler.

Did you know it is incredibly difficult to find frozen peaches?  Nobody sells frozen peaches.  Very frustrating.

So he had to switch plans.   Instead he made an awesome cardamom pecan coffee cake. 

It was amazing.

I am here today to tell you about this wonderful recipe my husband found/made.

Cake ingredients:

-  2 c. soft butter
-  2 c. light brown sugar
-  4 eggs
-  2 tbsp. vanilla
-  2 c. sour cream
-  4 c. flour
-  2 tsp. baking powder
-  2 1/2 tsp. baking soda
-  1 1/2 tsp. powdered cardamom
-  1/2 tsp. salt

 

Cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy.
Add eggs and vanilla, beat well.
Sift together flour, baking powder, baking soda, cardamon, and salt.
Add sour cream and flour mixture one at a time.  Make sure you are starting and ending with the flour mixture.
Don't over mix!

Nut mixture ingredients:

-  1/2 c. brown sugar

-  2 tbsp. cinnamon

-  1 c. chopped pecans

 

The orginal recipe called for half less of the nut mixture, but we wanted more pecans in ours and it actually turned out to be a really great idea.  There weren't too many pecans!
Mix together brown sugar, cinnamon, and walnuts.

Spoon 1/3 of the batter into a well buttered pan then 1/2 of the nut mixture
Then 1/3 batter, then remaining nuts, then remaining batter.

Bake at 350 degrees for 1 to 1 1/2 hours until it's brown on top and dry when you put a toothpick all the way through.


Enjoy!