Navy Submarine Ball

Mike and I attended our first Ball last Saturday.  It commemorated the 111th birthday of the Navy Submarine force.  It was pretty neat, with a dinner, speaker, recognition of retired subs and even a few WWII Navy Veterans.  We had a great time, and it was a lot of fun (and stress) to prepare for :)  Going dress shopping, since I didn't own a single dress that could be counted as formal, was fun but nearly unfruitful.  There was not a single modest dress to be found.  Upon resolving to alter any dress I found, the search continued and I finally settled on this pretty purple one.

 In greater detail

 So, the work began.  I removed the bottom ruffle of the dress and re-hemmed the bottom.
Then, I cut sections of that ruffle and sewed them in as sleeves to the dress!  The last bit to finish was HAND-sewing the piece of material to go over the low v-neck.  That took a long time.  All in all, through my mistakes and experiments to figure out how to get all of this done, I spent about 4 hours altering this dress, all in one day.  I was pretty sick of looking at it by the time I finished :) But, I am very pleased with the outcome.

 Here we are, all dressed up. Mike in his dress whites and me in my new formal dress.  We had a great time.

 I even got to do my hair all fancy.  Wow, it had been a while since I had tried to do anything like this!  And I had about 1 option that I knew how to do as an up-do, so here it is.

 I liked it.  Dressing up was a lot of fun!  I look forward to the future Balls and events when we will get to do this again.  Look, I even got some jewelry(!!), considering I didn't have ANY to wear.

Boone Hall Plantation

We visited one of the local plantations a few weeks ago.  There were about 8 old slave homes on the property, each set up with historical information about the slaves, such as their daily life, religious practices, pursuits of liberty, etc.  It was all very neat to see.

Below is one of the slave cabins.

The plantation house, NOT the original home built on this lot.

We found this beautiful tree on the property, and had to take pictures.  By the way, this location is where the movie, The Notebook, was filmed (among others).  While we were there, a woman was even getting her bridal pictures taken.  The place is beautiful!

They also had a butterfly garden at the plantation, with a few butterflies and many gorgeous flowers. This purple flower was pretty amazing, unlike any other I had ever seen.

After leaving here, we went over to the plantation part where the family still grows fruits and vegetables.  We picked strawberries and blackberries by the pound.  It was a lot of fun and I made some strawberry freezer jam, blackberry syrup, and blackberry pie out of our pickings. Yum :)

Recipes?!?!

For you lovely ladies who asked for these recipes, here they are :)
Cheesecake Supreme (from my Better Homes and Gardens Cookbook)

Chocolate Box with Berries & Cream
For this one, just scroll down until you find it.  There are a few other recipes on there that look like they would be fun to try, but also some that look not-so-good.

Enjoy!  I hope that some of you try these recipes out and report back to me how delicious they were!

Yummy Eats

I just thought I would post a few of the delicious desserts recently concocted in our home, just to make you all envious :)

 The most delicious cheesecake, made all from scratch.  This was delicious, and even looked beautiful (aside from the major cracks in the top)

 Yum yum yum

 This second dessert I made for a cultural activity we had for Relief Society.  We were supposed to bring a dessert from our favorite country.  I had no idea what to bring and did not know any foreign desserts, so I looked up desserts from Ireland (one of my favorite, hopefully future destinations) and found this beauty.  It is called Chocolate box with berries and cream.  The base is made from semi-sweet chocolate, melted and then cooled to harden in the desired shape.  The filling is chocolate cheesecake-type creamy tastiness.  This is all topped off with whatever berries you like and rosette whipped cream around the edges.  I am very proud of this one.  It was oh so good and went into my recipe collection.

Notice the crisp chocolate base and the chocolate filling oozing out a bit :)

Splish Splash

We got AB a little swimming pool to play in.  She adores it.  Every time she sees it she says, "I wanna play in the pool" and begins taking her clothes off.  Here are some photos of her first time playing in it.

Hooray for water!  She loves it

Magnolia Gardens

We went to one of the local plantations several weeks ago (slow at posting pics).  The gardens were absolutely beautiful.  Vines grew up the trees, moss covered the ponds, and flowers abounded.

 Mike and AB on this cute red bridge

 The moss covering the water

 Smelling flowers

 Look at these cool trees.  The middle one grew almost completely out over the water.  They remind me of the tree on "My Girl". Anyone know what I'm talking about?

Gathering rocks (one of her favorite things to do)

 to buckle them into her stroller :)

 One of these ponds had a baby gator in it

 In front of the house.  We didn't go inside (that was an additional fee for the house tour).

 Isn't the plantation house gorgeous?!

It was a lot of fun to go there.  They even had a little petting zoo for the kids.  We got to see goats, pigs, bunnies, turtles, turkeys, deer, and more.  We even got to feed some of the.  Fun day.

1+1=2

No, not twins, just total children.  I had an ultrasound yesterday, and our baby is looking fabulous, moving his/her arms around and showing off a strong heartbeat.  It was so neat to actually see the heart pumping up and down.  I am now 9 weeks and 4 days along.  The due date is December 2nd.  We are so happy and excited to welcome this little one into our family.

Anabelle is finally starting to warm up to the idea a bit.  The first several times we mentioned to her having a little baby, she was completely and adamantly against it.  She would say, "No, I don't want another baby" each and every time.  Now, she will point out that the baby is in my belly and will carry one of her babies with her most of the time.  She is so good at taking care of them (except for the times she gets bored and throws them on the floor).  It will be fun to see her as a big sister.

As for how I have been feeling, it comes and goes.  I didn't have any symptoms until about 6 weeks, and then it was major stomach and lower back pain.  This past week has been magnificently free from headaches and/or migraines (unlike the previous 2 weeks).  I still have indigestion almost all the time.  I have had enough energy to go about my daily business (with a small nap in the afternoon).  Those same 2 previous weeks, I could hardly do anything productive, I felt so completely devoid of energy.  Hopefully I will continue to feel pretty well.  I am grateful to say that I have only had 2 or 3 days of nausea, nothing too bad.