recipe {pita pizza's}

my mom first told me about this pita pizza idea...i think she found it in a weight watchers book or magazine.  i took the idea and ran with it, changing it up each time i tried it.  i don't really know that you can call this a "recipe" b/c it is so simple...but here goes:

pita bread {whole}

laughing cow cheese {any flavor you like...i used the garlic one...FYI one triangle is only 1 WW point!}

any spaghetti/tomato sauce you like

chopped vegetables of your choosing {i use tomato, onion, banana pepper, bell peppers & caperberries}

turkey pepperoni

your choice of cheese {i used a little goat cheese and mozzarella cheese}

italian seasoning

crushed black pepper

salt

garlic salt

red pepper flakes

-preheat your BROILER...i put mine on hi

-spread laughing cow cheese onto pita bread, put into oven under the broiler until nice and golden brown {see photo}

-once out of oven, spread with tomato sauce

-start layering your vegetables...i start with slices of tomatoes

-add cheese w/ the mozzarella being on the top

-place turkey pepperoni around top of pizza

-sprinkle with seasonings

-pop back into oven with the broiler for literally less than 5 minutes.....until your cheese is melted

this is the fastest meal possible and super yummy.  during the summer when our garden was going i would put basil leaves on them and that made them even better!  this is a recipe that you can taylor to fit your tastes...any toppings you like.

we give this "recipe"

*****

nick & treva {engagement pics}

this past weekend i had the opportunity to do engagement pics for nick and treva.  treva's family is long time friends of my family, but i hadn't seen her in probably 10 years.  obviously she has grown up!  this was a super fun photo session...as you will see there were lots of laughs throughout the evening.  the bridge pictures are on an old one way bridge not far from my grandparents house.  i'm talking OLD.  a few cars had to pass while we were there and the bridge literally shook!  the rest of the pictures were taken in downtown fort smith.  treva told me about the west end area, so saturday morning i headed down to scope it out for that evening.  super cool area!  anyways, here are a few pics......

aren't they an adorable couple!?!?  wedding bells will be ringing for them in april!

growing pains.........

our tulsa office is expanding!  for those of you that don't know, i am a registered commercial interior designer in an architecture firm.  we do alot of education, churches and other random commercial stuff. our tulsa office has only been open for 2 years and most of the 2 years me and one other person were in the office consistantly.  now there are 4 of us in the office....the original square footage of the tulsa office was only a little over 500 square feet.  as you can imagine with 4 people...it is tight to say the least!  anyways, we are way excited about the expansion.

but, as probably everyone knows with growth most of the time are pains.  the suite next to ours has been vacant for a while, so we decided to take it over, doubling our space.  there was a perfect wall for us to cut a door into {after removing the sink} and we would be ready to go.  the demo guys got out here, knocked the sink and "door" out only to find a drainage pipe that could not be moved on our budget. 

SOOO...plan 'B'...we had to move the door down about 4' completely screwing up my plans for the reception area.  then the demo guys didn't patch the walls correctly so when we finally got another dry wall guy out our carpet installers were starting that day as well, and that royally pissed off the dry wall guy.  i wanted to tell him, "well, if you had been here when you were suppose to be here and done your job correctly, you wouldn't have this problem", but i kept my mouth shut {surprisingly} and politely smiled.  then he left at lunch and never came back, so we had to patch the dry wall {not me....a couple of the other guys in my office} ourselves. 

now we are on the 5th day of painting and we are all sick and tired of it.  luckily i haven't had to do too much...one of the other guys has done the bulk of it but i am pretty sure it's about to push him over the edge!  we have one long red wall throughout the whole space, being the good painters that we are we primed it first and then had to do 5 coats of red paint!  what the heck????  isn't that what primer is for!?!?!? 

today, while trying to get finished with painting, we realize that some of the phones aren't working.  we call the phone guy he comes out punches a few buttons, says we are ready to go and leaves.  oh, we asked him how much it would be to set up voicemail.....his answer $1200!  what the heck?  obviosly we will pass on that and continue to forward our calls to our muskogee office when we are out.  whatever.  probably about an hour after the phone guy leaves we get a call and i need to transfer it...i do the standard transfer and it says it won't work.  i call the phone guy again and tell him he needs to come back out.  he tries to tell me he can explain it over the phone which i quickly inform him that he can not and he needs to do it....he begrudgingly (sp?) agrees.  after an hour of him punching thousands of buttons on our phones {remember, he thought he could tell me how to do this over the phone} we are all set up....again.

so far it has been 2 weeks of "expanding" and i am about expanded out.  one would think that with the carpet done and paint 95% complete, we could see the light at the end of the tunnel....until i tell you that we are purchasing a uhaul full of ikea furniture this weekend that will need to be put together.  yea...no light yet! 

we will get there and we have lucked out quite a bit, i got all the carpet tiles for the new space donated and also two desk chairs donated, so that is awesome!  and i will have a much prettier office once completed.  it will be soon and i will post pics to prove it! 

here's to growing pains!!!

recipe {pumpkin pie shake}

this is one of mymichael's favorite desserts. if you love pumpkin pie, then you will love this shake. it's super easy and fast to whip up in the evening. the recipe is from cooking light, january 2006.

2 cups vanilla reduced fat ice cream, softened

1 cup fat-free milk

2/3 cup canned pumpkin

1/4 cup packed brown sugar

3/4 teaspoon pumpkin pie spice

3 tablespoons frozen fat-free whipped topping, thawed

combine first 5 ingredients in a blender; process until smooth.  pour 3/4 cup ice cream mixture into each of 4 glasses.  top each with about 2 teaspoons whipped topping; sprinkle with the additional pumpkin pie spice, if desired.

Yield: 4 servings, Cal: 198, Fat: 2.8

we give this recipe:

*****

tasty must have {sandwich thins}

these are one of the best inventions in my opinion!  they are "sandwich thins" and they are yummy AND only 1 Weight Watchers point for the top and bottom piece.  I use these for sandwiches, hamburgers, mini pizza's, spread with nutella {that's a whole other post} and banana or strawberry slices for a sweet snack, and the list goes on and on.  i buy these at my local target, but i am sure they are available at other grocery stores as well.  they come in whole wheat and multi-grain...both are good. 

it's a great way to have a sandwich/snack/etc. without wasting 200 calories on bread.  i mean, if i am going to waste calories on bread {which i frequently do} i want it to be fresh baked, slathered with garlic and butter kind of bread...not something that you really don't taste b/c of all the other things on it.  anyways....just my opinion!

we give these:

*****

tyson & kenna {family pics}

here are some more photos of tyson & kenna's family pictures that i took last tuesday night.  they are such a cute family!

thanks so much for letting me photograph your family!

what's cookin' this week

last week mymichael was out of town and i was super busy...so it was a grab and go kind of week.  but now i am back in the swing of things, so here is what's on my list of dinners this week:

Sesame Beef Stif-Fry {Body for Life cook book}
Enchilada Soup with Avocado {Body for Life cook book}
Meatloaf balls
Pita Pizzas
Mushroom-Shallot Frittata {Cooking Light Magazine} - make this for breakfast....cut in squares and heat up in the morning

what are you cooking this week???

sarah's reception

so, friday was the big day...sarah and dave's wedding reception.  prior to friday we had done lots of baking, freezing and prep work to try and make friday go as smooth as possible...which it did for the most part....except running late on just about everything.  But isn't that how a typical wedding day goes? 

friday morning sarah and her sister came over to my place.  we had to get 75 cupcakes out of the freezer and frosted, pumpkin bars out of freezer so they could be cut and put in cup cake holders, and decide how the "dessert bar" was going to be set up that evening.  a lot to do before 1 'o' clock when we were suppose to pick up 200 {yes, 200} milk cartons for their wedding favors.  here are some of the goodies getting ready to be loaded....

unfortunately in the midst of getting everything set up i failed to take any pics of the dessert bar before it got too dark to NOT use my flash.  bummer...but here are some snap shots anyways.  it turned out adorable.  i think this would be a great idea for a birthday party, halloween party....really anything.  i love all the color!

sarah & lindsey.................kelsi & sarah

me & sarah............best friends since 7th grade!  wow, that's a long time!

sarah, carissa, lauren & me

me & my sis w/ the bride

chek out the mini door...isn't it cute???

great idea for a guest book....have disposable cameras available for everyone to take self portraits of themselves.  then you put them in a cute photo album and can flip through to see everyone who attended your special event!  so much better than a bunch of signed names!

1 of the 200 milk cartons!  dave loves chips ahoy cookies and milk, so their wedding favor was a clear baggy with 3 cookies, a cute little tag with the wedding date {wish i had a pic b/c it was adorable!} and then a carton of milk.  very personalized and cute!  if anyone needs milk for the next week or so give sarah a call b/c she has a bunch left!!!  the reception was a blast and so laid back, thanks dave & sarah for a great night & congrats on 6 months of marriage!

making pretzel sticks with friends

so the past couple of weeks have been trial periods for sarah's reception dessert bar.  sarah and dave got married in march...a small wedding with only family and a couple of friends.  friday night is their big "celebration" as sarah has been calling it.  instead of having another wedding cake, they decided to have a dessert bar with cupcakes and candy and all sorts of yummy sweets.  in preparation of this dessert bar we have all been trying out different recipes and such to decide exactly what they want. 

one week i made 3 different recipes of chocolate cupcakes {you can see one of the results here} to see which one she like best, then i made cake balls to try those out, and last night we made pumpkin bars and chocolate dipped pretzel sticks.  it was great fun spending time with sarah and lindsay cooking and chatting away in sarah's new kitchen...so much fun!  so, here are some pics of the yummy pretzel sticks!

{fyi:  these are soooo simple....pretzel sticks, almond bark & sprinkles....melt the almond bark and dip/spoon/drizzle it over the pretzels then sprinkle...we used a mesh cooling rack to stick the pretzels in so they could stand up to dry...aren't they cute???}

oh, i almost forgot, dave was the super cool husband who brought us taco bueno, ran errands and then put together wedding favors............while watching rocky of course!

now, isn't that a nice hubby???

thanks for a great night ladies!

tyson & kenna {teaser}

here are some pics from tyson & kenna's family photos that we took tuesday night in downtown.  aren't they a super cute family?  here's just a few....as you can see owen wasn't too excited about taking pictures, in fact he informed us that he was "not into taking pictures"....but i think we still got some good ones.....

more to come shortly!

osu homecoming

last weekend was OSU's homecoming.  each year mymichael and i try and venture down to stillwater for all of the festivities.  this year sarah got to come with us and experience homecoming for the first time.  if you haven't ever been to stillwater for homecoming, you really should go at least once.  basically the whole town turns into one large party.  around campus there are competitions of all sorts going on, floats, house decks, etc.  below are some pictures of the house decks.  these things are pretty awesome...check out the detail!

most of the streets around campus are actually closed friday night for "walk around", and they are filled with tons of people, food, and all sorts of vendors.  everyone is wearing orange and having a blast reminising all of their college memories and thinking to themselves, "has it really been THAT long since we graduated?  gosh, i feel old!". 

it's also fun to spot all the "trends" that students are sporting....my favorite {not really} were all the little girl bows that COLLEGE girls were wearing in their hair.  i found it quite odd.  now, i am all about the hair accessories, a cute feather or flower on a headband, etc.  but they were sporting little bows that you would normally see on a super cute 3 year old......it isn't quite so cute on a 19 year old....just sayin'. 

mymichael posed the question to sarah and i, "do girls dress for practicality or for fashion/style?"  he asked this b/c it was quite chilly friday night and there were girls wearing uber short skirts w/ boots, girls wearing stiletto high heels, and girls wearing strapless shirts...while walking around in 45 degree weather.  it was obvious that those girls were not dressing for practicality!  whatever floats your boat i suppose, but i was sure happy i got to wear my big warm coat for the first time of the season.

so friday night we got to enjoy walkaround and then we met up with my sister and headed to murphy's where sarah got a really creepy long stare while standing in line to get in, i got kissed by NOT mymichael, kelsi got treatedto some free drinks by a really random guy and we all got really bad drinks.  so all in all friday was fun!

saturday we tailgated at michael and carissa's rv...or luxury home on wheels.  it was super fun getting to hang out, relax, eat yummy food, eventually watch the game and roast marshmallows.

 

gotta love homecoming!!!!!