Merry & Bright

It's the most wonderful time of the year! We had a very busy December... We started it off at the most magical place on earth! We were so excited about all the food on this trip, & it did not disappoint. Our first night we ate at OHANA, & in my opinion (& I think I can speak for all of us that went on this vacation) it is the best restaurant on the planet! We also got to eat at Be Our Guest, and it was amazing too. We had never been there before. Let face it, we might go there just for the food. Well and this view.

 

This year, Elsa froze the castle! Disney was all about Frozen!

We spent 5 full days at Disney World and one day at Universal Studios / Islands of Adventure. We had been to Harry Potter World once before and loved it, but now that they've added the Hogwarts Express & Diagon Alley it is AMAZING! They didn't miss one detail! That was probably my favorite day. And it made me envious of people who get paid to design places like this. I'm not sure which place is more magical... Disney World or Hogwarts?

We sure missed our boys while we were on vacation. It's really hard to be away from these adorable babies for too long. They were so excited to see us when we got home! We came home on Friday night and Saturday morning we got busy putting up our Christmas tree. I turned on The Grinch and my little buddies ran around in their Christmas sweaters trying to play with all of the ornaments which made it fun.

 Last year I hosted a gingerbread house decorating party, but I didn't see where I would have time to this year so I just did it by myself. It wasn't near as fun so next year I'll have to find time to do a party again. Then it was here, the week of Christmas! It always feels like it will never get here, & then it's over before you can blink! We had lots of fun family parties all week long, then it was over. We had a wonderful week and once again, got spoiled by our parents. We are very blessed. I racked up on kitchen gadgets, which makes me very happy. Our sweet little Charlie & Thor had fun opening their stockings too. It's like they knew there we new toys in there just for them!

It's always nice that first day you get to relax after going non-stop. I know our fur babies enjoy our lazy days. We spent New Year's Eve day out & about together & ate dinner at one of our favorite restaurants. But we rang in the New Year at home, in our pajamas, with Charlie & Thor, watching tv & eating candy.. now if that's not a perfect New Year I don't know what is. I try not to make resolutions because it's just too much pressure. But I am going to try to eat healthier this year. I hope everyone had a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year! Bring on 2015!

Happy October!

Fall is finally here! I look forward to Fall year round. It is my absolute favorite time of year. I don't know if it's the changing leaves, cool crisp air, pumpkins everywhere, mums, more pumpkins, football, taco soup, or candy corns that make it my favorite. It's probably just all of it! I also LOVE Fall clothes. Leggings, jeggings, boots, boot socks, sweaters, and of course buying my dogs new Fall sweaters! Here is a pic of Charlie and Thor sporting their trick-or-treat ready sweaters. By the way, meet Thor! I haven't blogged about our new rescue pup "Little T" yet! He's a sweetie.






Look at my little pumpkin Thor and my little tough guy Charlie! Cuties! (And I might be holding cheese over the camera!) Fall is wonderful... And I may or may not have decorated in mid-September. Heirloom pumpkins are just so gorgeous I went a little crazy buying them this year. Here is the front of our house, and of course I have an owl decoration because of my owl obsession. (Do you see it? It says Whoo wants treats?)



Welcome to my pumpkin patch! It consists of fur-babies. :)



Pumpkins in every room!



Halloween kitchen. :)




 Now the wait is on for the weather to actually get cool, for it to stay that way, and for the leaves to start changing colors! I'm so excited! Let the holiday season begin!



Happy Halloween.. Happy apple-pickin'.. Happy pumpkin-patchin'..

Happy Fall Y'all!



<3 Dream big!
-Leah Abney
aka. Crazy pumpkin lady

Charlie's Doggie Treats

I have had a good bit of people ask me for the recipes for Charlie's dog treats, so I decided to share them on my blog! Obviously, I am a dog person. I love my dog SO much and treat him like he's my baby. So not only does he enjoy me making these, I really enjoy making them too! The moment I open the ingredients for his treats he KNOWS they are for him! Then he just sits on the rug in the kitchen and impatiently waits for them to be done. :)
When I started hearing about dog treats being recalled for killing hundreds of dogs and there were thousands of other sick, I knew I had to start making his treats so I knew he would be safe. I started researching what was safe for dogs to eat, and voila! So these are totally dog-safe!

Here are a couple of different recipes. They are SO easy to make! I make them all & Charlie loves them all!

Recipe 1:
Peanut Butter & Pumpkin

Things you'll need:
3 cups Whole wheat four OR gluten free flour (I use whole wheat)
1/2 cup oats (optional)
1/2 tsp cinnamon (optional)
1 15oz can pure pumpkin (**PURE PUMPKIN ONLY! PUMPKIN PIE SPICE CONTAINS NUTMEG WHICH CAUSES SEIZURES IN DOGS**)
3 Tbsp Natural creamy peanut butter
2 eggs

Directions:
Mix the dry ingredients (flour, oats, cinnamon) together in a large bowl. Mix the wet ingredients (Pumpkin, eggs, peanut butter) together in a bowl. Then add the wet ingredients to the bowl of dry ingredients and mix until combined. You can start with a spoon, but you will eventually have to use your hand to completely combine. Once you have the dough formed into a ball, sprinkle some whole wheat flour onto a clean countertop. Flour the rolling pin, and roll out the dough to about 1/2 inch thick. Use cookie cutter to cut out treats and place onto ungreased cookie sheet. (If the cookie feels sticky on bottom you can just rub a little flour on the bottom before putting it on the cookie sheet.) These will not spread so you can place them close together. Bake at 350 degrees for 30-35 minutes. You are going to have some happy fur babies! Here are step by step pictures of the process.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Recipe 2:
Peanut Butter & Apple

In the above recipe you can use all natural, no sugar added, apple sauce in place of pumpkin to change things up!

Recipe 3:
Charlie's Party Treats

Things you'll need:
2 cups whole wheat flour
1 Tbsp baking powder
1 cup Natural creamy peanut butter
1 cup skim milk

Mix the dry ingredients (Flour, baking powder) together in a large bowl. Mix the wet ingredients (Peanut butter, skim milk) together in a bowl. Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and stir to combine. (You will have to use your hands in this one too!) Sprinkle clean countertop with flour. Roll out to 1/4 inch thick. Cut with cookie cutters and place 2 inches apart on cookie sheet. (These will spread!) Bake at 375 degrees for 20 minutes. Cool, then throw a puppy party!

Home Sweet Home

I'm HOME!! I've never been so happy to be in Alabama! I've been back home for 3 weeks now so I figured it was time to document the experience. Since I had been away from my husband & fur baby for 13 & 1/2 weeks (exactly 96 days), I have to admit I was going into depression mode. I met some wonderful people and  made great friends in California, but it just isn't right being away from your other half for that amount of time. I can definitely say that we learned how much we took each other for granted before! And I will NEVER leave them again! Money isn't everything. :)
Things are finally back to normal, and I couldn't be happier! I am working on getting our new home decorated and it is so much fun! We purchased a new couch and love seat for our family room and it is set to be delivered next Saturday! I can't wait to get it in! We have been looking at area rugs to buy.. and curtains.. and chotskies (did I spell that right?).. and adding tile back splash to our kitchen.. the list goes on and on! And I have lots of diy projects in the works. It keeps me busy when I'm not at work and I'm loving every minute of it! I never knew how much I love decorating and crafting! Anyways....
Charlie-Man was as ecstatic to see Mommy as I was to see him! Josh videoed him seeing me for the first time in 96 days and he was like a precious little jumping bean! You can pretty much say we have been inseparable since I got back. :) I was also welcomed home by some crazy weather.. and I am very thankful that God protected us from it since it hit so close to home!
I've been cooking up a storm since I got home to try to make up for lost time, & I'm pretty sure my husband is loving it! We always have home-made desserts and yummy dinners.. I should probably quit making so many desserts. Well I can not express how happy I am to be home with my family! I guess I truly am a southern girl at heart!
 Here are some photos of us since I came home!

Oh yeah.. & our shaggy little Charlie-Man got a much needed haircut!!

Sweet home Alabama! Home is where the heart is! :)

Yosemite Fun

I went to Yosemite National Park this past weekend, and it was B-E-A-UTIFUL!! I went with 3 of my new travel nurse friends. We took the scenic route on the way there, so that added about an hour longer to the trip out than it should have. There was one point where we were going up a mountain, round and round the whole way... Not great for us car-sick peeps! Yuck! Once we got into a little down called Groveland we stopped for a barf break  some fresh air. It was a cute little town that reminded me a lot of Gatlinburg, TN... just a much smaller Gatlinburg! Here is a pic of Groveland, CA!





Then we jumped back in the car and made it to Yosemite about 45 minutes later. Since we were just there for one day, we went to Yosemite Valley because that's where the locals said to go. It did not disappoint! First we went to the tallest waterfall in North America! It was beautiful, but I can only imagine how beautiful it is when California isn't having a drought! Here it is:





Then we decided to hike up to the top of Vernal Fall. We worked for that view! It is the steepest hike I've done! Even though the temperature was in the 50's, I was wishing I had on shorts and a tank top! And I was glad it wasn't mid-summer!! Another perk of going in the winter is the bears are hibernating!! So I didn't have to worry about stopping to eat my sandwich while I was hiking. :) Here is a pic of Vernal Fall! Again, I wish it would have been much more full, but you can tell by the black part of the rock how big it normally is!





Lastly, we went to the place that I was looking the most forward to!! Mirror Lake!! Thank goodness we didn't have to hike to see this one, we just had to walk 1.5 miles to get there. The blisters on my heels wouldn't have allowed for another hike! The reason I was so excited about Mirror Lake is because I had seen it on Sunrise Earth. I used to watch Sunrise Earth on DiscoveryHD all the time when I was up early studying for nursing school! It is just one hour of nature.. so I more so listened to it than watched it. My cat Jojo however, LOVED this show! He would jump up on the TV stand and stare at this show until it went off! Cute memories! :) Here is a picture of Mirror Lake!!


 


Breathtaking!! We got to Mirror Lake at dusk, so we had to hurry back to catch the shuttle before it got too dark to find our cars! And right when we got to the cars, 12 deer walked by us! It was so cool! And they weren't afraid of us at all! They all had big antlers so I think this makes them stags...?? Not 100% sure! But they were definitely male deer! And I didn't get a picture of them because my phone died! Oh well, atleast I got to see it!


Here is a pic of Jojo watching Sunrise Earth from years ago... :)








Haha! Too cute! Right? Anyways... here are some more pics of my trip to Yosemite!


The trees were so tall and so big around they almost looked fake!! Gorgeous!!






Here is the famous Half Dome.







You can get a better idea of how big the trees are by how small I look in front of them!





I just thought this creek was pretty! :)





Well that was my most recent adventure!! This starts week 4 of my assignment, so 9 more to go! I think I can, I think I can!! I'll be home sweet home with my family in Alabama before I know it! Until next time....











Dream Big!!!!

One Week Down... 12 To Go!!

Well there's one thing I've already learned while being out in California... & that is how much easier it is to focus on eating healthy and exercising daily when you don't have a family to come home to. But I always get home in time to FaceTime with my favorite boys!! We usually get to talk to each other for 30 minutes to an hour, and that tremendously helps lift my spirits. It's hard to be away from the man I've been with for the last 10 years of my life! (7 years and 9 months of that time being married!)
I made it through my first week on the job! It is definitely more chaotic different from the hospital I'm used to working at, but I'll get the hang of it. Now on to the weekend! I went to dinner with some of the new fellow travel nurses, and believe it or not 3 of the 4 of us are from Alabama! It's a small world we live in. Obviously there's me and Jennifer, but there's another lady from Mobile, AL! We went out for a Mexican fiesta and it was delish! (especially after a week of dieting.)





Today I started the day off watching church live online (I'm SO thankful Church of the Highlands broadcasts online!!) Then we went shopping in Turlock, one city over from the one where we are staying. They have a great little shopping area with TONS of restaurants so that was fun!
And tonight when I was Face Timing with Josh & Charlie something very exciting happened!! Charlie was laying down across the room & when I started talking to him (in my crazy high-pitched doggie voice) he got up and ran to the phone!! Then he just sat there and stared straight at me for a long time, tilting his head back and forth listening to me! This was HUGE for me! I've been so worried about him thinking I've abandoned him, so this made my heart happy!! :) Well, that pretty much sums up this week. One week down, 12 to go!!

Travelling Cross Country

Well, here I go... My first travel nurse assignment! I am in California, about an hour and a half outside of San Francisco. I am nervous but excited too! My husband and furry baby (Charlie-Man) are still in Alabama and that is the absolute hardest part about this whole process. I miss them like crazy already and I just got here! The saying, "Absence makes the heart grow fonder" is an understatement! I miss my little bestie Charlie! It's weird not having him follow me around everywhere. :( Here is a picture of us having FaceTime, which is now a daily must!





I miss them so much so I definitely have to make the most of this assignment while I'm here. Work work work! The reason to travel nurse is money after all, right?! We drove for 3 days straight and finally made it yesterday evening. I am a little jet car lagged but other than that I'm ready to settle in for the next 13 weeks. My assignment is January 27th - April 25th. I will try to post weekly and keep everyone updated. Now time to start my new adventure!!