Our family pictures taken by the AWESOME Rae of Light Photography, edited by me! First family pics in 4 years shame on me!!! Come look and leave some love

and their gorgeous mama!

Can you believe all the hair this sweet girl has?!?!?!? I couldn’t! Little Miss olive is so cute with those big blue eyes;)

Kaitlin Bledsoe!!!!!

Congratulations girl!!! Contact Polly at wdaltondesign@yahoo.com or through @Juls Jewelry on facebook to claim your prize!

Thank you to everyone who entered;)

Isn’t this set adorable???? I have a similar one and I just LOVE it!

Would you like to WIN it? EVERYONE in the US is eligible;)

The designer, Polly (wdaltondesign@yahoo.com) of Juls Jewelry was sweet enough to make another one to give away (A
$35 value!) to one lucky winner! All you have to do is

1. LIKE her page, Juls Jewelry on Facebook, take a peak around and comment on your favorite piece.

2. LIKE Vanity Photography on Facebook, post on my wall that you are a fan.

3. LIKE, SHARE, TWEET or +1 this post and then comment on it that you’ve done all of the above.

****YOU WILL GET AN ERROR MESSAGE AFTER YOU COMMENT ON THIS POST BUT YOUR POST WILL GO THROUGH AFTER IT IS MODERATED****

~~Winner will be chosen via random.org on October 1st, 2012. Number will be assigned in order of blog comments on this post starting with the first post.~~

Good Luck ya’ll!

<3 Heather and Polly

After sleeping on it I’ve decided to share;)

Here is my recipe for French Onion Soup that everyone loves. This is pretty much an all day affair kind of soup so make it when you plan on spending the day at home.

Here are the ingredients you will need to make my famous French Onion Soup plus 8 beef bullion cubes I forgot to grab out for the photo.

In a soup pot add your stick of butter and about 1/4 cup of olive oil, let melt over medium heat. Thinly halve and slice 3 pounds of onions. Add them to your pot, stir and put a lid on. Let them cook for 1.5-2 hours until they are soft and translucent but not brown. Stir every 15-20 minutes.

The onions will really cook down. When they look like this add your salt, pepper, bullion cubes, Worcestershire sauce, Thyme, garlic and brown sugar. Let cook together another 20 minutes or so. Slowly add 3 cartons of reduced sodium beef broth. Bring to boil and leave it there for 30 minutes then let simmer 4-6 hours.

Place a piece of crusty bread (I prefer a french baguette) at the bottom of your bowl and ladle soup over.

This time we topped our soup with Provologne (my hubbies fave) cheese but I prefer Swiss then just put in the microwave for about 15 seconds until the cheese gets all melty
Enjoy!

This soup is even better on the second day if it lasts that long!

My Hibiscus sure did!!!

11 years ago today the United States and the world were forever changed. 11 years sounds like such a long time, my oldest was just 8 months old and now is in 6th grade; but I can so vividly remember the events that occurred on that day. I was at school just leaving my Sociology class and all of the tv’s in the school were turned to Good Morning America. Everyone just froze and started watching assuming it was a horrible accident. The loud speaker came on telling everyone that school (college by the way) was still continuing and 9AM classes were starting so I headed to Forensic Anthropology. After class at 9:50 the halls were again filled with people. Good Morning America was replaying the 2nd plane crashing into the towers and talking about the plane crashing into the Pentagon. They were talking about terrorist attacks and we were all freaking out. They were talking about how the national grid could be targeted and since my school was about 2 miles from the Niagara Falls Hydro plant we were all scared about bombs being dropped and all kinds of crazy stuff. They still did not close the school but there was no way I was going to stay there. I had an 8 month old and was terrified.

I drove home to my fiance and daughter and we watched tv all day long. Tears running down our face, lots of anger brewing inside of us, confusion on how people could hate other people so much to just take their lives. Just thinking back on that day stirs up so much emotion in me today. Though I was not directly impacted by loosing a loved one 9/11 changed the course of my little families lives entirely.

On this day and everyday we should be thankful for the men and women who sacrifice so much to serve our country. They are amazing children, and parents and brothers and sisters and friends and so much more. They deserve so much more than just a thank you.

I found a delish looking desert on Pinterest called sex in a pan that I’ve wanted to make for awhile and today I got that opportunity!  A couple girlfriends and I got together for a Pinterest inspired pot luck lunch and after staring at my 700 pins of food I want to make this was the winner! I had to change things up a bit because the original had a homemade crust with Pecans in it and one friend is allergic. So me being me changed a few things to make it “mine” including the name. I can’t call it Sex in Pie Shell because my kids had some leftovers and asked what it was called so I just told them “yumminess”

Store bought Pie Crust

Layer 1

Brick of cream cheese
1.5 cups powder sugar
.5 tsp vanilla extract
1 cup light Cool Whip

Whip together until creamy, spread onto cooled pie crust.

Layer 2

1 small package of vanilla pudding, make according to pie instruction but sub 1/4 cup Heavy Whipping Cream. Layer onto cream cheese layer

Layer 3

1 small package of chocolate pudding, make according to pie instruction but sub 1/4 cup Heavy Whipping Cream. Layer onto vanilla pudding layer.

Top entire pie with Cool Whip. Use microplane or potato peeler to add chocolate shavings. Enjoy!