Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookies

I've heard so many people talk about these this year, so I finally went ahead and made some!

Here's what you need:

1. Combine pumpkin, sugar, vegetable oil, and egg. In a separate bowl, stir together flour, baking powder, ground cinnamon, and salt. Dissolve the baking soda with the milk and stir in. Then add flour mixture to pumpkin mixture and mix well.

FYI: I used Libby's canned pumpkin again {I used it with the pumpkin pie as well}. It was kind of hard to find, Wal-Mart was out, but I've been able to find it at Kroger both times. However, apparently there's a nationwide pumpkin shortage so good luck finding it!! I almost bought extra but I don't know what else I can possibly make with pumpkin!

2. Add in vanilla and chocolate chips. Just a side note-- a 12oz package of chocolate chips is 2 cups. I would recommend using about half that much unless you want this to happen:

I mixed all of them in and the first batch of cookies was overwhelmingly chocolatey.. so I went through and tried to pick out a bunch of the chocolate chips. The dough is pretty sticky so it wasn't much fun. So unless you REALLY like chocolate, I'd recommend using a lot less than 2 cups.

3. Drop by spoonful onto greased baking sheet and bake at 350 degrees for about 10-12 minutes, or until lightly brown and firm.

These have a more cake-like consistency than cookies really, but they are delicious! A perfect little fall sweet.

Plus they make your house smell good! Enjoy!

lazy weekend.

This was the first weekend in a long time that we didn't actually have anything we had to do. It was pretty nice :) That's not to say that we sat around on the couch all day like lazy bums though... {at least not totally} we still had fun!

- on Friday night we went to see comedian Lavell Crawford.

He's a BIG dude, it was a funny show... and there were expensive drinks!!! geeeez! They had a 2 item per person minimum and since we'd already eaten dinner...drinks it was! But we had fun, despite the expensive drinks!

- we had peanut butter pancakes for breakfast for the 3rd weekend in a row. They're my specialty! Josh even likes them so much that he no longer requests blueberry pancakes.. he now asks for my peanut butter pancakes.... 3 weekends in a row. yum!

- we finally finished carving our pumpkins!

We worked on them forever!!! It took so long that they were beginning to rot before we even had them all the way carved.

I was so happy they were finally done so I could put them on Josh's porch. I kept telling him he needed some halloween decorations, but he's too much of a "guy" and kept saying no! Something about not wanting to appear "gay" or something.... psshhh whatever. Decorating for fall is fun! ;-)

Look closely at the picture... see cute little Kosmo in the window by the door? Here's a closer look:

Aww!... he was so cute so I brought him out and took his picture too.

He's such a good little model. This picture would never happen with Tobey. He'd be running everywhere. But Kosmo will sit and stay until you tell him not to. Tobey CAN sit, but he's stubborn and won't stay. And sometimes he won't even sit. Silly dog!

- we saw Paranormal Activity. I'm on the fence with this one. I've heard that it's so scary people can't even sleep at night after seeing it, and I've heard that it's lame. I didn't think it was totally lame - I thought it was a good film, with good special effects, but I definitely wasn't scared, and I slept fine last night. I don't believe in ghosts, so maybe it's just me... if you believe in ghosts I could see how it'd be scary. But I don't know, over all it was alright. 3 out of 5 stars.

- I got my haircut.

And I forgot to take a "before picture"... but there's plenty on the blog, just look around :) I had been needing a haircut forevvvverrrrr so I finally got one. I think Josh was thankful because I'm pretty sure he was tired of hearing me constantly say, "Ahh I need a hair cut so bad!!!" I didn't even really realize how long it had gotten. It feels so much better!

- we made chili AGAIN. Chili is like our 2nd specialty now {right behind Hawaiian Pizza}. We had a bunch of leftover noodles and meat from when we made chili last week so used them up and made some more. Delicious!

- I made pumpkin chocolate chip cookies.

They're yummy and I'll post the recipe soon!

Hope everyone had a wonderful weekend!

fun fall polaroids :)

lovelovelove :)

Just FYI: distance runs still suck.

What I'm learning about running is that sometimes you have good days, and sometimes you have less than good days.

What I learned today is:
1) I don't really like running in the rain
2) I like running with Josh better than by myself
3) running is 97% mental

I already knew that running is mostly in your head... yes, it's very phyisically demanding, but your mind always fatigues before your body. Once you allow yourself to start thinking negative thoughts like that you can't finish... you won't. And once you allow yourself to stop, even for a second, it makes it that much harder to get going again and that much easier to keep stopping.

I had my distance run today - 3.8 miles - and I didn't finish it. I made it a little over 3 miles. Half of me is tempted to be mad at myself for it, and the other half of me realizes that I've run almost 6 extra miles this week... 2 extra running days... and my legs are extremely sore and I probably need a break. I'm still proud of myself for those 6 extra miles, but I just wish I could have finished my run today. I might re-do it again on Sunday because I hate the fact that I didn't do it, even though I know 3 miles is still good. I'm not the most competitive person in the world, but I get competitive against myself... I like to improve and get better each time and I hate not accomplishing the goal.

So I'm kinda bummed about my run today and it doesn't help that I am surrounded by lazy dogs where ever I go... it's either Tobey at my house or Kosmo at Josh's...

They're not very motivating to go run. They really make me just want to curl up on the couch with a good book or a Lifetime movie and some hot chocolate and call it a day. Good thing they're cute :)

So I came home and made myself some good ol' PB&J and a glass of milk for lunch. I felt like I was 6 again and it made everything better.

"There's a difference between interest and commitment. When you're interested in something, you do it only when it's convenient. When you're committed to something, you accept no excuses, only results." - Kenneth Blanchard

We carved ourselves some pumpkins {part 2}

last night josh and i worked on our pumpkins some more.
mine is going to be a cute little bugaboo monster, and josh's is a scary monster.
we worked on them for a couple hours, and still didn't finish them.
i got mine almost done though, but josh barely got anything done on his.
{his is super detailed and a difficult level 4... mine's only 2}
hopefully the 3rd time will be a charm...
if we can find time to finish them before they get all rotton!

HMTU {half marathon training update}

If you don't care about my running progress, feel free to skip this post. I'm going to try to write one of these every once in awhile, mostly just for myself so I can track my progress and see how far I've come.

I'm on week 2 of speed, tempo, and distance runs {distance run is tomorrow though}

At the moment I like speed running day the best. Josh says that'll change soon. Right now I like it because I have more speed than I have endurance... hopefully I'll eventually have more endurance than speed. And my distance for "fast" running is only a quarter of a mile. I'm definitely not looking forward to it when my speed runs are more like Josh's... super fast for like 2 miles. But for now they're good.

Tempo runs are my least favorite I think... but yesterday's was awesome! I did a total of 3.2 miles... 1 mile at a normal pace, 1.2 miles at a faster pace, and then 1 more mile at normal pace. Today I was so proud of myself because I was able to do all of it without stopping to walk AT ALL! Not even for a second! And I was consistant with my pace... I stuck with my "faster" pace the whole time... didn't get slower! So far, I've never done that before :)

Then, last night Josh and I went running again. He took me on the 2.4 mile loop around the gym, which included running on busy streets. That in itself is crazy for me because it wasn't too long ago that I wasn't even comfortable running through my neighborhood. Never would have thought I'd ever run on a busy street! I also can't believe I just went out and ran 2.4 miles for "fun" and I loved it. It was fun! I like running with Josh - even though I feel bad because I'm so much slower than he is and I feel like I'm holding him back. A month ago I could barely run a mile and a half, and yesterday I ran 3.2 miles, then 2.4 miles. And I just went out and did it... I'm so proud of myself!

Josh said I'll be seeing a lot of progress soon. I mean, I already am, but he said soon it will be a lot easier for me to cover a lot more distance, and I'll start naturally getting faster.

I just loved yesterday! It's almost getting to the point where I like running... everyone said it would happen and I didn't believe them... but I suppose they are right :)

"Run when you can, walk when you have to, crawl if you must; just never give up."

We carved ourselves some pumpkins {part 1}

Sorry all of my posts have been about food and running lately... can you tell what my life mostly consists of right now? cooking, running & school. I could write about school too, but really.. who wants to hear about that? It's not very exciting, I promise.

Anyway, eating and running isn't all I do. On Monday Josh and I carved pumpkins! Well, we started to carve them. We got interrupted and had to rescue a friend with a dead car at McDonald's and by the time we got back and ate dinner it was pretty late. We almost just held off again, but we've been trying to carve these pumpkins for a couple weeks now, so we wanted to at least get started! We really only had time to carve out the lid of the pumpkins and scoop out all the guts... but hey, at least it's a start.

I forgot how much work carving pumpkins is!

part 2 coming soon {hopefully!}

Louisville Marathon: we were course marshalls

The Louisville Marathon was on Sunday... Josh was going to run the Mini but his foot has been hurting, so we volunteered instead. We were course marshalls, which meant we just directed the runners in the right direction at a turn around point between miles 12 and 15. Originally I was going to hand out the finishers medals at the end which I thought would have been fun, but it ended up working out great since Josh and I got to be in the same place.. and I would have been there a lot longer if I was handing out medals.

When we first got there it was freeeezing! I had on a huge winter coat {not pictured}, along with a nice hot cup of Starbucks.. and I was still cold! It finally started to warm up though. I suppose if I had been running I would have been warm.... one day... ;-)

We were at our spot for awhile before any runners came through. Some of our friends were running... Eric {who ran the Akron Marathon} and Drew were 2 of them. This time Eric beat his goal of 3:10 and finished in 3:09! So he qualified for the Boston Marathon!!! Congrats, Eric!!!!! Drew was shooting for under 3 hours and did it in 3:06. Didn't quite make it, but still REALLY good. They both did awesome!!

I love going to races. I always meet such nice and interesting people! This time I met a woman who is a coach for Team in Training. So it was cool to talk to her a little bit about it and hear about her experience running and training for marathons and stuff. That's one thing I love about the races - it always inspires you to keep going. Everyone has a story, everyone starts somewhere, and it just encourages you to push yourself farther than you ever thought you could go.

it was a chili kind of weekend.

...not a race & pumpkin patch weekend like I thought it might be. But it was still wonderful! :)

My brothers and their families decided not to come down to go to the pumpkin patch because they all had a lot going on.... which probably worked out for the best considering this weekend was cold, and Saturday was the first day in 2 or 3 days that it hadn't rained, so I'm sure the pumpkin patch was pretty muddy and gross. I also didn't do the 4 mile race because Josh hurt his foot, so he didn't do it, and I haven't quite worked up to 4 miles yet, so we decided to hold off on that one.

So instead, we saw 2 movies {Law Abiding Citizen and Zombieland}, made pancakes for breakfast, ran errands, hung out with my mom and then Josh's parents & delivered them all some of our delicious pumpkin pie, did some grocery shopping, and made chili. {we also volunteered at the Louisville Marathon on Sunday, but more on that later}.

Last time we made chili it was delicious, so we decided to do it again! This time we didn't really follow a recipe, we just kind of loosely used what we remembered from last time and added in our own stuff. That's kind of what we've been doing when we cook - just loosely follow recipes and wing it. It usually turns out pretty well.

And it did again this time! Minus the fact that our pot was way too small and we ended up making a huge mess...

Hawaiian Pizza

Josh and I have a new weekly tradition: Hawaiian pizza & The Biggest Loser.

Not to brag or anything, but Josh and I make awesome Hawaiian pizza. The good news is, it's super easy to make and you can do it too! =)

All you need is:

• flatbreads
• pizza sauce
• pineapple
• canadian bacon
• mozarella cheese

We made 4 "personal pan" pizzas... these come in a pack of 6. One flatbread pizza is more than enough to fill me up, but I have a human garbage disposal, so we each make 2 and then Josh eats most of my 2nd one.

And 2 packs {about 4 cups} of cheese.

Just spread the pizza sauce over the flatbread, add cheese, canadian bacon, and pineapple on top. We've also added mushrooms and olives before, but I like it best with just these toppings.

There may or may not be a cute dog at your feet hoping you drop something :)

Then, just put it in the oven at 450 degrees for about 7 or 8 minutes. We put them right on the oven rack, not on a baking sheet, but I'd imagine you could do it either way.

Cut, serve, and enjoy! And watch The Biggest Loser! It's a great show! :)

Happy Thursday!

Homemade Pumpkin Pie

Last night Josh and I made a delicious homemade pumpkin pie!

We've been in a "cooking experiment" mode lately because we're trying to not eat out as much... so far it's going pretty well. Neither one of us cook a lot, so it's been fun cooking together and trying new things. We've made chili, tuna casserole, hawaiian pizzas, and a few other things. So far it's all been pretty good except our tuna casserole. I'm not sure how you mess up a tuna casserole, but we did.. somehow. It wasn't awful, but it was missing something. Our hawaiian pizzas were amazing though, and we're making them again tonight so I will pass along the recipe later!

Anyway, we decided to try out making one of our favorite fall desserts: pumpkin pie!

It's super good & easy, so I thought I'd share! :) Here's what you need...

We were going to be really fancy and use fresh pumpkin from the pumpkins we got at the pumpkin patch, but we quickly found out that it's a lot of work in order to use real pumpkin. So, we opted for the canned stuff...

Which, by the way, does not taste good by itself...

You can ask Josh, he tried it. Apparently the good taste of pumpkin pie is all the spices!

All you do is mix it all together in a bowl, then pour it into your pie crust(s)!

We made 2 pies, and baked them together for 25 minutes at 425 degrees.

Then of course when you serve it you have to add cool whip!!! Or I'm sure vanilla ice cream would be good too.

ENJOY! :)