December . . .

Can't believe that it's already the end of the year, time seems to pass so fast when the weather stays the same all year round. Again it just didn't really seem like the holiday season when it's in the 80's and sunny out. It makes me miss the cold crisp weather, and getting to bundle up. 

 This is how Colt and I spend our winter days in Hawaii, hanging out at the beach.

Sent Colt outside to go to the bathroom, I peak outside to see what he's doing and he is sitting on the patio chair. Silly dog thinks he's a human.

Christmas at the Cowan's

 Our first Christmas in our new house.

 This year we had a big Christmas party at our house, it was a lot of work but we had a great time.

 

 Eggnog buttercream and Nutella buttercream cupcakes

 We had a white elephant gift exchange, it was a lot of fun.

Also this month...

I made my first diaper cake for one of our friends. It turned out really cute. To transport it I put it in a box and set the box on the floor, I went to the kitchen to get something when I see Colt running across the house with the little monkey in his mouth. Bad dog thought that the monkey was a toy and stole it off the top.

November . . .

November was packed with lots of fun, hanging out with friends, trying new recipes and crafts.

James likes to send me recipes he finds on the internet, that he wants me to try and make. So I made him a big batch of spicy chicken soup and mini corn bread muffins. It was a time consuming recipe, that turned out amazing, but it could of fed more than 10 people. We ended up giving half of it to our friends, next time I will have to only make a third of what I made. It is definitely a recipe I will be making again, here is a link Catherine's Spicy Chicken Soup. The corn muffins turned out alright, but I think next time I will try a different recipe, James didn't care for them too much. 

My first baby boy afghan I crocheted, James helped me pick out the colors. I think it turned out pretty good, it was just very time consuming.

Date Night!

We went to the hooka bar, with April and Jon. It was a lot of fun, and it was my first time going to a hooka bar. It was a pretty laid back place, they don't serve food or drinks, but you are welcome to bring your own. So we brought a cooler with some drinks in it. They even had a guy singing live music. I think going to the hooka bar opened a door for a new hobby for James to invest in. Uh Oh!

My First Wreath

So this wreath is pretty special, I made it out of an old pair of ACUs that James wore while deployed to Afghanistan. Besides the base of the wreath and some felt, the whole wreath is made out of a pair of ACUs.

I started out with cutting strips of fabric, which left me covered in little strings once I was finished.

Since Hawaii doesn't have the best craft store and their selection is very sparse, I had to improvise on what I used as my base for my wreath. So I took a wreath that had some decorations already on it and stripped it down to just the base. I then started threading the strips of ACU through and tying them.

I took a section of ACU and wrapped it around and secured it with the draw string from the ACU bottoms, that way I could be able to attach the flowers easier.

It took two days to finally finish it, It ended up being pretty tedious, with all the threading and tying but it turned out pretty good.

Made some felt flowers, which turned out pretty cute. I even used the buttons for the center of the flowers.

Hot glued the flowers on to the fabric.

 Since we have a screen door, I wanted it to hang on the outside so it could be seen better. So I added a loop to the back by using the strip of fabric from the waist band and resewed the button so that it could fasten. It ended up working pretty good.

Here it is all hung up.

Thanksgiving!
One of my favorite holidays. Growing up every Thanksgiving was spent with family, always filled with lots of great memories, plus great food. This Thanksgiving we hosted it at our house, it was packed and we had tons of great food. James made a turkey for the first time and it turned out amazing.

The turkey turned out so juicy. What an amazing cook.

The desert I made, it had a cookie and pecan crust, a pumpkin filling and a sweet cream cheese topping.

It was a great month but I'm excited that December is here and I'm ready for the Christmas festivities!

October . . .

We've been in Hawaii for over a year now. We have made a lot of new friends and have gotten to do so many fun things this past year. 

James and I celebrated our birthdays, 26 and 25 now!

 

Date night on Waikiki, having drinks at Dukes

 The beautiful opal necklace James surprised me with for my birthday.

With the help of his friend he helped designed it.

I surprised James with a painting by an artist named Naoki. This isn't the exact painting but it's very similar. We had gone to a little art gallery several times and every time we went James always marveled over this painting. So I bought it, wrapped it up and then hid it in the spare bedroom closet. Because James likes to try to guess everything that I try to surprise him with, I wrapped a decoy present and left it on the table for him. He couldn't figure out what it was, when he opened the decoy gift he found a picture of the painting and told him to go look upstairs. He had no idea and was very surprised. The painting is done by Naoki inking the fish and then he lays rice paper on top of it, then he goes back over the paper to highlight the details. 

Cupcakes

 Cupcakes for the October bake sale.

Last ones for this unit, James will be moving to a new unit soon.

 From the top, is a chocolate cake with a salted caramel buttercream, 

right is a vanilla cake with a mango buttercream, 

bottom is a chocolate cake with an espresso buttercream topped w/ a chocolate covered coffee bean,

left is a vanilla cake with a Nutella buttercream

 Came home to a beautiful surprise,

I love how James will just surprise me with flowers out of the blue with a sweet little note.

 Pumpkin patch 

It just didn't feel right with the weather being 83 degrees

 We came home with 9 pumpkins and we baked lots of pumpkin seeds

Colt was a race horse for Halloween

 

He didn't even notice the jokey on his back.

 Shadow posing in the window for all the tricker treaters

 Our jack-o-laterns

We had some special tricker treaters,

Alyssa was Jessie and Ellie was a little gnomeo 

The ate tons of candy

September . . .

We did a lot of fun activities this month, can't believe that how fast this year has gone by. I am now back in the gym coaching gymnastics, it feels great.

Hanging out at the pool on Pearl Harbor

with Ellie

Stephen Siller 

Tunnel to Towers Run 2011

 For September 11th, we did the Tunnel to Towers run.

We didn't actually run but we rode the Harley and lined the bridge and cheered on the runners.

 

Watching the sun rise before the run starts

 

 

 

All the motorcycles lined up and ready

 Cheering on the unit

 Honolulu firefighters 

Date Night

 Gordon Biersch

 Being cheesy

 Love these trees, they look like they have been painted

 Found this little guy, can't believe how tiny he is

 James got a new car, it makes me miss my little Honda