Jennifer Arnold

Happy Halloween

Today is Halloween!! One of my favorite days of the year! I LOVE dressing up and planning the perfect costume! Since today is such an awesome day I thought I would share Mike and I’s costumes since we have been together! This is in fact our 5th Halloween together, however I had just moved here in 2010 so we were lame and did not dress up. Anyway, here are our costumes from four of the last five years including this year where we actually dressed up in September for Mickey’s Not So Scary Halloween Party at the Magic Kingdom in the Walt Disney World Resort!

2009: Sherlock Holmes and an Aviator

2011: Harry Potter and Ginny Weasley

2012: Alan Grant and Ellie Sattler with Pumpkin as a raptor

2013: Waldo and Tinkerbell

We always have a fabulous time dressing up for Halloween parties but we always come down to the wire when it comes to choosing and getting together the items for our costumes! I need to be proactive for next year…any suggestions?

Stay southern,

2013 Pumpkin Decorating

With tomorrow being Halloween, I wanted to share with you the Arnold family pumpkins this year! I moved to Mississippi in October 2010 and one of the first things Mike and I did was carve a pumpkin(well he did more of the carving), so we have made it a point to try to do this every year! This year however, I wanted to try something a little different. I had been seeing painted pumpkins all over Pinterest and other blogs so I was thinking why not give something new a try this year! We purchased these pumpkins on our little outing last week that I wrote about here. I decided that I wanted to utilize my Silhouette Cameo that my MIL gifted me after the wedding! We wanted to each have a pumpkin for our favorite team and then one that was more unifying to the two of us. I was bad about taking pics as we went along so I will explain it in easy steps:

Before you begin, cover your surface with newspaper or some kind of barrier between your table/floor/ground. We painted at the kitchen table so we covered it with newspaper. We used acrylic craft paint sold at any store that has a hobby section.
Paint each pumpkin with a base coat. Choose a color that you want your shape to be once you peel off your stencil(The MsState Pumpkin was pre-painted white). It may take several coats especially if you’re using a light color. Let dry one our between coats. Dry completely overnight
Cut out stencil using vinyl and stick to pumpkin. Being careful and mindful of the paint
Paint over the stencil and the entire pumpkin covering the entire under coat of paint(may take more than one coat) and let dry overnight.
Peel away vinyl and reveal under color! At this point you can decide if you would like to add some dimension to your design(like above with the SC pumpkin, I traced around the edge with black to make it pop more). Finally, admire your beautiful pumpkin!

I will say that we did not paint The Arnold’s pumpkin. That is in fact just a vinyl sticker I cut and then adhered to the pumpkin. I love the simplicity and ease of that one!

We had a lot of fun decorating the pumpkins this year! Our dog, named Pumpkin, even got in on the action…

This is about 30 tries into it ha!

She’s a Ham!!

Pumpkin doing her Meerkat impression for a treat!

And you may ask how we got Pumpkin to pose and there is a good explanation for that it requires tons of patience and lots of treats! Look below I caught her as mid trick(roll over) to get said treats, the entire time I just wanted her to sit still.

Pumpkin got her name for my love of fall and I wanted a constant reminder of my favorite time of year!

No Sew Monogram Pillow Update

This weekend I decided to get a little crafty and try to see how hard it would be to cut fabric with my Silhouette Cameo. So first, I did a little Googling on the subject, watched this video and read on a few forums about how the fabric would need to be interfaced before cutting it to make it stiffer and easier to cut. I read that Heat’n Bond was the best product to use so that’s what I went with.The bonding agent I bought was awesome as first you interface the fabric and then all you need to do is peel off the back layer and it becomes an iron on bond to another piece of fabric. It is a little more expensive than regular interfacing but since I wanted to iron on and no-sew this project it was actually cheaper, and done all in one step!

For my first fabric project I decided that I wanted to monogram the throw pillows on our bed! We have had these pillows for about 18 months and I was ready for an update because I hear chevron print is on it’s way out! I first decided how large I wanted my monograms. I chose 8×8 inches as my pillows are 16×16 and I wanted to have a good size monogram but not too huge where it dwarfed the pillow. I wanted a circle monogram so I used the font I purchase from FontBros. After that I just cut my fabric and ironed it well and cut the correct size of the Heat’n Bond to adhere to it. Next I was ready to load it into my machine to be cut. It really was as easy as setting the Silhouette to the settings the software recommended and hitting cut! Out comes a perfect fabric monogram in about 60 seconds! Finally all you need to do is pick out the inner parts of the letters and then iron them onto your pillow case!!

I am so excited to use this machine to cut fabric! I now have tons of ideas flowing through my head for the holidays and beyond! I am glad it was so easy and that it didn’t tear up the blade. I will say that there is a fabric blade for the Cameo that is recommended but I had a thin cotton fabric and there was no issue for the machine to cut it at all.

I have now cut paper, vinyl and fabric with my cameo. It really is an amazing tool and I think I have only scratched the surface of all that it can do! Stay tuned for more crafty ideas!

Stay southern,

Gameday Recipe….Frito Pie

Yesterday was game day here in Starkville! With it being a Thursday a.k.a. a business day, the university let us have the afternoon off! How nice huh? It was actually because they needed our very coveted parking spaces. But hey, a free half day off, who would complain? Since Mike did not get a free half day we decided that being able to make it to the game on time would be pretty impossible so we decided to stay home and have our own little tailgate! I personally like this option because it allowed me to wear pj’s!

Anyway, there are a TON of Frito Pie recipes on the web but all I did was make my regular chili recipe(below) and then added to it some Frito’s in the bottom of a bowl and topped it with fun toppings. I used a rotisserie chicken(from the grocery store) and chopped up the meat to use in the recipe. This will save you a ton of time as you do not have to precook anything before you assemble it in the crock-pot! We love chicken chili even though I know some people will think this is blasphemy but it’s much healthier than using red meat and it’s still delish. I hope you enjoy this simple recipe with the bonus being that you come home from a long day to a home smelling of warm chili on a cool fall day! Enjoy!

Jen’s Easy Crock-pot Chili

Ingredients

1 lb meat of choice(beef, chicken, turkey; I have made this recipe with all three) or I used 2 cups of chopped chicken from a pre-cooked rotisserie chicken
1 large onion; chopped
2 cans of petite diced tomatoes: drain one can and leave the other with the juice
1 can light red kidney beans; drained and rinsed
1 teaspoon olive oil(if you need to brown your meat first)
1 Tablespoon minced garlic
2 Tablespoons chili powder
1/2 teaspoon dried oregano
1/2 teaspoon ground cayenne pepper
1/2 teaspoon ground cumin
1 teaspoon black pepper

Cooking Directions:

If you are using raw meat you need to add the oil to a pan and brown it with half of the onion until done and drain.
Add ALL ingredients to a 4-6qt. slow cooker and mix thoroughly.
Set the slow cooker to the LOW setting and forget about it for 8-10 hours.

Frito Pie

Ingredients

Original Frito’s corn chips
Chili(recipe above)
Shredded Cheddar cheese
Sour Cream(optional)
Lettuce(optional)
Tomato(optional)
Jalapeños(optional)
Green onions(optional)

Directions:

In a chili bowl, put a layer of Frito’s corn chips in the bottom.
Add chili to the top
Repeat steps 1 and 2
Top with Sour Cream and/or optional toppings listed

Stay southern,

Halloween Window Display

Last weekend I mentioned we went to Columbus, Mississippi to have dinner after visiting the pumpkin patch. We parked right in front of The Bride and Groom bridal shop and they had one of the coolest window displays I have seen in a while. I think this display is so very creative of showcasing their product and is whimsical for passersby to enjoy as they take a stroll down 5th Street.

They used a classic American movie as a reference, The Wizard of Oz. The window display featured all of your favorite characters Dorothy(with Toto, of course), Lion, Scarecrow, Tin Man, Glenda the Good Witch and even had the Wicked Witch of the West!! I hope you enjoy it as much as I did! And sorry for the poor pics, I could not combat the glare from the glass.

Stay southern,

Honeymoon Five Months Later…

I just realized that I never shared about our wonderful honeymoon that we took two days after the wedding! Mike and I went to Punta Cana in the Dominican Republic and stayed at the Secrets Royal Beach Resort. We had the most fantastic and relaxing time of our lives and we talk about it constantly. Hopefully one day we’ll make it back there. We chose to go to the DR as it is where Mike’s dad was born and lived part of his life. Granted we did not go to Santo Domingo, where he is from, but it made us feel closer and more relatable to him because we have now been to his home country. As for choosing what resort to stay at, I did my research. I spoke with friends who had traveled there, I read hundreds of reviews on Trip Advisor and I waited until I felt comfortable enough to book it. I am so glad we booked when we did as the same package went up $500 the following week and just one month later it was over $1000 higher than we paid. If you do your research you can really get some good deals traveling to the DR.

We went the first week of June and the weather was perfect with highs in the 80s and lows in the upper 70s. It only rained once that entire week and that was at night so we didn’t even care. The service at Secrets was unmatched to anywhere we had ever stayed. We loved the all-inclusive resort as once we arrived everything was taken care of from food to drinks to the entertainment they offered at night. My favorite thing about the resort is that you weren’t under any schedule to do anything, you could eat whenever you wanted, if you didn’t want to dress up and go to a restaurant you could just order room service! Another perk of the all-inclusive experience are the drinks. You can have them make any drink you can think of! My personal favorites were the sangria, the cuba libre light(rum and Diet Coke) and the Mamajuana which is a native drink made from allowing rum, red wine and honey soak in a bottle filled with tree bark and herbs. I know you’re probably thinking that it sounds gross but it was actually pretty tasty and powerful! We brought some home to drink on our first anniversary next year.

We seriously had the most amazing time in the DR and it will be a vacation that we’ll never forget. It was totally worth every penny!

Stay southern,

Pumpkin Patch and Weekend Fun!

This past weekend we took a little afternoon jaunt out to Caledonia, Mississippi where we decided to check out the Country Pumpkins Pumpkin Patch! Mike and I have bought pumpkins every year we’ve been together and carved them! I had heard from several people that we should go there so we decided to see what the fuss was all about! They had pumpkins galore from tiny to huge you could find whatever you needed(pumpkin and gourd wise). There was also a lot of activities for families and children. We enjoyed our little outing to the pumpkin patch and were actually impressed at the size of the place. We have something different in mind with the pumpkins this year though and we have started them but will hopefully finish later today! We ended out the evening with a trip to one of our favorite restaurants in the area, Huck’s Place where we had the amazing Crawfish Nachos!! In all, it was a perfect fall afternoon followed by a gorgeous full moon!

Holding an apple gourd. I think these are so cool!

Husband pulling our loot!

Gorgeous Mississippi sky

Stay southern,

Halloween Decor

With Halloween being just next week I thought I would share some cool decor items I found to add to your home this year. There are quite a bit of fun ones out there right now(and on sale since it’s so close to the holiday)! I am not really a fan of the scary side of Halloween as you should be able to tell from what I have shown below. If you do like the frightening side there are a ton of options to adorn your home right now! Have fun decorating!

Pottery Barn + Pier 1 + Pier 1 + Target + Pottery Barn

Stay southern,

October Book Club Pick

I have yet to post about the brand new book club I have had the pleasure of starting! A group of girls along with myself have been discussing a book club for the last couple of years and it was high time we did something about it. However, most of the girls that were hoping to be apart of it have now moved across the country and that only leaves four of us as members for now! We call ourselves the Fish Tales Book Club as all of ‘our men’ were in the Wildlife and Fisheries department at Mississippi State and because of them we all met each other! So far everyone seems to be enjoying it! The club started in July of this year and we have been meeting once a month to discuss a book that one member chooses for the group to read. October is my month to pick the book and I chose The Cuckoo’s Calling by Robert Galbraith(aka J.K Rowling). If you know me AT ALL then you already know that I am a HUGE Rowling fan. I literally cried at the end of the seventh Harry Potter book and I still feel a little sadness when I think about the series being over. So when I read the great reviews of this book(after it had been released that she was in fact the author in disguise) it was a no brainer that this book would be my choice for October.

The book is a monster…however I did not purchase the actual print copy which I now wish I had. I actually decided to listen to it(audio book) since we were going to be doing a lot of driving to Disney and also to South Carolina. The book clocks in at almost 16 hours of listening time!! However, I really enjoyed listening to all of the accents the reader made. Of course the book is British and it was read by a Brit so the accents were cute and some of the words were hilariously pronounced. With this being my first audio book there were things I enjoyed about listening to a novel and things I did not. I did not like the fact that I could not just turn the page back and reference something easily. Also, if you get distracted(which I am quite a bit) you will miss huge pieces of information. I liked that I did not have to stare at a page and have my eyes hurt after hours of reading.

Now on to the juicy stuff…no I am not divulging any spoilers! I will say that I enjoyed this book immensely. It was a total Rowling style book with tons of detail and wonderful explanations that I love so much. I will say that it was not as suspenseful as Harry Potter(I don’t think she was going for that) and the story line is more in depth than you may think after reading the synopsis. The characters are very well thought out and detailed. I really enjoyed the character Detective Cormoron Strike(is it just me but I have never heard of anyone with the name Cormoran) and although his life seems daunting to say the least, you cannot help but to cheer for him and hope everything works out for the best. The ending is tidy, something I really appreciate. There is nothing worse than reading an entire book and being unhappy with the ending. Anyway, if you’re looking for a book to read alone or with a group I would recommend this one!

Stay southern,

Weekend Update

This past weekend was Homecoming here at Mississippi State and the town was buzzing with people!

It was Mike and I’s turn to host the tailgate so in true Mississippi fashion we decided to have a catfish fry. Mike was responsible for all of the cooking(which was nice for me). He fried up 15 lbs of catfish and we also had french fries and a true southern delight, hush puppies! The Dawg’s won so it was a good end to a fun day!

Mike frying up the Catfish!

Sunday was a nice lazy day spent cleaning and reorganizing the disaster known as my closet! I also spent the day snuggling with this little angel! All in all it was a great weekend spent at home and it was a nice break from traveling!

Stay southern,