Wee're Back!

Soo.... The Ward Board is officially back in action! :) We have been pretty busy in the past month or so and we haven't been faithful to our blog. I was meaning to post, I promise it's true! I think it was last week when I said to Travis, "It's a good thing we don't have many followers on our blog or they'd be really disappointed that we haven't posted in forever" and Travis's response you ask? "The only reason our blog isn't famous is because we haven't been posting! If we were posting we would be famous!" HA! I don't know about that so I'll leave that to him (although he has yet to make a post!).
We went to visit Travis's family in Norwalk at the beginning of August and that was really fun! We went to a Iowa Cubs baseball game, I had my first experience at the Iowa State Fair (I was not disappointed one bit!) and went to a Casting Crowns concert!

Butter Cow at the Fair!

Casting Crowns!

 After we left his parents' house we headed to mine! Kylie and the kids were in Muscatine waiting to close on their new house, so it was really fun seeing them! We went to the zoo, played on the swing set in the back yard (yes, we still have a swing set and I am youngest child!) and enjoyed family time!

This is as good of a picture as I could get with Kylie! :( But here it is!

 As always.. Brayden and Travis were obsessed with each other the whole time we were there!

I'm still trying to convince Kylie to send pics of Brayden to modeling agencies! She said she doesn't want to cash in on her baby but I just look at it as taking advantage of his good genetics! :)

There something I love about this picture! It is so cute!

Me and Momma Bear!!

Look at that stride! Despite any athletic abilities Kylie and Nate may or may not have..;) this girl is going to be athletic! I just know it!

Something exciting (for Travis) that happened this week was he got an iPhone from his parents for his birthday! His phone was breaking and they had an upgrade so he got lucky and got an early present! I just thought I'd show you about how much talking Travis and I did those first few days that he had his phone! Haha No worries though, he is no longer addicted :)
I'm excited to post about all of the fun recipes we are trying and loving but I will hold off since this post is turning into a book!

A Teensy-Weensy Oven Who Likes To Burn Food

When Travis and I started this blog we made an agreement that we would both be posting on it. Well.. after two weeks of waiting for him to make a post, I give up! I really can't blame him too much though, he has been getting up at 4:35 every day and then he either comes home and naps or watches T.V. until dinner and then goes to bed (usually around 8 or 9). So I wouldn't be expecting any appearances from Trav until at least the end of the week if I were you.
On a different note.. I made my first cheesecake! I have been having so much fun trying recipes and learning to cook. The only thing that I don't like about cooking is our oven!
Here is a picture of  our beloved teensy-weensy oven.I placed a normal size oven mitt on top of it so you could get a better idea of the size.

 With a small oven comes some cooking difficulties. Well, really just one.. it cooks extremely fast. On our first trip to get groceries we wanted a treat so we bought a yummy Ghirardelli Brownie Mix. I know you may be thinking 'there is no way she messed up a brownie mix.' Well, I burnt them to the crisp. Another day, Travis and I made a pizza from scratch. Well, I got the dough and all of the fixings onto the pan and guess what.. the pan didn't even fit into the oven! Lucky me for having such a smart husband, Travis put the pan where you normally place the oven rack (so yes, the pan was 'floating' in the oven). It turned out yummy BUT a bit to crisp. There are other meals and desserts I could tell you about me burning but I don't want to make myself look too bad ;).
Our poor cheesecake got a little burnt too. The recipe called for 45 minutes in the oven. I took it out at 28 minutes.

Since there were crushed Oreo cookies crumpled on top of cheesecake, I had no idea how to tell when to take it out ( I knew it would be before the 45 minutes was up). So, I went online and read that if you see cracks on top, it is burnt. I opened the oven at 28 minutes and there was some cracks. Suurrpprrriissee!

Even though it was a little too done on the outside, it turned out super yummy. 

 I'll figure our oven out sometime soon.. hopefully :)

Confusion of Cooking

"The recipe says 'fresh orange juice,' does that mean Tropicana's "squeezed from fresh oranges" or frozen juice in the tube?" was the question that I called my sister with while cooking tonight's dinner. This may seem like a silly question to those of you who are veteran cooks but as a newly married, twenty-year-old, who has little experience in the kitchen, I had no idea. Needless to say, I was caught off guard when my sister's response was "No, it means you squeeze the juice out of orange yourself." But, I hadn't bought oranges-- I bought orange juice AND Old Orchard's frozen concentrate (I wanted to be prepared)! I had 21 minutes and 34 seconds to get the sauce together before it was time to get the chicken out of the oven to smother it in sauce, and then to return the chicken to the oven. Travis to the rescue! He came back 18 minutes later, arms holding 3 large oranges.

Although the chicken got a longer than planned break from the oven, our Orange Chicken turned out great!

 Here's the link for the recipe--trust me, it was worth the confusion! :)
Orange Chicken Recipe

The Process of Being Newlyweds

It's funny, in life we tend to assume we are perfect and everyone else has the problems. A good example of this was when Travis and I first moved into our new apartment together. I was busy making the bed and tidying up our room and in the corner of my eye I see the drawers of Travis's dresser hanging half out of their slots. As I am beginning to get annoyed by his messiness, I hear from the living room,  "Really Christie? You left your cereal bowl on the coffee table." We were both ready to get onto the other about what they were doing wrong but we didn't take the time to look at ourselves.
Being newly married and learning what it's like to live with someone else is a process. It has involved a 10 minute discussion on why I have "decorative place mats" that we can't actually eat on, what the point of making the bed every morning is even though no one will see it but us, and why I need to keep better track of my phone and keys so we don't have to search for them every time we leave the house.
Being married to Travis has been the most incredible time in my life. Marriage involves putting myself second to my spouse, enjoying our time together (even if it's watching late night Man vs. Food) and most of all having someone love me more than I could ever imagine.