Baked Coconut Shrimp!

Oh what a delicious night! I had coconut shrimp for the first time ever and it was AMAZING!! I am posting the recipe because I would recommend it to everyone! We took a few different recipes and combined them to make this PHENOMENAL treat.
A note of caution: ONLY make the shrimp you plan on eating, if you make more, you may never be able to stop!!!

• 1 egg
• 2/3 cup chicken (or any other kind of) broth
• 3/4 cup flour
• 1 1/2 tsp. baking powder
• 2 cups flaky coconut
• 24 shrimp

1 Preheat oven to 400 degrees and line a cookie sheet with parchment paper. 
2 Mix the egg, broth, 1/2 cup of the flour and baking powder in a bowl. Place the remaining flour and the coconut flakes into a separate bowl.
 3 Dip each of the shrimp in the plain flour. Shake off the excess and dunk the shrimp into the batter mixture. Coat each shrimp with the coconut flakes.
4 Place each coated shrimp onto the lined cookie sheet. Refrigerate them for 30 minutes.

(We placed them on parchment paper later, but the picture on aluminum foil turned out better)

5 Place shrimp on the cookie sheet and bake for 15-17 minutes or until coconut is a golden brown. Make sure to turn it once halfway through (around 8 minutes into cooking time) to make sure both sides brown.  
6 Eat them plain or try with cocktail sauce. We loved both! :)

ENJOY!!

The Introduction of Polly Penguin

Kaitlynn met Polly Penguin for the first time last night.
Polly apparently was telling some good jokes because Kaitlynn couldn't stop laughing.
They will be best friends :)

Adorable.
:)

Halloween Party!!

Jordan, Kaitlynn, and I went to a Halloween Party last night.  I, of course, wanted us to be Harry Potter characters and, with a little bit of prodding, Jordan agreed.


Kaitlynn didn't need much convincing. :)

We needed Harry Potter Glasses:

An owl costume:

 

French braids (I did for the first time!)

 And, of course, lots of hair!! 

...

=D

 Kaitlynn was Hedwig (Harry Potter's Owl):

 I was Hermoine:

 

And, of course, Jordan was Harry Potter!

....
I mean....
HAIRY Potter
...
He likes the play-on-words kind of costumes :)

It was SO fun dressing up! (..and the party that evening was a blast too! :) )
Hooray for Harry (....Hairy....) Potter!!
:)

The Poor Man's Pumpkin.

Jordan and I prepared our "pumpkins" today for Halloween. On the 31st we will fill them with water and hang a glowstick inside each of them and place them on our lawn. It should be awesome. :)

Do you like my 'Harry Potter' one? I have been pretty obsessed with him lately. :)
Final product pictures to come after Halloween night!!

:)

This picture just makes me so happy. Thought I would share :)

Happy October!!

Expecto Patronum!!

Well I finally saw the very last Harry Potter and REALLY loved it, so I've decided to become the next J.K. Rowling. No problem! All I need to do is come up with a brilliant story line and then write a series! Cinch!

I have been trying to upload some adorable videos lately of Kaitlynn pie, but of course, as usual, my computer is giving me grief. I will temporarily just post some pictures of The Cuteness and maybe go to the school later to pull up some of the videos from a computer that, hopefully, likes me a bit better. With that said, don't be surprised in the next few days to see a blog with at least a hundred hours worth of baby videos. haha

Everyone keeps telling me that Kaitlynn is getting so big, but I didn't really notice it until I picked her up today and held her up in front of our bedroom mirror. The top of her head reached my shoulder and the bottom of her foot was down at my hip!! It's bittersweet to see her get bigger. Of course we want her to, we are so happy that she is healthy and growing so strong, but I have to admit that, since she's been born, I have already cried twice at how quickly she's grown, just because it goes so fast.  

On another note, it snowed last week and, ever since, I have been in Christmas mode! Jordan reminded me that we haven't even hit Halloween yet, but somehow I keep finding myself frequently pulling up Christmas songs on my computer and adding seasonal DVDs to our Netflix cue. Of course, since that day or two of snow, the weather has returned to a temperature of about 70 degrees, so you'd think I'd go back into Fall-mode or something, but no. Jordan was sweet enough to humor me yesterday and go Christmas tree shopping because it was the ONLY thing I wanted to do!
What a sweet husband :)

Well, as promised, here are some current shots of the Babe :)

Haha! I put my fuzzy socks on her legs under her pjs because it was so cold
and she reminded me of a pink cookie-monster :)

All bundled up for a cold morning!

Isn't this outfit so awesome!? :)

My family looks like rock stars!

Cutie. :)
P.s. If anyone has some brilliant story ideas they want to lend me, I wouldn't mind :)

H. L. Tait

Autumn

I have come to realize recently that, despite the fact that it leads into the unbearably cold Winter, I really love Fall. I made a wreath from some plum-colored branches a few days ago and hung it on our front door in celebration, only to discover the very next day that the chill night air had already wilted the leaves and warped my circular wreath into a shape that more closely resembled a crescent moon. No matter. That still has not deterred me from my cheery feelings and excitement of crisp air, watching the leaves change color, the future plans of walking through pumpkin patches, or from looking forward to enjoying turkey and cranberries with my family in a few weeks.

Tonight, Jordan, Kaitlynn, and I drove around the neighborhood to capture some of the beauties of the season. :)

 

 

 

Happy Fall! :)

There is Sunshine in my Soul Today..

I've realized that I am old now because I used to sit through Conference Weekend thinking, "How can anyone sit inside for THIS long all weekend!" ..Not that I didn't enjoy it or anything, it just felt like a very long time to be inside. But now I look forward to Conference as though it is Christmas time! haha I love it!

For anyone that was able to see it, my two FAVORITE parts were President Monson's "Hello." and his "...Star Valley, Wyoming!" (**Pause** **Hold adorable cheesy smile**) Haha!
Oh those were hilarious moments. I love that man. :)

Of course there were other favorite parts too, like the actual amazing messages, but those were my favorite parts to laugh at. :)

Loved it! <3
Anyway, I have been trying to get a post up for about a week now and just thought that I would post a few pictures while I had a minute to do so.
Enjoy!

Fell asleep while I was changing her on the drier :)

..It was just too cute not to capture on camera

On her two-month birthday, we put her in her favorite party dress

"IT'S SO FLUFFY!!!" haha..

The day this was taken, Kaitlynn and Mommy wanted to stay in pajamas all day..

Note the ADORABLE puppy slippers, compliments of Godmother Chelsea :)

Fell asleep chewing on her hand :) ..It's early, but she's teething! (We noticed a tiny white nub of tooth TODAY!!)

..Sitting up like a big girl haha :)

I LOVE that she still occasionally crosses her legs as though she's in the womb! :) SO CUTE!!

She smiles alot now, which I can NOT get enough of! :)

..more smiles :)

Cute little bow :)

Cute little face :)

We love our pretty little Kaitlynn <3

.

Anniversary weekend

Well, ideally, I would have loved to take Jordan out to our favorite city, San Francisco, for our one year anniversary, but many things permitted us from traveling. So instead, I did my best to bring San Francisco to us.

Our favorite place to eat on Pier 39 is Chowders...  

So I made us clam chowder in bread bowls and brought "Chowders" to our kitchen... Not as good.. but very close of course..  ;)

(Unfortunately, I remembered to take pictures after we ate, so the bread bowl is entirely destroyed and does not look as appetizing as it was :) 

We stayed in our (don't laugh!) Bed and Breakfast in the "Bay View" Suite..

( "White Gown"... Wedding anniversary.. Get it? Get it? =D )

..Which, of course, would never be complete without a bay view..

(..Ok, NOW you can laugh..)

..Here's the effect with the light off, in case you wanted to see the magic of the city lights in its full glory :)

And our fantastic bayside Bed and Breakfast could never be complete without Ghiradelli chocolate (as seen above), pictures of the beautiful Golden Gate, and fishy midnight snacks..

Fun :)

..That was Friday night, our anniversary was on Sunday..

Saturday, we bought our wedding anniversary gift (a new camcorder! =D ..which I documented most of the rest of our weekend with), went to a 50's diner for lunch, and, in the evening, went to a County Fair.. :)

and on SUNDAY the 21st, the ACTUAL year mark, we drove to the BEAUTIFUL Mesa Falls..

..where we found a spot to enjoy a delicious cupcake picnic! :)

Kaitlynn, of course, was good the whole time :) .. 

( Isn't she cute! =D )

 And that evening we had a delicious shrimp pasta! yum :)

Allllmost forgot to mention what we wore that day to church!!
Jordan wore his wedding suit and I wore a white dress with my wedding shoes.
Ah! I love symbolism. =)

Too much fun. =)

We had such a great weekend! <3 <3

The HAPPIEST wedding anniversary of my entire life!! :)

Love you, My Jordan. <3