Fall is here!!

So for starters, I'm trying to find a template I like for this here blog. I didn't really find one I loved, so I will probably be messing around with the backgrounds and stuff until I find one that suits me! I don't really know what I'm doing either, I'm just pushing buttons and trying to figure stuff out :)

I LOVE fall. I love when the weather starts to get a little chilly, and the colors all start to change. I love Halloween and Thanksgiving. Mainly because it's the start of baking season! I love to bake, and this time of year is prime baking time. I love halloween, although I never dress up. I bought a costume for my friends Halloween party last year, but I think that was the first time I had dressed up since I was a teenager. I looked like a dork too. Although I'm not into dressing up, I still love it. Every year since I've been dating Judd I've had my niece and nephew over on a Saturday night before Halloween to decorate cookies and carve pumpkins. My family started coming with them and last year I made a couple pots of homemade chili and we layed down lots of plastic and had a pumpkin carving party in my front room. It was a lot of fun. I love doing it. It's coming up this year, and my dad wants to do deep fried chicken or turkey instead of chili. Let me tell you the deep fried chicken experience....

My dad bought Judd and I a deep fryer earlier this year because I told him to bring his up to our house and we'd do chickens. Instead of bringing his he just bought us one. Okay, that's fine with me :) So Judd had his buddy over on New Years and he had brined a bunch of chickens and brought his fryer over and made us the BEST chicken I had ever had. I was determined to recreate this delightful chicken for my family. So I made the brine, threw the chickens in there, and got everything ready for my family to come up and have a great dinner. We started the chickens when my dad got here, and at first I thought it was going really good. They were taking forever to cook though, and starting to get burned on the outside. When we would pull them out they were still pink on the inside. I didn't know how we were failing so bad, but we were. So by the end of the night we had a bunch of burnt raw chickens. I had read the directions, had the temp right where it said to, and thought I had done everything right. So now my dad wants to try again and redeem ourselves from the disaster that was our chicken last time.

So now I'm stressing about the chicken. I don't like having thing go wrong when I'm entertaining, and undercooked chicken is definately on the "went wrong" list. So I either need to try it out before they come over and make sure I've got it right, or tell them we're having chili again and avoid the problem. I guess I have to face the deep fried bird sometime, might as well be now right? Maybe I'll just have a pot of chili on reserve, just in case!

Having my family over to carve pumpkins, eat a good meal, decorate cookies, and visit is one of my favorite things about fall! I'm getting excited, because after that means Thanksgiving, then Christmas. I love both of them! Christmas shopping is one of my all time favorite things to do! Only for Judd and the nieces and nephew, everyone else is stressful and too hard to shop for!

So once I start my Halloween/Thanksgiving/Christmas cooking and baking of treats and goodies, I'll post my favorite ones for you all to try if you'd like! I better get started, family comes over next weekend!!