MacKenzie Memories: August 2013

This month, I decided to try a new penpal group and I completely loved it! It's Steph's "Bakin Friends"...if you haven't checked out Steph's blog you are totally missing out. I highly suggest you check it out. Now.

Bakin friends is a penpal program where you send baked goodies to your penpal {different person each month} while incorporating the month's secret ingredient. Sounds amazingly FUN, right?

This month's secret ingredient was pretzels! Their salty-ness matches up perfectly with something sweet! I was so excited when I saw my Bakin' Friends package sitting on my doorstep...I ~~ripped~~ ~~open~~ excitedly opened the package and found some amazing looking chocolate chip, pretzel crusted cookies! Yes, Jennie over at The Messy Baker Blog sent me oodles of fantastic cookies {and she even threw in some amazing Blueberries & Cream Granola...to.die.for.}!

Aren't they delicious looking {sorry, I couldn't find my camera, so I used my phone}. They were crunchy on the outside and soft & chewy on the inside...plus the pretzel crust gave them just enough salty-ness to be so delicious!

Seriously...a pretzel crust? GENIUS! And, I absolutely loved that they were shaped like little muffins :)

Here is the recipe for these awesome Chocolate Chip Cookies with a Pretzel Crust! While you're there, check out her Cake Batter Fun-Fetti Cookies with a Nutella Ganache {I made them for a party a couple weeks ago and they went like "hot cakes"}!

Thanks, Jennie for the amazing treats!

Interested? Check out Steph's Blog for all the details!

I'm already looking forward to next month's eats & treats!

Happy Friday!

Why do the weekends have to go by so freakin' fast? I feel like I literally blinked & it was over :( I will say, I sure do enjoy the time I have though!

Friday night's are usually low key around our house. This past Friday wasn't any different. We took a trip to Target to do some grocery shopping & headed home for dinner. After dinner, we decided to take an evening walk. I absolutely love our neighborhood! Plus, the weather was wonderful, so a walk was the perfect way to start off the weekend!

We were walking past the new bowling alley/restaurant in our 'hood and we came across this totally adorable dog {or "uppy" as Dafney says}!

He was totally well behaved and posed for a photo-op! Not sure what his "mom & dad" thought about said photos, but he was too cute not to snap a quick one! Now I want a motorcycle & side car for my dog :)

Saturday morning the Hubby got up early to go for a bike ride and noticed that our local Shoe Shop was having a sidewalk SALE. So we decided to walk over there before lunch. Low and behold, they were giving away FREE lunch...score! The highlight was the little bouncy castle they had up for the kiddos! Dafney was intrigued so I asked the nice owner if I could walk through with her & he obliged!

She had so much fun bouncing & jumping around! And hey, even I had some fun in there, too ;)

After some lunch & bouncing around, we headed back home. Dafney proceeded to give her "baby" a walk, too. Most of the time, she treats her baby really nicely...and then there are the times that she takes her baby and throws her down on the ground and laughs :)

After, we went down to my parent's house as the Hubby went to a party in their hometown with some of his Hockey buddies. Dafney & I just hung out together. She didn't really nap all day so I was pretty happy when she decided that she finally wanted to go to bed around 9pm. I was even happier that she slept until 9 the next morning!

Sunday left us relaxing and just hanging out as a family! It was wonderful! And, we even have a house guest with us for a few days. However, I know one little girl that will be beyond happy to see him leave Tuesday night. Yep, Dafney is completely scared of other dogs, yet, she loves Hannah. Thankfully it's a short visit :)

July foodie penpals - I was excited to participate in anther month of Lindsey's foodie penpal program. However, for whatever reason, my penpal didn't send me anything this month :( And, actually things were so crazy for me, I didn't really realize this until close to the end of the month. Therefore, I don't have anything to really post this month. But, come back at the end of the month as I'm participating in a new penpal program: Bakin' Friends put on by Steph's Bite by Bite. I'm excited to try her program and hopefully "meet" some new bloggers!

On to the disappointing news. I should probably give a {quick} recap before jumping into the news. A while back, the hubby & I decided that we wanted/needed to move out of our current house & into something bigger & newer. So, we briefly pondered building a house. It quickly became a thought of the past and we started to look at houses in our neighborhood & in surrounding areas. After looking at what felt like a million houses, we decided to look back into building. We found a builder and even met with him & his wife {she does a lot of the interior designing things}. After speaking with us & getting a feel for what we were looking for in a home, they sent us a couple different custom floor plans and things took off from there.

In May we signed the contract to move forward {pending Loan Approval and Appraisal}. Over the past couple of months we had been meeting regularly with the builder to nail down the design and everything down to the light bulb! It's been a lot of work, but SO much fun to see our house take shape.

...enter bad news. This past week, we received our home appraisal back and it came in {gulp} $35K lower than what we needed it to appraise at. It nearly took the breath from my lungs when I saw the appraisal #. Seriously, I felt completely heartbroken. The some-what positive note is that we can appeal the appraisal, but I don't know if it will get us close to the # we need. Our builder is out of town until Wednesday, so we're waiting to do anything until we can speak with him. All I can do is HOPE that he knows enough about appraisals to talk our way into a higher #. Wish us luck!

Happy Monday!