Photography Contest! :)

Suzy, over at life is too short not to wear red shoes, is having a photography contest. I'm really excited about it! It took me a long time, but I finally chose three pictures to enter. You should go enter!

I always use Picnik to edit my pictures, and I usually only mess with the exposure, coloring, and sharpen it up a little. That's what I did to my entries. :)

I know, they're all flowers. But what can I say, I just like to take pictures of them. ;) Which is your favorite?

~Haley

Cold Days...

The past couple of days have been pretty cold. Yesterday morning it was 26 degrees and felt like 20 degrees. Yikes!

 The leaves have fallen

 Leaving the trees bare...

 It's the perfect time for one of my cold-weather drinks... :)

 And chocolate chip pumpkin muffins...

And gloves, sweaters, etc... :)

But, I guess you get the point. ;)

~Haley

Some Ramblings...

Okay, so I thought I would wrap the pictures from our trip up in this post and talk about some other stuff. I don't know what, but we'll see. :)


1. Guess what I did! Got done, I should say. The day we went to the mall (in Louisiana) I went to Claire's and got my ears pierced! :) I am really glad I did! Here are a few pictures, courtesy of Lindsay.

 Look at Josh behind me. Doesn't he look really, really bored? Boys and malls don't mix. At all.

All done! ;) I know, my hair was messy. I, of course, had to put it up to get them pierced and then decided to take it down for the pictures. ;)

2. I happen to know this is why he came. Isn't this reason enough for a boy to want to go to the mall?

And just for fun-

Thanks, Josh, for taking a picture of your silly sisters. :)

3. And the last thing I'll say about our trip is that we went to Port Hudson. To learn a little bit about Port Hudson, go here. It's not a long article, so it wouldn't take much time to read. Here are a few pictures I got there:

A lonely bench out on a trail.

4. Fall is definitely here. Leaves are falling off the trees, it's gotten cool, and we've been having some gorgeous weather. Here's a picture to prove it.

5. This will be my last thing. The Phillies won last night, so they're still in it!! Yay! They have to win 2 more to win the series and they can't lose one or they're out . :( I am SO glad they didn't lose last night because I really don't want to see the Giants in the World Series. Ugh... If you haven't been able to tell, they are one of my worst baseball teams. Up there with the White Sox, Mets, Pirates, etc...

~Haley

Myrtles Plantation

While gone, one thing we did was visit the Myrtles Plantation. It was really fun! I got a lot of pictures, so here are a few! :) We weren't allowed to take pictures of any of the rooms in the house except the entrance, so that's why these are mostly pictures outside the house.

 The swamp by the house. It kind of looks like grass, doesn't it? ;) My sister Christine took this picture.

 Swamp.

 Side of a bench.I thought it was really pretty.

 Huge trees!

 There was moss hanging from the trees everywhere.

Beautiful chandelier.

There was a piano in the entrance.

The railing on the porch was beautiful!

Rocking chairs on the porch.

Pretty fountain.

The gate on the bridge.

The bridge goes over the swamp. That's one of my favorite pictures I took there.

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That's all for now!

~Haley

Peanut Butter Cup Brownie S'mores and a Baseball Game

I made these brownies the other day and everybody loved them!  I got the recipe from Paula Deen's show and knew, after I saw the finished product and her eating it, that I had to make some. They're really good and a lot of fun to make! :)

Peanut Butter Cup Brownie S'mores

1 cup butter, softened, plus more for baking dish

2 cups sugar

4 large eggs

1 tsp. vanilla extract

1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour

3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa

1/2 tsp. baking powder

1 cup marshmallow creme

8 chocolate covered peanut butter cups

What to do-

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Butter a 13 by 9, 2-inch baking dish. Using an electric mixer, combine the butter and sugar in a large mixing bowl; beat at medium speed until creamy. Add the eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Stir in vanilla and mix well.

In separate bowl, combine the flour, cocoa, and baking powder. Gradually stir the flour mixture into the butter mixture. Spoon it into the baking dish and bake for 35 minutes. Let cool completely, then cut into 16 squares. Heat a grill or pan to medium heat.

Spread the marshmallow creme evenly over eight brownies, and top with chocolate covered peanut butter cups. Top with remaining brownies. Wrap each brownie sandwich in heavy-duty aluminum foil. Grill for 4 minutes, turning once. Unwrap and serve immediately. Enjoy! :)

And, on a random note, did any of y'all see the Phillies vs. Giants game last night? I did, and was really excited because I got to see Oswalt pitch. He even hit a single, starting a big inning for them, and ended up sliding home! I am SO glad he's finally off the Astros. I know the Phillies fans love him. ;)

So, considering I want the Phillies to win the World Series (I want the Phillies and Rangers to be in it), I thought it was a really fun game to watch. :) Who do you want to win the World Series?

~Haley

Bluebonnet Swamp

When we were gone, one of the things we did was go to Brec's Bluebonnet Swamp. Although I don't remember it too well, Mom and Pop used to take us down there.  When we went there was absolutely nobody else there. I guess we just picked a good time to go. ;) It was fun going back, and I did something pretty neat. I'll tell y'all what it is in a minute. First, pictures. :) You can click on them to blow them up if you want.

 I like this one because you can see the rail's shadow. I thought was pretty cool! :)

 That's one tall tree. All the trees out there were huge!

 The next few pictures were taken at the visitor's center. They had snakes, baby alligators, the tarantula pictured above, turtles, etc...

 He looks mad at me for taking so many pictures of him, doesn't  he?

  Cute turtles :)

 My sister took this one. You know what? The guy who took care of the reptiles there offered to take it out of its cage for us. Mom and Josh went away when he did, but Christine, Lindsay, and I stayed and even touched it! I can now say I've touched a python. :)  That was the neat thing I did. ;)

It was pretty neat. Now, I'm not a snake lover. Like, if I was just walking and found one, I would be scared and get out of there ASAP, but since the guy was holding it it was completely different.

 Look how big and fat it is! And I touched it! :0 I know, the lighting's weird in this picture, but, hey, it was through glass and it was in a darker part of the cage.

                                                                 

 The gift shop was fun, too. That's where I found these pretty rocks. No, I didn't get any, just took pictures. ;)

 And, like any good gift shop, they had cute stuffed animals! ;)

A little turtle swimming across a pond. You can see the reflection of the trees in the (very) murky water.

Woods in Louisiana are very pretty.

The pretty trail.

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Enough pictures for you? I know it was enough for me to get loaded on Blogger. It took a while. ;)  Hope you enjoyed the post!

I think I'll post about our trip to the Myrtles Plantation next! And yes, it will contain a lot of pictures, too! :)

~Haley