25th Birthday Recap

I'm 25!! Oh my goodness somedays I feel like I just graduated from high school and that was already 7 years ago - Crazy!! 

My birthday was on a Sunday and I decided to celebrate the Friday before in Fargo. My Parents, Eri, Walker, Steve & I went out for supper at Mezzaluna; the food was delicious and the atmosphere made us feel like we were in Chicago or New York. It was fun to go out somewhere new and I enjoyed not being at a chain restaurant. Erika was sneaky and made cupcakes for me, she arranged it with the restaurant to bring them to me at the end of the meal, there was one for all 6 of us ... the cupcakes were delicious and it made me feel SuPeR SpEcIaL!! 

After supper there was a surprise birthday/welcome home party for my cousin Amy at the HoDo - so we went there, visited, had a few beers then Steve NEEDED a TV so we went to a sports bar. It was the start of March Madness and Kansas was playing their first game, thank goodness they won. 

A bunch of our friends came out and we all had a great time celebrating!!

Here are some pictures from the weekend :: 

My Amazing Filet Mignon from Mezzaluna

My Beautiful birthstone ring from My Hubby

My Sister's wonderful Pinterest-inspired gifts and the Box Set of Sex and the City

March Cara Box {Reveal}

I was browsing blogs a few weeks ago and I don't even know how I came across Kaitlyn's blog, Wifessionals, but I love it. I ended up doing some clicking and found this neat project she has started called Cara Box Exchange. It is a monthly present exchange between people that you are randomly paired with by Kaitlyn. You get two partners each month and Partner A. sends you a package and you send Partner B. a package so you are sending and receiving from two different people. It is so neat and I highly encourage you to participate if you like getting gifts and meeting new people. 

There is a different box theme every month and this month was Initials of your name. So my partner had to put things in my box that either started with an L or R.

This experience was great I just loved getting to know the girls I was paired with - Modern Day Pen Pals!! 

I made a box for Laura @ My Life South Of The Mason-Dixon. Laura is originally from Minnesota so she knew all about the wonderful weather here, she now lives in Oklahoma though - Lucky because she actually has Spring right now!! Laura has a passion for the outdoors and I'm very jealous of her backpacking travels. See what Laura is all about and what was in her box >> Here. 

-Now for my box REVEAL-

Lauren @ SLP Sooner or Later sent me my Cara Box filled with L and R items and she did an AMAZING job with my box, everything in it was perfect. Lauren (a Texas native) and I get along so great, and it is crazy how much we have in common hopefully someday we can meet but for now we are becoming great Modern Day Pen Pal friends!!  

Here is what was in my Lovely box complete with photos and Lauren's explanations ::

Live-Laugh-Love Box: For special notes/memories with Steven or for misc. pics I've taken

Love chalkboard: Can use for some macro photography or for love notes

Red wine with cheese: no explanation needed

Luggage tags/card: for your future European travels

Lip gloss: For date nights & girls nights out

Lotion: to Pamper yourself

Just for Fun: Nail polish




Sorry for the crappy phone photo

I can't wait to see what the April Cara Box theme is and I hope you join in the fun next month!

Caprese Dip

This is a Pinterest recipe come to life and I'm so in love with this cheesy baked goodness. I made this for the first time last Christmas when Steve and I hosted my family get-together and I was craving it again so had to make it and of course share the recipe with you.

The original recipe I used can be found here.

What You Need:

• Grape or Cherry tomatoes*        
• 1 pint/2 cups halved
• Olive oil 
• 2 tsp
• Garlic  
• 2 cloves, minced 
• Neufchatel or Cream Cheese 
• 8 oz, softened at room temp
• Mozzarella (fresh) cheese 
• 10 oz shredded
• Parmesan Cheese
• 1/4 C grated + handful (1/4-1/2 cup: I like cheese)  
• Basil Leaves 
• 1/4 cup chopped roughly
• Salt & Pepper 
• to taste

What To Do:

1. Preheat oven to 425. Line a baking/cookie sheet with foil and place your halved tomatoes on the foil. Sprinkle the halves with 2 tsp of olive oil and a little salt. Bake tomatoes for 12-17 minutes; take out and set aside. 
2. While the tomatoes are in the oven, you can make your cheese mixture. In a mixing bowl combine the softened cream cheese with the shredded mozzarella. Mixing well, stir in and combine the 1/4 C parmesan, fresh basil, garlic, salt and pepper. 
3. Place tomatoes at the bottom of a baking dish, then top with the cheese mixture. Sprinkle the remaining parmesan on top of cheese mixture. Bake for 20-30 minutes, or until the top is golden and bubbly. Serve immediately with crackers, chips or toasted bread. 

My favorite with this is Tastefully Simple Beer Bread. I make the bread according to direction then take half of it (incase some people don't like crusty bread) cube it drizzle with olive oil and bake on a baking sheet. I keep it in the oven until crispy and it tastes amazing dipped in the Caprese Dip! 

Enjoy!! 

* Sidenote * In my photo I don't have cherry or grape tomatoes, that is a downfall of living in a small town - our grocery store doesn't carry them but I'd highly suggest using them because they taste WAY better. 

Free Farms ... A Thing Of The Past

I had a great weekend hanging out with family, definitely a weekend to make me feel blessed. 

Friday was an exciting day for my dad and the Storhoff household. Eri and Walker made us a delicious supper then we popped champagne and toasted as Dad shared some amazing land news with us. It is safe to say times have changed since this photo of a 1901 newspaper. 

Photo by JamieLMay author of CowsCornAndCountryGirls

North Dakota weather hasn't received the memo about Spring! It is March 17th and in the past few days we have had way to many weather warnings, I'm so sick of the snow and more than ready for slush and mud. 

Saturday I had supper at the farm with the in-laws. It was great to see my nieces, my kitties, and the rest of the family ... crazy to think a few years ago we all lived under one roof, now I feel like I never see them! 

I hope you had a weekend surrounded by the ones you love too! 

Did you do anything for St. Patty's Day?

Changes Coming Soon

My blog needs some sprucing up so you will be seeing many changes soon.

I have decided to change the name of my blog to Mrs. Laura Beth; this is the name I go by for all my other social media so thought my blog should follow. 

Right now the blog address is www.rotenbergerfam.blogspot.com and that is going to change as well to www.mrslaurabeth.blogspot.com I am not sure how this will affect my previous blog posts and people who are following this blog by email. If you would like to continue to follow the blog after I change the name just send me an email ( lbrotenberger@gmail.com ) and I will be sure you are added again. 

Thanks for Reading!

Becoming a Mrs.

A (sort of) milestone has passed, Steve and I have been married for six (6) months!! Yep, that is right yesterday, the 8th, marked our 6th month of wedded bliss, half of a year has already passed - Crazy! 

So, you ask how is marriage … really? Well, you will get the same answer I give everybody … it is great but not much different. Steve and I have been loving each other since 2006, our marriage made it official before God, our family & friends and it was the most amazing day of my life but I'm happy to say he is still the same Steven and (I hope) I'm still the same Laura. 

Our new life as husband & wife really is great though. We have a place to call 'our own' and I love hanging out with my hunky hubby just doing nothing … seriously something as simple as doing the dishes with this man makes me happy - maybe that is because he washes and I dry (most of the time). Ugh, praise whoever invented the dishwasher and I promise I will never take it for granted when I get one again. 

Since I haven't talked about it on the blog I'd like to recap our wedding day. 

…

September 8, 2012

The day started off will my best girls! I spent Friday night with my sister and future sisters at Stacy's house (didn't want to break tradition and see my groom) and then Saturday my bridesmaids and personal attendants showed up and we had a great morning enjoying mimosas, muffins & blueberry bake while getting our hair done. 

My whole day seemed to be a blur, the day was finally here, the day I had been planning for … I'd been planning for it well before our engagement and it had arrived. I was excited, nervous, overjoyed, overwhelmed, ecstatic; so many emotions inside me I had to remember to breathe every now and then. 

My girls and I got ready while Steven got ready with his boys and then it was time for me to see my Groom. Ahh he was as handsome as ever, seriously those grey tuxedos were AMAZING! We wrote letters to each other for our wedding day and after reading it, he made me remember why in a few short hours we would be standing next to each other promising our whole lives to each other … Yep I truly Love him! 

After hours of torture for some but my favorite thing, Pictures, we were ready for the I Do's. The ceremony was great, well what I remember anyway, thank goodness for a video camera to capture the moment that I want to relive over and over. 

We all had a wonderful time at the beautiful reception & dance, I hardly left the dance floor and had a great time with friends and family. 

09.08.12 was a day I will never forget and I am so blessed to have Steven in my life and to have gained a great set of in-laws! 

Now I will leave you with some of my favorite photos from our special day. All photos taken by the wonderful Milestones Photography. 

Year 1

Year 2

Year 3

Just Call Me Lady Laura

Oh how I wish I could take a trip to England, this stemming from a show I have recently started watching called Downton Abby. It is a PBS publication that just finished its 3rd season, not sure why I've just started hearing about this show but I've become addicted. I finished the first season in less than two weeks thanks to Amazon Prime and unlimited streaming and now I am halfway through the 2nd.

The show makes me wish I could have grown up in an immaculate castle with servants and be called Lady Laura, I seriously might be speaking with an English accent the next time you see me and it won't be on purpose haha I've watched it every night before bed and it is starting to get instilled in my head.

The women of the era though what on earth did they do all day?! How could they not be bored, they had servants for practically everything; someone cooked for them, took care of their children, cleaned every room in the house (probably 4 times a day), did their laundry, even went as far as to dress them. I think it is safe to say I would have been out of my mind with boredom. I guess it was relaxation at its very best ... (it seems) not a care in the world and you could read as many books as you wanted and sleep all day if you damn well pleased. There was no technology to keep you preoccupied, electricity was fairly new and the telephone was an amazing new invention being placed into homes; crazy because now I couldn't go a day without my cell phone.

This show interests me and I'm not entirely sure why. Maybe it is the simplicity of it, or the fact that there could be scandals and drama just the same but it took weeks to find it out not seconds as it does today with the modern inventions of Facebook and Twitter. I don't know how much truth this show holds with what really happened back then but if it proves true to character I would say people haven't really changed, just the world around them.

If you have the chance to watch Downton Abbey I highly suggest it (especially over those oh so real reality shows), start at the beginning though, you won't want to miss any details!

I'm off now to see what is happening at Downton today :-)
Until Next Time

- Lady Laura