Family Pictures!

Hooray for Anne! She did a fabulous job taking our family pictures! Here's a few of my favorites.










It was freezing outside, her little nose got so red.





I think she makes this face because of teething and I love it! I'm glad Anne captured it! :)

The ducks at the pond were so photogenic!









Doesn't she look like Paul in this picture!

Okay so that was a little more then a few, but I loved them all! Thanks again Anne!

Gingerbread!

I have never made homemade Gingerbread houses... until now! It was super easy and the gingerbread is actually really yummy! I made five of them for a family party and ended up with 1 extra so I decorated 2. Here are the finished products! I wish I would have gotten pic's of everybody else's creations! They did awesome!
Here's the link to the recipe http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/gingerbread-house-recipe/index.html

Bad Luck?

This might be TOO MUCH INFO but I seriously have horrible luck when it comes to public restrooms. Please don't think I'm trashy or gross for bringing this up but the last 4 times that I have REALLY had to use them I get there and see one of these...

Seriously! They probably clean the bathroom one time during the day and I have hit that time 4 times in a row lately. Is it just bad luck? Am I the only one who has this happen? Just a random thought but I figure we all do it so I might as well vent about something we all can relate to and what's more relate-able than restrooms? :)

While I'm bringing up random thoughts, don't you hate it when you are talking to someone and you kind of go out on a limb to say something borderline comical and they laugh but then you realize they weren't really paying that much attention to you and were laughing at something else. I hate that. It's awkward. It's even more awkward when they ask what you just said. Yeah, definitely awkward.

Halloween

This Halloween I had the urge to make homemade costumes. I guess I like to work under a deadline when it comes to projects because then they actually get done and I was in a sewing mood so I had to strike while the iron was hot! I made four costumes, my Bee dress, Paul's bee keeper suit and hat, Hannah's barbie outfit (The pants, shirt and headband) and Amara's Geisha outfit. It was nice to just whip them out without major fitting adjustments because they were just Halloween costumes, why can't normal clothes be that carefree? I made all the outfits in about five hours, I was surprised how fast they went. Growing up we always had a costume basket with fun dress up clothes, I have wanted to start that for my family so I decided to start this year, hopefully it can continue to grow and will be fun for my kids in the future. We had a fun Halloween and enjoyed spending time with family and friends.

Cake Anyone???

3 weeks ago I got asked to do a Wedding Cake for a young couple that are friends with my in-laws and I must admit that it was somewhat selfish of me to accept the challenge because I have NEVER done a wedding cake before. I have always wanted to do one but couldn't justify buying all the supplies and investing all the time into a practice cake. So when they asked me I thought "YES! this is my chance!" I didn't realize the weight I would have on me for the next 2 weeks. I watched hours of Youtube videos on ALL types of cake decorating and learned more then I thought I would learn about cake decorating. I loved learning this new skill and the deadline just made me stick to it when I got sick of baking and frosting.
So the day before it was due I was somewhat of a beast to be around because I was so stressed to get this done, luckily for me Paul was sick and home from work and watched Rosalie. The night before the cake was due I dropped the top layer of the cake after I had just spent a few hours decorating it, I originally had pillars and they collapsed. I managed to avoid a meltdown and keep working, I scratched the pillars in fear they would do the same thing on her wedding day. My sister in law was so sweet to come over and help me for a few hours, she stayed until 1 in the morning, I don't think I would have gotten any sleep or even be able to finish if she didn't come help me. I still stayed up until 5:30 decorating it. Here's the finished product. I loved how it turned out! and I want to do more! I think it will go much smoother next time since experience is invaluable!






(definately my favorite part was the gum paste flowers I made, I loved learning this skill and loved how it turned out, and yes they taste good :))

August, September, birthdays and of course Rosalie

I haven't blogged in a while so here's a short overview of some past activities.

We went up to my Uncles Cabin for our Annual Friend Cabin Trip, We had such a fun time just relaxing in natures beauty and enjoying each others company. We went to some hot springs in Midway and they were so pretty, too bad they were super hot and we could only stick our feet in for a few seconds at a time. I guess they are perfect to swim in other times of the year but they heat up too hot in July and August. We also celebrated my birthday at the Cabin.


(on the deck of the cabin, beautiful view)


(the hot springs were crystal clear)


(everyone who came this year)

The end of August I went up to Salt Lake to see my Cousin who lives in Pennsylvania while she was out here for a visit. It was so fun to see her and her cute baby girl who is only 3 weeks younger then Rosalie. We crafted alot and made some cute matching tutu's for the girls and took pictures. I also got to see some friends from High school, it was fun to catch up.


(Me and Chelsa)


(chelsa's cute baby girl)


(Pretty much the same size)

This last weekend we celebrated Paul's Birthday and I decided to make a themed cake, I made a cake after the game Legends of Zelda, Windwaker. I got this book from the Library called "What's new Cupcake" and it has some really cute decorating ideas and they are easy. So I took a cue from that book and created Paul's Zelda cake. It turned out pretty fun and Paul liked it. I think it made him feel like a little boy again. Anyways we had a birthday party with some friends and it was a lot of fun.


(I made Zelda out of tootsie rolls so he was kind of melting into the cake in this picture)


(I got some Chocolate rocks and had fun decorating this with them)

Rosalie is now 7 Months! I can't believe how fast time goes by! She is crawling everywhere and has gotten pretty fast, especially when she knows she has something that she shouldn't have. She loves to chew on cords, wrappers, and all sorts of stuff she shouldn't. Her new favorite thing is to chase a rolling soda can across the house. She is learning to go to sleep by herself in her crib and that has been an adventure. We think she is teething too because she has been a lot fussier then usual. She has also been pulling herself up on things to stand up. Ahhh... me and Paul both think she will walk soon, probably within the next 2 months! She loves to eat rice cereal and butternut squash, she doesn't really care for sweet potatoes. She also likes to talk she says "hi" when someone comes in the room or to get there attention and she says Dada, I don't know if she has linked Dada to Paul yet but I think she is starting to get that. She also says mama but only when she is really upset. ha ha. Anyways, this is starting drag on so I'll end.
So there you have it, an update on August and September thus far, birthdays and our little monkey Rosalie.

(enjoying some yummy squash)


(Rosalie's paradise, daddy's computer cords)

Five Months!

This little Monkey is five months old! Yippee! She is a little ball of happy energy and is always smiling and wiggling. She is teething and chews on EVERYTHING!!! She is starting to figure out crawling and I think within the next month she will be mobile! Yikes! She is growing up way too fast! We love our little munchkin! Here's some cute pic's that Anne took that I love, she did an amazing job! Thank you Anne!

Fall in July

Last night I experimented with dinner and it turned out really yummy! So of course I have to share my creation. This recipe is out of my comfort zone so it was fun to just think about how spices would taste together, take a risk and see how it worked. So here's what I did.
I'll call it Roasted Pumpkin Coconut Soup



*preheat oven to 350 degrees

• 2-3 pound roasted pumpkin (or a large can of pumpkin puree)

• 1 Red Bell pepper
• 1/4 can of coconut milk (low fat)
• 1 small onion
• 2 cloves garlic
• 1 tablespoon Oil (I used Olive oil)
  
• 1 can of Vegetable broth
• 2 tablespoons butter
• 1/4 cup Brown sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon Curry powder (to taste, more for a stronger taste, I liked the curry to be subtle)
• Dash of Cayenne pepper (again you can add more for more of a kick)
• Dash of Cinnamon
• Dash of black pepper (to taste)
• Dash of Salt (to taste)
  

(for garnish) Optional (it taste great without these too)

• Sour cream
• Green onion sliced
• Parmesan cheese

• Bread bowl (optional) (it taste good in a bowl too)
  

1- Separate roasted pumpkin from skin (discard skin), or open can of pumpkin puree.
2- Slice Red Bell Pepper into slices, chop onion into chunks and peel garlic, toss veggies in 1 tablespoon olive oil, spread out on a baking sheet, sprinkle with a pinch of salt and put into a 350 degree oven for 20 Min's.
3- Put pumpkin, butter, brown sugar, coconut milk and vegetable broth into blender, blend until smooth, add roasted veggies to blender and puree. (if it all doesn't fit at once that's fine, just do separate batches in the blender)
4- Pour pureed mixture into a pot and turn stove on medium heat, stir often so it doesn't "pop out" on you. Stir in the curry powder, cayenne, cinnamon, black pepper and salt to taste.
5- Cook until heated all the way through
6- Spoon into bread bowls and top with a little sour cream, green onion and Parmesan.
7-Enjoy!
* you could sub a butternut or acorn squash for the pumpkin if you wanted to.

Paul didn't think this would taste very good just by looking at it but when he tasted it he loved it! He ate seconds and deemed it restaurant worthy (haha nothing like giving a little positive reinforcement to keep the meals coming his way... smart man :)) Anyways I had fun experimenting, hopefully you'll give it a try.

projects

Here are a few projects I've been up to in the last little while.

Homemade Boppy pillow with matching burp rags:
I made these for my sister-in-laws baby shower.



It was super easy and pretty inexpensive. I got the idea of the burp rags from Anne who made me some and I LOVE them! So this is my attempt to mimic her ridiculously good sewing skills. :)

Shirt dress:
Nicole posted a thing on her blog about how to turn an old men's dress shirt into a cute dress for little girls, I thought it was an awesome idea so I decided to take the idea and create something new. I had these two shirts that were a dollar at K-mart, and because of the price and because they looked like they might work for maternity shirts ( I was prego at the time) I didn't try them on and just bought them. So when I got home I tried them on and they didn't even come close to covering my belly, I set them aside for post pregnancy clothes. When I tried them on post prego, they made me look prego. So I thought they would be perfect to make into a little girls dress. I took the measurments of my niece and just scaled down the shirt to fit like a dress and Wa La, here is what it looks like:


I've been on a kick of turning some of the clothes I never wear into something wearable this last week but haven't completed any yet, but I will post when I do.
Other projects that I don't have pic's of are a bean stuffed snake for my nephew and a pink fuzzy stuffed butterfly for my niece.

I have also been doing a garden box this year and its doing okay I guess. I have gotten one zuccini and three small tomatoes so far. This 100 degree heat is pretty hard on them right now though. Here's a pic of my garden box when I first got it started.


Anyways, those are just a few of the things I've been up to.