Wedding Cake

My friend, Krystal, called me a few months ago and asked me if I wanted to do a wedding cake with her for a girl in our ward. It was a lot of fun to meet with the bride and find out what she wanted. It has fondant on the outside. This was Krystal 2nd fondant cake to do and my first. I was really proud of how it turned out. It was a lot of work, but a lot of fun. Here are a few different angles of it. Kudos to Krystal, she was the one who did the flower arranging, I prepared the flowers for her. I do not have an artistic eye in that sense.

Halloween

We had a total of 3 parties this year. That was better than years past. We had a work party with Trav last Saturday and then went to the ward's Halloween party the same day. That day was exhausting. On Halloween, we hosted a little party at our house. It was a lot of fun, with lots of kids. Here are the girls. Lauren was Mariposa Barbie - Mariposa means butterfly in Spanish. So essentially she was a butterfly. Rachel was a fairy.

At Trav's work party.

Halloween Party at our house. We played Pin the nose on the pumpkin - thanks, Kim, for the idea.

On Halloween

Like Mother Like Daughter

I did a little class for Activity Days (the 8-11 year old girls at church) on cake decorating. While doing the class, I realized during the many times of decorating cakes, I've never let Lauren decorate her own. The next day this is what she made:

I helped her with the boarder, and one or two stripes or "straps" as she calls them. She had a lot of fun and loved licking her fingers when she was all done. She loves frosting, even though a put a lot of almond extract in it. A funny little story on Lauren. We were at a bathroom at a local restaurant. We were washing our hands, they had an almond soap. I said, "Lauren, do you smell that almond?" She says excitedly, "No, Mommy, FROSTING!"

Lauren is always the first to comment on my cakes while I decorate them. She made me quite proud while at a wedding this summer, we walked in and the first thing she mentioned was, "Mommy, the cake is beautiful!"

As promised, here is my most recent cake. I used a transferring method that I learned in Course 1 of the Michael's cake decorating class. I printed a picture off the Internet and traced it with piping gel and transferred it to the cake. If you want more how to info - let me know.

It was for a friend's 2 year old. It turned out pretty cute, even though it was a last minute effort.

Here it is:

Netflix Picks

When I was in the 8th grade our family went to the video store. We were looking all around and I picked out the movie, "Clifford". Now this isn't the movie about the big red dog, its a movie where Martin Short plays an 8 year old boy, I think. Now I wanted to point out that I went to the movie store with my older brother, Scott, who was 22 at the time. He let me pick out the movie. BBBIIIGGG MISTAKE!

The movie was horrible! Worse than horrible, it was dumb, pointless, and boring. When I looked it up on Rotten Tomatoes to link it above, I saw it got a 10% - that's out of 100%. I was teased for hours about picking that movie, no wait, years for picking that movie. If I suggest any movie to this day, all of my siblings ask if its another Clifford. I told my friend, Sarah, about this little story - then she started teasing me.

Anyway, I'm slowly redeeming myself from Clifford. A while back I posted about some of my addictions, one of them being the TV show, Psych. My brother-in-law, Rob, who has really cool tastes in movies, music, books, etc., had been told by a friend to watch Psych. I'm sure after seeing my recommendation as well (right, Rob?) he decided to watch it. My sister called me later and said they really liked it because it was witty and clean. When I told my other sister, Kim, that Rob liked Psych, Kim said, "Maybe we will try it." See that's how cool Rob is. You know if Rob likes it, then its going to be worthwhile.

Anyway, I was chatting with Kim and Dave a while ago. Kim told me that they saw a Eureka-a-thon on TV and watched a few episodes and thought it was pretty neat. Kim told Dave, "You know, Stephanie watches this." I believe Dave's response was, "Oh crap!"

Slowly but surely I am redeeming myself. Since my sister-in-law, Becky, had asked me to email her some movie suggestions (she was tired of Scotty picking all the movies on netflix) I decided to start a little link to the right that shows my top 5 picks as of late.

I promise to leave all of the "Cliffords" off the list!

Green Meadows

This last week we went to Green Meadows farm. At this farm kids were able to learn about and milk cows. Lauren wasn't reluctant at all about helping to milk the cows. Her Grandpa would be so proud. Rachel would put her hand on the cow and then pull it away.

You could also feed goats and sheep. Lauren had a blast with this one. I didn't dare let Rachel try it.
But she did get to walk among the goats. One of them was really friendly and came right up to her.

They also had a place with calves. We went in there and one of them came right up to Rachel and started licking her face. I wasn't able to get a picture, but my friend did and I'll see if I can post a picture of it.

They had all different animals, hay rides, a show with a pig race. My friend, Krystal, was giggling a little bit. See, she is from Idaho and kept thinking how a place like this wouldn't make any money out there.

Here we are at the pig race.

And on the hay ride.

We also got to pick pumpkins before we left.

It was a lot of fun and my girls went home exhausted. I feel like a good mom on days when we go out and do something that is just for them. I like those days.

Karaoke

Here is the video I tried to download earlier that goes to the reunion post, but it wasn't working. Enjoy.


The next day we got a few compliments from campers as we were packing up. Guess we made it pretty memorable. Hmm, 2 girls singing Summer Nights from Grease. Too bad we didn't get all the harmonies in. That was my bad.

Rachel, Rachel

Rachel took her first steps at my family reunion in August. It was more like she was falling into my arms than stepping, but I'll still count them. It took her a good month before she used walking as her main source of transportation. She started walking one Sunday and has been doing it ever since. In this video I was trying to capture 2 things: 1. her stance - very wide. 2. her dancing, it was a little hard to capture that, but I'll keep trying. She wiggles when she dances, I think its the cutest thing ever. I love it when babies start walking they look like little drunkards. Life has been marvelous since she started walking, I can just get her out of the car and she can walk into the house. I LOVE IT!!!

Some new stuff that she's doing is folding her arms for prayer. During church, after the song she'll fold her arms, whether its prayer time or not. She learned to say "no." This is not the greatest thing, especially because she yells it. She loves to put on shoes.

Rachel is the snuggeliest little girl. She is so quick to climb up on you and snuggle her head down on your shoulder. Best of all, Rachel is a Daddy's girl. When Trav walks in the door, she goes right over and says, "Daddy, Daddy!" The other day I was bringing Rachel down the stairs from her nap, as we were coming down she cranes her head around to look for someone. Lauren had just gone to a friend's house so I asked her, "Are you looking for Sissy?" She said, "Daddy." This girls loves him so much. Trav was gone when Lauren was this age, so this type of stuff melts my heart. I love this little girl, and I thank God daily that we are blessed to have her in our lives.

Laurenisms

Lauren's been pretty funny lately and here are a few stories.

Lauren decided that she really wants a baby brother. She has started praying that her "baby brother will come down." The other day she was out on the deck and jumped up and down and said, "Mommy, mommy come here!" She pointed up in the sky at a plane and said excitedly, "A shuttle, a shuttle, my brother's coming, my brother's coming!"

Trav has been going into work really early in the morning for the last week. The other day Lauren crawled into bed. It was still dark outside and she said, "Where's Daddy?" I told her that Daddy had gone to work. She said, "I didn't know that Daddy works at night."

Last story happened this morning. We had a little disagreement on what to wear. I told Lauren that she needed to wear a button up shirt because it looked dressier for church. She finally conceeded. Then she informed me that she wanted to do her hair. I asked her what she wanted to do and she put her hand on her chest and said, "I have to wait for my heart to tell me." A second later she went and got some pony tail holders. They were orange and red, or rainbow ponies (different colored pony tail holders). I told her that she needed to have blue ones to match her shirt. I explained that we try and do our hair extra pretty for Sundays. She said, "I need to do what Heavenly Father told me to do."

I asked her, "What did Heavenly Father tell you to do?"

"To do Rainbow ponies."

Who can deny that.

Trav's Family Reunion

For Trav's family reunion we went to Canon Beach for 4 days and 3 nights. It was so much fun. Anyone who knows me, knows I'm not much of a camping person. I always say that growing up our idea of camping was Super8. Its hard to get me there, but once I'm there I love it. My favorite thing about camping is... not showering. You may say gross, I say "Ahh, sweet freedom!"
So here's a rundown of our trip. The first night we got into Canon beach Trav and I were assigned dinner. I love to cook, but I have no idea how to cook outdoors. So, we have brawts, hot dogs, chips and then I made a pretzel jello salad. I know what you're thinking, "She's Mormon, of course there is a jello salad." I tell you jello salad doesn't have cabbage or mayo - it has sweet goodness. I've only met one crazy person who doesn't like it, I'm talking to you, Brian. Anyway, it has jello, raspberries, cream cheese, cool whip, and sugar with a crunchy pretzel crust. What more could you ask for. It was a big hit.

Oh, my other favorite thing about camping is marshmallows. I love marshmallows. I love roasting them. Many times I get impatient roasting them and will burn it so that I can eat it. I know, I know, carcinogens.

The next day we had family pictures on the beach. It was a beautiful day, a little chilly, but the pictures turned out great. Afterwards a group of us stayed and looked at the tide pools and walked around down town Astoria. It was really fun. I love seeing Lauren having fun. I asked her about 15 times a day if she was having fun, it was always an adament, "Yes!" in reply.

The next day the boys went deep sea fishing and the girls went back to the beach. The day before Allison, Trav's sister, and I saw these bikes that looked like a lot of fun. We rented a couple of them. Best of all, they had one that was Lauren's size. She had a blast. It was a little tricky at first because you have to steer with your body, but she got the hang of it.

We set up a little drag racing strip and had some races. It was pretty fun. Melissa (pictured on the right) was riding and was about to win the race when the bike started swerving and she wrecked. Pretty funny, don't worry we all laughed, she was okay.

On our way to drop off the bikes, Lauren kept on pedaling with her eyes closed. I would look over and see this and yell at her, "Open your eyes." She would say, "But I'm tired." Meanwhile there are hundreds of people walking on the beach and my 4 year old is pedaling with her eyes closed - a dangerous combination.

While I was off riding with Lauren the rest of the group was watching Rachel. Thanks, guys! We had a blast at the beach. I think Rachel's favorite part was eating the sand.The beach tuckered her out pretty well, and my baby fell asleep on the way home.As for the boys and fishing. They were on the boat for 6 hours and brought home 2 salmon, which Daniel (our brother-in-law) caught. Beforethey left, they were all joking about who was going to lose their lunch first. Turns out Trav was the only one. He told me it was 6 hours of nausea accompanied by throwing up. I explained to him, that's how morning sickness is - constant nausea.

The next day we got up and went to the Portland Zoo. It was a lot of fun walking around and seeing all the animals. In one spot, we stopped to see the mandrills. We were standing by the glass at the top of the cage, the male was at the bottom and the female was up by us. All of a sudden the male comes up to the female, they start running around and chasing each other then the male climbs up on the females back and .... I screamed and covered Lauren's eyes. Trav just laughed. Lauren kept asking, "What was he doing?" I just kind of ignored her question and we kept going. Here are some fun pictures from the zoo.

Alli & Rachel

Alli, Daddy & Rachel with the birds

Lauren & the birds Trav would be sad if I didn't mention that I was holding a bird and it peed on me and I screamed. It was gross.

As we were getting ready to leave the zoo, Trav was swinging Rachel around and playing with her. There were some teenage Asian tourists. They were looking at Trav and taking pictures of him with their phone.

As we were getting ready to leave one of the kids came up to him with his camera and asked, "Are you (mumble.. can't hear what he's saying)?" Trav, not hearing what he asked said, "You want me to take your picture?" So the boy stands their awkwardly and then goes to his friend, they jabber in their language then strike a pose and left. Trav's sisters think that they thought he was someone famous and they wanted a picture with him. Trav says, "Well, I have been told I look like Sylar from Heroes." What do you think? Don't worry, Trav's not psychotic.

That night we found out that at the KOA they were doing Karaoke. I tried to upload a video, but it was taking too long so you just get a picture. Melissa and I sang a bit and the Me, Erin and Melissa did "I will survive." by Gloria Gaynor. It was a ton of fun.
We had a great vacation, and I can't wait to do it again. I love my in-laws and I have so much fun with each of them. Lauren & Rachel also had a blast getting to know their cousins. Can't wait for the next one.

Joining the Ranks

I'm number 6 of 7 kids. That means I only have one sister younger than me. I like to call her my little sister, but she gets peturbed when I call her that because she's only 2 years younger than me. Honestly, she's one of my best friends. I probably talk to her more than my husband on any given day. That's probably because Kim talks a lot and Trav doesn't talk very much. To show her how much I like her, I decided to have both my kids on her birthday. How thoughtful am I.

Anyway, Kim is breaking into the blogging world and her first post is hilarious. Any of you who have been to Ricks/BYU-Idaho and have seen the apartments she's talking about will die laughing. Anyway, please check out this post, you won't regret it!

Good luck, little Sis! I love you!

Glasses

We returned the other ones because once I looked at the pictures I didn't like them. We went to Lenscrafters and got these. I think she's adorable!

4 Eyes

I wear glasses/contacts. Although this picture isn't from high school and my glasses weren't as cool as these, this will give you a sense of one of my favorite stories of high school.

I was an exchange student to Mexico from 96-97. Originally I was suppose to graduate in 97, but because of the exchange I had to go back and do my senior of high school and graduate in 98. So its my senior year and its government class. Our teacher was helping out another class and so we had a substitute who was a kid that my brother Marcus graduated with, Brad. I guess I was suppose to call him Mr. Enzi, but I'd always known him as Brad since he was only 4 years older than me.

I usually wore contacts everyday, sometimes I would give my eyes a break and wear my glasses to school. This was one of those days. For government class, we spent the first 10 minutes of class reading the newspaper and then discussing different articles that we found. The desks were divided in half and facing each other.

So this day we were sitting there reading, and a girl across the room started talking loudly. This girl supposedly went to New York to be a model for a little while, which was a big thing from our small town in Wyoming. Needless to say she was kind of popular. We'll call her Angela - I honestly don't remember her name, anyway Angela started talking about a girl who sat on my side of the room and was absent that day, we'll call her Jill. Angela was bad mouthing Jill and talking about how big her boobs were and just saying unkind things.

I looked up through from my paper and decided to stick up for Jill. I piped up, "Hey, we don't need to talk about her - she isn't even here to defend herself."

Angela looked at me with a glare and said, "Go back to your reading, 4 eyes."

Good thing for her that I wore my glasses or else she wouldn't have had a comeback. 4 eyes, you've got to be kidding. Anyway the exchange went on for a little while and finally Brad stepped in. I later heard her commenting that she would have tried to fight me but she was afraid I would sit on her. I was chatting with Brad after class, he said he was kind of hoping that it would escalate. He thought I could have taken her. Which honestly - she was 5'2" and about 120. I had 5 inches on her and about 60 lbs. I definitely had the advantage.

This story comes up because... Lauren is getting glasses. She went in for her 4 year old check up back in July and failed the vision test. The nurse said they were sending us to an optometrist just as a precaution, many times its fine. Anyway, yesterday I had to drive to downtown Baltimore - I HATE DRIVING IN BALTIMORE!!!! - and do a check up. Lauren was so excited that she gets to get glasses. We went to Walmart and picked out some frames. We'll get to pick them up in one week.

I really loved another pair of glasses, but these were Lauren's absolute favorites and I still thought she looked cute. Your mama loves you, my little 4 eyes.

Long Absence

I’ve been receiving some guff for not posting for a long time. A few days after my last post we went on vacation for 3 weeks. We got back and I was getting everything organized, then Trav’s sister visited, and then my internet went out… for 11 days. If you’ve seen my addiction post, you’ll remember that I check my email about 15 times a day – not exaggerating. I’ve been going through serious withdrawals so I wanted to give a little explanation and let you know that I will be doing some blogging about our trip and recent activities. It will probably take a while to get all caught up. BEWARE. There will be lots of pictures. My blog is partly my journal. I won’t be offended if no one comments on those long posts, so don’t worry. But do enjoy the pictures. I’ve got some pretty dang cute kids.

New Jersey Stinks!

What a weekend!!! First of all, I have a wonderful friend Katie, who had offered months ago to watch our girls so that Trav and I could have a weekend in New York. Who could ask for better friends?

Thursday, after Trav got home from work, we loaded the car and got on the road to NYC. Afte we had been on the road for a few hours I was getting tired and told Trav I was going to lay down for just a little bit. I layed down and I awoke to red and blue lights flashing behind us. Trav pulled over and while we were waiting, I grilled him, "Were you speeding?" "No." "Are you sure?" "Yes."

The cop came up to the passenger window which I'm fumbling to roll down. We forgot that we had window lock on, and I was scared the cop was going to think we were trying to hide something. When I finally got the window down and gave him Trav's license and registration, he informed us the reason for pulling us over............

"Sir, you were using the left lane to travel." He then went back to the car and wrote us a ticket for "failure to keep right." Did you know you could get a ticket for that? Neither did I. The cop said that emergency vehicles use the left lane for traveling. The ticket didn't have an amount, I've checked online to see how much and its not showing it up. Needless to say, we're going to contest it.

Anyway, we arrived in New York fine. The next day we went to dinner and a show with Katie & Noah. We went to a little restaurant that was tucked underground. It was a Mexican restaurant, and I had great food that took me back to my days as an exchange student. My favorite part of my meal was the elote callejero - its a corn cob on a stick and they put cheese and chili powder on it. Yummm, my mouth is watering now just thinking about it. Afterwards we headed off and saw Spam-a-Lot.


I can't go to NYC without having a Subway adventure. As Trav and I got back on the metro, we got on the train that was going to take us to the ferry. Well, we thought it was. We go about 4 stops and the voice on the overhead says, "this is the last stop." Crap, we still have about 10 stops to go. We switch metro lines, wait for a train, go to another place and wait for another train. When all was said and done, we started on the metro at about 11:00 and we finally ended up at the ferry at 12:15. It should have only been a 1/2 hour on the metro.

The next morning we got up bright and early and went to the Manhattan temple. It was wonderful! It was a wonderful way to start the day. Afterwards we got lunch in Times Square and then headed to our matinee of "The 39 Steps." Its based off an Alfred Hitchcock movie. It was really funny! Its a 4 person play. 2 of the guys play about 20 different characters, sometimes 2 of them in the same scene. I found it to be very, very funny.

Finally, we ended our NYC Getaway with dinner at Bobby Flay's Bar Americain. As Flander's would say, "It was scrum-diddely-umptious!" I had very tender pork chops with apple chutney and creamed corn. It was so good. I love the "fine dining experience."

We made it home by 8 (with no mishaps on the subway) and I think I was asleep on the couch by 10.

On Sunday we drove over to Queens to see some of my friend's parents that are serving a mission there. It was wonderful to see them again after 6 years. We left Queens around 3:30 and it took us almost 5 hours to make a 3 1/2 hour trip home. The girl from Wyoming in me keeps forgetting about east coast traffic.

I had such a great time this weekend. Katie and Noah are the best hosts. It was so comforting to know that we could leave our kids with them and that our girls were having fun. Lauren had such a wonderful time with Calvin. She's had a handful of friends move away this summer, so as we were pulling away from Katie's house she asked, "Mommy, is Calvin moving?" I was very happy to tell her, "No. We'll move before he does." I guess that isn't much consolation.

It was also very nice to spend some time alone with my honey. He such a wonderful man. When I presented the New York idea to him, I told him that I wanted to go and watch lots of Broadway shows - and he was okay with that. I LOVE THIS MAN!

Rachel's Birthday

For those who don't know, my girls were born on the same day 3 years apart. No, we didn't plan that one. So from now on we will always get lots of cake over the 4th of July holiday. We did Lauren's birthday on the 5th, we had cake and ice cream for Rachel on the 6th, and then on the 7th (their actually birthday - and Aunt Kimmy's) we just opened presents from Trav and I. We'll see what we do next year. I think it will take a little bit of effort to make it a special day for both girls.

I did a Ducky cake for Lauren's first birthday. Someone had the idea to make it different for Rachel would be to make it a different color. Hence the purple ducky. Now the candle in the mouth has some explaining.

When Trav was home on leave from Iraq back in May '05, we did a birthday party for Lauren so that he could be part of it. Trav and his buddy Chris came up with the idea of putting the candle in the mouth. As we were getting ready to like Rachel's cake, Trav said, "Come on, its tradition!" Anyway, here is Rachel's 1st Birthday cake. She needed some help to blow out the candle.

Here are the birthday girls. Oh, I forgot to mention that we lobbed off the head and that was Rachel's cake.

After she was done eating, the frosting was all picked off the side that was facing her. And she had a little bit of cake too. She must be my daughter!

We had some wonderful friends over that brought Rachel some presents. We are so blessed to have such thoughtful people in our lives.

Peaches, peaches

We went peach picking yesterday at Baugher's you pick farm. The above picture is my attempt at being a photographer. I had this great idea to go out and pick a whole bunch of peaches, come home and start canning them. Little did I know, they weren't 100% ripe so know they have to sit in some brown paper bags for a few days to ripen up. To top it off, they are cling pit ones instead of free pit, which means its going to be kind of difficult to can (or bottle as Trav says). I'm hoping to make some peach freezer jam. The tough thing is that I only have 10 days to go till we leave for WA. Hurry up and get ripe!

The peach picking man

Lauren loved picking the little ones

Rachel just sat, watched us, and perspired.