One for the Mama

This is one of my mom's favorite songs from all the Christmas specials.
Enjoy!

Mid Week....

I am so excited for Christmas.
This is a GREAT week. I have a new nephew born yesterday... 9.6lbs! And Nell and Jay are out of school!
So to celebrate mid week Christmas eve; Nell and Chris, Jay and Sarah and Dean all came to Layton and we had dinner at our house.
I made roast, shredded BBQ chicken, mashed potatoes, carrots, Rhodes rolls, and salad.
I think it was tasty but it was totally fun!!!!

Happy (late) Thanksgiving

An amazing deal...

I was so bitter when I looked at my Smith's ad with a great sale on chicken $1.79/lb only to discover it was last week's circular. (argh)
I was resolved not to have chicken this week either until I found a better deal than $2.29/lb.
Whilst shopping at Smith's I was in the meat section looking at a roast when out of the corner of my eye I see Boneless Skinless Chicken Breast with an orange sticker on them meaning it was on sale.
When I looked to see how much it was....... $1.19/lb. It was the left over chicken from the previous' week sale. It was getting to be needing to be eaten or frozen. I bought $30 worth and froze them all. I ended up with 32 beautiful big chicken breasts....
So tonight for dinner would you like chicken or the chicken?

some good things in my life...

Well there have been some yucky things happening in my life as of late. I would like to be a "Pollyanna" and focus on some things that are making my life a little nicer.

1. The Hourglass Door. I was at Barnes and Noble (one of Kyle and mine's FAVORITE hangouts) when the author comes in to sign books and to promote the last book of the series. I'm a little shy because truly deeply in my heart I would love to be an author and have my book in a library that there is a queue for checkout. anyway... She is very nice and tells me a little about her book and hands me the 1st book in the series and I ask if it's okay if I take to read a bit. She says yes, So I find a chair and I start. Next thing I know it's 1 1/2 hrs later the book signing is over and I really like the book. I was very sad that I didn't get to tell Lisa how much I enjoyed her work. So I did the next best thing. I went to the library web site and requested it. I'm number 17 in the queue.

Today after work Kyle and I went to Barnes and Noble and while he is browsing I head straight for the book and pick up where I left off. As I'm reading my dear, sweet, wonderful and thoughtful husband buys an autographed copy of the book for me so now I don't have to wait for my turn.

2. The cookie scoop. I was making cookies the other night for pot-luck at work and man... the cookie scoop saved so much time and mess. I made chocolate cake batter cookies with toffee crumbs on top. Very tasty...
3. My job...

4. You.

"Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - Part 2" Trailer 2

It was great. I lost count after 1o tissues....

stuff i've been doing lately...

Baby shower cake for a friend. It is red velvet with Bavarian cream filling. The stroller is a twinkie. It was really REALLY tasty.





Spencer's birthday Buzz Lightyear cake.

pretty stuff.

I'm so excited that my tulips are in full bloom! I have Queen of the Night... the dark purple/black ones... A pink one that is more peachy on the inside.



This is the long side shot of the walk up to the house.

I LOVE my peony tulips. They are a stripped pink and white with lots of petals like unto a peony rose.
I love spring now that it's finally here!

flowers, helicopter and gym

I'm so happy that my flowers are blooming. All the daffodils are smiling at us. I love them so much. Thanks mom.




Kyle's birthday was last month and got a new helicopter. He's having so much fun reading the directions. It just came today. I love the look on his face!



And for me... I've been saving some craft money and found a gym that was $49 to enroll and only $10 a month. I'm very excited to have a gym. I like the equipment and they have a cardio cinema. It's a dark room with treadmills, elliptical and bikes that has an almost movie theater sized screen and you watch a movie.
We feel blessed.

Flowers in Bloom... and weeds.

I have been noticing the weeds are starting to take over so I thought I would nip it before it really started. While I was weeding I noticed that my bulbs are really active. I'm very excited.


You can barely see them but these are peony tulips.

I am very pleased. All of my bulbs are out. And one lone daffodil is already boomed.



I didn't even know that I had crocus. They didn't bloom last year.

I love spring!

Stake Relief Society Day.

I was schnookered. A couple of months ago a sign up sheet goes through primary for Stake Relief Society Day. I see nobody signed up for food so I put my name down and number thinking.... I can totally make a batch of cookies or brownies.

I was wrong. I signed up for the food committee. I go to the first meeting and wow.... I have never been to a stake organizing meeting before. If you've ever seen a bump on a log... you have a good idea what I did. I felt lost and out of place. But I was sitting next to my back yard neighbor whom I LOVE!
She volunteers to make some cakes for the dessert. I lean over to her and say if you need help let me know. Now my neighbor teaches cake decorating at the craft store here and is super talented. She told me she might need some freezer space for the cakes. I say no problem.

Tues. night she calls and says she's swamped and doesn't have time to make a cake and can I do it. I say yes. Then she asks if I have time to make two cakes. I say sure. I'm thinking a simple sheet cake because it's me... and she'll cut some slack for me. But no. She brings over 4 that's right FOUR cake mixes and tells me that I need to make them in a cookie or jelly roll pan. Two cake mixes per cake. Then ice them any way I would like.
Wed. I baby sat Dean and didn't make the cakes because I thought I can just make the cakes on Thursday. I get home at 5pm lots of time to make 4 mixes and I can put them all together on Friday when I get home at 5pm.
Thursday morning I remember that I'm working a double... 7am-1030pm. YIPES! But I had to at least start the cakes. So I make 2 cakes yesterday but here's the thing..... they are super thin. I don't think 2 cakes stacked will look nice for feed enough people.
My neighbor also gave me a lemon ricotta filling for the cakes. So with lemon theme in mind I brain storm and decide to make 2 more cakes... lemon and put them in the middle. So it's 3 layered... white, lemon, white. I only had enough filling for 1 cake and the other cake I made a lemon custard and make the butter cream icing flavored lightly lemon.



So to make a long story short... here they are.

It's almost Spring!

I'm so excited that my bulbs are starting to sprout. I was a little worried because we've had 3 or 4 inches of snow but they seem to be okay.


This is my first tulip sprouting.

I have lots of daffodils coming up. I'm so so excited. It's almost SPRING!

Rude awakening....

So this morning I woke up, looked at the clock and it was 5:24. UGH! I woke up 1 minute before the alarm went off. So instead of the alarm blaring and waking up Kyle, I get up. Turn it off and start to get ready for work.
While I'm in the shower I think it's weird that my little alarm didn't go off. However I have a history of turning off the little alarm in my sleep, thus the big, blaring, boisterous alarm to tell me it's time to get up NOW.
I took a little extra time in the shower and when I come back and start getting dressed the time is now5:40.
I'm all dressed and and Kyle is getting up to shower and I look at the clock and suddenly is 2:43am!
Whhhhaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat??????!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I don't understand! I get my little alarm and it's 2:40am. I tell Kyle to get back into bed, it's not time to get up. I go to the living room and the clock says 2:45. The kitchen stove clock tells me the same.
I take out my contacts, get back into my jammies, reset the alarm and go back to bed. But now I'm worried that I won't wake up.
But I did. Kyle went to get ready and I crashed very hard for about 30 min. When I did wake up it was 5:55. We need to leave in 5 min. At least I was showered.
It's been a long day. I'm ready for a very long sleep tonight.

blown vein and 3-D

I love to donate platelets. It's something my sisters got me into. It's a great way to serve and they give you snacks and you get to watch a movie.
I have not been able to donate for a while because of low iron and sickness.
Well I had an appointment today and in anticipation for it I have been eating a lot of red meat, spinach and almonds. Well I checked in and my iron was 38% (woot! just barely).
So I get all comfy with my water and snack, start my movie and get stuck. The first return.... kinda stings. Then there's the bitter metal taste, but wow! that really stings. The sticker asks me, "How does that feel?"
"Well it stings and kinda burns." Poke, poke. Feel, feel.
The sticker says that my vein was probably nicked on the other side and the saline is leaking into my arm and that's what is stinging. Sorry about that. He takes out the needle and says see you in 8 weeks. :(
So Kyle picks me up and we go to the dollar movie. We watched "Despicable Me" in 3D. It was totally fun and it worked. I liked the movie more than I thought I would.
But my arm still kinda hurts.

The Tie!!!

So... I saw Quantum of Solace about 2 years ago when it first came out. It is a great action movie with lots of cool car chases, who is the double ought spy and of course Daniel Craig. But the thing that I really could remember was how much I LOVED HIS TIE!
I just got the movie in the mail today from Netflix and enjoyed the movie very much. There was so much I couldn't remember but I was so excited to see the tie again.
I called Kyle to see the tie and he said, "Yeah, it's a full Windsor knot." I said, "NO... look at the tie. Isn't beautiful. It's a platinum sheen with a black diamond pattern."
Isn't the tie so pretty.
But the full Windsor knot intrigued me. I don't know a lot about tying a tie, so I looked it up and now I know how to tie a full Windsor knot. It does make the tie look prettier.
I may have to tie it for Kyle from now on...