Epitome of Being a Mom

You know you're a mom when you get super excited to receive one of these for Christmas:

I even hugged it when I came downstairs on Christmas morning.

I've Had a Birthday, Shout Hooray!

This year I didn't have a birthday cake...I had birthday cupcakes! Lovingly made by me, myself, and I. Don't think that I was upset because I had to make my own cupcakes; the truth is that I wanted to. I have a cupcake cookbook and I am always looking for an excuse to use it. There are so many tasty sounding cupcakes and muffins in there but I settled on making Cookies and Cream cupcakes for my birthday. To quote Rachel Ray: "YUM-O!" With half an Oreo cookie on the bottom and big chunks of crushed cookie mingling among the cake and frosting this cupcake is a winner. In fact, all the cupcakes I have made from this little cookbook have turned out delicious.

Cookies and Cream cupcakes go perfectly with a nice glass of ice cold milk. Yummm.

Overall my birthday was a great day. Kara slept in AND took two half-hour naps (she rarely naps for longer than that) all before 2 o'clock, I got some beautiful roses from Trevor, we went to look for a new kitchen table (yippee!), and dinner at Texas Roadhouse was tasty even if the restaurant was really loud. I swear everyone in there was celebrating a birthday because the servers kept whooping and hawing the entire time we were there. That stupid birthday ye-hawing they do at Texas Roadhouse scared Kara to death. She's not one for loud noises and shouting. Thankfully, if I covered her ears in time the shouting was muffled enough that it didn't scare her. After dinner we went back to our place, I put Kara to bed, and we watched The Muppet Christmas Carol with the family. What a fantastic movie. And what a fantastic day.

The only semi-sad part of my day was when my father-in-law asked how old I was. For a split second I thought I turned 23 but I quickly realized it's more like 26. It was momentarily disappointing. That isn't old though so I got over it the next second. Each year has brought new and wonderful things into my life so I don't mind getting older. In fact, I sort of like it. We'll see if I feel the same as 30 creeps closer.

I Made Some Stuff

I made some decorations for Kara's room that I am rather proud of. It took me 4 1/2 months to do it but they are finally complete. I didn't start any of them until after Kara was born, which may be why it took me so long to finish everything. So much for the nesting instinct before she came.

I started with painting some wood letters to hang above her changing table. Totally cliché but I really like them. The K and the R are actually covered with scrap booking paper but I did come up with the design for the A's.

Ta Da:

Next I framed and painted Kara's feet imprint. Getting a good imprint of both her feet was quite the challenge.

Finally, I wanted to do something to put over her crib but I didn't want it to be too heavy (framed feet imprint) or too pointy (wood letters). So I settled on painting something. I am quite proud of these, probably because they took the most amount of time.

Voilà:

Oh, and I made this too. The pièce de résistance:
 
 
 
 
 

I came in after a nap and she had pulled all her stuffed toys around her and was playing with them. SO cute.

Thanksgiving

This is my funny story about Thanksgiving.

I am not a fan of pecan pie but this year I decided to make a chocolate toffee pecan tart for Thanksgiving. I found the recipe in the Food Network magazine I get. They had a couple "twists" on traditional pie recipes and I thought I'd give this one a try. I was a bit nervous to feed it to other people, in case in didn't turn out, but everything went perfectly (except for the screaming baby I had while I was making the tart and couldn't hold her). The crust is chocolate pastry and there's no molasses in the filling so I was excited to try it. Who wouldn't love chocolate and caramel-y filling together?

Here is it:

I think the presentation is quite lovely.

So here's the funny part. After dinner and right when we were about to have dessert I had to feed Kara. I asked Trevor to bring me a piece of my tart because I didn't want to miss out on trying my creation after all that hard work. He was very kind and agreed. Well...when he brought it into me there was no crust on the plate. I asked him what happened to the crust and he said that no one was eating the crust. Whoever pre-cut the tart didn't cut the crust. When Trevor tried to get a piece out all he could get was the filling. So I went downstairs and he was right; about 1/3 of the filling was gone from the pie and the crust was left behind. I tried to give everyone a hint and cut an entire piece out so they could see that there was, indeed, a crust that belonged to this tart. It didn't work. People just kept scooping out the filling. I mean, who only makes filling?? At the end of the night, after talking with a few people I concluded that they either thought A: the crust was the pan, or B: the crust was burnt to a crisp. Honestly, most people just thought it was burnt. I was a bit dismayed at this. Would I burn a crust so bad that it was black? No. And even worse, would I actually bring this burnt crust and try to feed it to everyone? NO WAY!

This is what's left of the tart after I told a few people that the "burnt" crust was actually a chocolate crust. But you can clearly see how people were just scooping out the filling. This is what I get for trying to do something unique. It is quite funny when I stop and think about it though.

I would say that I've learned my lesson and I'll make something everyone can recognize next time, but that's just not true. I like to try new recipes too much. It's fun for me. Next time I'll make a sign so people aren't confused...just in case :)

Halloween

My big accomplishment for October was making my mom's caramel recipe. This recipe is the real deal. It has sugar, sugar, and more sugar in it plus a whole bunch of butter and cream. Boil all that for 45 minutes or more, stirring the entire time, and when you reach the "soft-ball" stage you get the most delicious caramel I have ever had. I made caramel the last two years and neither of the recipes I used turned out as good as my mom's (the lack of a good candy thermometer may or may not have contributed to the problem). When I found the candy making book that contains the recipe she uses I decided to give it a try. After much difficulty trying to find a candy thermometer I finally had the tools to make the caramel. And guess what? It turned out fabulous! Smooth and creamy; not too soft nor too hard. Mmmm. I tried to pace myself, with some degree of difficulty, while eating them but ended having to give most of them away. Lets be honest here...I have little self control when it comes to sweets. But if it's not in my house I can't eat it!

We didn't go trick-or-treating this year, although I did briefly consider it until it started raining and hailing. If we were to go out I was planning on going with Grandma Bodily and uncle Brett to a few of the people in their neighborhood who know us. I mostly just wanted to show off Kara's adorable costume and not be judged for taking a child so young trick-or-treating. :) Thank goodness we had a family Halloween party where I could still show her off.

The cheesecake I made with a spider web decoration on top won the best dessert contest. Go me! We didn't win the best costume contest but I was still proud of our costumes. I was a Sunkist orange, Trevor was green grapes (his favorite fruit. It's astounding how many he can eat in one sitting), and Kara was a strawberry. Her costume looks like a fairy but if you look closely the suit is strawberry print. She was, by far, the cutest one there in my humble opinion.

Sadly, our pumpkins didn't win the pumpkin carving contest. There was good effort on our part though. Trevor's pumpkin is, well, barfing, mine is a blinged out bat, and Kara's pumpkin is bedazzled as well as carved. The gems are difficult to see in this picture but they're the same star shape as the carved parts.

Sometimes I do Things Just to Take Pictures

Kara and I visited a little pumpkin patch that is just down the street from our house this week with our new friend Camden and his mom, Casey. The pumpkin picking was saved for another time because I didn't want to attempt to carry Kara and three pumpkins. I thought about it though. Kara was quite captivated with 8 month old Camden. It's so cute how even little babies love to watch other babies.

All decked out in her Halloween onesie. $3 at WalMart. Thank you. :)

This is a corn kernel pit, rather than a sand pit. Cool, huh?

Oh, and did anyone notice the buried head in the background? Casey said it wasn't there last week. creepy

A few weeks ago Trevor and I went up Hobble Creek Canyon to look at the Fall colors. Another excuse of mine to take more pictures of Kara. :) I found this cute hat at Gymboree and I wanted her to wear it. Trevor says it is an abomination and that it makes her look French, I say it's adorable.

 notice how the hat came off after only a few pics?

 I don't so much like the way I look in this pic, but I love the face Kara is pulling.

We ran into a herd of cows going down the canyon. 

Favorite Time of Year

I know I blogged about this last year but I can't help myself because Autumn is, hands down, my favorite season. Don't get me wrong, I love summer but there's just something about this time of year.

Pumpkins

They are so pretty. If it wasn't weird to have them up all year I probably would.

Fall colors

Nothing can compare to east coast colors. Sorry, Utah, even the colors in the mountains aren't as pretty.

Halloween

It's one of my favorite holidays. I'm not really sure why. Maybe it's all the candy.

Apple cider doughnuts

People out here don't know these exist. They're so tasty, especially the ones from the pumpkin patch in Schoharie, NY. If someone from NY would kindly send me some I'd sure appreciate it :)



Bundling Up

I don't so much like the cold, but I love wrapping myself up in a blanket. And this year I have these to look forward to. Are they not the cutest things you've ever seen?

It is hard for me to explain the feeling I get when the nights have that crispness to them and I start to see butternut squash being sold in stores. I get the urge to put on a sweater, decorate, and bake an apple pie. My domestic side definitely comes out this time of year and I love it. I love, love, love Fall!

I Like Cheese

On arms...

On legs...



On feet...



And faces...



:)

All Growed Up

These are some of my most favorite ladies in the whole wide world. Leda and Shaliese are missing from the picture because they live out east but this post goes out to them too!

I met these wonderful women my freshman year at BYU seven years ago. Seven years! I can't believe it's been that long. I've been friends with some of the most loving, generous, and sincere people for seven years. How lucky am I?! As I think of what has happened over the years I realize a lot has changed since the day I met them in August 2003. Since we met, collectively, we have graduated from BYU, gone on missions, gotten married, started working in the real world, received master's degrees, had lots o' babies (all girls so far!), run half-marathons, lived in other countries, traveled the world, and moved far away from home and each other. But we have stuck together through it all.

These women are strong, motivated, loving, righteous, funny, caring, and beautiful. Who wouldn't want to be friends with them? I mean, they're the type of people who meet you at the airport with a homemade sign the day you fly into SLC to start college. Then they invite you to a movie and crepe making before school even starts. Were it not for them I'm sure I would be a totally different person today. I don't think it was chance that I was the 6th roommate.

Lets take a trip down memory lane:

Sleepovers at Kasia's. Memorizing names of her friends I don't know :). Roommate dinner. Life-size Brittany Spears. Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving plus a whole bunch of other people. Birthday celebrations. 222. Pride and Prejudice watch-a-thons. Brick Oven outings. First Friday. Late, late nights chatting. Silly crushes. Heartbreaks. Roommate Christmas. Halloween parties. 60's night. Chinese fisherman. Hitler. Dolomite. 

These women have shaped my life into something beautiful

Claire, Kasia, Leda, Shaliese, and Jeanette...you mean the world to me

and I love you!

Squishy

The many names and faces of my baby:
*Squishy
*Squish
*Squishy meatball
*Squishy lobster
*Squishy pumpkin
Does squishy look like a fake word to anyone else right now?
*Pincess (said Peencess)
*Sweetums
*Oh yeah, and Kara on occasion

I know I forgot a few and there will certainly be new ones and variations on some/all of the above in the future. She has a very creative Daddy :)

Her left arm always works its way out of the blanket. It makes me laugh every time I see it.

I walked in during nap time and this is how I found her. Silly girl.