Family!

So for Thanksgiving I came home with Riss to Manson! We were home for about a week and a half. Such a nice break from school!

Dad flew Santa into Manson!!

 Ryker wasn't so sure about Santa...

We were able to go shooting, of course. It was awesome! 

There is so much that goes on during Thanksgiving break.  Donut making, cider making, Turkey Bowl, shooting, and setting up for Christmas. I LOVE it! 

The semester ended well. Ste and I were able to make it up to Temple Square one night.  We were looking for the perfect spot to take a picture and ended up seeing Santa and Buddy the Elf.  We couldn't pass it up.  When we walked up Buddy was like, "Ohhh Santa, I can tell this isn't this couple's first date!"  Then we took this normal picture. 

Then Buddy said we needed to take one more! Then he picked up a stick that was laying right next to that orange bucket. That stick had a mistletoe at the end of it and he hung it over us.  That's why we took this next one for our mothers to enjoy.

I am now home and loving every minute with the little boys and Jensley. So much fun! Tomorrow is Christmas Eve and I am so incredibly excited or Christmas to finally be here! 

Fall 2012 so far

This semester has been completely different than I expected it to be but it has been wonderful and quite busy! Instead of going through every little thing that has gone on, I will sum it up in a list :)

-I went to the driving range for the first time. And LOVED it! And once I was able to make contact I wasn't too bad!
-Now when people ask if I am a gymnast I can say I'm not but I have done gymnastics. haha I am in a class and I love it! I did sprain my knee Wednesday but that should be good in a couple weeks so I can be back to doing stupid/super fun things on the equipment. My favorite is the uneven bars which was the one I got hurt on.
-Our girls volleyball team made it to the semi-finals. No t-shirt again. Hopefully dodgeball can do that for me!
-I have been spending a lot of time with Stewart and have been enjoying every minute.
-We were able to go to conference for a session thanks to KC!
-Mom, dad, Marissa, Lindsea, Hudson and Travis have all come to visit! Nick, Aaron and his family have yet to make an appearance. What the heck?! It was great to see everyone when they came!
-I have been able to meet two of Stewart's sisters and quite of few friends from his home. And I will most likely be meeting his parents for Thanksgiving when I go to California with him.
-We went to a bottomless pit on Friday and threw more burning things down. The road up there was a little scary. haha One car popped a tire and one got stuck. Our car was safe. Thank goodness!
-I have been able to go shooting down here quite a few times. I got a nice deal with a punch card so I have fifteen more times I can go on that :) so excited! I love being able to go shooting while down here
-My nieces and nephews are growing up way too fast. Parents of those children-slow that down maybe? Or post more pictures and videos :) Please
-My cooking skills seem even worse in this apartment because our oven is messed up. I have successfully ruined five different desserts/meals.
-We hiked the Y with a group of people at night which was a blast.
-We went to Stacey's birthday party. It was a redneck theme. It is a bad sign if every article of clothing I wore that night I wear on a regular basis?
-I will soon be going through a time where I will have to send many girl friends on missions. I heard that normally the church gets 600 applications for missions in a week and last week there were 7000. Now that I am done sending guy friends on missions I have to go through it with girls. So sad but at the same time I am incredibly happy for them and for all the guys who will be able to go sooner. BYU campus is going to look a lot different next year!

We took about 10 pictures and this is the only one he didn't erase. At least he looks good! haha

When Life Gets One Degree Colder

As I get further along in my major I realize more and more how much I love it and how excited I am about doing this for a career. I have had an incredibly stressful last couple days with classes, having to switch classes around and have to catch up on two weeks worth of work. Every Friday we have a class from 1-3:30. At first, I was not excited. I had to take that section so there was no question about changing it. We watched this video yesterday. I love it. I didn't watch when it was first broadcasted but I definitely think it is worth watching. I cried. Actually, I am pretty sure my entire class cried. It reminded me who I need to be in my profession and what all this stress is for. 

Banana Cake Recipe

This is for all of you who wanted to know what recipe I used on Junior's birthday cake.  I got the banana bar recipe off Pinterest from this blog: http://www.320sycamoreblog.com/2012/03/banana-bars-winner.html

I have made them before but not like I did this time.

The actual recipe is as follows...

Combine :

1 ½ cups sugar

1 cup sour cream or plain yogurt

½ cup butter or margarine, softened

2 eggs.

Add & stir until well mixed:

1 ½ cups mashed very ripe bananas (abt. 2 large)

2 tsp vanilla

Sift together and add to above mixture:

2 cups flour

1 tsp salt

1 tsp baking soda

Spread batter in greased and floured cookie sheet. Bake at 375° for 18-20 minutes or until light brown.

Cool, frost with glaze:

Melt ¼ cup butter or margarine in glass bowl or on stovetop in a pan.

Whisk in 2 cups powdered sugar

3 Tbs. milk

1 tsp vanilla

NOW, I did not use this glaze for the cake. As I said before, Jun wanted a cream cheese frosting.  I had called Chris and asked him what he thought I should do and he said I can't get store bought because it isn't very good. I wanted this cake to be delicious since I had no idea who or how many people were going to be eating it I went for the homemade. I have never made it before and my mom told me that she doesn't like to make it because sometimes it doesn't turn out. Well, I got enough ingredients to make two batches, just in case the first one didn't work.

So, I made two cookie sheets (double recipe, but I made them at different times) and cut them in half. I stacked all four pieces on top of each other and put a little of the cream cheese frosting between each layer...

·         4 ounces unsalted butter, softened

·         4 ounces cream cheese, softened

·         2 cups powdered sugar

·         1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Directions

In a large bowl, beat together the butter and cream cheese with an electric mixer. With the mixer on low speed, add the powdered sugar a cup at a time until smooth and creamy. Beat in the vanilla extract

  I got it off of allrecipes or something like that. It is a little thinner than I expected, maybe I didn't put enough sugar? But it seemed to do just fine because people loved it. I topped it with walnuts and enjoyed the delicious taste of my own masterpiece :) 

Bronte told me her taste buds were in love, so it must be good.

Lake, helicopter, games and cake

I just realized it had been forever since I updated this thing.  My summer was just too fun to sit down and write a blog post! With that, I LOVED my summer. Having two nephews there to play with whenever and having a niece and nephew born while I was home- I was spoiled. I will do a quick update about my wonderful summer.

This was the first picture I took while at home. Man or man was I happy to wake up to this. Even if it was 6 am.

So, like I said, I was spoiled with how much time I got to spend with family. I haven't had that much family home and been able to spend that much time with them for so so so long!

We went swimming a lot. Rock learned how to swim without his muscles. Such a little swimmer! These other two loved the water too. It was so cute watching Ryker doing what all the kids were doing during their swim lessons. Ah! I miss them!

Fourth of July- on our way down to the fireworks, in the clown car.

Huntin some rhubarb for pie! Speaking of pie- Riss, you should make some while you are here.

I just have to smile and laugh at how adorable these two are.

If you ever want to meet some cute firefighters, have your adorable nephews ask if they can get on the truck. Warning: it will most likely make them 100 times more good looking.

Having these boys sleep over was always interesting.. haha

Baby Hudson! Even though he came later than I would have liked him to come and I only got to be around him for fourish weeks, I still love and miss this little guy! Even though he might pass me up in height by the age of 5.

Mom took a group of us to see Les Mis. I love this play. I would watch it over and over and over again. Thanks again mom!!

I was able to spend some lake time with friends. Even though I thought I was going to die while tubing (but really, doesn't everyone feel that way about tubing??) I still have an amazing time!

We were able to go to three Mariner games, one being where they honored Felix Hernandez. It was awesome.

Marci got married. I don't have a picture with her at the wedding yet, but hopefully it will get posted soon! :) She was beautiful. Chris was handsome. The reception was gorgeous. The food was delicious. 

And they are so stinkin cute together! I couldn't be more happy for the two of them!

We went to the Oregon coast. It as such a wonderful break! Also, I fell in love with the coconut macaroons. Never in my life have I wanted to order some and get them delivered to me in a different state. Oh, and I don't have pictures of Oregon... Mom? Dad? Anyone?!?

We went to the rodeo. The boys put on quite a show, of course!

Dad made sure that we were able to ride in the helicopter as much as we wanted. Well, if I got to ride in it as much as I wanted he would have had to get two 100 hour check ups during the summer instead of just one. 

I did not want to leave home this summer. I was totally spoiled! Before I headed out Aunt Alice taught Riss and I how to make donuts. They were delicious of course. Even though Alice broke the news to us that they weren't the best she has ever had... We will have to practice haha

This was on my way back to Utah. I love my town and miss it so much!

Don't mind the bugs on my windshield. :)

Last night was Junior's birthday. He told me he wanted a banana cream cheese cake. I was so confused and didn't know how to go about doing that because I thought he meant fresh bananas. All that came to mind was trying to recreate the cakes that Chayo gets for birthdays and just put banana instead of strawberries. I knew I would NEVER ever be able to make it that good. Jun let me know he wanted something like banana bread. Thank goodness! So I made to pans of banana bars, cut them in half and stacked them all on top of each other. Between each layer I put a little of the cream cheese frosting. Once it got time to top it off with the frosting... I realized it looked more like icing. Bronte pointed out how this picture would be perfect for the "nailed it" pictures off pinterest. haha And it looked bad. Once we got the walnuts on it that Jun wanted and added the candles, it looked pretty delicious! I had five girls ask if it was a pinterest recipe. You can imagine how proud of myself I was when I told them it was (kind of) my own creation. It may be lopsided but it was delicious! I even had a random guy come up to me and tell me that he was in love with me because the cake was so incredible. I think I succeeded when I told mom earlier yesterday that I wanted to impress everyone with my baking skills. And there weren't any hairs in it! At least no one told me they got one... That is definitely a success!!  Jun's nephew went to the party. He is two and reminded me so much of Ryker and Rock. From jumping around with balloons, to kicking me, to blowing raspberries on me, to wrapping his arms around my neck to wanting more watermelon. I miss my nephews and niece!