And The Knitting Continues...

Here are two more hats that I knitted over Christmas for my new little niece!

This one is soo soft and I love the white. I am working on some matching booties.



This is my favorite because it is so fun looking and was actually fun knitting it as well.

My New Niece!!

My sister had a little girl today!! We are soo excited that she is finally here and that she is a girl!! She is 7lbs 1 oz and is 20.5 inches long. She is such a mellow baby and hardly has cried today so she will be a perfect baby to take to law classes!! Breck and Spencer now get the big job of naming this precious baby!!

Coolest Christmas Card/Gift

At work we received this cute box of chocolates with the companies employees and logo stamped in the chocolate. I thought was really cool and creative!! Too bad it didn't have some delicious caramel or nuts in that chocolate!

Fleming's Steak House

I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE going to Fleming's for some delicious steak. Unfortunately it is quite a bit out of our eating out budget to go anywhere near a regular basis. I should learn to cook steak better so I can enjoy it at home but that would also entail me actually forking over the money to buy a nice piece of meat to start with! Although I have been looking into purchasing a share of a grass fed cow which will provide a good starting point!

Anyways, Jesse and I were able to hit up Fleming's twice in the past two months due to some amazing 50% off coupons that we got of KSL Deals. Then I was able to score a $25 gift card to Fleming's from Staples for ordering over $100 in Office Supplies, one of the perks of ordering office supplies! So we went and shared a delicious Porcini encrusted Filet with asparagras, scalloped potatoes, mac & cheese and a chocolate lava cake with the most divine shantilly whipped cream!!



Then I did a review online after our first trip and got another $25 off our next visit and got $40 in gift cards from credit card points so Jesse and I could each get our our steaks and an appetizer. The first time we only had to pay the tip and the last one we went over about $10. Overall we spent less than $50 for four meals at Fleming's a pretty sweet deal if you ask me!!

Year Long Project

I finally got this car seat cover/blanket finished, it has only taken me a year!! I really struggled with staying focused on this project, not really sure why since I was to the point of needing to put the blanket together and inserting the elastic so I had the hard parts already done. It took realizing that it was the ward Christmas Service Auction that it had been almost a year since I was asked to make another one!! How embarrassing! At least it is done and the lady has lots of grandkids being born!



I ran out of the fuzzy minky so I went with the minky dot for the blanket which is probably easier to keep clean that way! Who knows I guess I will have to ask the mom that will use it what she thinks! :)

Baby Shower

(the guest of honor doing a little work)


The baby shower is over and done, what a relief!!! It went great, everything tasted good, the decorations ended up cute and the cake even turned out!! The shower was during lunch so we served these delicious appetizers:


Then I made with the help of my SIL the Market Street Grill Clam Chowder (Seriously the best clam chowder there is!) and a knock off Jason's Deli Broccoli Cheese (Not the best due to my overuse of broccoli!) in some bread bowls of course!!



You can't have a winter party without some delicious Cider either:



My mom and I spent weeks trying to figure out the color scheme, how to fit 23 people in her house and where to put everything. The day before we finally found something that wasn't the typical baby colors (since Breckan hates anything cutsie baby)but still kind of like a baby shower! Expedex is definitely the place to go when you need to decorate for a party, not party land, target, or any of those other party places!!



Now for the cake!! I found a cake on this great blog that has these "Make a Cake Series". I decided I would make a scaled down version of the cake since it was 1:00 am while we were cutting out the onesies and I had about enough!! I made my own fondant and colored it, rolled it out and made some onesies, quilt squares and these really cute booties for the top of the cake. On the side of the cake it was supposed to be a clothesline of onesies, bibs and quilt squares but I scratched that and just made onesies to top my mom's cupcakes she was making. Here is the final product!!





The brown spot is chocolate frosting that was used to stick that one random onesie on there and then decided to remove it!

Shutterfly is Soo Great

Shutterfly is doing a special where you get a $25 gift certificate if you share one of your projects with your friends. Here is the card I picked for this years Christmas card hopefully my sister can take our pictures next week so I can get them out before Christmas!

With Love Chartreuse Christmas Card

Shop Shutterfly for elegant custom Christmas photo cards.

View the entire collection of cards.

Knitting Adventures Lately

As Breck is getting closer to her due date I have been pulling out some of my crafting skills to get some cute stuff out for the future Hum Baby. I started with sewing a pair of the really cute booties and then was going to do some Kimono PJ's but the booties have given me a lot of grief so I have put them aside to get some knitting in. Luckily I have a nice stash of soft yarn to choose from to make some cute stuff. I haven't knitted in a very long time and have several projects that are half finished sitting in my drawers longing to be completed, probably won't happen for a few more years but at least I have looked at them. What I love about knitting is it is really easy to do, the instructions are soo straight forward and I don't need lots of pictures to reasure me that I am doing something correctly. Unlike sewing where step-by-step visual instructions are almost mandatory or I freak out and stop what I am doing. I whipped up a pair of grey booties and a lovely tan hat that Hum Baby can wear on his/her little self right away. I will have a few pictures of those later when I get around to it.

I have this great knitting book that shows you how to make all different fun decorative stitches. I was browsing through it and was trying to come up with my next project that I could use some of them and luckily a friend was having a baby shower. I made this cute little pom pom hat with a diamond pattern which was way more fun to make than the plain stitch that the pattern suggested.

Shutterfly Holiday Cards

Shutterly is doing a promotional deal where if you write a blog post about thier holiday cards you can get 50 free cards. This is a pretty sweet deal and they make nice Christmas cards. We have used them for our Christmas cards for the past 3 years and have loved each one. For those uncrafty, creative challenged Shutterfly has a ton of different formats to choose from that you can just drop your pictures in. They print and ship your order quickly and the quality is great. They also have cards for every occasion, you can make a calandar or even a photo book. They also will mail the cards for you so it elimates that tedious stage of handwriting out the envelopes and making it to the Post Office in time!

This year I am thinking of using this Holiday card this year.


I like the ones that you can put lots of pictures in since I really like to look at pictures rather than read stuff!! I am excited to see all your Christmas cards this year!!

Surgery Pictures

After my recent laproscopic surgery the doctor took pictures which I of course love to look at. So here they are for your viewing pleasure!!

Before the surgery:



After the surgery:

My Creative Streak

I decided to make my sister's baby shower invitations and after a few days contemplating it I came up with these. With the help of Jesse and my sister-in-law of course!!



Now I am onto making a quilt, sewing some booties and Kimono PJs, knitting a few hats and booties for the soon to be here Hum Baby!! I can't wait!!

Celina & Adams Wedding

The 5th of this month Celina my great friend got married to a wonderful fun guy. I have been friends with Celina from the time that I moved to Utah which doesn't seem all that long ago but now counting back it was a whopping 8 years!! Wow how time flies when you have too much fun. I have to contribute many years of good memories, laughter and lessons learned with Celina at my side. We met when we lived at Belmont and we were the youngin's, well she was a baby and I was a youngin', as we inflitrated the "old" crowd. We loved living across from each other so we moved to The Avenues the next year next door to one another. Our two apartments became best friends and most of us still are very close to this day. Celina loves to meddle and create a little drama in everyones life (said with love!!) and so does Kristen (again said with love!!) who were roommates and so we were led on many of fun adventures. A few examples 1) We prank called this one guy asking for Sam Temple but it wasn't one time and one person no I believe it turned into at least 20 people that called this "Sam Temple" with varying stories of how they knew him and how they got his number for at least a week or two 2) One of the roommies got a job at LDS Mingle and was able to get all of us free accounts. Of course that turned into two apartments all with laptops chatting with the same boys playing mind games and such. We even decided to create the "perfect" girl. She was a young school teacher that was half ethnic, her goals in life were to get married have children and serve her husband, she loved animals, long walks in the park and did service in her free time. We even had a line on our answering machine for her. Oh the boys that flocked, it was really funny (now I suppose a bit cruel for the boys)but that kept us going for months!! We even shared a twin bed that was at least 3 feet in the air that you had to climb on a box then the desk to the bed (yes it was my bed) for several months until we remembered the upstairs bedroom was empty and had a full size bed!! She has pushed me outside of my comfort zone more times than I wanted to but am grateful she did, she has been there for the bad and ugly and the good and pretty times. We did a "Summer of Fun" and planned a gazillion great activities so we wouldn't be bored, the summer I met Jesse as well. Anyways, I love Celina to death and was soo happy for her and being able to see her in the temple and getting sealed to the man she loved was a great day. It is always great to see one of your close friends on one of thier happiest days. So congrats Celina and I am excited for you to get home from your honeymoon so we can play again!!

This is What we Usually are Doing When Together


The Great Photo Booth


The Group of Girls


Outside the Provo Temple Looking Our Best



Thanks Sarah for taking all the pic's I would've been pictureless without you!!!

Panama Trip So Far

We have arrived!!! It was a decent flight, bad food and entertainment, but not a horrible flight. It is humid her for sure!! We were picked up by a driver who was very friendly and gave us lots of information about the city and the history. He dropped us off at our hotel which I thought was a nice little bed and breakfast but ended up being a John's house for the single guys!! There is a girl that cooks and cleans there and she was wonderful and took us around to get our cell phone chip and minutes and shopping. She told us all about the prostitutes her boss brings in for people and his guide to the sleezy places in town. Our room had two naked ladies on the walls, my mom and I were dying of laughter!!

The next day we went to the bus station to go down to the beach where we are staying the rest of the time. The bus is four seats wide, air conditioned, I think a suped up muffler and a dubbed over american film and we were all packed in there for an hour in the dark. The resort management company met us at the market and took us to our house. We were soo exhausted that night and all we wanted to do is fall on the floor and sleep!!! The next day we lounged around and checked out the beach.



We walked to the next town via the beach and found a baby starfish that was soo little. Lots of shells and sand dollars were everywhere on the beach. The ocean was pretty and green-blue. We are having a great time and enjoying all the relaxation.

Little Orphan Child

My neice came home with me to play for a little bit with the neighbor kids. She loves, loves, loves playing in the dirt and since I am the aunt I like let her do what she likes best becuase a happy neice is a happy aunt!! In about an hour the kids all had ditched their toys and moved onto more fun things like dirt!! This is what she looked like when they were all done!!

Yes I did send her home that dirty and with a little candy in her tummy as well!!

My Boots Arrived!!

I got these online at Piperlime with them being on sale and then with the Gap Friends and Family 30% off coupon I was able to buy my first pair of Frye boots at a lovely 56% off!!! Thanks Sarah for being a Gap employee!! They were sitting on my porch, earlier than expected but a great treat as they were my birthday present to myself!! I am excited to wear them somewhere so I am going to have to figure out where they will be debueted!!

The Big 3-0!!

That's right it is my birthday and I am 30. It has been a great birthday so far, Jesse took me to Mimi's for breakfast and then off to Target to get some more games. I love to play games so it was great to get some more and try them out.

I am not sure that I feel any different and it definately isn't one of the birthday's that make me feel old. so all in all a pretty good year and I hope that it has some fun times for me to enjoy!!

Anniversary

This year my friend Nicole called me up and she was all stoked becuase she had found a dude ranch that was equal distance between us that was in our price range and available for the weekend between our Anniversaries. So we made our reservations and planned out the riding festivities and off Jesse and I went!!



Weirdly, most people did not think a dude ranch would be all that fun but let me tell you it was loads of fun!!! We went trail riding, on a cattle drive, skeet shooting, fly fishing (Jesse and Kevin did), roping, hot tubbing, a little running, lounging and a lot of eating!!



We were in the middle of nowhere in Idaho so the view was amazing and soo very peaceful.

CrossFit is Da Bomb

I know I do start a lot of different exercise programs but I think I have found something that I will never get bored of and I see amazing results in a short amount of time which I LOVE. CrossFit is a high intensity workout where every workout is a new and hard!! I have gone from never being able to doing a pull-up to doing a pull-up, I am close to doing dips without any bands, I am back to lifting what I used to when I was back on the Equestrian Team where we had lifting coaches and I have my muscle tone back that I have been commiserating about since my Equestrian days. I have had a great time getting to know the other people at the gym and love getting to compete against some of the people that I am close to thier fitness level. The great thing is there are people of all ages and fitness levels that come and everyone does the same workout just modified for where you are out. It makes me feel good that I am doing the same thing as the super fit ironman competitor or the guys that look like they don't have an ounce of fat on thier bodies(just a bit slower!!) Oh and workouts on average are 20 minutes long how is that for not consuming my whole life!!! So if you want to know more just ask and I will talk your ear off or ask Jesse I think he is even more of a spokes person than I am.

There is a Light at the End of the Tunnel

Tax season is coming to a close and that means I will have a life back again!! No more tax obligations after work, no more having to work Saturdays and no more having to pass up all the fun stuff because I have to work!! I will be missing my co-workers and all the fun times that we do have even while do taxes!! Luckily I will get to see them all again when tax season rolls back around!!

No Sugar Please

Last month I decided to join my friend Amanda in eating no sugar for a month. So I was going to go all out and not eat any sugar what so ever but that would mean no fruit, dairy, salad dressings, etc. I did eliminate soda though which turned out to be easier than I thought. I have attempted this feat on numerous other occasions and have crashed and burned miserably after a few days. This time I don't know what was different, no soda even diet coke which I LOVE or that I saw the scale go down on a weekly basis, probably the latter. So at the end of the month I had lost 7 lbs and am back into my skinny jeans which I have been hemming and hawwing about getting rid of so they stop taunting me from my closet!! Now I wear them all the time and am loving it!!! I will be fitting in my old summer clothes as well and be busting out my size 4 dresses for the spring!!

After the month was over I treated myself with some pie, ice cream, whipped cream and a little diet soda and have decided that they don't really taste anywhere near what they do in my "head" so I am going back to no refined sugars ie desserts and sodas for the next month to try and get the last little bit of weight that I want to be off. Oh and the best part is I haven't worked out even a 1/16 of what I have been the past year and a half where I was beating my head against the wall with the weight gain or platuea and feeling exhausted all the time. Now I sleep in and bum around and all I have to do is not eat that sugary treat!! That is a trade off I can take!!