Monday, April 20, 2009

Second Trimester: Feeling Better

Well, If you haven't figured out already, I'm Pregnant! (If you read between the lines I kept saying that I was feeling sick or tired) Ha! Well, I'm officially in my 2nd Trimester and everything is good so far. I'm due end of October and we'll find out what we are having in a month or so. I seemed to have a burst of energy and made Indian food for Pete's sister Penny and her family. She had a baby 2 months ago and I was feeling too tired to pull it together. I made chicken tikka masala, a vegetarian curry, rice, and naan. It turned out pretty good. I currently working on a project to put all of my favorite recipes in a word document. Right now they are all over the Internet and on scraps of paper.


On Saturday, I helped out with a wedding shower for my friend Jessica. I made a fruit tray and a veggie tray, chicken salad sandwiches, and sugar cookies. I wanted to make fruit topiaries with strawberries. I had a vision of doing a vegetable topiary as well, but I just didn't have time. Next time I would only do one, because it took 4 lbs of strawberries to fill the two half-way. ha!


On Sunday we had my parents, Pete's parents and my friend Melanie for dinner. My dad gave a fireside at our ward on the Joseph Smith leg surgery. Everyone kept saying how great it was. We took pictures after the fireside. I was able to capture this 'random combination' picture! ha! Al's son, William, my friend from Philly, Melanie, and Phillip.

Pete has been BUSY with his basement projects. Thursday he tore out all of the ceilings in the basement and any dry wall that needed to be removed. We were knee-deep in rubble and Pete and his parents worked like crazy and bagged all of the garbage. On Saturday, Pete got the jack-hammer to make room for some new drains. They also made about 10 trips to the dump!






Lily is busy as usual. She wanted to wear her cousin Gracie's baby back-pack. It was funny seeing her walk around the house wearing a baby almost as big as her. She now says, 'more' and 'please' in sign language. She can definately say, 'no' and 'dada' and doggie, (which sounds like 'dada').














Phillip has had some fun play-dates with his cousin Gracie. They entertain each other really well and we seem to get more done with the two kids together. I got all of my projects and cooking done. and Paige was able to crank out some papers and studying.

Wednesday, April 15, 2009

Happy Easter!




















We had a fun-filled Easter Weekend!

I got really motivated and went to a cake decorating store in Salt Lake, Orson Gygi. It is my new favorite store. They have EVERYTHING!! Al gave me good advice and said, remember how all of that cooking stuff looks at a garage sale. So I stuck with the basic sugars and icing dyes. Friday night I started getting a cold, but was DETERMINED to make my cookies. I really wanted to make nice looking sugar cookies. (*TIP*) I read online that it is easier to roll out the dough after you make it and store it in the fridge in layers of parchment or wax paper. The nice thing about this is your dough is ready to cut shapes anytime. So I made the dough Friday and thought I could bake them Saturday night.

Saturday we went garage sale shopping and we scored 3 christmas reindeer and some halloween decorations for about $14. We then headed down to Mapleton. We had a fun but quick easter egg hunt in the rain. (Picture of Pete and Phillip who found a spot in Mike's kitchen and sorting out the candy). We got to sing Happy Birthday to my Dad. I gave him a dozen eggs from our chickens which started a long discussion of the responsibilities that go along with keeping chickens. (Maybe I'll have to have a seperate chicken post).

We rushed home and got the babysitter because we had planned to go to the Temple with Pete's Family. We were able to seal Pete's grandma to her parents. It was really neat. We went to Texas Roadhouse afterwards. By this time, I was feeling REALLY sick, but I still wanted to make my cookies. I had Pete give the kids a bath. Lily came out all clean and in her jammies. She fell down and I forgot that I was holding a bag of royal icing and when I turned quickly, I dumped a pile of frosting on her head. Ga'ak!! I stayed up late trying to clean up my messes, and get the kids' easter eggs and prizes ready.

I went to the last bit of church and Lily got to show off her Easter dress ($3 Garage sale find from last year). I was feeling so exhausted that I didn't even go to my parents for Easter dinner. We ended up having smoothies and grilled cheese sandwiches for Easter dinner. Ha!

In all, the cookies turned out great. The frosting is just a royal icing that has a honey-like consistency. Pete likes the taste of my other glaze icing, so next time I'll make that Icing and make the royal icing if I want to add any detail. (*TIP*) Don't try and make sugar cookies when you are sick! ha!!!

Tuesday, April 07, 2009

It's Spring Time!

When is it Spring Time?

When you get your pre-ordered chicks at the feed store. (Two Plymoth Bards: Titchiba, and Goody, Two Leghorns: Tweetybird, and PuttyTat)


















When it's good enough weather to store a newly demo'd wall outside. Pete got going on our basement project during conference weekend.














People are having garage sales. I got this skirt from a combined charity garage sale. Lily really liked it!


















You have enough energy to help Phillip play 'Superman.' To Phillip, Superman, BatMan, and Spiderman are his favorite and are real.













You meet for a play date at the zoo with 12 kids. Eventhough half of them had meltdowns it felt good to be in the sun.












Anywho, that's a quick re-cap of our projects and activities.