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Saturday, March 28, 2009

Sam & Colten 3.25.09

My cousin Samantha got married on Wednesday, so we all packed up and went to american fork for the day. What have I been saying? EVRYONE I know is getting married! Have you noticed how much I've been posting pictures of them lately?

Anyway, onto the pictures. Instead of a sign in book, they did a sign in quilt. You write your well wishes on a piece of fabric with a fabric pen, and after the wedding my aunt is going to assemble it. Cute Idea I thought.


Here's Sam trying on her dress. I didn't get a good picture at the reception, so I borrowed this one from her facebook :) Gorgeous dress though. Allyse's Bridal 2009 line. Ahhh, love wedding dresses.


Of sourse, my favorite, the cake. i love all the different designs people come up with these days.


The Grandmas playing with Miles. Squishy little cheeks.


The Centerpieces


Flowers for the bride


Her shoes. I guess she was walking around barefoot the whole reception. I would too in those suckers. She was wearing them for the wedding though. When she came down the isle, they peeked out from under the dress.


Cute pictures and sign that were at the entrance of the reception room.


More pictures of my gorgeous cousin and her shoes.


the vintage wedding topper. I forgot to ask if it was the same one that was on her mom's cake. I'll find out.


As favors, they had a candy buffet. Such a cute Idea I've seen on lots of wedding blogs and magazines. It was yummy!


Couldn't help myself. I'm obsessed with wedding cakes!



I love weddings, but I sure am getting exhausted! This Friday was also another wedding. Josh King used to be our family's home teacher. He moved to Washingon last year to go back where he was born, and met his wife there. they had there reception in Riverton. Sadly, I was pooped from lots of cleaning plus spraying the whole back yard for weeds, so I didn't go. So no pictures from that one.

Have I satisfied all you wedding pictures cravings by now? I hope so! I don't know of any more friends or family getting married (yet) this year, so maybe I'll get a break. Or maybe mine will be next? Who knows?.......................

Single. Single? Yes, Single.



I just stumbled upon this wicked website that reads into my soul.

http://www.whymormongirlsstaysingle.com/

It's written by a male, but he seems to know the females of the church/world pretty well. I was laughing like crazy. You just have to read it. Go, I'll wait. Did you go?

Anyway, it made me reflect a bit on being single, 22 (23 in three weeks) and mormon. I'm cool living with cats and my dog when I'm 50 all by myself. Plus having how many weddings this year involving my friends (6?) Whatever. I've come to terms that it's a possiblity that's how my life might turn out. I'm not throwing up my hands and giving up, per se, but rather putting my life in God's hands and his time. I'm living a good life, doing what I'm supposed to, go to church and the temple regularly (I'm in primary, I haven't missed but once in the last 6 months!) Have a great family and awesome friends (Yes you guys reading this!!!), so I can't complain.

Just thought I'd let you know.

Sunday, March 22, 2009

Ah, the green-ness of it all

This weekend we planted plants, pulled weeds, played with dogs, and planted a tree. This is one of the bulbs out front. I think it has chicken pox.


This is the first bloom in my garden this season. Oddly enough the plant it grew from didn't have flowers last year. The bees are messing with my plants' DNA. Also this picture is my entry for The Creative Wall photo blog that you should all join!


This one is actually a weed. But a pretty weed. A pretty weed that was promptly killed after the shot.


About a week ago I planted some dahlia bulbs in a section of dirt that had no other plants in it. Fast forward to yesterday. I go outside and find this specimen. Wondering what the heck they could be seeing how I didn't plant anything else, I decided to pull them out.


Answer to the mystery? My mom and another one of ther practical jokes. Last year she put a full grown store bought radish in the ground where I had planted seeds a week before. She's an odd one :)


Me and my bountiful harvest. Actually, they were full of that powder candy. My mom saw them at All a Dollar with my sister Michelle, and they schemed in on it together.


Why so much green you ask? St. Patty's day!!! here we have green jello, green punch, green koolaid, and green sour cream.



Wouldn't be the green day without corned beef and cabbage (or as we make it, New England Boiled Dinner)


Always cook the cabbage last or in a seperate bowl, because it takes half as long to cook as the other veggies. Secret ingredient? Caraway seed in the veggies and meat.


Oh, another green thing. Green rolls.





All the veggies. Carrots, red potatoes, turnip, parsnip, rutabega & onions. I totally forgot to take a picture of the meat. We always get flat cut corned beef. never buy point cut, it's covered in fat and hard to eat. Pay extra, it's worth it.


And of course, my holiday sugar cookies!! Ok, they flattened out a bit because the butter was too soft, but you get the idea.


MMMmmm, sugar............




Oh, random note, karly Spencer is married! I had no clue until I saw her new name on facebook. She was in so many of my classes all through elementary school. we also went to the same singles ward for a while. Isn't she a beautiful bride? Marriage is definitely the IN thing to do right now.


Photo & all other wedding phtos from here. Her new hubby is an amazing phtographer as well over at
Craig Tovey Photography.

It's now snowing and will be raining most of the week. Sadness.

Adios Amigos!

Monday, March 16, 2009

Hello Stangers!

Please forgive my lack of posts this month. I know you're all dying to read an educational entertaining post transported from my genius brain to digital format.

It's been a busy month. My dad had his second hernia repair surgery last week. I drove my mom and dad to the hospital and then stayed there with my mom for the 6 hours it took before they would release him. They had a problem with the fluid extraction tube not retaining pressure to suck out blood and such (oh, were you eating?) and had to try several methods to get it to work. This seemingly simple hiccup took 2 HOURS to figure out. If I was squeamish to blood, I would have been puking my guts out. but I'm not, so it was cool to watch. maybe I should be a nurse or something. Eventually, they left it as is and said go home. The next day my mom figured out their was a hole in the tube. Genius. Anyway, The doc gave my dad a girdle of sorts to hold his stomach in, and the recovery is going a lot faster this time and less pain. He still is down for 2 weeks though.

Three things I learned during the hospital stay and post op recovery:

1. Hospital beds are made for midgets. Ok, people shorter than 5'9" anyway. (that's considered midget in my family) My poor dad's feet were hanging off the hospital bed by about 6 inches.

2. Intermountain Medical Center is a nice hospital. In the past two months I've been there 3 (4?) times. My mom was at the ER there when she was sick, My sister went there after her miscarriage a couple weeks ago, My dad goes there for his retina specialist (he has sarcoidosis too, poor dadums), and then this surgery. Up to date facilities, good staff and nice place.

3. When nurses say their are cookies for patient families who are waiting, they lie. Graham crackers are NOT cookies.

Oh did I mention this post is ginormous? I'm making up for lost time. Plus I slept until 4pm today with a migraine, can't fall asleep, and what better thing to do than blog at this time of night?

I decided Saturday that I was in a cooking mood. You know, the, "I-need-to-cook-as-many-of-my-recipes-as-posssible-in-one-day" kind of mood? That one.

My outward sign to the family to stay out of my way (that makes my mom groan in anticipation of the dirty dishes to come) is my recipe board, aka the stove hood. I magnet as many recipes as I can and see how many I can get finished before dark. Are those not the coolest magnets ever?


We got them at the Tacoma museum of glass on our vacation

Oooh, but wait first- I've got MILES PICTURES! Have to have a daily Miles break. He's now 10 months old, crawling at lightning speed, saying dada and mum and doing this cheesy smile when you do it to him first.
This cheesy smile



Ah nephews. Gotta love em.

On to the food portion of the blog. Today we will be making Macaroni Salad. I love the store bought kind of macaroni salad, but could never quite perfect the recipe. That is until I stumbled upon recipes.com and combined about 4 different macaroni salad recipes that had 5 star ratings. The outcome? The BEST recipe ever.

You can use chives or red onions, or even white onions with this recipe. I've used all three and they all work. My family isn't a fan of onions though, so green being the most mild of three, I use it.


You can use all three kind of peppers, or none at all. Again I combined four recipes, so use what veggies you want.


After you cook the noodles, I always soak them in ice water to cool them down quick. This also reduces chilling time in the fridge.


All of our flavoring ingredients on display. you can also use real celery instead of celery flakes.

The surprise ingredient? SUGAR!!

Carrots are normally an ingredient, but after dumping these in the strainer and seeing the thick layer of smelly slime, they were a no-go.

I used radish instead. No slime? check. No smell? good to go.

Mix up the rainbow of goodness.

And get the finishing masterpiece!!


I just realized I didn't type the actual recipe. I could make it fun and you have to figure it out by the pictures alone, but I'm not mean -usually.


4 c. uncooked elbow macaroni (yes, cook it eventually)
1 1/2 c. mayo (definitely not a low fat recipe)
1/3 c. white vinegar
1/2 tsp. pepper
1 tsp. salt
1/4 c. carrots (or radish if your carrots are slimy)
1/4 c. EACH of red, yellow and green pepper
2 chives chopped
2/3 c. white sugar
2 T. Deli mustard
1/4 tsp. garlic powder
1/2 tsp. celery flakes
(I used about 1/2 tsp. of dried red onions for a bit more flavor. It was good)


Chop up veggies, cook noodles, add spices, mix, chill for at least 2hrs. Then devour!



Speaking of veggies, I planted my seeds this week! April 10th is right a round the corner (the last frost danger for you non-gardeners) and I've got things going. This year I'm only planting flowers and tomatoes. My mom and Rachel are doing other vegetables, so we'll still get a good variety.




With the warmer temps, also comes the good ol' compost again. Yay for moldy blueberries!

Hmm, 5am. I think I'll hit the sack now.

AGH! p.s- Do some of you remember when my timing belt broke on my Passat in 2006 and I was out of a car for 2 months? Well, they had a settlement filed against them (volkswagon) and after 6 long months, I'm included in the reimbursment group o' peeps. $2,000 bucks baby! I was so mad when I had to pay that amount back then, but I'm getting it all now. Karma I guess. Yipee!!!!!!!!! If you're interested in details of it all (audi was included I believe) go to http://www.timingbeltsettlement.com/

Now I'm really going to bed.