Sugar makes me feel better!

Ok I will admit it.  This weekend has been ugh!  I FINALLY got back my truck back Friday after almost totaling it more than a month ago.

I noticed some small problems with their work, so I was already going to have to take it back Monday, but on Saturday (less than 24 hours after we got it back) we were getting on the freeway and the whole car completley shut down, no power.  Great!  AAA towed it and so we got into the Ghia.

The trusty girl had some problems later that night the wheel and axel broke and left us stranded on the road once again....AAA!

At this point we were laughing and grateful for friends and family that had bailed us out.  We had a good night, Ted finished his grading and I painted my nails.  

This morning getting ready for church (waiting for our ride since we have no cars), Lola tripped and got tangled up and tore her nail off her paw!  It was SO sad.  We have her some benadryl to help her sleep and went to church any way.  She has been sleeping and winning all day.  

Trip to the vet tomorrow, hope she doesn't have to get surgery again poor girl!

SOOOOO........

To cheer myself up I made a coconut cream pie with a meringue top!  Yes please!  

Money might not be able to buy me happiness but sugar can cheer me up any day! 

All in all, we know we have GREAT friends and family (thanks grandma for having us for dinner!  And that sun makes everything much more bearable!  This would have been a lot harder in cold dark Philly but the Sun is shining and it is 80 outside in February!  That just makes it all seem better some how...

More Cake!

Yes that is right another cake!  And that is just a warm up for the month I have at least one more this month (for Ted and I's nephew that is going to kick you know what!)

I was honored to do this cake for my close friend.  She is our hairdresser - the hair DiVinci of hair as I call her! and Ted and I have been lucky enough to get close to her and her daughter the last year.  We LOVE them!  They are truly family to us.

Katrina's mom had a birthday this weekend.  All of Katrina's brothers and sisters flew in from all over to celebrate this bday.

Thanks to Ted's sister Julie and my friend Lindsay for helping with the color scheme

The flowers before

In transport

Chocolate cake with whipped cream filling and buttercream icing.  

Valentines Day Love

I am never a huge Holiday celebrator.  Growing up my little sister always did all the decorating and Ted doesn't get all festive either.  But this is going to change!  My friend from our time at BYU has the cutest blog, she is SO talented!  She has posted a bunch of stuff for valentines day including the 14 days of Valentines (which I am actually doing for Ted, you should be so proud!)  Although I am not, and will not EVER be as crafty as Megan, she is a big hep to me in my efforts to get more festive :)

Her blog is here

Last night at about 10:30 pm, Ted still had an hour or two of HW.....so I started on my Valentines day presents for his family:  S'more hearts!

Finished product...my camera was out of batteries so these are with my phone...

Love them!  They are good too!

Took awhile to get the right technique 

Strawberry and Regular marshmallows 

This is the best way I found to cut the graham cracker

Watching castle to keep me company :)

Yumm!

Changed up the phrase little since it was for girls :)

More Castle :)

Why can't we just be happy??

Why is it that we always want the one thing that we don't have?  I have thought about this question in the past, it just really hit me today.

I was having (what I thought was) a bad hair day today.  It was CAZY frizzy and going all over the place. I don't feel good and I didn't have the energy to tame it down so I just left looking like a frizz ball.  I got to the Dr. and on the way out one of the nurses said:
"I love your hair!"
I said: "thanks but it is really crazy today."
She replied "I really like it and am so jealous you have so much curl!"

Wow.  Ok it took me back.  Maybe life is just about trying to be happy with what we have.   It got me to thinking:

It makes me sad I don't have kids and our fertility has been a long struggle, but there are people that tell Ted and I how lucky we are we don't have kids.  At first this kinda made me frustrated.  But lately I realize we are lucky, and they are lucky to have kids.  We get the nights off, we can stay up late and sleep in.  We can do things on our own time.  Parents don't get that freedom but get the little ones to snuggle in at night and say "I love you!"  We don't get constant snuggles like that but we do get to spoil the kids in our life because we don't have to discipline them! :)

Do you see what I am thinking here?  Maybe you already know this but it is just making me want to be happy with EVERY area in my life.  I am just hoping that some of you feel the same way?  I just feel like there is always something we want different:

If you have straight hair you want curly
BUT - people with curly want straight
If you have a big house you want smaller
BUT - people with smaller want bigger
If you live at the beach you want to live or vacation near the trees
BUT - people who live near mountains crave the beach
If you have a two door car you want a bigger one with more cargo room
BBUT - people with SUV's and Trucks want less of the gas guzzler

Maybe it is just time I am happy with who I am!   I am a woman who loves her husband and bulldog and is happy with her life without kids, I love to bake and decorate cakes but I can't scrapebook to save my life, I love to exercise and run, but I can't compete in races, I have crazy curly hair that takes a lot of time to do, but I love it, and most of all I have hair, I love to decorate and create wall hangings with my photography but I can't craft a wall hanging that is actually legible , some days I have a lot pain, but that means other days I fell much better, I love to learn, but I am not good at reading....but the main thing is that I LOVE who I am, ok I mean and I am learning to love ME every day.

Ok that's it for now just my thoughts for today.  Do you ever feel like this?

P.S. I LOVE my Mac that takes pictures of me when Ted's not home

Thanks MacBook!

Cupcake Decorating, and small visitors :)

Ted's cousins Katie and Beth came over this weekend to decorate cupcakes.  We had a ton of fun!  We decided to start a craft day once a month...Katie your house is next you better be ready :)

Katie and Beth hard at work!

Lola hard at work....

Messy but very used kitchen

Katie really was amazing at the flowers

Katie and Beth being good sports about pictures

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Now eat your hard out Philly friends!

Yes that is right I got to baby sit the little Dobson's Saturday afternoon!  

How lucky am I??!!

Tessa isn't a baby any more...so talkative and full of personality!

Lincoln is SO grown up he makes me feel OLD!

He decorated the cutest cupcakes

Lincoln's cupcakes.  From left to right: a piece of pizza, tessa's butterfly, a flower Lincoln made just like Katie's :), a tree with clouds, and a blue and pink easter egg.  

Lincoln and Tessa watching netfix movies on our bed

Tessa is a ham!  I love her!  She reminds me a ton of Alyssa!

She drew a picture (that had to be with a pink pen) and step back and squealed: "SO CUTE!!"

I feed them A LOT of popcorn.  After the first batch they asked: "can we have more?"  At first I said no, but then I realized why did I care?  I am the FUN babysitter so I just kept popping more and more!  Ha ha best part of not being parents and getting to spoil little kiddos!

Later that night Ted and I went to the Grand Canyon University Bball game!  Pictures to come soon!

Black Bottom Cupcakes!

Ok my new favorite cupcake! YUMMM!

Ted's cousins are coming over tomorrow to decorate and bake cupcakes.  I made the first batch tonight so that we will have some cupcakes to decorate while the others bake and cool.  Tomorrow we are doing Red Velvet.  Tonight I made black bottom cupcakes.

I have had some requests for my cake/cupcake recipes.  I never even thought to post them.  Here is the first of many I am sure to follow:

Black Bottom Cupcakes from the Joy of Baking: (click on link to find recipe)

These are amazing!  They are chocolate cupcakes with a cream cheese sugary filling!  I almost ate the entire bowl of filling batter and didn't bake the cupcakes....

My usual baking partner asleep in our room on my blanket...

Looks like I am doing this one solo

The kitchen and my most prized possession lately my RED kitchen aid :)

My recipe book....

Sugar, this is going to be a good one!

The trick with the filling is to really cream it up

Make sure you cream the cream cheese for awhile before adding any ingredients

Instead of sifting I always whisk the dry ingredients together

I do it for awhile to make the mixture nice and fluffy

That's right the chocolate cake has no dairy!

Water, viniger, and oil....I was skeptical!  

My trick to fill cupcake tins is an ice cream scoop

1/2 already topped with the cream cheese

Ready to go in the oven, hopping they don't over flow at this point...

Baked!  Yumm!  They are really good!

Decorating/Picture Hanging

This the first part of this week was spent putting pictures up and decorating our house to look more warm and cozy.  My goal was to be done by the end of the week....but a ovarian cyst got in the way of that plan. But it just gives me something to do next week!

I have to pick up some pictures I printed at Costco (best picture printing prices!) today and put them in some new frames I got from Home Goods where I look for all my decorating and kitchen needs, who needs to pay full price?

I am lucky to have married a man with abilities in decorating!  It has been so nice, because if you know me, I am not the most creative person, I execute, I don't create.  But Ted's new job and his schooling for himself keeps him sooo busy he doesn't get home till at least after 9 every night.....this put a HUGE cramp in my decorating.  So I just went ahead and started myself.  It is much harder than I realized.  Here is my go at it:

My first attempt at trying to get them even = failed attempt

Ted's degree corner, yes four degrees not including two small ones...

That side of our room, the book shelf organized by color 

(In Cali Ted made fun of me too much for alphabetizing them so I didn't do it this time...but now he can't find any of the ones he likes....I might be alphabetizing in the near future...)

My degree corner ha ha, one + a little spiral to put pictures on

Yes, this room was suppose to be put together by today...next week's project...

It is also Lola's room

In the same room is my vanity.  I LOVE having my own place to get ready

I hung the mirror by MYSELF big step!

Ok first attempt at trying to do a college above the couch

Didn't work....

So I tried again...still hate it....I think I need to just start over on this one

Don't know what to do in the kitchen above the cabinets...

Hung a coat rack

Above our bed beach pictures I took in El Segundo

My little helper.  She followed me around and every time the hammer made a sound would run out

The end.  More to come on my home decorating learning moments.....