Good Morning Beautiful

I'm starting to bring old posts over from my other url so all my posts will be together.

This post was originally posted 16 February, 2012

The Man didn't have work today.  Usually he's up before me and already downstairs doing whatever it is he does in the wee morning hours before I roll out of bed.

Mornings, to me, are not pretty.

It's not that I'm ornery or grumpy, because I'm not.  You can talk to me and I'm not going to bite your head off.  I'll even most likely give you a smile.  But I'm slow.  I don't get things.  My brain doesn't work.  And often times West will find me back in bed after my long shower when I should be putting clothes on and blow drying my hair.

But this morning it was me who was getting up before him.  Slowly.  Agonizingly.  It doesn't matter what time I go to bed, or how much sleep I get, it's the same ol' I can't get this brain to function routine for me.  I usually stand in a glazed over daze in the shower for a really long time.

Since West was still in bed, that meant that I couldn't get back in it because the lights were off, and that would mean that I would be out cold in a matter of seconds.  Usually when I crawl back in bed the lights are on.  That keeps me coherent enough to get back up again.

I stepped out of the shower, got dressed in the clothes I had put in the bathroom the night before, and blow dried my hair.  By then the circus was stirring. 

I stepped out of our bathroom into the dark bedroom and made my way around the bed to go downstairs and make the circus eggs.  We had 1/4 of a gallon of milk.  Cereal wasn't going to happen today.

As I groped through the dark I hear, "I hear my beautiful woman."

Does he know just what to say first thing in the morning or what.  Instead of finding the door, I found him.  Then he whispers to me, "what are your lunch plans today? Oh yeah, you have lunch plans with me."  Like he's the luckiest man in the world to eat lunch with me.

I'm the luckiest woman in the world to be having lunch plans with him.

West's cousin (but I'm claiming him too!) Got married to a cute girl yesterday.

{I totally stole this off of his facebook.  Aren't they reeking of fun personality?}

I love their family.  They are down right the nicest people on this earth.  I don't usually do wedding cakes.  I prefer to do character cakes and birthday cakes.  I usually pass the wedding cakes on to my friend Aislinn, who is Amazing with a capital "A", and actually in business where I am not.  I just have a hobby.  But when this family of ours asked me to help with the wedding cake I wasn't going to tell them no.

Like I said, I'm no professional.  And it shows.  But what it lacks in pristine perfectness it makes up for in taste and flavor. 

I think I'll stick to "fun cakes".

Happy wedding to our cousins.  Their wedding lunch is today and I get to meet my man there to celebrate the union of a cute couple and the fact that we are a part of a great family.

Four Things That Make Me Happy.

Things that make me happy.

Breakfast from Chick-fil-a.  I love that chicken, and they put it on a bagel with egg and cheese.  Shut the front door.

When Sean says, "You know that minion cake on the counter?" (That I made for someone else).
"Yeah..."
"That actually looks pretty cool so could I have that for my birthday cake instead of an ice cream cake?"
Because for that boy to give up ice cream cake in order to have a minion cake instead, is a compliment of the biggest kind.

This video made me happy but in a serene way.  Like, try not to cry at work but man alive did it give me new perspective.



And helping people makes me happy.

I got this email from my friend and I believe in this so much that I'm going to share it with you.

" I am working with Janet to help the African Young Women  go to school this year. I know that they have worked really hard to make these cards and are very proud of their accomplishments. It is very important to get these girls educated and to keep them in school as prostitution is a likely outcome for many young girls there.  Their stake president says that we are literally saving lives with this effort.

If you can spare the money I hope that you will pitch in and help us to make this thing work."

The following was taken from the website made to support this project (here):

These cards were handmade by us (the girls pictured above) in Sierra Leone, a country on the western edge of the Africa West Area in the capitol city of Freetown. Freetown is on mountainous peninsula projecting out into the Atlantic Ocean. We, the young women making the cards, live in single parent families. The unemployment rate here is more than 80% without any means of income. We are obligated to pay for our own schooling, which is about $165 per year and includes a uniform. Many of us have missed a year or two of school, and really hope to be able to complete High School. 

We decided as a group to make gift cards out of free scraps of material that we could find from local seamstresses. The paper was supplied as a donation. Each of us has made one hundred cards, which we hope will give us the amount needed to start school in the fall. The money is deposited directly into the school account of our choice.

We feel that you will be truly blessed for your help in our education. Thank you so much.

Love, the Freetown girls

Christiana Kai Tarawallie, Kadiatu Abdulali, Fatmata Balley, Marian H. Conteh, Joyce N. James, Marian Kalilu

So here's my first initial thought on the matter:  these girls aren't asking for a free hand out, though if you ask me, they certainly could.  The thing that strikes me with these girls is that they have a situation they want to get through and they thought of a plan on how to get through it.  They want to finish high school, something I took for granted.  They need tuition.  So they've sat down, put in the effort and work on a plan on how they can earn the money to go to high school.  They're out to change and better their life.  And I have so much respect and awe for that.

A box of cards costs $16.50 for a box of ten, each card was hand made and is unique.  They come packaged in cellophane and raffia with a picture of the girls and a note included.  These cards could be kept and used by you or you could use them as gifts.

If each girl is able to sell 10 boxes of cards they've earned their tuition for a year of high school.

I can support that.

If you feel you can too, please go to the website HERE to read more about the cards and how to purchase them.

Yeah, that  makes me pretty happy.

Tayler's Birthday Happenings. About Singling My Kids Out On Their Day. And I Survived This Semester.

It's finals week.  As in, final group project for English is due on Monday.  As in final for biology is on Monday.

As in homework and studying up to my eyeballs until then.

As in feeling a bit stressed and under pressure and therefore a bit emotional.

As in, we're going out for dinner on Monday to celebrate the end of this semester because the last four months have felt heavy and, hallelujah, it's over.  Though the thought that I've made it through, and so far am pulling solid A's, makes me feel accomplished and proud of it.

I bought The Man the original Star Wars movies on blu-ray to compensate for him having to live with me right now.

He felt that was good compensation, he's been wanting those on blu-ray for quite awhile now.

Tayler's birthday was on Sunday, the big 1-0.

 I have a list of birthday parties.  I did my homework and figured out what variations of parties could be had for the same budget.  The bigger the activity, the fewer friends, the simpler the activity, more friends.  As in family only at Boondocks all the way down to 10 friends at a party at home.  This way they can see up front what they can have and I know whatever they pick will be in budget, and everyone is getting the same amount of a deal out of it, regardless of what they pick off the list.

One thing I put on the list was above budget though.

Take a trip to St. George to visit Grandpa Dick and Grandma KC.  I figured a family trip to Grandma and Grandpa's house for your birthday was one thing that would be okay if it was more than the rest of the party options.

This was the option that Tayler picked for her birthday.

So we loaded up for the weekend and drove south to 90 degree weather for some bowling and dinner at Olive Garden.  And of course we slipped in snow cones and watching Grandpa sing with Uncle Mike.

 Casidee was renamed:

 

Free dessert at Olive Garden, because, you know, with the soda during bowling, the snow cones, and the cake and ice cream waiting at Grandpa and Grandma's house, there wasn't enough sugar involved in the day's festivities.

One blue, vanilla cake with zebra candles coming right up.

She got her beloved moccasins.  And her dreamed of rollerblades.
This necklace from Blue Eyed Beads.

 

On Monday I took her on her one on one, birthday lunch date where she got to choose where to have lunch (Cafe Rio, waddup), and then as the tradition dictates, we swung by the store where she chose a birthday treat (M&M cookies) to take back to her class.

I feel very strongly about making them feel singled out on their birthday. I don't want them to feel lost in the numbers of our family, and I know I'm not very good at doing individual time with them every single day,  but I hope as we're interacting as a family that my kids know that they are a part of something special.  And they are a huge piece of that.  They matter.

On their birthdays I try very hard to reiterate that to them.

The Best Cake. Ever.

When a certain someone decides they're going to turn into a teenager, even though their mom hasn't really given permission to do so, that certain someone may decide they want to invite friends over and play some games and eat some cake.

Someone may decide they want a polk-a-dot cake on the inside, but someone's mom didn't have a cake ball pan to make the "dots" (we hand roll cake balls in these parts) so someone's mom may have just made smaller cupcakes and baked them inside the cake instead.

A lesson  was learned on how to make it better next time; bigger layers so you can see the colors inside better.

And then someone started to frost their cake.  With the moral support of their friend who made all the batter by herself.  That's some pretty good moral support right there.

Which was looking pretty good.

But the thing around our house is that we are procrastinators.  And the cake went in the oven an hour and a half before the party started which meant that the frosting of the cake happened as soon as it came out of the oven.

Which meant...

Chocolate Caramel Bundt Cake Recipe

Mornings come too early.  Without warning.  Unprecedented.

It's bad enough that I signed myself up for a yoga class before work, but let's face it, when else was I going to get it done?  Evenings belong to The Circus.  Evenings belong to The Man.

And that need to run eats at me.  Which causes turmoil because I can't honestly say that I like to run?  I don't know what's going on with me feeling like I need to do it but with all the snow and inversion when am I supposed to fit that in?

Before yoga.

Am I crazy?

Without argument.

Because of all the things I am, a morning person is not one of them.

I have to be completely honest and say that most mornings I have only two motivations to get out of my bed and hit the road earlier than early.  Those two reasons would be:

1.  If I leave early to run before class I miss the stupid meter lights on the freeway entrance.  They aren't on yet.

and

2. If I leave early to run before class I get good parking so I don't have to walk that far in the early morning cold.

I guess whatever gets it done.

Today I promised to post my chocolate caramel bundt cake recipe.

Guys, it's so easy, you're going to love me.

I got the cake recipe a few years ago off of one of the forums on cakecentral.com.  Cake Central is like a social media for cakers.  They have crazy cool designs, how to's, and recipes.

So here it is, the most easy, moist beyond moist every time cake recipe.  And it works for any flavor that you can buy in a box.

Cake:
1 box of chocolate cake (any chocolate flavor will do, though I will say not all chocolate flavors were created equal)
1 sm box of instant chocolate pudding

Here's the scoop: mix the cake batter up like it says to do on the back of the box.  Then in addition to that add the chocolate pudding powder, 1/4 C water and 1/3 C oil.

Done.  Bake as directed on the box.

Use it for any cake, any flavor, and pan.  I make my cupcakes this way too.

To die for.

For the caramel I found the recipe on Smitten Kitchen.
1 C heavy cream
1/2 C packed light brown sugar
1 Tbsp light corn syrup
1 tsp pure vanilla extract

you'll also need a candy thermometer.

Bring cream, brown sugar, corn syrup, and a pinch of salt to a boil in a heavy saucepan (1 1/2 qt) over medium heat, stirring until sugar has dissolved.  Boil until it registers 210 to 212* F on thermometer, about 12 to 14 minutes after boiling point, then stir in vanilla.

Pour that gooey stuff over top your cake and enjoy.

I'll add here that when I was doing cakes more heavily, I found that caramel when amazingly with yellow cake (use vanilla pudding or cheesecake pudding in the cake).  Just an added thought.  

So there it is.  

And if you can add 43 candles to it... do it.

Spit. Chocolate Caramel Bundt Cake. Fire in the Oven.

This weekend I had to admit to the employee at the Fed Ex store that I was shipping spit.

Our oven caught fire.  Except not fire, fire.  More... welding wand fire like a sparkler.

And I made a pretty good chocolate caramel bundt cake and I'm going to share the recipe because it's too good to keep to myself.

Oh, and I studied for my midterm which is today.

Biology is going to be the death of me.

Speaking of biology. I have history of breast cancer in my family.  There's a post on it here, but even better a very recent post here that I just did for my English class.  They explain the history of this but it's a concern for my doctor that I might have the breast cancer gene (brca gene) based on the fact that my mom had breast cancer at the young age of 38.  I guess that's a red flag for it.

We've been trying to convince my insurance to cover the test for the gene since without insurance it's a lovely $3,000.  But my insurance denied the request claiming they needed two generations of evidence of the gene where we only had one.  

The catch is that my mom is adopted so we really have no way of knowing about that second generation.  

Our concern isn't breast cancer so much as it is ovarian cancer.  I guess, according to my doctor, that once ovarian cancer is far along enough to detect, it's too late to do much of anything about it.

So I would like to know one way or the other.  Because if it turns out that I do have this gene, we can just do some preventative surgery to remove my ovaries and not worry about  it.  I'm done having kids anyway.

With my new job I have new insurance so we're trying it again.  

Normally my doctor, who is amazing, would have just sent the test off for me, but it's a matter of spitting into a tube and I, not anticipating that before I went to my appointment, had gum in my mouth.  So he sent everything home with me to do myself.

Saturday morning, a whole week later, I finally brought myself to pull that test kit out.  It came with a small bottle of mouthwash.  Fill the little cup full of mouthwash, swish for 30 seconds, and spit the whole lot of it into the specimen tube.  Twice.

Seal it up in all sorts of different levels of plastic, slap the mailing label on it, and drop it off at your nearest Fed Ex store.  

Except Fed Ex, seeing that it was a medical specimen package, wanted to know, in front of everyone else who was milling around the counter, what was in it?

"We can't always handle these.  You might have to drop it in the box.  What's in it?"  He asks, as he's holding it in the air.  Obviously worried about "not handling it" as he has it in his hand at eye level, peering at it.

All eyes are on me.

"Spit," I announced loudly.  I guess if you can't crawl under a rug you may as well just own it.  Yes, thank you for asking, I am indeed mailing spit.

At least I didn't pee all over it I suppose.

And just for the record, they're allowed to handle spit so it's all good.  

We had a pretty fun get together on Saturday with a few friends and my sister McKell and her man, Scott, who just so happened to be having a birthday so at their request, I made this cake:

I was going to post the recipe but I think I might wait and do that tomorrow since I just had a lovely introduction that included talk about spit.

Tomorrow I'll post the recipe for this cake, caramel and all.

And pictures of what it looks like with 43 candles on it.  Happy birthday Scott. :)

To finish the weekend off our oven caught on fire.

Sort of.  It wasn't the up in flames everyone out of the house type of fire.  It was more of a welding rod, looks like a sparkler type of fire.

Excuse the mess on the bottom of my oven.  Of all the things I take on in my life, cleaning the oven is obviously not one of them.

I might lose good mother/wife points for this, but that's a sacrifice I'm willing to make right now.  

Brynn wanted to make brownies.  Mom (that's me) was buried in studying for her midterm and dinner was leftover lasagna.  Heat it up when you're ready for it. A far cry from our usual level of Sunday dinner expectations so Brynn decided, if nothing else, they were having hot brownies for dessert.

(Not that anyone was actually complaining about it.  My family has been crazy supportive of my having to do homework and studying.)

She mixed it up and poured the batter into a 9x13 and put it into the pre-heated oven.  A minute later the girls start calling out in panicked shouts, "Mom! The oven is... lighting up!"

So I check it out.  Sure enough.

"Hey babe?  There's something going on with the element."

It was cracked and sparking and even though the oven had been turned off, the sparking wouldn't stop.  This wasn't something either of us had ever encountered before and we didn't know what to do.  West tried to douse it out with a wet paper towel.  

That didn't work.

After several more failed attempts to douse out the sparks, West thought if he cut it we could just pull the burning piece out.  But cutting it made it burn at the new broken end, even worse than it had been.  

I'm not going to lie, we were panicking.  He starts telling me to call 9-1-1 because he can't get it to stop and in that instant he yanks the stove away from the wall and unplugs it to throw the whole appliance out into the yard to avoid starting our house on fire.

And with that it went out.

So.

If the element ever breaks and starts sparking on you, just hit the breaker.  I kind of feel silly about how frantic we felt about the whole situation but I guess if it's not something you've ever seen before and you can't get it to stop after five minutes of effort and suddenly it gets worse...  I suppose we were validated. But now I'm sharing the information.

It's normal.  And it still feeds off the electricity even if it's not on.

Luckily we don't have to buy a whole new oven, just a new element.  I can handle that.

spaghetti dinner... to go

This year's Camp fundraiser was a huge success.  All in thanks to one woman in particular, whom I simply know as "Julie's Mom."

This year is a ward camp, which means we get to do a fundraiser.  It's become a tradition for our ward to do a spaghetti dinner ($5 individual, $9 for a couple, $15 for families) with a silent auction.  Ward members donate all sorts of items and baked goods, and then we show up, pay for dinner (which is always fabulous) and start bidding on the stuff that was donated.

This year two men in our ward "donated" a river rafting trip down the Snake River.  They are both extreme outdoors men and have their own rafts.  This is were Julie's Mom comes in.  There were 12 spots available, and she donated generously to win all 12 spots. 

We'll be eating good at camp this year, thanks to Julie's Mom.

Our family walked away with a bunch (and I mean a bunch) of beenie babies.  The girls just lingered around them the whole time, outbidding each other.  I got a bag to hold my growing amount of sewing supplies and some wonderful homemade 9 grain bread.  And I'm pretty sure that Whitney can make me snickerdoodles anytime because they were melt in my mouth good.  Sean scored some Sea Monkeys.  Did you know those are real things?  I thought they were fake. 

I was wrong.

I'll have to see if I can get a picture of them.  West thinks their actually brine shrimp.  Does anyone know?  I guess I can always google it...

These were our family's contribution:
Giant Value cupcakes (you can learn about what the Young Women's Values here).

Faith

Divine Nature

Individual Worth

Knowledge

Choice and Accountability

Good Works

Integrity

Virtue

 The best part was when it was all said and done, and Cas and I were in the church's kitchen cleaning up all the left over food with other Young Women's leaders, and we start talking:
So and so wasn't feeling well today we should make up a dinner box for them.
How many people are living with so and so right now?  Let's get them a dinner box.
Did so and so take some of this home?  We should take a little more over to them.
There are new neighbor's over on that street, we should take a dinner box to them to welcome them.

And so it goes, all the while we're putting left over sauce in canning jars and packing salad and breadsticks into giant baggies and building boxes of spaghetti dinners to go for the people in our neighborhood.

I love that feeling.

And of course, as it goes, we got told, "you have six kids, you better take a box of breadsticks."  It doesn't matter what's leftover, some of it is usually sent to our house because "you have six kids."  Those boxes of breadsticks were giant, there were at least 50 breadsticks in them.  There was no way would could ever eat them all, but we sure tried.

I love that Cas got to be a part of this.  To learn what it is to be a humanitarian and look out for the people who surround you.  I look forward to each of our kids coming to be a part of these moments.

tayler is 9 (and the color me rad 5k)

When I first got wind of the Color Me Rad 5k I knew I was in.  When I found out it was on Tayler's birthday I knew that she needed to go with me.  When I mentioned the idea to her she was ecstatic.

I tried to sign up for the event but found I had waited too long, the raise was sold out.  When I tried to register it gave me a box to add my email to be on the waiting list, so I did.  A week before the race I received an email saying some spots had opened up so hurry and register before they were gone.

So I did.  And I didn't tell Tayler about it.  I let her continue to think that we weren't able to run because it was sold out.

Bright and early Saturday morning I crept into Tayler's room and gently shook her.  She pried open her eyes and looked at me through her blurry eyelids.

"Happy birthday."
She was confused at why I had woken her up so early to tell her happy birthday.  "Thanks..." she whispered with a smile.
"Get up.  I have a surprise for you."
Understanding started to dawn on her and she quietly crawled out of bed.  I took her into the bathroom, did her hair, and told her to get her shoes on and go eat breakfast, you don't even have to get dressed.  Just shoes.
We got ready and as we were leaving she asked, "are we doing the color run?"

She was grinning from ear to ear.

I had made her a white birthday shirt the night before in hopes that people would see it proclaiming that it was her birthday and throw more color at her.  She got dressed in the car (where I had stashed her clothes to prolong the secret) and we drove to meet up with my friends Jen, Kim, and Sara.

waiting in the grocery store parking lot for everyone to arrive to ride down to the race

Kim, me, Tay, Jen, Sara

Kim had made everyone tutu's for the event.

we met up with my friend Jessie

And then the fun started...

And it just got worse from there.  The shirt worked, along with all of us yelling, "It's her birthday!" Every time we hit a "color bomb" section during the race.

I'm proud of Tayler.  She made it three miles to the finish line where we were met with a giant throwing of color (which she was cautious about so it wouldn't get in her eyes)

and fruit.

It was a very fun and colorful way to start Tay's birthday.

Happy birthday my baby girl.  How proud I am of the person you are. 

Tayler is the sweetest girl in the world.  She's kind and considerate and most usually mild tempered (come on, we all have our moments).  She's such a tender girl and has the world's best giggle.

After the race we came home and showered (I still, two days later, have a blue stripe on my back), made Tay's cake, cleaned up the house, visited with Grandma Julie and Aunt Kristin who stopped by, and hit Costco for pizza.

Then her friends showed up.  Tay chose swimming at the rec. center for her birthday party.  I loved it.  I fed them pizza and then drove them to the pool.  The end.  I dig birthday parties that are that easy.  Though of course The Man and I joined the kids in the pool.

abby, tay, ashliegh, cassie, noelle

and a random picture of cali ("Take my picture mom!")

I guess we should all be glad that my waterproof camera decided to not be waterproof anymore, otherwise I would have had quite a bit more pictures.

As it is I can say that the kids had fun on the water slide, learning to dive ("did I do it right? Watch me!), swimming, playing games, and trying to dunk West.  What a handsomely good sport he is.

You know it's a good birthday when you're all ready for bed by 8:00. 

Bed never felt so good.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY my dear sweet Tayler!

p.s. our messed up cake was featured on Cake Wrecks (here) today!  Remember? The one from this birthday (towards the end)?  This is why I make the cakes myself.