my treat the office day and Ugly Christmas Sweaters....

I got ahead of myself a little... Every December my office passes around a paper and you sign up for a day before Christmas to treat the office. Jennifer and I picked Wednesday the 21st. I always have a terrible time deciding just what to make... I always want to make everything.... from scones to tamales.... but this year Jennifer and I decided to make dips. And for a morning starter I made a crockpot of Hot Chocolate, mini poppyseed muffins and glazed donut muffins. YUM! Then we had hot Artichoke dip, Pizza Dip, and Taco Dip with bread, crackers and tortilla chips for dipping... all of those recipes are found on my recipe blog. Jennifer also made a Texas brownie which was a delicious mocha chocolate brownie cake type dessert. So you can imagine having 3 weeks of this at my office and sitting all day at a computer and what pounds I have gained from indulging... was very good though.
On the Thursday before Christmas, my office decided to have an "Ugly Christmas Sweater" Day... was hilarious.... some of the ladies in the office wear Christmas shirts all month... so was hard to not hurt any feelings... but they did great!! I especially liked the Tree Skirt idea that one lady wore around her neck...

Cupcakes and cake!

The Thursday before Christmas, Jill and I made cupcakes and an 8-inch 2 layer cake for a wedding. Jill's friend was getting married on the 23rd and asked Jill to do her cake. Jill asked for my assistance. So over the last few weeks I had been making Cali Lillies for half the cupcakes.
I took the afternoon off on Thursday, and Jill and I baked and danced and sang to Christmas carols on the radio... we fininished about 8 pm. Was fun... but never again will I try to make Cali Lillies and cupcakes during the month of December... or sign up for a cake class... too much stress.
But they did turn out pretty.....

They were going to put real cali lillies on top of the cake but ended up doing this...

and this is how the cupcakes looked on display...

Jill said they loved them and they kept asking if she made the cupcakes... all in all it was a success.
Yay!!

Busy Busy Busy......

Boy, the last 2 weeks have been way busy.... besides making Gum paste Calli Lillies everynight so I have enough for Cupcakes for a Wedding I've agreed to help with (which is way fun I might add) I made my Boss's husband a Birthday cake.....

It was a Mocha Almond Fudge Cake.....

and it was delicioso!!

Then I've been taking a Flower and Cake Design class the last 2 weeks and for my last little cake project I made this....

We had made purple and pink roses in class out of royal icing... but the night we were going to decorate our cakes I decided I should make a Christmas cake. So I did white roses tipped in red... it was good to learn how to do that too! I think they look kind of like candy cane roses....

This cake was an almond butter cake with raspberry filling and almond flavored icing. (Practicing for the up and coming wedding cake I get to make... tested the recipe)

Now my Calli lillies are all done... I just get to bake the cake and cupcakes Wednesday and Thursday.

Today I am making Oreo truffles and Key lime truffles for a treat after my lesson tomorrow. Then maybe I'll be able to concentrate on Christmas cards and Christmas a little more... at least until my treat the office day on Wednesday...

This time of year it's sad to lose a loved one. I know a lady at work that's ex-husband passed away this last week, and a family in Groveland that lost a son.... I can't imagine how they must be feeling... what about presents already bought? and just not having them around anymore.... :(

So I'm grateful my family is here and healthy, and I'm going to appreciate every moment with them... even the  moments I may be a little annoyed with one of them at different times..... because life is to short not to. After all this season is not about the gifts... but about the sprirt of Christ and giving and family..... So in all the hussle and bussle that this season brings... remember to hug the ones you love and take time to say 'I love you ' everyday..... and all year long.

Merry Christmas....

Getting ready for Christmas...

I think it was Thanksgiving night or the Friday after that Sarah and Andrew borrowed my camera..... they had bought these huge 1 pounder Reese's peanut butter cups and stayed up late one night....

these are the pics I found ...

Silly kids.......

The Saturday after Thanksgiving we decorated our tree.... Sarah had promised Kella that she could help and she was soooooooo excited!! She did good... and so did Sarah... I was only there to make sure some decorations made it around the top of the tree.....

Looks like a lot of fun.... but I didnt' take a pic of the tree by itself.... Oh well.
Sunday after Thanksgiving, Mom J. headed back to Walla Walla and we had church. The Christmas tree and decorations were up and we were feeling like we were ready for Christmas except for the shopping.
Mom's Birthday was on Tuesday the 29th, so I made her a cake. When I asked what kind she wanted, she said chocolate, really chocolatey.... so I made a Chocolate fudge cake with german chocolate frosting in the middle on on the top ( I put chocolate chips in that to make it extra chocolatey) and then I frosted the sides and decorated with a fudge icing... YUM!!!

                                                                  Isn't my mom cute!?

Sarah bought mom some warm slipper socks and a lovely scarf to wear with her coat....

                                      Here is my cute dad watching mom open her presents..
                                                             and my cute kids too

and Jim and me....

I gave my mom the cutest little snowman... it's kind of a tradtion that I give her a new one every year for her birthday.....

Sarah and mom admiring him... his name is Mr. Flurry...

he found a new home sitting by Mom's tree...

I don't have many pics of Andy with mom and dad so I had to take advantage of having Andrew there.

After the party, Sarah and I had to watch another Harry Potter movie...she is into Harry Potter all of a sudden and had to catch up on all the movies over the Thanksgiving Holiday...

and we had to make faces for some reason...

anyway... Sarah went back to Provo Thursday morning.....Jim and I both worked, and Andy got ready for finals and worked too! Friday the 2nd, Jennifer called me at work to see if I had time to make a cake for her sister Angel's daughter Taylor... of course I did! They didn't want to have to get a Walmart cake....
I baked it Friday night (I made an almond butter cake) then Saturday I got up and decorated it... it had raspberry filling and almond flavored butter cream icing and fondant decorations.....

It took all morning long... but was way fun!  I am also making Calli Lillies for cupcakes for Jill's friends wedding! Yikes!! I hope they all turn out good! I have to make an 8 inch 2 layer cake and 100 cupcakes, half with cali lillies and half with sprinkles... Her wedding is Dec 23rd. I am also taking another cake class at Michaels on Tues. and Thursdays this last week and next..... busy busy..... but sooooo fun!!
I also have been feeling way guilty about the time going too fast and me not getting my visiting teaching done... so I wanted to give my ladies something special.... I thought and thought and then had this idea...

I got them all done, they weren't very expensive, just 3 for the frame and 2 for the pic and then I had vinyl and my cricut machine already.... I think they turned out awesome.

Now to get ready for Christmas... there are cards to send out, calli lilies to make, christmas goodies for family to bake, my treat the office day on the 21st, presents to buy.... and good deeds to do for the 12 days of christmas starting on the 13th... (you do an act of kindness for random people everyday until Christmas and it doens't have to be expensive....) fun huh? oh and I have a lesson to prepare for the 18th!! and not to mention my house to keep clean.

My hubby is sick today and so is Sarah.. just I hope I dont' catch anything... I don't have TIME to be sick!

Happy Holidays!!

Thanksgiving

We had a lovely Thanksgiving this year. Jim's Mom was waiting with Jim for me to get home from my weekend with Sarah in Provo. She had decided to come a few days early while the weather was nice. She usually comes the Wednesday before Thanksgiving, but last year a storm blew in and she couldn't come... it just didnt' seem like Thanksgiving without her, So it was nice to have her here and safely too! Jim had the whole week off too, so they had a good time shopping together the first part of the week while I had to work. Sarah made it on Tuesday without any snow or trouble getting here Yay!! Olive Garden had surprised her with a week off as well! Yay!

Wednesday after work I made pies... I made a pecan pie, a pumpkin pie, a coconut cream pie and for Sarah I made the jello strawberry Cheesecake that comes in a box.. that's her favorite.

Sarah was helping me make pies... I'm glad she is around or I would forget to take pictures!!

                                       This is what Sarah made with the scraps of pie crust dough..
This year Grandma and Grandpa B. had dinner with Nancy's family at there house, and Andy had to work until 7 pm on the actual Thanksgiving Day, so it was just Jim and me, and Virginia and Sarah... we practically had a whole pie for each of us!!

this is a picture of Nancy and Jeff's whole family along with Grampa and Grandma B. We had to run down and take a pic for them while our dinner was cooking since the whole Craven clan was together!!

Back to our Thanksgiving day.....

Thanksgiving morning I got up at 5:30 to get the turkey on the smoker (it had been bathing in a brine for the last 24 hours!) Once I got him smoking, I went back to bed for a couple of hours... don't you love sleeping in on the holidays??
Then I got up and made homemade Lion house rolls, and stuffing with portabella mushrooms diced up in it and cooked in the crockpot... and stuffed mushrooms for an appetiser that we ate at 1....and yams, JIm's mom helped me come up with the recipe, and mashed potatoes that I baked in the oven after they were mashed... (don't worry, I'm going to post  all of my recipes on my blog!!)
We didn't eat our actual dinner until 3.... here are some pics (thanks to Sarah) while we waiting in anticipation for dinner, and Andy didn't have to be to work until 2.....

I love cooking and just had so much fun in my kitchen cooking all day and listening to Christmas music... I think I actually like Thanksgiving over Christmas!!
Here are some shots of the dinner preparation...

Yum!!

then afterwards we all were lazy... some of us fell asleep....

Then later we watched Harry Potter (Sarah is really into that and was catching up on all the movies) and we ate our pies!! YUM!!!

Andy got home and ate dinner, and watched movies with us.

I'm sooooo thankful for the fact that I have a job, and Jim does too, which enables us to have a warm house, all the comforts of home, and good food.... AND I  am most thankful for my family... my immediate family, my extended family, and friends too! AND I am thankful for the gospel and the happiness it brings into our lives and the promise of being with our family even after we die.... I mean after all, Family is what life is all about and I can't imagine EVER being without them......

A weekend in Provo

Last weekend I got off work at noon on Friday and headed to Provo. Sarah's car had been acting up and rather than spend $1000 to service it, Jim knew he could do it himself and save us some money, a good thing since Christmas is coming. I thought I would spend the weekend with her and swap cars, she wasn't sure if she would get time off to come home for Thanksgiving and I thought I might make a mini Thanksgiving dinner for her and her roomies. AND 'Breaking Dawn' was out in theaters and I knew I couldn't get Jim to go with me. So with motel reservations and Fandago tickets for Breaking Dawn in my purse I headed off to Provo.
The weather was good except for a stretch from Malad to Tremonton where I got in a terrible storm...

Scary.... I soooo don't like snow on the roads... if the roads stayed clear and it snowed a little in December and January only, I would be happy... but that would be a perfect world. Anyway. I made it! I got to Provo just as Sarah was getting off work, so we checked into our motel,

got Sarah's stuff for the weekend, and headed off to Olive Garden for dinner, then it would be our movie!! Woohoo!
If you have never gone out to eat with Sarah at a restaurant she works at, then you are missing out. It's like eating out with a celebrity. Everyone comes up and says hi and raves about how nice and beautiful Sarah is... it's way fun. We even got FREE pumpkin cheesecake YUM!
After dinner we hung out a Deseret Books, I got some Christmas shopping done, and then we headed off to the movie. We were sooooo excited! there were NO lines and I thought woo hoo! we must be the first ones here! (we went an hour early) but alas, they had let the line in early... we were lucky to find seats!! but we got to sit by these two girls who were hilarious and Sarah made new friends. The one I was sitting by wasn't much of a Twi-hard so she starting making fun of Edward, her and Sarah had made a plan than when something cheesey happened or Edward didnt' look very good they sould say pumpkin.... and every so often I would here pumpkin-pumpkin on both sides of me....so Sarah and I switched seats since Sarah felt the same as she did, they had a way good time and the movie was good and I want to see it again!
Saturday we slept in a little... Sarah could have slept till noon I think, so I went down and got breakfast myself and then we got ready for the day.

We weren't sure where to go or what to do but Sarah wanted to go to 'The Help' which was playing at the dollar theater. So we did! That's a way good movie too... now I just need to read the book.
After that movie, we went to Salt Lake City, we had to take Sarah's Mac to the Apple store at the Gateway mall to get fixed before her warranty ran out. As we were going over there, going down the stairs by the fountain, there was a plastic tent set up with a piano in it and a red headed guy playing the piano. I said, "Sarah go over and peek in the tent and ask if he is Jon Schmidt and if so get his autograph." She was like 'what would Jon Schmidt being doing here in the middle of the afternoon?'so we went on to the Apple store. That took awhile , and we had to buy a back up for Sarah's computer, and wait while it loaded so we could take it home, they were going to ship her computer to the main office to get overhauled. We thought we would go shopping while it loaded, when we came out of the Apple store there was a stetch limo across the street, it so happened it was the night of the lighting of the Gateway Christmas tree and that WAS Jon Schmidt who was putting on a concert for the occasion along with a children's choir... but do you think I could keep Sarah out of Forever 21 to enjoy it?? NO....................... I heard bits and pieces of it. And after it was all over, we ate at Thaifoons, and sat in the bar so we'd get 1/2 price appetisers, then we took our pics by the Christmas tree....

 It was kind of a funny day..
Sunday we were going to go to Music and the Spoken word, but we couldn't get ourselves out of bed and ready to be there my 9AM so we missed it, and we were going to cook a small Thanksgiving feast for Sarah and her roomies (just in case she couldn't come home) but she found out she was getting Tuesday through Sunday off so she could come home! Yay! So we just got ready and went back to SLC to pick up Sarah's backup... (it wasn't ready the night before when we were ready to leave) Then we went to the Fashion Place mall and window shopped and bought Keylime truffles at See's Candies... if you have never had those, you just have to get one next time you are by a See's Candie's store.. those our my little splurges.
Then it was time to head back to Provo, I was trying to leave early so I wouldn't have to drive in the dark. But alas, we decided to eat at Red Lobster, and I didn't leave until 5. But with my Soundtrack from Breaking Dawn, (that's an awesome CD by the way) playing, and all packed up into Sarah's little car, I headed for home, feeling a little sad about leaving but excited for the week, and getting ready for Thanksgiving.
I LOVE my daughter and we have quite a fun time when we are together.

Isn't she gorgeous with her new hair cut and color???  I couldn't wait for her to get here Tuesday and the Thanksgiving Holiday to begin!!

Halloween Evening and Beyond

Halloween came and went. The night before Andrew asked me to give him a Mohawk for Halloween. He's had two weeks off work for vacation and was heading to Tucson, Arizona to go to the Comic Con with Micah.... yes, I was not invited this year, Andrew had wanted to take Micah for a long time, so they were planning a road trip. If you have ever been to a Comic Con you know weird is the thing.... so Andy's Mohawk was mild in comparison. I think it turned out awesome.....

He was happy with it... and that's all that matters!

Then I had to take a picture of Micah so he wouldn't feel bad.... he reminds me a bit of Jack Black...

Maybe it was a good thing I wasn't invited to this years Comic Con... not sure if I could have handled that long of a road trip with these two.....

This is a pic of Andy all ready for a day at school on Halloween morning.....

My office loved my Halloween treats that I made... the only thing I didn't get a chance to do was carve a puking pumpkin to display my guacamole.... I did Andy's Mohawk instead... but that was well worth it. They ate the guacamole anyway.....
Jim and I had bat wings and zombie brains for dinner (chicken wings and chipotle mac & cheese) and ate a little Halloween candy... The only trick or treater's we got this year was Brian, Jennifer, Dillon, Bridger and MaKella......

Kella was the princess from 'Tangled'......and wanted me to get a pic of her long hair.....

Bridger was a Ninja.... I finally got him to fix his mask so we could see his eyes... and the camera made them red!! How appropriate with his costume and for Halloween don't you think??

But after a quiet evening we went to bed...... and that was our Halloween this year.
I've just been working and teaching Relief Society... I get to teach this week. I got bumped up because of Stake Conference (at first I thought I didn't have to teach this month, but after rubbing it in to the Relief Society President, they decided the Presidency didn't need to teach and that me and Tara would just move up a week) be careful who you tease and about what.....that's the lesson I learned there.
I also got another church calling...... I'm the new KITCHEN SPECIALIST....... and no they didn't make that up just for me. There have been a few other ladies with that calling. And my first assignment is to cook lasagna for 50 people....
It's a Relief Society dinner this Thursday and I hope I can do it! I'll just do my yummy lasagna recipe and make it x5. I think that should be enough. The trouble with those things is you never know how many people are going to show up!!! Wish me luck.
Life is hard at times.... you wish for things and have dreams for things and how you would like your life to be and sometimes when your wish is actually a possibility you realize .. do I really want that now at this time in my life??? Sometimes yes and sometimes no, the timing isn't right...... All you can do is pray, and hopefully things will all work out like they are supposed to. I am a firm believer in prayer.... did you watch conference? I loved Elder Uchtdorf's talk, and then the one by Elder J. Devn Cornish called The Privilege of Prayer. I love that we can pray for even small things that are important to us, and because they are important to us Heavenly Father hears and answers them because we are important to him. I love that!!
And with that in mind, I know my week will go well..... Have a happy one too!