I just have to say...

Several times recently, I have been looking through magazines and I have happen upon this one model. Every time I have seen her, I have taken a second look and said...REALLY? I saw her again while I was working out on Friday in a magazine, and I thought, THAT's IT!! I had to find out who she was and what the deal was. Her name is Georgia May Jagger. Yes, Mick's daughter. Her mother is Jerry Hall. She is a "hot" up and coming model. She is the new face of Hudson jeans and Rimmel of London. She has a pretty face, lovely figure, and the UGLIEST teeth I have just about ever seen. I think the first time I saw her, I thought she had fake teeth in. If you saw her with her mouth closed, you wouldn't think twice. But she likes to show off her teeth, and apparently so does everybody else. But really? Those teeth? I realize everyone doesn't have perfect teeth. But these teeth? I don't get it. It's just funny to me. Our society is so obsessed with perfectly white, shaped teeth. Everybody and their brother in Hollywood has those veneers. And the fake lashes (and or Latisse), fake boobs, injections blah blah blah. Why do they love her teeth? Very interesting to me. What do you think?

It's the thought that counts.

Last year, I helped my friend Julie make a TON of caramel apples. Like in the hundreds. There were 4 of us, we all made like 6 batches of caramel in the days leading up to the assembly day...each batch made 25 apples....each batch of caramel took an hour to make. So, it took a lot of work. We assembled ALL day one Saturday last year. We dipped them in yummy toppings. We packaged them professionally. They were gorgeous, and they were delicious.

Fast forward to this year. I decided I'd make some lovely gourmet caramel apples for teachers' gifts. I bought apples today and assembled all my supplies. I chopped Heath bars, crunched pretzels, and toasted and chopped almonds. I even spent an hour making my caramel. You stir and you stir and you stir and you stir...all to have everything happen temperature wise in like the last 5 minutes. Everything was going lovely, until I realized that my goal temperature was 235 NOT 335 as I had mistakenly read/thought. I think I stopped around 240 but I panicked and I'm not sure. Needless to say, I was only able to squeak out 9 apples, before the caramel cooled and you couldn't possibly dip anything in it. The nine I made are very pretty, but watch out you will break a tooth on them. I am tired and worked on those darn things for over 2 hours. Hope's teacher and Hayden's teacher are still getting them. I might wake up in the morning and not be able to pass them out as gifts this year, but for right now they are good enough. I feel bad, they will NOT taste as good as they look. But this year, it's the thought that counts. At least that's what I'm telling myself.

Happy Birthday to Hope

Here are some pictures from Hope's birthday party last weekend. The pictures are all sorts of messed up time-line wise, but blogger makes it so hard now to move your pictures around. It didn't used to be that way. So, here is the party story, a little messed up but still here. The pumpkin balloon game in the back. Each balloon was filled with something. **Note to self-kids like candy better than glitter!**

Kids coloring the masks. I bought these little wooden masks at Michael's that the kids colored with markers. They were very successful. They kept the kids busy for like 20+ minutes. And in the world of 4 years olds, that's an eternity. The kids also painted little pumpkins.

I'm not sure why the witch on the right was crying...she must have thought her nose was too big...or too green.

These witches were the hardest ones to make, too the longest too. I couldn't get my food marker to work, so most didn't have any smiles/frowns at all. Stupid food marker.

Cake pops! I think I have figured them out now. Hannah was my helper on this project. She helped me one entire afternoon. We made 75 cake pops that day.

The one picture of me that was taken. NEVER any pictures of me, do you have the same issue?I'm usually the one taking the pictures.

Little mummy wraps and grilled cheese pumpkin shaped sandwiches for the main course. Very kid friendly.

I bought soda for the party, it matched my color scheme.

First cut into the fondant cake. I made marshmallow fondant, so it was a little smooshier than the store bought kind, but it tasted much better.

She was so excited to get this present "my own computer!!".

From Auntie Hayley.

All smiles.

My very first attempt at decorating a cake. I have made plain cakes plenty of times, but my first time trying to decorate. The fondant really wasn't very hard. I really didn't have any idea what I was doing, I just made it up as I went along. But overall I was happy. Learned a lot that's for sure!

I found these two spiders the morning of the party. I was sweeping up, I knew the spider on the left was there (I think it's the same one that was on my outside chair from before, he just moved). I was going to have Scott move him, but I was sweeping all around him, I came out like 2 minutes later...to find the tarantula on the left crawling around right where I had been!!! I must have stirred it up, but I'm just so glad it didn't crawl on me, I would have messed my pants for sure. Kids liked seeing them, and Hunter released them back into the wild the next day.

Little Alice in Wonderland. She had a great day!!

poor carebear

Poor Carebear. Rocky chewed this a month or two ago. Funny thing is Hope still loves it. I'm thinking about sewing that eye closed along with the nose. But not so sure. It makes me laugh when I see it. Although, he is loosing his stuffing at a quick rate :)

I bought myself this new baking cookbook. Holy cow. So, I started by making puff pastry. One of the cooking blogs had this puff pastry and peanut butter and chocolate treat. Made them, very tasty. But then I made these little treats. BEST cookie ever! I thought it was so pretty too. They are those palmier cookies, or butterfly wings. They are puff pastry with sugar. DELICIOUS. I made homemade cream cheese filled Danishes out of the same cookbook. I thought I had died and gone to heaven a little bit. I have been baking and delivering to people. The bishop drove Hunter to seminary a few times over the last couple of weeks... and I delivered pastries to him. I must pass out to others or else I would get really big. These things are so good, I have very little control. But so fun to make.

Hope's 4th birthday is coming up on the 19th. We are doing a Halloween themed party this year. Halloween parties are fun to plan and put together. I have been all sorts of crafty. Martha Stewart and I are BBF. I made her invitations, and actually had fun doing it. That Martha has some good glitter. I'm planning on making 3 different cakepops for the celebration. Do you have this book? I'm planning on making the witches, ghosts, and pumpkins. Last night I didn't sleep very well, because I was mentally planning. I had some good ideas last night and can't remember them all this morning. I swear I should put a journal by the side of my bed for times like that. I'd feel better to write it out, plus I'd remember all my good ideas in the morning. Win win.

Enchilada Pie

I miss a lot of things about Washington, I'm not going to lie. One of the things I miss is recipe club. About 20 of us would get together every month or two (depending on the month), you would be assigned a category...appetizer, main dish, side dish, or dessert. Then you would make your dish, bring the recipe and come for a night of food and friends. I think I will eventually start my own recipe club up here. We had some real foodies in the group, so I got several real "keeper" recipes.

Some nights were incredible, some nights not so much. I would take everybody's recipe that night (so as not to make anybody feel bad ;) but honestly some I would recycle and NOT put into my recipe binder. Sorry, but it's true. Only the goodies go in there. You know...only the ones I really loved. I made Heather Schow's Enchilada Pie again the other night and felt that it was blog worthy. I changed it up a little bit from her original recipe, and it was so stinking good+easy+low clean up!! So here follows my version of the Enchilada Pie:

1 1/2 pounds ground beef
1 onion, chopped
1 (8 oz) can tomato sauce
2 (15 oz) can mild green chile enchilada sauce (a change from the original, adds a different flavor from the regular red sauce)
1/2 cup water
a bunch of corn tortillas **I think I used about 15-20** You could use flour tortillas, that's one of the changes I made, but it's NOT as good...I do enjoy the corn tortillas!
3 cups mozzarella and Colby Jack cheese (total)

Brown meat and onion in large skillet (I use a large cast iron skillet so it's a one pot deal). Drain off grease (I cooked the meat until it was mostly done, put it in a colander and drained THEN added onion and finished cooking, that way you get rid of most of the fat, but still have the onion flavor infused into the meat) Add tomato sauce, enchilada sauce, and water. Simmer for 15 minutes. Remove 2/3 of the sauce into another bowl. Leave 1/3 of the sauce in the skillet, layer on top of that corn tortillas (enough to form a layer covering the whole skillet with some over lapping), then 1/3 of the sauce, cheese; then repeat. Cover and simmer on low for 15 minutes until heated through. Slice pizza style into triangles. Serve with sides of shredded lettuce, sour cream, olives, tomatoes, or anything else that you fancy.

It's good stuff!

Change of Heart

Excuse the bags under my eyes in this pictures. It was our last day of moving AND I was saying goodbye to my friend Julie. Not a very good day.

We have lived in this new ward since July 1st ish. Scott got a calling a while ago, but I had not. A woman called and asked me on Sunday if I wouldn't mind subbing for her in nursery on Sunday...strange, I thought, that she would ask me of all the people in the ward to choose from and all of the parents of the children in nursery...I had this feeling...I already had an appointment for before church set up to meet with a bishopric counselor. I already knew something was coming. While I was getting ready for church, I knew what my new calling was going to be. I even told Scott that's what it was going to be. He kind of laughed and said I was totally jumping to conclusions. How could I jump to that conclusion with that little bit of information??

Because, somebody was helping prepare me, that's why. I might have cried if he sprung that one on me totally unaware. I didn't want to be in nursery. Didn't want to be isolated in nursery in a brand new ward. Nope, no thank you. Scott didn't give me what I was looking for when I told him. He was way too supportive and positive. ;) I texted my friend Julie and she gave me exactly what I needed and wanted to hear. She did manage to make me smile. Felt a little better. Still moaned and groaned a large part of yesterday.



But I woke up this morning feeling much better. Dare I say change of heart??? We will see. But I am looking on the internet getting some fun ideas. Wish me luck. After all, if I'm going to do something, I might as well do one hell of a job!!

my version of NYC popovers

I might need this pan now.

Made these popovers tonight for dessert. With this butter, except I used marionberry jam, because that's what I had. They were very good. I did not have a popover pan, so I just used muffin tins. I filled 9 tins with my batter. My only wish/complaint was that there wasn't more. EVERYONE ate one and then we were staring at each other... hoping nobody else wanted the last three. We split them, but I will certainly double (if not triple) that recipe next time. I would definitely triple if that was our breakfast. Just thought I'd share!