Jasher and Jenny's Wedding

Jasher is Mark's really good friend. They have been friends since college when they were room mates and worked together in the Purdue Single's ward Elder's Quorum. Mark has lots and lots of fond memories of Jasher, and often reminisces of how awesome it was that Jasher seemed to attend every. single. sporting event at Purdue while still going to school. Jasher's advise was that Mark needed to change his major. Heh heh, good times. Yeah....we're still in school. But that's ok! We like school--we like school, we like school, we like school-- I just need to keep telling myself that. ;-)

Anyway! We were SUPER excited when we heard that Jasher and Jenny were going to get married! They have such a neat story :-) And proposal story. Very cool!

We really wanted to go to all the things associate with the wedding (the dinner, the sealing, the reception, etc.) but we were on a tight schedule so we left for the airport right after we got out of our last final, flew down to NC, got a rental car, and set out to drive to Raleigh and what do you know! IT SNOWED! (and sleeted)

Weird.

The trip that was supposed to take us about an hour or so and get us there early for the dinner took, like, 5 or 6...and, we missed the dinner (we tried to make it!) It was so slow. We kept thinking "Where are the snow plows?" and then we had to remind ourselves "oh yes, we are in the Carolina's...we ain't gonna see no snow plow"


The part that was hard wasn't primarily that the road was slick, it was that the road was slick AND no one knew how to drive with slick roads. People were going waaaaaaay too fast! And people going waaaay too slow! And people were going nuts with changing lanes and slipping off the road :-( And people with the 4 wheel drive... all I can say is 4 wheel drive does not mean you can drive like a maniac in the snow. All it means is that it will be easier for you to get out, once you are stuck, in the snow. I nearly died from fear, and I was only a passenger. There was screaming, dispute my best efforts to be good. I am a terrible passenger; Mark is a saint to drive with me in the vehicle. I had to cover my eyes quite often. I about had a heart attack when a semi fishtailed and nearly slid into us. It was a tense couple of hours driving.

We saw so many SUV's stranded on the side of the road. It was really sad.

There were also a lot of accidents.

We survived, and I am super glad. It was one of those trips where I was just glad that we were together, so that if we died, at least we would go together. (In all honesty, I think we were going so slow that we would not have died...but I was pretty unreasonable at the time. Poor Mark.)

Anyway! We were able to make it the sealing the next morning and we were thrilled to be there. It was so touching to see them across the alter in the temple, being sealed for time and all eternity. And there was such an outpouring of love from all the people who were there for Jasher and Jenny. I feel like I got to know Jenny better from listening to the conversations of people in the waiting room about the couple (no worries guys, it was all AWESOME). This was actually my first time meeting Jasher and Jenny both, and it was great to be there when they started their life together.

I want to show you pictures...but I didn't bring my camera to the wedding. I left it in the car. There are always so many people with cameras at weddings that I feel really awkward bringing mine, but then I always regret it afterward because then I don't have any pictures. BUT! in THIS case...I have something BETTER! :-D

I will refer you here to the UBER talented and wonderful Kim Davis for the pictures that she took! We were so excited to see Kim there! She and her husband are also long time friends of Jasher and they flew down from Lafayette for the wedding to take the photos:

http://kimdavisphotography.com/blog/2010/01/jasher-jenny-raleighcharolette-nc-wedding/

One thing I love about the way that Kim and Brandon take pictures, is that they work together. Kim will take pictures of the couple, and kinda tell them and the group where to stand, and Brandon will have the telephoto lens and will stand a ways off and observe the group and capture incredible candid moments between people. Some of my favorite shots are of Jasher and his father, and of Jasher and Jenny, just tender, sweet moments that are completely real.

Check them out, that is a direct link to their wedding picture page! :-)

After the sealing we drove to Duke University. They have a garden there for the wife of the founder that is exquisite. Even in the middle of winter! Go figure! The snow storm the night before made things look frosted and perfect.

After we took pictures, we went back to Charlotte for the reception. Everything was so wonderful, we were really glad to get to come down for the wedding and spend time with Jasher and Jenny.

Ironically, the trip back was really short :-) and the drive was lovely. Good road, lots of lanes, pretty countryside...much more comfortable than the drive to the temple.

Thanks for inviting us guys! We were so glad to have made it! Congratulations again!

Christmas Snacks

A cherished childhood memory of mine is making Christmas candy in my grandma Norma's kitchen. Cinnamon suckers, peanut butter cups, and chocolate covered cherries were always a "staple" snack, and I remember making those very clearly. Pouring the chocolate into the little paper cups with holly printed on the sides, rolling the peanut butter mixture into little balls and putting them in the cups then scooping chocolate over the top. I loved how perfectly the little creases would come out in the chocolate when it cooled, just like a real Reese's peanut butter cup. My grandma. Was magical. The end. :-)

After we made the snacks, I remember putting them on plates and then taking them to some of her neighbors. I have no idea how often we did this with Grandma Norma, but I remember that we did, at least once, and it is something I love to do now too.

I think I gained my love of cooking in my grandmas kitchen with the family all around. I remember thinking about the "kitchen hierarchy." There were people on the bottom who did things like scrub and peel potatoes and carrots...generally a lot of work with vegetables :-) And then there were people in the middle who got to stir...that was cool. And then there were people in the top who got to do the chopping and the actual putting things into the pots and the seasoning and the deciding what was being made. It was such a wonderful, magical place in the kitchen. Always warm with the heat from the stove and oven. Always loud with the sounds of cooking, cutting, boiling, laughter, and stories. Always filled with the glorious smells of food. Cooking at the holidays with family is one of life's treasures.

As an adult, I see that really...it was harder work to have us kids in the kitchen underfoot than it would have been to cook the meal by themselves....but boy am I glad for their patience. It meant the world to me :-) I felt like SUCH a big helper! :-D Funny how time changes perspective. It probably took me a million years to peel a potato, and I don't think I even did it unsupervised either :-) What a wonderful family I have!!

Anyway...back to the Christmas snacks :-)

I have tried to make Christmas snacks every year since we have been married, and generally I like to invite the MJ over to make snacks with me, but this year the timing just never worked out :-( But never fear!! Mark and I pressed on by ourselves! (Mark is an awesome taste tester, BTW)


we made chocolate peppermint biscotti, sour-cream cookies (the white round ones with chocolate drizzled over the top...so good!), candy-cane brownie bites (with the crushed candy cane on top and a candy cane kiss in the middle...it was ok), butter date bars (upper left corner, these were really yummy!), snickers bars (square with the chocolate on the top), soft ginger bread men (this is an old family recipe I got from my mom...seriously, the best gingerbread...ever. It stays soft! And wonderful! And I don't even like gingerbread!), holiday popcorn, and then little reindeer German-chocolate cake bites (the ones with ....well...antlers)


Here is a plate with another version of the little gingerbread men. Some I doused in the lemon glaze (who would have thought, right?! Lemon glaze? Gingerbread? ....life changingly good) and some just got faces. Actually, they all were going to have faces, until I tried one. And then I said to myself "LEMON GLAZE!? WHY YES I THINK I'LL HAVE SOME MORE!!" and I doused all the rest of them. It was the right thing to do. And all was right with the world once more.


Here is a glamor shot of Rudolf! I made some with cute little red m&m noses...


...and cute little sugar pearl tails! :-D These were really yummy and cute :-) But! the antlers kept getting knocked off by the plastic wrap, sooo...I don't know if anyone else got that they were reindeer, or if they were just wondering why there were some half eaten pretzels floating around on their plate. Oh well!


Here they are all packaged and ready to go! Merry Christmas! :-D

Hair Pretties

I may have mentioned once or twice that my niece chio loves girl things. It's awesome. For Christmas, I decided that I wanted to make her hair pretties. I wanted to make little banana clips with little bows on them. So, I googled how to make them, and I called up my mom on skype for company as I made them. It was a super relaxing activity I tell you what! At about midnight, I said goodnight to my mom, because I was tired and going to go to bed. I had a few flowers that we had made together on skype:

This dark purple and silver one to match chio's "princess dress" that she has for church...

...and these flower clips were a couple of favorites. The pink daisy flower (lower center) was made with ribbon and a button, the brown and blue flower (center top) was made with felt and a button, and the white flower (right) was crocheted! I made that one while I was at the computer lab one day waiting for my code to run. I end up doing all sorts of strange things in the computer lab waiting for my code to run. One time I made baby shower invitations. They have an industrial size paper cutter there...oh yes, they do.

Anyway, this was about as far as I got when I hung up with my mom.

But!

Then....


...I WENT ON A RAMPAGE!! :-D





And...not just hair pretties for ONE niece....

...A MATCHING SET OF HAIR PRETTIES FOR TWO!! :-D

They were just so adorable, before I went to bed I made a matching set for Noelle. I was not sure if she loved girl things as much as chio did, but I figured a girl cant have too many hair things.

And, no, I have no idea what time I actually went to bed. Sometimes...it is best not to look at the clock. Ignorance is bliss my friends, ignorance is bliss.

It is just so addicting and satisfying to make these! I would finish one and say to myself "oh...I have a great idea and it wont take that long...well...JUST ONE MORE! "

Repeated 50 times.

I am pretty sure I did this after I took my last final though, and before we left for NC. I just needed a break from the grind of school I tell you, and this was just the thing :-)

What we have learned from this is that I should never be left unsupervised with the glue gun late at night... heh heh heh...

Thanksgiving

Thus far, we have generally spent Thanksgiving at Mark's parents house for two reasons: 1, I am scared to drive in the winter, and 2, it is a short holiday during the school year and his parent live close to us. Mark's family have a big family gathering at Mark's parents house, and a lot of the extended family generally try to make it.

For us, we are trying to do better at balancing out the time between the holidays between both parents...but sadly, we have been greatly outnumbering the holidays we spend at Mark's parents since they live so much closer to us. We will try better in the future mommy!

Anyway, here are some pictures from thanksgiving:

This is the pecan pie cake I made. We even made little edible acorns by wrapping pecan halves in pie dough and baking them in the oven. The leaves are out of pie dough as well.

Pie dough? Is there even such a thing? ....


Anyway, even though Mark looks a little worried in this picture, I also made the stuffing...and it was delicious. I made the corn bread, and the french bread, and we cut it in little pieces and toasted them in the oven. There is spinach and sausage and celery and onions and lots of fresh spices in the vegetable broth that we ladled over the dried bread crumbs. Mmmmm.....I LOVE stuffing! Very yummy!

There was plenty of food, and there were lots of people visiting from Mark's Dad's family, it was really nice. Here are some pictures of people visiting and eating the yummy food!




It is really fun to live so close to Mark's family and we have been enjoying it as much as we can :-) We are sad that we are not closer to both families! But being close to one is really nice, and much better than being all by ourselves :-) Thanks for having us over! It was really nice!

Who ate all my candy corn?

This is a question Mark asks himself quite often.


Another question is, "*GASP!* Did you eat all my candy corn?!" Only that is directed at me.

And I love to hear this question because it makes me laugh, evvvvvvery time :-D

I don't eat candy corn. I also don't eat skittles, or as a general rule, any candy that does not contain chocolate.

Mark knows this, and so we fill up his candy stash with candy that I will not eat (because if it has a smidge of real chocolate in it, it must be hidden from me in my moments of weakness or I will consume every last bit of it...theoretically...)

But not candy corn!!


Poor sad face for mark....



He ate alllllll his candy corn.... :-(

His and Hers

I give you....his and her dressers!!!! :-D













Here's a tough one.....guess which is which! :-D

I know, right?! ;-) reaaaaaaaaaly tough.

They are pretty much identical, huh?

I thought so too :-)

They were taken moments apart on the same day as I sat on the bed contemplating how perfectly this vignette sums up the difference between how Mark and I operate. The opportunity was too perfect to pass up, so I captured it forever in a photo.

(Oh, and Mark was kind enough to censer out my bra from the image...Thanks Mark!)

Leopard Print

It's not a bag.

It's not a jacket.

It's not even shoes...


...IT'S LEOPARD PRINT CAKE!!!!

Which is WAY better than all those other things.

Come here and I'll tell you why....



....CUZ YOU CAN EAT IT!! :-D

Not that I ate this cake, it was the first and only cake I have ever made for someone to purchase. And that is only because a friend of my friend called and begged me to make it for them. They had waited to long to get one from a bakery, but they had already told the friend that they were going to get a leopard print cake...and there was awkwardness since she had done no such thing and all the bakeries said that they couldn't make it on such short notice or something like that.

My friend said that they were pleased with it, so whatever, right? I'm glad it worked out. :-)

I made this cake with tan colored fondant and then painted on the spots. They are painted on with food coloring mixed with lemon extract. Lemon is the way to go (in case you are interested) as it has the highest alcohol content of the extracts which means it will evaporate quickly without making the fondant sticky and grossy.

Very important to avoid sticky and grossy fondant. Rule # 14.

I was also supposed to put a big giant bow on the top.


To be honest, I am not pleased with how it turned out. But, like I told the lady, I was in the middle of the semester, and I had two tests that weekend, so I was not going to be able to spend very much time on it, so...it is what it is. I'm glad I could help her out.

Its 4 layers on the inside, and I think that it will taste yummy, so at least there is that saving grace.

Halloween Hunting

Amanda and Brian invited us to have a Halloween party with them and some other friends in the area. It was really fun! We started out at their apartment, and then went, totally dressed up in costumes, on a scavenger hunt at the Mall! It was such a great idea! We took pictures of the items on the hunt, and then we all looked at them back at the apartment on the computer and found out who "won". Good times. We also played a glorified version of Mafia (with like, a million different job descriptions, it was so much fun!) and had snacks. It was so much fun! :-D

Mark and I...were the Ninja Turtles! Heck yes!



(don't forget the shell..work it Mark)



Here we are all gathered at the Mall passing out the scavenger list.


The kids were pretty awesomely dressed up as well :-)

Amanda and Brian and Luke were Cinderella, Prince Charming, and the little mouse Gus Gus! :-D

And Joseph was a little monster! My friend Kellie totally sewed this entire costume! Your amazing Kellie!

The kids were pretty cute when they got taken out of their costumes too. It was funny Brian said "Here Joseph, pick on Luke, he doesn't have a sibling" (Brian is Luke's father...they are so funny! )


It was such a fun evening, thanks so much for having us over! What a great idea! :-D

Halloween Cupcakes and Branch Activity.

It has long been my belief that Halloween is one of the funnest occasions to make food for. There are just so many possibilities of cool snacks. I have even recently found a cool idea to make glow in the dark drinks and jello using a blacklight. If you are interested (which you should be) go here to learn more.

Anyway, I like to invite the MJ to come over sometimes and decorate desserts. (I may have mentioned this once or twice before ;-)) This time, we happened to make some cupcakes and snacks for a Branch Halloween party.
They turned out great!



Here are some other snacks that we made for the party!

Pumpkin pie bites (which I thought were totally disgusting but Mark liked)

and cereal-treat ghosts (as of this moment I have decided to start saying "cereal treats" instead of "rice-krispy treats" like all the cool kids do. Cereal-treats. They are for winners)

Anyway! Here are some pictures of the festivities, we had some fun pumpkin carving, yummy food, and good times. It was a really fun activity!



Here are some great videos of one of the games that we played, it was a relay race. I think there is a certain age advantage, what do you think?








kids are so fun :-)

Nail Polish...ADVENTURES!

One of the most amazing things is how quickly and distinctly chio understood/expressed/decided that she liked girly things. Like, a lot. A lot a lot. One such thing is having her nails painted. I think you could count on your hands the number of times Kiora had painted her nails before she had chio...lets just say that number has drastically increased.

Here is a video of when they came to visit of us putting on nail polish together.




My mom was trying to take the following still images, but I am glad that she accidentally captured this as a movie, because you can clearly see chio carefully looking at her nails and holding them still, then blowing on her nails, and then (this is the kicker) lovingly admiring them right at the end!! isn't that CRAZY?! :-D What a great capture mom! :-D




She is just learning how to talk ...and yet she instinctively knows how to hold still long enough to let the paint dry, separate her fingers really well, and to blow on them so that they dry faster. Crazy.

And, she is also acutely aware of when she needs to have her nail polish replaced.


Here is the finished product!

I think it is totally awesome. I can't wait for her fingernails to get bigger so we can put designs and what-nots on them! Yay!

Everytime that chio has come to visit, we have had nail painting parties. I LOVE them!!

In fact, from time to time I have visions of mani- and peti- parties when she gets older.... trips to get our nails done at a salon with the other cousins maybe....spa girls nights at home with avocado and cucumbers.... Oh what fun is in store! :-D I hope she still likes doing this when she grows up! :-D