~i love kung fuuuuuuuu!~



happy birthday to my favorite boy in the whole wide world.

gnomes

to whom it may concern,
thank you for the creepers you left on our porch and in our garden. you scared the pants off brandon when he looked out the window last night and saw a friend staring back at him from the dark porch. nice job.

happy 4th

is there a holiday that i don't enjoy??? (well, maybe st. patrick's day... i think it's annoying) but like most holidays, i love the 4th of july. i love the sound and smell of fireworks, the delicious bbq's, and the feel of the blazing sun. the winter cold and the stress of work could not be further from my mind!

a few months ago my dad decided that he wanted the whole family to participate in the freedom run 5k. so on the morning of the 4th we rolled out of bed at an obscene hour and made our way into provo. i haven't run in almost a year so i was a bit worried. my goal was to simply run the whole time. i couldn't care less about my time. brandon and i ran together with my 9 year-old niece, brinley, who had been training at home in AZ. it took a good amount of encouragement, a couple of lies about the finish line being just around the corner, and a little ride on the stroller (for brinley, not me)but we were able to meet our goal. it was such a fun run and something brandon and i decided we want to make a tradition.
this little lady also enjoyed the race. she was so happy and content in her stroller.

that night my family got together for our annual bbq and firework show. i love that aerial fireworks have been legalized! best firework show ever!

~happy 4th~

~three~

what a good number. happy 3 years brandon.

the curse of the cake

remember back in october when i made my very first wedding cake? i swore i would never do it again. well my dear friend jenni recently got married. she wasn't planning on having a cake... but for some reason beyond my understanding i volunteered to make one for her.... a rice crispy cake i should add. it was going to be so easy. a simple, small cake and because i wasn't using real cake i could make it days before the wedding and still be able to enjoy the festivities.

i got this genius idea to try a cake stencil. i did my internet research and again assured jenni that it would be so easy! she continued to remind me that she didn't need a cake and ordered that i not stress over it. haha, if you know anything about me, it's that stress and i go hand in hand. i don't do much in life without stress right there at my side.

i ordered a stencil and was excited to try it out on a practice cake. remember how easy it was going to be???? you were suppose to be able to tape the stencil to the cake, cover it with icing, scrape off the extra, remove the stencil, and wah-la... you have a beautiful cake! so easy! ha! ya, right. is any project ever easy? not in my life. first off, i couldn't get the stencil to lay flush with the cake. it gaped at the top and wouldn't stay on the cake long enough to get the icing on. i literally needed 3 hands. i wish i had a picture of the end result. terrible. it was a globby mess. so i waited for brandon to get home from work. he patiently held the stencil in place while i frosted. (i love that he always gets roped into my "easy" projects) even with his help, the cake was not much better. i practiced several more times with the same messy results. next, brandon got the fantastic idea to use spray food-coloring. i had some blue left over from a cake i made last august. i practiced with the bright blue color and it was perfect!!! except that her colors were peach and orange, not blue. sigh. so i googled more colors. nothing but bright, basic rainbow colors. i needed something soft and elegant. so i looked into an airbrush. i found a $15 gun at harbor freight and some airbrush ready color online. perfect.

tuesday: the colors arrived - ivory & peach. (did i mention the wedding was friday, and we were spending thursday night in fairview... talk about pushing it). i had the cake ready and started to apply the color. the airbrush worked amazingly well! the color on the other hand was terrible. the ivory was mustard yellow and the peach was hot pink. i looked into diluting them but every website said not to. grrr.
thankfully brandon was between classes and stopped in at michael's craft and found some airbrush food coloring. it was pearl (which really looked silver) but i didn't care at this point. i ended up using my own concoction of color and came up with a soft peach. perfect. 30 seconds into spraying, the gun stopped working. are you kidding me!!!! thinking it was clogged, brandon took it apart. but then we couldn't get it back together. after working on it for a good hour i had had enough and decide to just go to bed and deal with it in the morning.

wednesday morning: i exchanged the airbrush, then ran all over town re-buying supplies to make a new crispy cake since the other was covered in baby-poo-yellow. i got the cake remade and covered with fondant.... started spraying..... and.... the gun stopped working. aaahhhhaaahhaahhh. bad words.

wednesday night: wedding dinner. delicious but i was panicing inside the whole time. i was out of ideas. we came home and were able to get it working again! yay. i sprayed half the cake and let it dry overnight.

thursday morning: i woke up and decided the cake was far too big. (what is wrong with me?!) i went to walmart and bought a smaller pan and made a new cake top. i sprayed half and let it dry. in the meantime i got ready to spray the second half of the bottom layer of cake. don't worry, the gun stopped working again. at this point i was done. brandon was at work and then had a test to take so i knew i was completely on my own. i tried everything we had done the night before with no luck. then baby girl decided that this cake was getting far too much attention and demanded to be held and rocked and loved. sigh. brandon got home at 6:00. exactly when i had wanted to leave. instead, my house looked like a small bomb had gone off. there was powered sugar, marshmallows, and smears of crisco everywhere. i broke down. poor brandon got the wrath. this was not his first encounter with an over-stressed wife and he knew to leave me alone and quietly worked on the gun. i packed the car while sniffling and wiping away boogers. i kept thinking... this was going to be so easy. so so easy. a few minutes later brandon quietly told me that the gun was again working. i managed a pitiful 'thank you' and finished the cake. we were in the car by 6:45 with a finished cake sitting on my counter. i could not have been more relieved.

friday: the wedding was perfect... of course. we drove home from manti and packed up the cake. it looked beautiful (if i do say so myself) as did the reception. gorgeous!
don't worry, it's not over. about an hour in, jenni came up and told me that the wind had knocked over a piece of decor which had then knocked the cake onto the ground. what? are you kidding me? i had to laugh. what else could i do? luckily the cake was made of crispies and was pretty sturdy. i did my best to reassemble it. a couple minutes later it was on the ground again. ha!.... what are the chances that it would be knocked over twice?!?!? by the end of the night the poor thing was completely dented and had big gashes in it. but hey, i learned how to airbrush a cake and it really is super easy! no lie.

yeay for jenni & lee!

it was a perfectly gorgeous day. thank you for letting us be a part of it.

{2 months }

esme turned 2 months old last week and i have spent a lot of time reflecting on the changes in our lives in these last 2 months. being a mother has been one of the most rewarding experiences i have ever had. it has also been the hardest. i have a whole new love and respect for mothers.

in the past 2 months esme has gained over 4 pounds and weighs in at a whopping 12 pounds 12 ounces. she started cooing and "talks" to us constantly. she smiles more and more each day and has just recently begun to giggle (although it's rare, and takes lots of work on our part).


in the past 2 months brandon finished a killer semester of 18 credits while still working, (really, it almost killed him) and i must brag a bit for him... he received all A's and one itzy-bitzy C. nice.

b-don celebrated his academic accomplishment (and his one week break between semesters) by putting in an amazing path from our walkway to the road in front of our house. did i mention it's amazing? because it is.

we were able to spend the night with our friends, Jeff and Kendra, at their cabin and do a little 4-wheeling. it was so nice to get away and spend time outside.


in the past two months i have been to more weddings and bridal showers than i have in my 29 years combined (cupid must be working overtime). one wedding in particular was my best friend brook's. we are so excited for her and kevan.


in the past 2 months my maternity leave came to an end and i am now back to work. I have adjusted to being a working mom much better than i thought i would. esme has loved her babysitters: grandma, millie, and kelsey. actually, she probably has no idea that i leave her with babysitters for 8+ hours a day but i tell myself she loves it to make myself feel a bit less guilty. i am lucky to have so many people willing to watch her. it has made going back to work so much easier.

in the past 2 months our lives have changed completely. we are sleep deprived. our house has never been so messy. my hair is in a perma-pony. laundry has become an ongoing battle... here a little, there a little. my bathtub hasn't been cleaned in 2 months... gross and kind of embarrassing, but true. through it all though, we have never felt so happy, lucky, and blessed.