I had to post this

I thought this was too funny to pass up...

Baby Fest 2009

Christmas with the Clauss Family this year was referred to as "Baby Fest 2009" because of all the newborns.

Carleton and I headed to TN for Baby Fest Thursday after a long day of work for me, and a 7.5 hour final for Carleton. The rock slide that closed I-40 added some extra time to our drive, but all in all, it wasn't bad. For dinner we stopped at Taco Bell where I burned the top of my mouth pretty bad, but didn't let it deter me from eating my tacos!

The next morning Carleton woke up with a sore throat that I didn't think much of at the time. We sat on the couch eating pineapple when my mouth started really hurting. After a minute I realized I was not tasting pineapple, but mouthfuls of blood, YUCK! That burn from the taco made my mouth all red and white up where I'd gotten burned, I know, sick. After 15 minutes or so of spitting out mouthfuls of blood and dabbing the roof of my mouth with a paper towel it started feeling a little better. Carleton went and took a nap and was irritated because I was poking him thinking he was being rude not spending time with his family. After he got up we found out he had just over a 103 temperature. Sorry, honey. He didn't eat anything the rest of the day and was pretty much quarantined from everyone. He even wore a mask for the rest of that day and most of the next. Poor guy. He was so excited to see all the kids, but he couldn't even touch them or throw them around the way he was hoping.

"Christmas Day" was better. Anna, Karl, and family were finally able to get there (they attempted Friday but had to turn around because of the snow). Karl, Jen, Lana, Carleton, and I went shooting, it was Jen's first time and I think she did great!

On our way home we got stuck behind a big accident for about an hour. A mack truck hit a snow bank and completely turned over, hitting some trees and splitting open the trailer (spilling the contents of it on the interstate). We ended up turning off the car, sitting back and chatting.

Despite the less than thrilling traveling conditions, Carleton being sick, even coughing up blood at one point, we really enjoyed seeing our family and spending some quality time together. We have such a great family on both sides and feel so blessed to be a part of it!

more pictures of the little ones on my picture blog

Our little family.

Sunday morning we left our house around 7, went to make sure all my tires were full, Carleton filled up three of them, then saw my right rear tire, which was completely flat. We turned around and went home, moved everything to Carleton's car and started warming his car up. Eventually we were back on the road, by 7:45 and rolled up to their house around 10:30. We had such a great time seeing everyone, it was especially nice meeting our two brand new nieces.

Anna was a wonderful host as always, she was the one that just had the baby, the reason we went up there, and she's busy cooking for all of us! Seriously, our family never ceases to amaze me!

We didn't know until a couple days before that Christian and Jen's family would be joining us there, so that was a nice surprise!

It was freezing, but they were good sports as I took a few pictures of each family...if you wouldn't mind voting on your favorites here and here, that'd be awesome!

And not that I didn't love the pictures we had taken for our one year anniversary. But I needed a few where we were both looking forward and smiling! So when we went up to Williamsburg on Sunday for our niece's blessing, I had Carleton sit down, tested the light, then passed my camera off for a few quick snaps! Please vote on your favorites, it's for a good cause, which I can't say publicly, but your votes are very appreciated!

I realize I never posted anything about my birthday or Thanksgiving. Truth is, both were great! I got to spend them both with people that I love and they took very good care of me, making sure my back was nice and massaged and my belly was full and satisfied. Thank you, family for making my birthday (and Thanksgiving) great! Reason for no posts on them individually: no pictures:(

Thanks for asking!

Yesterday I got this e-mail which brought a smile to my day:)

Ashley, I saw a photograph on the website http://www.ldschurchtemples.com/washington/gallery/?page=3 you took of the Washington D.C. Temple. I am making a Christmas gift for my mother-in-law were a picture is modgepodged onto wooden blocks. I wanted to use one of the photographs you took. I know that your released permission to the above site for users to use the photograph as a screensaver, but were I will actually be printing the picture I wanted to receive permission from you to do so. I will not be selling the product or making any profit from it. If you have a site where you sell your photographs for such use, please forward that site to me. Thank you, Lorianne

Who needs Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory....

when they post the directions to making their delicious apples, along with all the ingredients on their website, and you've got great friends to make your own with!

All you need is a good clean crisp apple, we had granny smith (what they use at Rocky Mntn.)

Then you melt some caramel- by the time you're done it no longer looks like wet dog food

Then you did your apple and do the twirling effect to let as much caramel run off as you can

like this!

Spectators are always welcomed-she wanted in on the apple deliciousness

Next you layer on the white chocolate

mix cinnamon and brown sugar

place on the sugar/cinnamon concoction

and start the twirling/spinning movement again, this time, sideways!

Then ta-da DELICIOUS! I apologize for no pictures of us enjoying them, but they were too good to put down long enough for someone to snap a picture!

no this is not our child, but she's SOO cute, and we love playing with her at every chance we get...this was our entertainment for the night, watching Tessa's reaction to being in the punch bowl

yes, she has amazing eyelashes

I think this was the straw that broke the camel's back, because she was pretty tired of the punch bowl by this point...

Finally, safe with mommy and her two trusty fingers

It's a good thing it's late and there's no way I'm going to the store to buy caramels, because I'm really craving some sweet, sugary apples right now! Definitely will be doing this again!

PS- I'm happy to report, after many questions about when I was going to put up all my step-by-step posts, I have finally caught up...I think, I hope!

Roses

A few weeks ago I went to Super Saturday with my mom and sister. I learned how to make pretty frosting flowers! We had a great teacher and made beautiful cookies too. I took pictures of my first to my last one, they're all on this plate, can you tell which is the first and which is the last? I went in a circle...

ps these flowers were supposed to last for three days max, these pictures were taken a week and a half after I made them, so they might not be as pretty as when I first made them

All this for what?

Let me start by saying, I don't think of myself as one of those crazy twilighters, BUT I really enjoyed the books, they're a quick, fun read. The movies aren't great, but because I like the books I've grown fond of the movies, I just fill in the parts that are left out and pretend the acting is better than it actually is.

For my birthday one of my friends gave me some Twilight chocolates, from that, stemmed this idea...

A friend in my ward made some delicious oreo eyeballs for Doreen and Matt's halloween party, check out that post to see them. Anyway, they were so yummy I thought I'd make an apple (like Bakerella's apple pops) then I thought, that's really twilight, not New Moon. So I thought about making Moons, but figured people would be like what's with the yellow balls. So instead I made some "topaz/golden eyes" like the Cullens, and some paw prints for the wolves.

I started with red creme-filled oreos (the Christmas kind). I figured red was better than white for vampires, blood, you get the idea.

Wanna see this ground up goodness closer? I thought so, I did too, I wanted to keep going but alas, I waited until they were done to try them!

Here's the balls (oreos and cream cheese)

dipped in white candy melts

now the paw prints and eyes! They don't look as good as I would've liked, but it took me like 5 hours!

If you guys have read the books you'll understand all this stuff

The goody bags consisted of water bottles, the Twilight and New Moon Soundtracks, Jacob, Bella, and Edward chocolates (thank you, Allison!) mints, oreo truffles and pops, forks, etc.

Waiting in line, we only got there an hour early

At the end of the night, I couldn't wait to rush home to my one and only and give him a big smooch!

Buttons!

I got the idea from a friend's blog to make these SUPER CUTE buttons! It was really easy, and a lot of fun. I went to Joanns with my 40% off coupon. I found the buttons I was looking for, then went to find some fabric. Well all I needed was a really small square, but unfortunately they don't sell fabric that way. BUT they do have really big reams of fabric that have little square samples you can take! So, with the help of one of the workers, I got a bunch of samples! My pack only had three buttons so I couldn't do too much, but what I did, I love!

I started with this

then....

and the final product looks like this (before you put it on a hair clip, necklace, or whatever else you choose to do)

And what as the total cost for this fun new hobby? I believe it was something like $2.17 for everything! Love things like this!

Thank you, Jenna, for the great idea!

Halloween part 2

The Gertsch's throw great parties, especially on Halloween, Doreen gets WAYYYY into it!  Thanks for throwing a fun, game filled party, guys!

 We voted on several things, one of which was best halloween treat, guess how many votes I got with these pumpkins I made?!  zero.  yep, that's right.

At least there was really good competition, Marianne's awesome white chocolate dipped oreo eyeballs, these won first place

Allison's shortbread fingers with almond fingernails and raspberry guts to dip it in

Doreen's very cute mice!  Man all these ladies blew me away, obviously, they all got votes!

We had a catwalk performance...Allison and Tessa

Matt, I know it looks like I'm checking out his butt, but I don't think I was!

Oh, it gets better...and yes that is Carleton, note the keys in his back pocket

Yep, he's attacking me, both he and Allison won best catwalk performance

Finally I was part of a winning game, that's me under there and they wrapped me the fastest, and we had one less teammate than all the other groups!  Way to go team!

I didn't understand the rules of this game...

This is me looking at Ben ticked that he won when I thought the rules were whoever could eat the most off the string but still leave the tiniest part on...apparently you just had to shovel it in fast and not drop it on the floor to win.   Maybe next year I'll understand better!

Balloon pop race!

They gave Carleton a "hand" for doing so well on the runway

And here is the story behind the keys....

After most of the people were gone, we decided it was time for our halloween night to come to a close too.  Carleton was searching all over the place for his keys, he thought he lost them while he was doing summersaults on the "catwalk".  The remaining 3 or 4 couples helped us turn the Gertsch's place upside down looking for them.  Under every cushion, in every nook, in every cranny, even in rooms he'd never gone in, everywhere.  I asked him if he checked his pockets...he said yes, about 5 minutes later, I said are you sure, cuz something is in your back right pocket.   They were in his pocket, he forgot he put them there to help him pop balloons.  Needless to say, I won that game!  Gotta love that boy.