Wednesday, August 26, 2009

Weekend In Tennessee

LOVE the new 16-85 lens, now we can take pictures of ourselves too instead of just everyone else my other lenses were way too zoomed to get anything besides one of our noses or eyes:)



Carleton and I got word of baby Caroline being born so we rearranged some plans and headed to Tennessee on Friday.  We got to meet little Caroline, see the TN part of the fam, and Anna and family were in town too, score!  We had a great time taking pictures (well I did), going to the "beach" (lake), taking walks-I shouldn't have raced Elsa and Emma Grace after eating so much, but I did-note to self, don't do that again!  We got to spend some of Karl's birthday with him too, the big 3-0, Happy Birthday, Karl!  All in all, it was a great weekend, even if someone at church asked when I was due...quick story behind that:

So Lana (Carleton's mom) and I had exchanged a few e-mails over the past week or so, I had mentioned that I was beginning to feel a little left out seeing as I was the only one of all my sisters-in-law and my sister who was not prego, but that only lasted two weeks.  Lana thought I meant I was pregnant and we were coming with news, all I meant by it was Christy had had her baby in that time so I was no longer the only one in the family who wasn't pregnant.  She was anticipating our "news" at dinner Saturday night, the only news we had was that we are not having a baby anytime soon!  So the next morning after eating a lot and feeling a little plump (I always eat a lot there, mainly because Lana makes amazing whole wheat waffles and makes me feel like I'm being healthy when I'm stuffing my face) I tell Carleton that I look prego in this dress, and he's like no that's the "I've eaten too much at my in-laws house" dress.  An hour and a half later a lady comes up to me at church and asks when I'm due.  I told Carleton I was never eating again...ever.  Then I remembered the yummy brownies his mom made for Karl's birthday and that she'd packed some for us, so I groaned "MMMMMMMM BROWNIES" he reminded me of my new "diet" without hesitation and I said I'd start Tuesday, after Mexican night-that was a total hit too!

Ok now that I've thought about mexican night, I must say something about it, since I didn't take any pictures I'll just add a quick tidbit to this post:)  I think this might become a regular occurrence for us!  On Monday night we had Mexican Night with some of our friends.  Earlier that day I bit halfway through my tongue (Ben said it looked like hamburger-gross!), yes three days later it still hurts, bad, but that didn't stop me from indulging in freshly made and delicious salsa, guacamole, enchiladas, and bean dip with some yummy chips as utensils and scrumptious browny fudge ice cream with hot fudge and caramel on top for dessert (peanut butter cookies were also present!)  Yes this meal was amazing, we even had an exhilarating game of Mexican Train to go along with our mexican themed night, now when we play train, we go big or go home, we played all 13 rounds!  Thank you Connells and Holts for such a great night, let's do it again soon!  Monthly Monday Mexican Night....I think that has a nice ring to it!  Now to think of another theme so we have excuses to get together more than once a month!

Tuesday, August 18, 2009

When life hands you a messy cake....

Make a Trifle instead!  






So my mom's birthday (not just any birthday, her 50th birthday) was on Saturday.  She was in Cancun with my dad, my sister was at Myrtle beach with her family, so we tried making Sunday dinner a little more special before we went out to celebrate for her birthday this week.  Well, with the excitement of Carleton moving back home (YAYYYYYY), making pancakes for a primary activity, the pool, cooking, priesthood meeting, grocery shopping, and going to Old Salem for a bridal shoot, time sort of got away from us.  I threw the cake in the oven and realized I'd have just enough time to get it out and put the bottom layer on the plate, I told Carleton how to remove the second one and gave (I thought) detailed instructions, basically just make sure the top is facing up!  I'm not sure if you can tell in the picture what's going on but 1/4 of the top is facing up, the other puzzle pieced 3/4s are faced down...I got home, and decided I needed to try something different because it would be pretty difficult to fix this cake, even if I could cover it with enough icing, when we attempted cutting it, our secret would be out!  Instead,  I crumbled the cake up and threw some of it in the bottom of a trifle dish, next I whipped up some pudding (chocolate and vanilla), grabbed some strawberries and blueberries I'd just bought, and pulled out some whipped cream.  As you can tell from the pictures, I just started layering and re-layering until I ran out of everything and put it in the fridge til it was dessert time!  I'm not sure if people realized it was a mistake or not, it looked pretty!