New Technique!

Okay, I'm not posting this on my cake blog because I don't want to sound overly excitable and unprofessional. But how COOOL is this!? It's this whole new world of chocolate transfer sheets, there are like unlimited numbers of designs available, and they are so cheap and easy (well kinda) but for the total effect, very, very effortless! Look here and here to see what Martha did with it, I totally want to do these cakes for a wedding. I wish I could pause the world and just learn & learn all of these techniques that I've seen lately! Well, I'll try a few here and there, so let me know what you think, k? (I wish I had a professional food stylist & photographer on hand at all times. This is picture is pathetic, I know.)

Red Velvet Batter!!!! Yeah!

I keep telling myself....

...that I'm going to start writing down the funny things Sawyer says & does on a daily basis, and so here is my first installment. I do not remember frequently singing this song during the holidays, but for some reason, today, whilst trying to go pee-pee in the potty, Sawyer was struck with a festive mood and busted out this lovely rendition of "Jingle Bells."

MLK St. George Trip

Hey, we got back on Tuesday from a lovely trip to "San Jorge" with Steven & Jennifer (Matt's brother's family). It was so much fun and awesome weather, so we felt very blessed that they would offer to share their holiday weekend with us! I think they are one of my all-time favorite traveling companions, they kinda go at our pace, you know? Jennifer is very well organized and even though they have 3 little (terribly cute) kids, she would always beat me to the car and generally be more put together than I am, which with 3 times the kids, is quite a feat. Jen & I talked all the way down & I feel like we are friends now, not just sisters-in-law, which I love, she is great! Plus she went to the gym with me, and that was nice to have someone to go with down there. We also both like baking a lot & we made the first installment of our monthly cake club. Martha Stewart had a "Year of Cakes" article to celebrate some anniversary of hers many moons ago, and I'm excited to get together every month & make something new & totally yummy. Matt & Steve golfed and we shopped a little bit, and we took the kids to the indoor pool, because, while it was nice for January, it wasn't quite time to brave the condo pool. Sawyer loved playing with her cousins, I'm just guessing that by the fact that "cousins?" was the first word out of her mouth each morning. It was good to see that life with 3 is doable, but I also learned that if it's going to be good, I'm going to have to stop coddling Sawyer like I do. I need to let her walk everywhere and feed and dress herself, because I think my being impatient and just doing it, is really not helping her learn. I've been trying to step back a bit since then and not "help" so much.

New Years & Stuff

So, we did our annual trip to the cabin for New Years again, it's fun because we have to snowmobile in & it is so pretty up there in the snow. We went with Ryan & Stacey, so it was pretty low-key and relaxed....until Sawyer got sick and the power went out. Let's just say it was not my finest hour as a mother. She was really fussy, what with croup & a double ear infection, poor little bean, and of course all she wanted to do was watch TV, which is hard to do when the freaking power is out for 12 hours straight. At one point she also decided that being totally naked in an unheated cabin was what she wanted to do, I was soooo frustrated with her! Anyway, we all survived and she's well again, so it's all good. Our five year anniversary passed while we were up there as well, we kinda ignored it though, and that was fine with me. I really am not ready to start thinking of gift ideas so soon after Christmas. Anyway, this year I haven't really made any "resolutions", I love the direction that my life is going, and I'm just gonna keep on truckin'. If there is anything I've decided needs to change it is actually to work out less. I have been going 6 days a week, about 1 1/2 or 2 hours a day, and that is retarded. What I really want to do is eat well enough that I can exercise only about 60 minutes a day, just for the love of sweat, not because I HAVE to if I want to maintain my weight and eat like an idiot. I'd also like to do that 60 minutes at 7am so that I don't have to pay for or subject Sawyer to the germs and poor-quality day care at the gym. (Since Ashley left it has seriously tanked in quality there.) In fact, once we finish the basement & I have my little work out room, I'd really rather work out at home. We could just take our $64 each month and instead of paying Golds, automatically have it transferred to a separate savings account that we could dip into when we want new equipment. I like that plan. Matt has really started eating a lot better, and has already shed 10 pounds! He is so amazing, he's just tweaking little things and he's gonna be in better shape than I am in like a week, and he'll be able to eat like this forever! He already looks so much better! Also, he's starting to do a really good scripture study in the morning, and he's just benefiting sooo much from it already. That boy is bustin' out his A game, let's just say that! I love him so much, he is such an inspiration and support to me. Anyway, lately I'm getting excited to be pregnant again! Little Abram is waiting in the wings, I can tell! We can't start trying until March though, because Norwegian Cruise Lines says that I can't be more than 24 weeks on our Alaskan cruise in August. But I'm excited, which is something that I could not say until recently. Anyway. Here is a picture of pretty much all I did at the cabin, (I love that Sawyer totally is mimicking me here, it was so cute.) Stacey & I were trying to make our way through the same book, Love in the Time of Cholera, which I finished and decided that it was not entirely worth the time. Not bad, but just too much work for kind of a dumb ending. I don't know. So many people love it and I was expecting more. But it was refreshing to have a more difficult read after the highly enjoyable, yet trite Twilight series. I have a cake on Saturday, it's very simple, I am so not stressed out, which is nice after freaking cupcake hell.