weekend update

These are my favorite flowers evah! Stargazer lillies, they smell fantastic, and the mix with the lavender roses was awesome. (it's amazing what a golf-loving husband will do to stay out of the doghouse.) Unfortunatley, I think that Sawyer might be allergic to them though... we'll find out.
Very frightening ex-husband looking man behind my family at the Children's Museum... grrr....he was making me uneasy all day.
Sawyer selecting her baked goods at the child size grocery store. She loved this place! A bit overpriced, it would be worth it during the winter if you had a few kids and bought the annual membership though (& lived closer to SLC).
What a sweetie.
Sawyer & Daddy in the LifeFlight helicopter at Discovery Gateway. (Matt was going to kill this little kid next to him. His patience for other people's kids, especially when they are not being parentally supervised, is muy pequeño. Poor little boy was trying to squeeze in past Matt, there was seriously no room, and I think I overheard him saying "hey, why don't you get out of my face?" In his defense, he had told the kid to wait his turn about eleven times.)

Oh, and also, this morning, Matt & I got callings in the Young Men's & Women's. Yeah, that should be very, very fun, albeit time consuming.

Sawyer {hearts} painting

And you thought the easter egg concentration was fierce. This little girl is sooo artistic, just like Grandma Susie!

have ya had these yet?

and the award for best Easter candy discovery goes to.... my sweet husband Matt, who, knowing my affinity for regular whoppers and my obsession with a good strawberry milkshake, randomly & ever-so-sweetly bought me my new favorite thing evah! (except of course for my easter shoes)

Happy Easter! version 2.0

My parents emailed me this link and I am a very visual person and pictures of the Savior are always very touching to me, so I was a total mess during the entire slideshow. I guess this is a traveling photography show depicting various scenes of Jesus' life, and that one with John the Baptist in the river, just... oh goodness. Go look at it, see the joy on his face. Wow. Art is cool. http://www.reflectionsofchrist.org

growing up tooo fast

I am not what you might call a "baby person." I am excited to be (GET) pregnant, (am not currently pregnant (that I know of)) and very excited to see what kind of an amazing little person God thinks I can handle, but babies are HARD. I do not do well on limited amounts of sleep. I do not remember feeling panicked at the speedy-speed with which Sawyer grows until lately. I LOVE her as a toddler, she is my little buddy and I feel like I can communicate with her and that we "get" each other. Today when she marched herself out to the backyard and climbed up on the neighbor's trampoline, took off her shoes (like she's supposed to) and went to jumpin', all by her onesie, (thank you Jack Sparrow for that little turn of phrase.) I couldn't believe it. Soon she'll be climbing onto the back of motorcycles with good-fer-nothin' biker boys. Better not.

FHE!

Matt bartered some golfing for planning family home evening, and he (as always) came up with such a cute thing to involve Sawyer & really get her attention. I swear, I could never be this creative if my life depended on it. He made this adorable little slidey thing that showed Grandma & Grandpa walking to the temple on their mission in Taiwan. Wonderful! How cute is this video?

Happy Easter!

Sawyer has some pretty fierce concentration skills when it comes to colors & bunnies & stickers.
After hours & hours of primping, the final look is reavealed.
The tiny ponies were a big hit!
We have yet to see if Sawyer has gotten her photogenic skills from Matt's side or Celeste's. So far this is lookin' pretty Davis-y. ;)

Easter Bunny Charlie

Matt & I just tried to take pictures of Charlie with her bunny ears on & I was laughing so hard. She is sooo squirrelly when we try to dress her up at all, she HATES having anything on her head and no amount of treats will convince her to hold still. I love this dog!

I'm outta here!

Girls Weekend!!!

Okay, so this was a very long time ago (or at least it feels like it was) but I just wanted to post these rad pictures of my rad girls. I am so glad that Jill invited us all up to her in-laws vacation home in Logan/Hyrum. It was such a nice place and I didn't thank her enough. It wasn't long enough though, that's for sure! I don't know if anyone else will understand this, and please don't be offended, but I don't know if we would all be friends under normal circumstances, we are all SOOOO different. It's kind of like how you maybe wouldn't be friends with your siblings, but just due the fact that you've been around each other for so long and know way too much about each other, you develop the deepest kind of friendship and love for each other. Yeah, that's how my MDC girls are. I would lay down in traffic for any one of them. I suck soooo bad at staying in touch with them, but they we get together and it's like no time has past and we talk and laugh and cry till 3 am and all is right with the world again. Thanks for letting me in to your little 400 east world girls. (We missed you, Kathryn.)

Princesses on Ice

I know I've posted like 6 times today, but I forgot to post how much fun our weekend was. On Saturday we took Sawyer to Disney Princesses on Ice, she really did love it, unfortunatley she really is a princess-y girl. She dressed up and had so much fun looking at all the other girls' dresses, too. I had so much fun watching her watch the show, she was just delighted by the whole thing!

Easter Shoes!

So my sweet husband insists that each spring Sawyer and I both get Easter dresses. I know, huh? Well, Sawyer's dress is for a whole other post, but yesterday I got my first annual pair of "Easter shoes". As much as I love dresses, I am all set for dresses right now & couldn't find anything I liked. However, I have been LUSTING over these little biddies for quite some time now and when I walked into Macy's yesterday they were miraculously on sale and now they are mine! Obsenely cute, huh? They are like spring on my feet and I love them.

digiscrap crap

I've been trying to be more consistent with my digital scrap booking. My sister-in-law Becky has recently converted from paper and she is amazing. She sends me new layouts nearly everyday, and it's really inspired me to get my booty in gear. I really do like it, but it takes me sooo long to finish a page because I over think everything. I really do need to do something like this to help me start trusting my creative instincts. (oh, wow. As I typed that it felt like an epiphany. This is totally an issue I have leftover from my awful high school art experience... that's why I never dare to decorate my house, or accessorize, or do much more than copy other people's wedding cakes! I don't trust my own creative instincts! Damn that Mrs. Hart!) Anyway, I am on the road to recovery, so please give my any comments or suggestions on these last few pages I've made.

DeeDoo (that's "thank you" in Sawyer)

p.s. I think if you click on them they will be bigger and you might be able to actually read the words.

p.s.s. huh. never mind. if anyone knows how to do that whole "click to view enlarged" thing, let me know.

three cheers for 17%

So I finally took the plunge and made a decision on the gym issue. We are now proud new members of Performax and yeah for that! I can't believe I waited so long to do this, it is such a better fit. I miss the crap out of my girls at Golds, (Shelley, Quincey, Kierstin, Lindsey, Jill, Jill, that means you!) but I know that I made the right decision for Sawyer and that feels really good. Out of all the decisions you have to make for your child, it feels good to instantly know that you made one right one. She is sooo much happier and excited to go to the "new gym" and play. They rarely have the TV on, and there are NEVER more than one or two kids watching it. They have a row of computers with great kids programs, tons of toys and books, slides and really active climby-on things as well as Sawyer's favorite: DRESS UPS!!! The only bad thing is that now I have a hard time getting her to leave! The people that work there are SOOO nice and love kids and have really taken to Sawyer, as she has to them.
It's a really fun time of life right now, things are great and my secret, well-hidden pessimist is skulking around in my brain wondering what will go wrong to throw things out of balance. How do I get him to shut up so that I can just enjoy stuff right now?
Matt & I are having so much fun in our marriage, we are very good at staying on the same page goals and priorities-wise so we never get too far out of sync. New Orleans was very good for us I think. I am so grateful for him, I never knew I could get so lucky. There is so much you really don't know when you are first getting engaged, stuff that becomes so important over the course of a marriage, and somehow I got lucky and Matt has all the right answers to those questions I never thought to ask. Does that make sense? Plus he's hot. ;) Oh, and he's getting hotter by the day.... he and some of his friends are meeting every morning at 6:45 at the gym! That is very sexy to me for some reason. I think because I love to work out so much, it is nice to share that commitment with him. And it makes him tired earlier, so we are ready for bed closer to the same time! Yeah! That's something we've kind of struggled with, I need more sleep than he does usually.
So anyway, as new members of Performax, we get 2 sessions with a trainer, and I had my first today. Tim is a very nice little meathead (in a good way. I mean nothing but that he is kinda beefcake.), quite knowledgeable and newly engaged, so I hope to be able to trade wedding cake for personal training once I am ready to get rid of baby weight in 10-12 months! But he tested my body fat on one of those bioelectric impeadance things that you hold in your hands which are supposed to be more accurate than the scale/foot one I've been using. That one has been telling me that I'm at 27%, and while I've been pretty sure that's high, I have been using it as a judge to tell whether I'm going up or down, you know? Well, today I measured at 17%!!!!! That is freaking awesome! Now, I know that's not the most accurate way to measure it, but when I hydrostatic tested in college I wasn't in as good of shape and was at 20% then, so I'm pretty sure 17% is fairly accurate. But that was a good little boost for me today. Basically he says whatever I've been doing is great, tweaked my routine in a few places and then as soon as I'm ready post-baby, we'll start doing some triathalon training and get me leaned down to where I am a freaking rockstar! How fun is that!?

New Orleans Pictures

The Alligator problem there is really just out of control.
Proud new owners of Oak Alley.
You wouldn't know it by looking at Matt's face, but these are easily the best desserts on the planet, Bread Pudding with Rum Sauce and Mississippi Mud Cake.
Evergreen Plantation. We didn't tour this one, but just driving by was cool. So beautiful. One of Celeste's dreams come true: going to the 3-11 Day show!

The Laura Plantation was managed by Creole women for four generations.
The oranges we picked were actually very, very yummy.
I would love to live in a place where I could just go out my back door to pick my produce!
The 28 300 year old oaks at Oak Alley were sooo amazing!
Oak Alley Plantation back of house.

my best girls

I had to try to pop this picture a bit, because they were both sleeping and I didn't want to turn the flash on & wake them up, so sorry that it is very dark. I LOVE this new little friendship that is developing between Charlie & Sawyer, they love to hang out and play. Sawyer sometimes even reads stories to Charlie, I'll have to catch a picture of that soon, it is too cute! On this particular day, I decided to let Sawyer practice sleeping in a big girl bed so that she would feel okay about it at Steven & Jen's while we were in New Orleans, and since this is usually where Charlie likes to nap (don't tell any of our guests but it's actually Charlie's bed, not theirs. (Don't worry we throughly wash the sheets before you come.)) I decided to see if they could nap together. I had to go in a few times & tell Sawyer that it was not time to play, but that she could pet Charlie if she wanted to ONLY if she would stay laying down while she did it. That worked like a charm and here you see how it went. That dog is the sweetest thing I have ever seen. She is the BEST napping companion & I love her to death.

SOOOO not pregnant & New Orleans

I guess I just got a little thought stuck in my brain, that perhaps the reason why I had gained a few pounds in a few days was NOT because I had been eating like crap & not exercising, but rather that I was pregnant. Denial is sure strong, isn't it? Well, add that to the fact that I was completely off my rocker onery and irritable and you have the equation for my last stupid preemptive post. But I would like to be pregnant. Very much so, actually. (And it's not just because I forgot how incredibly bad having a period SUCKS!!!! God bless whoever came up with the IUD!) So, we'll get working on that, I guess. I'll let ya know how it goes. ;)
Okay, down to less intimate items of business.... Matt & I's trip to New Orleans was awesome! I was all worried that he would hate it, because he was not excited to be in the aftermath of Katrina (yes, I know. You try telling him it was 3 years ago) and we really weren't sure of what to expect. It was lovely; lovely food, lovely hotel, lovely weather, lovely husband all to myself time, lovely people, lovely concert (actually, the concert was a bit disappointing, I'll get into it later.) It was so much fun to be out on an adventure with Matt again, sure, he still had to get work phone calls occasionally, but it actually kind of makes me proud of him, because he is so good with the people he works with and I like to see that he is in a field that challenges him, but also one that he is so great at. New Orleans is actually pretty cool, easy to get around, we stayed at the Marriott at the Convention Center which is close to everything, we walked everywhere, and rode the streetcar and did lots of eating, the food was incredible. Fresh shrimp like you wouldn't believe, and bread pudding....oh my goodness... the bread pudding! oh! with a rum sauce! geez louise. And they have these little french donut/scones called beignets, and HOLY CRAP they are good! I am going to have to find a few recipes and make them soon, because I feel like a crack addict detoxing, and I only had 1.5 of them. That's how good they were.
We also took the streetcar to a part of the city called the Garden District, all these gorgeous Greek revival homes, from the early 1900s, that have the most stunning gardens with bright pink and white flowers all over, it's just so lush there. I'll have to get those pictures on here later, we had a disposable camera with us on Tuesday so that we could take it to the concert without fear of losing our expensive digital camera. That brings us to the concert...the reason for the trip....311 Day. I will say that it was a good show, but being my 19th 311 show, I realized that, as much as I love them, and as much as they evolve with each new album, they kinda don't change their live show much. The last time there was something new was the first time I saw the drum circle and the different verse in All Mixed Up, which was before I even married Jared! So yeah, while they DO put on a great live show, it's not like one of those things where "if it's not broke, don't fix it." I guess they played 3 sets of 19 songs, but we left at 11:30, 4 1/2 hours into it. Matt was hilarious at the show, once he got some caffeine in his system, I am just so grateful that he is always so willing to let me do these crazy things that I love and that he just tolerates, but he is always down for a good time & we have fun whether it's a me thing or a he thing. I love being married to my best friend. On Wednesday we slept in, walked around foraging for breakfast food after breakfast food time (one of my least favorite things to do EVER) and eventually stumbled upon those lovely beignets just in time for second breakfast. Then we met our little plantation tour and did that for the remainder of the afternoon. It was a very fun little excursion, we had a blast, and learned a lot. For dinner we walked around the French Quarter until we were about to pass out from hunger and settled on a cute little restaurant where we discovered Po' Boys and red beans and rice and jambalaya and hush puppies, all delicious! Especially the red beans and rice, oh, buddy. We didn't like their dessert selection, so we walked around hoping to find more beignets, to no avail, but we did venture into a restaurant right by our hotel called Mulate's with a zydeco band jumpin' off and everyone was dancin', it was quite a lively place and had the most unbelievable Mississippi mud cake and in-freaking-credible bread pudding. Got up at 4 am and sat on a joke of an airplane for 4 hours and now we are home. It was so good to see that Sawyer had so much fun with Steven & Jen, they are wonderful. Now Charlie is all bathed and snoring, and I will be soon too. Good night (nap).

oh, also, I think I'm pregnant

Oh goodness, Miller, would you quit whining?

...so, as pathetic as it is, I have been pretty blah lately, probably due to the fact that what I had been looking forward to since OCTOBER is not happening. (uh, that would be meeting 311 for those of you too lazy to look back two posts.) It's stupid, I know. Oh, another thing that sucks is the fact that my gym's daycare has reached a new low of quality in care and I feel so not good about leaving Sawyer there during the onery day shift, which is when I'd really like to go! Since they haven't made any improvements since I origianally complained (or even acted like they gave a crap when I did) you'd think I'd have changed gyms by now, right? Well, it's one of those decisions that, while looking simple to the naked eye, actually has a million aspects to it that make it a surprisingly difficult choice. You know, one of those you keep putting off until it drives you crazy and makes you feel like an indecisive, getting-more-out-of-shape-by-the-minute slob. grrrr. Tuesday I went to the Angels & Airwaves concert with Rossi, (BTW, that girl is so freaking rad, I'm so lucky to have an awesome concert buddy who is just down with anything and everyone's new best friend. Rossi, I bequeath my Mrs. Congeniality crown to you.) which was a lovely show, despite the fact that no Fire Marshall on the planet would have approved of the overcrowedness, and the fact that it started like 4 hours after they said it would, seriously. crap, I just noticed the time, I have to go get ready to meet Matt at the temple & get our sitter. laters.

Sharon's Cake

Normally I try to keep the cake blog & the life blog separate, but I am just so stinkin' proud of this little biddy, that I want to show everyone! I just think it looks so classy! Plus it's my first airbrushing attempt, and I was very scared and look how great it looks! Oh and it is also my first marshmallow fondant usage, and I am totally and completely converted! If anyone would like to attempt fondant, and for some reason you feel inclined to do it yourself instead of having me do it, (WHY??) get this recipe from me, it is soooo easy!

(I just re-read what I wrote, and there are far too many exclaimation points in that paragraph, I'm sorry. It looks like my mom wrote it. Love you Mom.)

When we went to deliver it (clear down in Springville, boo) Sawyer and I had a lovely time looking at the artwork in the museum that the wedding was taking place in. The current show was a collection of high school students artwork, and I could NOT believe some of these peices. It really made me regret the fact that I let one crappy teacher kill my artistic ambitons. I must start drawing again. Check these out, keep in mind that they are all pencil of some sort (yes, even the cat). You really should click on them to enlarge to do them justice.