True Color Quiz

What's Your True Color?

My Result: Black

Your color is black. The color of night. Serene and mysterious, black conjures up images of elegant evening gowns, dashing tuxedos, and gleaming limousines. Traditionally a symbol of success, black also represents power and an uncompromising demand for perfection. Not surprisingly, you tend to set challenging goals for yourself and do whatever it takes to achieve them — your strength of character is second to none. This unfaltering determination, along with your natural elegance, impresses people. But keep in mind that your personality might be intimidating to some. Try to temper your demanding side with a little softness — trust us, it won't kill you. Overall, though, black is the color of professionalism and achievement, which means it's clearly the color for you.

What are you? http://web.tickle.com/rd/50651/color/index.jsp?testname=colorogt&resultid=G

Gordon B.

Our beloved leader and prophet Gordon B. Hinckley passed away last week at his home, surrounded by his family. President Hinckley was 97. For longer than Matt and I have both been alive, he has been in the leadership of our church. He is the prophet we grew up with, and I am so grateful for everything that I have learned from his inspired teachings and example. When Matt & I were engaged and waiting for my cancellation, we went to see the Testaments at the Joseph Smith Building, and nearly ran into him. I simply had to go shake his hand, and the spirit that I felt was so amazing. I really think that if I hadn't had that opportunity to meet him & feel that confirmation that he is the prophet, I would have struggled a bit more with the answer we got about being sealed. Like many others, I was surprised at my reaction to the news of his passing. Yes, I am sad and he will be missed terribly, but I was comforted to know that he has led the most incredible life and happy that he is now reunited with his loving wife. I have a testimony that President Hinckley led our church as a living prophet of the Lord and now continues his work on the other side of the veil. I know that President Monson will do a tremendous job as his successor. How grateful I am for membership in the true, restored gospel.

still sick

i want my mommy

sick as really sick sick dogs

boo for this crappy flu that's going around. I recommend never getting it. in fact, if God wanted to do a new round of plagues, I would suggest forgetting about the boils, frogs and serpents and just starting with this lovely little formula: raw, sore throat + incessant coughing + occasional vomiting and the lovely pre-puke "I am going to die" feelings that go along with it + teeth-chattering chills + "oh my goodness, my joints are all going to fall out" body aches = one hell of a plague. Despite the obsene amount of complaining I am currently doing, I am actually grateful for a few things that this little bout of ickiness has taught me. 1) We are very, very blessed to normally be such a healthy family. 2) Our bodies are really freaking cool. What else can heal itself in a few days? 3) When things suck, you just have to take a second and sit down for some stand-up comedy. Watching a Kevin James special yesterday while Sawyer napped had me laughing my head off and although it hurt my throat to laugh, it was totally worth it. 4) You know that song in the Music Man, the Wells Fargo Wagon song?
Here is a hilarious modern take on it, and that is how I felt yesterday waiting for the UPS guy. When you know you have a package coming it totally makes your day! Yesterday my big fancy airbrush arrived right when I was about to start wallowing in self-pity (again) and instead I sat there gleefully opening my package & "familiarizing myself with the airbrush's parts." Not quite up to using it yet, though, but I can feel this thing slowly moving out of me, so it'll happen soon, and I'm sure I'll post some pictures of my attempts. p.s Sawyer's newest thing, and again I have no idea where she got it, is to say "ouch, need docker" when she gets hurt. I would have thought she would associate the doctor with getting shots at this point in her life, but apparentley she does occasionally feel "bedder" after the "docker", so that's good.

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.

Weird Dream

I had a dream last night that Matt & I & Sawyer went to a 311 concert in this weird warehousey place. We were having a great time as a family dancing around together, Sawyer loved it. Then we went backstage to meet them and SA wasn't there. He hadn't been onstage either but I didn't realize it. When we asked them about him, Nick broke down crying and said that SA was being held hostage in Guantanamo Bay. He wasn't a terrorist and Nick, Tim, P-Nut and Chad were trying to get him freed, but the President wouldn't help them. It was awful. I was really sad when I woke up. It's funny how such a funny dream can make you so sad. What does it mean??? I don't know. I think I am just nervous to meet them. What if they're jerks, what if they hate me? That would be like breaking up with best friend after like 14 years. I couldn't handle that.

Tag!

Tag, I'm it! RULES: 1.The player lists 6 facts/habits about themselves - try to find 6 you haven't already posted about! 2. At the end of the post, the player tags 6 people and posts their names who have to copy & paste this into their blog with their answers.

1. I get really REALLY onery if I can't workout. If I miss more than one day in a row Matt knows it pretty quickly and pretty much insists that I get my onery butt out of the house. It isn't even about weight maintainance anymore; I NEED those endorphins.

2. I really need to get over my dishwasher-loading issues. There is a certain way I like things to go, and I am certain that if any item deviates from it's predetermined place in the rack that it won't be properly cleaned, resulting in my having to do the dishes AGAIN and that is not cool at all. Not a very helpful obsession when you are trying to get your husband to help do dishes more often.

3. I am in love with my car. This is probably not a secret to anyone who knows me very well, but it has gotten worse since Christmas when Matt got all of her weird little qwerks fixed. I am going to run that girl into the ground, and even after that, I will only want another, newer Toyota Land Cruiser.

4. I have no problem giving my daughter (or myself) food that has dropped on the floor. This is going to gross a lot of people out, and it certainly doesn't mean that my floor is clean, but I simply don't get bugged by that stuff. I do pick the dog hair off of it first though. Perhaps this is why Sawyer is such a healthy little girl most of the time.... She's exposed to a lot of junk. I don't know. But it feels good to come clean with that.

5. I also peirced my belly button in high school. My parents didn't know for a long time and were very dissappointed when they saw it, but I probably kept it in for about a year. Then one Father's Day I took it out and gave it to my dad. The hole has never closed up though.

6. I am a closet punk. Every once in a while it'll rear it's ugly head and shock my husband, (ie my recent black nail polish venture) but for the most part I manage to keep it under wraps and be a proper mom. Occassionally though I have to just put on some Bouncing Souls or Face to Face and rock out. I miss going to cheap little punk shows with my brother. I will always listen to music that is a little nuts, although I have deleted everything with bad language from my iTunes library. It was very hard to do though.

Okay, now it's time for Kierstin, Kirsten, Matt and Mom & Dad to be it.

Merry Christmas!

This year I kinda had to decide the things that were important or not, what with two very intensive cakes this month, and Christmas cards came out on bottom, among other things like keeping my house clean, eating right and apparently picking a good present for Matt. Christmas was very fun, we had a really nice Christmas Eve dinner and games at Steven & Jen's. Sawyer LOVES playing with Madelyn & Olivia & Henry, I'm excited that they agreed to take her in March while Matt & I go to 311 day. One highlight for me was giving Jennifer her gift, I knew she would like it, it was this Pottery Barn card/picture holder/wall hanging thing that she had shown me online a few months ago, but she literally SCREAMED when she saw what it was. That's the kind of reaction that I like to get! Then we went home, opened our pjs, put Sawyer down and played Santa (and Santa's helper ;)) which was pretty easy because we had already wrapped everything so we just had to assemble Sawyer's trike and clean the house. We had so much fun watching Sawyer open all her gifts, it went pretty slowly because she had to play with everything as soon as it was open. Grandma Susie had a big party as well, it was really fun, I love how she always does a slideshow with all the pictures of fun stuff we did as a family that year. Matt totally pimped my ride. For Christmas, he somehow wrangled Ryan into fixing all the little qwerks about my car, installed a remote starter and put a bumpin' subwoofer in! So now Sawyer can watch & listen to a DVD with her fancy wireless headphones and I can turn up my fancy pants stereo as loud as I want! Yeah!!! He has given me the gift of music again!! I used to relish any excuse to drive around in my car by myself so that I could turn my music up louder than I would with Sawyer. He also gave me lots of bath & body stuff, and a heart rate monitor watch and ipod armband and nice earbuds and stuff to workout with. I was really excited to give him an HD DVD player, especially since ours crapped out a week before Christmas, and he loves his HD, but apparently that love really doesn't extend outside the realm of sports. And he thinks that HD will go extinct once BlueRay becomes more affordable. Technology is such a joke, you can never really catch up. Anyway, Saturday we are going to the cabin for new years and I'm really excited to do that!

Ward Christmas Party

I cannot tell you how glad I am to be in this new ward. Our last one was great, but it kinda felt like high school all over again. It was too social and fun, but kinda competitive, I always wanted to get all gussied up for church and have the cutest outfit. Gay, huh? But this ward is more diverse age-wise and everyone is so supportive and sincerely caring and nice. No cliques or anything, I love it. Matt & I are on the activities committee together, and I also got called to be the Relief Society "luncheon specialist" (whatever that means). Our big ward Christmas party was last Saturday, we had a great turnout and everyone helped bring food and setup and clean up and seemed to have a great time. Sawyer waited patiently in line to meet Santa (by patiently I mean played hide and seek in the curtains on the stage) and while we waited I tried to get her all pumped up to sit on his lap and tell him she wanted a Dora scooter and ponies for Christmas, but when the moment of truth arrived, she would only sit on my lap on the arm of the chair. It wasn't so much that she was afraid of him, she talked to him just fine, and anyone with c a n d y is a friend of Sawyer's. So yeah, it was great. Tuesday I had a wedding cake, one of my favorites, for a girl in our old ward, it turned out really great. Wednesday we did our annual MDC Christmas party. This year we accidentally went to a way too expensive restaurant, we usually just have it at someone's house, but no one volunteered really, and it sounded like less stress, but I really would rather not do it that way again. We didn't get to talk as much, or be all spazzy. Next year, it's gotta be on a weekend, so that not everyone has to rush off to get babysitters home, and definitely at someone's house. Tonight we are having another party with Matt's high school friends at Susie's. She'll be out of town, so we are going to sleep over and take care of Zoey too. So anyway, now I'm going to go make some truffles for our neighbors. There ya go.

recent pictures...

...that I am not going to take the time to blog about right now. But it's better than nothing, right? Helping Momma make cupcakes
Helping Charlie clean up the floor under the table.
Yummy snowflakes!
We got dumped on last Saturday, it was such a pretty storm & we couldn't wait to get Sawyer out in it to build a snowman.

My snowangel!

Sawyer looks a little weird, but Matt is such a hottie all the time & I don't put nearly enough pictures of him on here. You know what Sawyer says when she sees Matt from a distance? "Daddy, Fun." That's just the kind of Dad he is. I've been noticing him lately, how creative he is with her is something that I love to watch, but I'm also so envious. I need to learn from him to not take things so seriously & remember to have fun with Sawyer.

Because just look at how fun she is. She's just the most joyful child I've ever known.

Utah Chocolate Show Wedding Cake Contest

Last month I heard about the Wedding Cake Contest that the annual Utah Chocolate Show does (unfortunately I didn't hear about it in time to enter) and got a cute little sitter and took the afternoon off to go indulge myself in my passion. I took a class on ganauche and wandered around the expo center in a haze of chocolate delight. It was awesome to say the least. However the judging of the contest was an absolute joke. I know a thing or two about the skill level that goes into these cakes and I cannot for the life of me figure out on what grounds they decided that the cake that won was superior. It's the white one with the pink flowers. Granted the flowers look very lifelike, but the whole theme of the contest was to glorify chocolate, and that cake doesn't even make me think of chocolate. I'll be entering this competition next year, but I'm glad I saw the judging this year so that I don't put much stock in it next year. Unless of course they choose my cake, in which case I'll agree completely with their decision. :)

NEW BABY!!!

My sister Carrie had her baby on Friday, still officially un-named, but probably going to be named Karen Abigail Pinkleman. Such a beauty queen! A week after Sarah had open heart surgery, a new baby. WOW! Anyway, everyone seems to be doing fine. Sarah is kind of in denial about the whole thing, she practically sits on the baby when she wants to sit on Carrie's lap, I think it will take a while for her to realize that the world does not in fact revolve around her. Abby was born with 2 teethbuds, they're going to pull them out so that she doesn't choke on them when they fall out (or bite off the nipple that feeds her.) I guess it's more common than you'd think, but it's pretty funny looking. Mom & Dad this picture is for you, see how Sarah's feet aren't purple? Yeah, that's how good her surgery went! Yeah!!

Sawyer's 2nd Birthday

So, San Diego was Sawyer's real birthday present, but we just had to do a little blow the candles out kinda thing, and Grandma Susie bought her some things, so we have more pictures to post.

San Diego!

Over Sawyer's birthday we went to San Diego and to SeaWorld, the San Diego Zoo and the Wild Animal Park. We planned her birth really well because it's always close to Veteran's Day and so Matt has a long weekend. Anyway, it was super fun, she loved seeing all the animals and the beach was also very fun, her first time in the ocean. I think my favorite part of all though, and I'm so mad that I didn't get good pictures of it, was at SeaWorld, they had these Bat Rays in a shallow pool so that you could pet them and even feed them. They were sooo cool!! They reminded me of dogs because it was obvious that they loved being stroked and all the attention. They were a little freaky to feed though, you had to hold this little sardine vertically in between your fingers becaue their mouths are on their undersides, so they'd swim over your hand and kinda nibble that fish right out of your fingers!!! ewww! Plus, they felt like raw wet meat, but in a cool way. I want one for my own. :)Sawyer really liked the starfish, but I was surprised that she didn't dig the petting zoo, she's so used to Charlie, but the goats & sheep made her scream her head off. The night we got there was her birthday, and we went straight to dinner at Fred's in Old Town San Diego, which we all loved. Sawyer got a birthday brownie mousse (that mom pretty much ate all on her own) and a really cool balloon octopus. Sunday morning we caught a quick sacrament meeting and then a freaking yummy brunch at the Cheesecake Factory and then a quick jaunt to Mission Beach. It was too cold to really enjoy the ocean, but I just had to take Sawyer to the beach for her first time. She seemed to really enjoy it until she got too cold and wet, then we changed and went on some rides. Anyway, to sum it all up, it was really, really fun. Sawyer did really good for never having any naps, and it was really nice to get home. We did ALOT of stuff in 3 days and it's nice to get back into our little daily routines.

inspiration for the day

So yesterday in relief society the lesson was about strengthening our friendship with the Savior, really inviting him into our lives. The teacher was awesome and the spirit was so strong. She asked what kind of traits we expect in friends, and it got me thinking about my friends, particularly Kirsten. One nice thing about her is that she is an amazing photographer, and all the special moments of my recent life have been captured by her talented eye. I swear I will never let anyone else take our families pictures, it's just a joke to see the difference in quality that her knowing me & my family so well makes. Does that make sense? Even including all my modeling photoshoots, none make me look as beautiful as when Kirsten takes my picture. She knows me inside & out and all the good and all the bad, and she seems to still like me, and that is reflected in the photography that she does somehow. But that made me think about how that's kind of what the Savior does for us, he knows us so well, the good and the bad, but more importantly, he knows our potential, and he takes us and filters us through the lens of how much he loves us and through the divine atonement and that is what he presents to the Father to plead our case. So somehow, we look just as beautiful as it is possible for us to. What a miracle. I am so thankful for the plan of salvation & for the fact that I know without a doubt that Jesus Christ is my Savior & brother. I love him with all my heart.

Hallo-wheeeeee-n

Okay, first things first... on Halloween afternoon Sawyer did her very first poop in the potty!!! I seriously just about took a picture of it to post here, I was so proud! But I decided that most people might not enjoy that as much as I would. She just was playing in her room while I was doing my hair in the bathroom across the hall and she just walked in and said "poop? potty?" I didn't even think she very was aware of her bodily functions yet. I think I'll wait until after we get back from San Diego next weekend to really try to potty train, maybe even later than that, it could have been a fluke. Anyway, enough about feces, right?

Moving on.

Halloween was awesome. Grandmas Susie threw a wild and crazy party of course, which I naturally forgot to take pictures at. (I am really sucking it up at that lately.) Kierstin invited us to a very fun Halloween party at her house, I loved it. We don't get together nearly enough with our families. We are going to start doing a family night once a month, let's make it happen ladies, maybe after the holidays, it's gonna start getting crazy sooner than you think.

We carved pumpkins on Sunday night, and Sawyer really loved going out every evening this week with Daddy to light her pumpkins and look at them. She wore her octopus costume to the gym day care and they did a little parade around the gym with all the kids, that was really fun to see, you could tell that she was having a lot of fun, holding hands with all the other kids walking around, I wish I would have had my camera with me.

Sawyer was really excited to get candy, but she also wanted to go into every house we stopped at, she'd take the candy, say "tanks" and walk right in to the front room. She stopped after a few houses, once she understood that we were just taking the candy & running. It was really, really fun.
I am a little obsessed with the Stephenie Meyer books right now, so here is my vampire homage pumpkin, I loved how it turned out.