.lately times

It’s getting colder and colder outside.

Almost time to pull out our coats... or buy a new coat? I like that idea!

Also, the sun is going down much, much earlier. Sad to say goodbye to the sun.

Oh and that wind! Can you even believe it?

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I haven’t been scheduled at work quite as much this week (you can tell by looking at my blog) since they’ve been training a new framing manager and need to give her as many hours as they can.

I’ve been riding around with Air as he does his rounds for work. Often-times he’s still working when the sun goes down, and if I’m free, I like to go along and wait in the car. Just to be with him.

It's kinda nice.

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Have I told you yet about our friend Kyle? He’s awesome. We’ve been enjoying date nights with Kyle and his girlfriend.

Of course her name is Nicole, wouldn’t you know it?

I’d almost say the majority of my friends have that name or a variation of it.

Anyway, Air and Kyle grew up together and they are so fun to be around…

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Air’s not on his diet anymore! And he is feeling a lot better!

He even has enough energy that he’s been playing on a basketball league. And that’s amazing!

We’ll see what the Dr. has to say on his next visit… I’m hoping for no more dieting.

I guess it wasn’t that bad. We were just running out of ideas for meals.

Here’s an example (meat ‘n patatas):

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For mutual this week I taught the beehives how to make personal pizzas.

I made the dough ahead of time with my bread machine. It was so easy.

And the pizza’s turned out divine!

Here’s a link to the recipe I used. It made 8 personal pizzas easily.

We even had an extra girl show up so I was a little worried, but it was NO PROBLEM.

Look how domestic I’m becoming! Weird.

.about the cake

Did you see the cake from my last post?

Well, I made it.

It was really really easy.

And I loved how it turned out!

Here's how I did it:

First, I baked two 9x13 cakes. I had a white mix and a devil’s food mix and layered them. I put the white on top since it’s much lighter.

I made a buttercream frosting this time. Recipe found here.

Then I spread a thin crumb layer over the whole thing. Just to hold it together and cover up the color of the cake with white.

I put my trusty 1M tip in a bag. No coupler since I don’t have one big enough.

The rest is easy.

Start going around the sides of the cake making rosettes.

Put your tip in the middle of where you want it to be and just pull it around. Going in one direction for all of them.

There’s so much room for error with these. They look good no matter how lazy you are.

I totally rushed through this, and nobody would ever guess. Unless you did, then I don’t know…

And then the top…

This is the point where I actually ran out of frosting and had a panic attack. I had to scrape all of the rosettes back off the top and make them a lot thinner and spread out. Kinda crappy!

But again, you CAN’T screw this up!

It ended up looking fine. If I’d had extra frosting, I definitely would have gone over all of the little gaps where you see the crumb layer and filled them in a bit.

Anyway, it looked beautiful with candles and sparklers on it while we sang!

And the raspberry/buttercream filling was to die for.

I just mixed raspberry jam with some of the buttercream frosting (this is probably why I ran out of frosting. next time I’ll make a lot less filling).

And Wha-La! An excellent cake for your Mother-in-law's 50th Birthday party!

P.S. Mom! Thank you so much for the mixer (seen in the first picture)! Still works like a charm after all these years.

.surprise it's a party!

We had a surprise birthday party for Air's Mom this weekend.

We’ve all had so much fun sneaking around for the past few weeks getting everything ready.(Although, it’s kinda crazy to think of all the lies and deception that had to go into keeping it secret. Ohwell)

We made the party a dinosaur theme, to remind her of her childhood. hehe

We decorated every corner and crevice of the home with Tam’s awesome dinosaur drawings.

As soon as she arrived home we all jumped out and screamed at her, of course! So nice of us.

And then, first things first. We ate!

We watched a cute slide show Tessa made for her! It was awesome!

We had family come all the way down from Cherry Grove to surprise her! It was so nice to have them all there!

Then she opened gifts…

In the picture below she is holding her gift from us and Tam/Jadey:

What? You don’t see anything in her hands?

look again!

We got her a piece of (extremely clear) glass for her favorite framed picture.

It’s been needing glass for quite a while!

She was so excited, we got to work and put it in the frame immediately!

Then we had some more fun acting like dinosaurs:

We lit the sparkler candles on the cake and sang TWICE—they took so long to burn out!

We played games for the rest of the night until none of us could keep our eyes open and we all had dinosaur hats imprinted on our heads.

That was one excellent celebration.

For one excellent human being.

My Mother-in-law is one of the best people on earth… I can’t tell you how much I love her.

Happy 50th Mother Gusa!

.our summer film

Today, summer is officially over.

It's Autumn!

And, well, Autumn is a beautiful season! So I'm very happy for that.

Air and I have been working away on this little film to remember our summer this year.

We hope you enjoy it!

..............................I now present to you..............................

Ambs and Air in a Summer Film




Happy Weekend

.print

I made this print today for fun,

as I was thinking about the quote from President Monson
I heard in Conference a few years back.

Lately my future has been looking particularly bleak.
My hopes have started looking hopeless,
and dreams feel too much like fiction.

This morning, I woke up early for work.
I arrived for my scheduled shift and my manager said,
"Amber! You're not supposed to be here today!"
"But the website has me scheduled every day this week"
She took me into the office and showed me the schedule.
She said that the system has been messing up shifts lately... for fun?

I called Air to come back and take me home.

Luckily he wasn't too busy--else I would have had to walk.
Walking wouldn't have been so bad, I suppose.
I wasn't really feeling up for it.

My future has to be bright, right?
Brighter than the present, at least.
I guess It's up to me to make it bright.
And while I'm at it, I should try and make the present brighter too.

I do still have some faith to work with.
And a Father in Heaven
who created things like the beautiful Aurora Borealis.

There's still hope yet.

.Dear followers of my blog,

Please vote for my photograph in the Ivory Homes Photo contest. I could win a new camera or some money! Either would be excellent to have!

You have to vote by midnight tonight!!!

Go to this link and click on the Photo Contest. You'll need to sign into facebook and like this page.

http://www.facebook.com/ivoryhomes

Scroll to the bottom and click on "view and vote for entries". You can find my picture on the third page in the middle. I NEED EVERYONE TO VOTE!! PLEASE???

I'll love you forever.

.these final summer days

Things are going good for us these days.

It’s really easy to be optimistic when so many things have started looking brighter.

Firstly, As I’ve mentioned before, Tara and Tom are engaged! We’ve been helping out to get this wedding going! Making their invitations is our job. They only have a month and a half to go! Oh yeah, and did I mention they are moving to Hawaii? I think we MAY have to visit sometime …darn. Here’s the happy couple hanging around with the fam last weekend:

Secondly, A family in our ward is renting out their basement and they offered it to us. We didn’t take it since it’s pretty much the same thing we’ve got here (the pro’s and con’s evened out), it wouldn’t really be worth the move for us. BUT we did tell them about our friends, Mr and Mrs Caddy, who were looking for a place! They came and looked at the place and decided to move in!!! So, as long as the plan doesn’t change, our friends will be moving into our ward! YAYAY!

(remember the Caddy’s? *link)

Thirdly, We finally bought a bed frame for a really good deal! No more milk crates under our bed! No-sir-ee!

Fourthly, We’ve been zooming around in a cute little rental car this week. And shopping for a new car. One that we can afford and that will (hopefully) live up to Cammy’s legacy.

Fifthly, We love the farmer’s market.

Sixthly, Zebra truck.

That is all.