Update

The past few weeks have been extremely busy for me and Stephen, but mainly me. My landscape design business has taken off this spring a lot quicker than what I thought it would. In fact, I don't think I ever wrote about it on here. I started "Landscapes by Christine" last fall towards the end of the landscaping season. (You can find my webpage here: Landscapesbychristine.com) I designed two houses last summer here in Utah and thought it would be a great opportunity if I started to do designs out of my house. That way I could use my degree while raising a family and taking care of my home.

So this past month I advertised my business on KSL.com to see how successful it would be and from the first week it was posted I've been making appointments nonstop for landscape designs. This is really a dream come true because I've always dreamed of owning my own landscape business. I'm in the process of getting my business license, and I even got a call from the Better Business Bureau of Utah wanting to give me an accreditation! I have no idea how they heard about my business, and they wouldn't really tell me, but my business has to be at least 12 months old before they can accredit me.

So after I get home from work in the late afternoons I go to work for my second job in the evening going over designs and solving client's landscape problems. Then I have two church callings on top of that, and a craft day in May to plan with Aunt Nancy. I have other projects in between all that too; it's never ending! It's great to keep busy, but its all starting to feel a little overwhelming because it seems like everything I'm doing has the same deadline that has to be done at the same time.

Anywho, Mom and Becky came for a nice, extended visit over the weekend. I had been looking forward to this for a while hoping it would give me the break I needed to take a breather from work. It was a nice break, but shopping all weekend is tiring too! Haha, but we had lots of fun. I finally got to make a terrarium with mom, but failed to commit Becky to doing one too even though she said she liked them. She even put mom's together for her while mom sewed up my pants. I got to watch Kimball for a few hours while the girls went to look for shoes after dinner one night. That boy is just too cute! I'm glad he comes with Becky when they visit.

 I got sick while the girls were here which was kind of a bummer, but at least the worst of it was after they left. I got an extremely bad sore throat and cough and a fever the night they left. Stephen was so helpful while they were here too; he cooked us dinner for two nights! He loved that they visited so he could play basketball on the PS3 all night long, haha. I love him. Lots of shopping, bonding, and food equals one great weekend!

A Thank You Note

I was on Pinterest the other night and came across a pin that made me laugh so hard. It was one of those "duh!!" Posts I thought was kind of a no brainer. I didn't pin it or else I would've put it on here, but it went something like this: "Never buy boxed brownie mix again! So simple. So easy. And frugal...." and then it went into a recipe for brownies. It just made me laugh because it made it seem like making your own brownies from scratch was something nobody has ever thought of before.

I guess I was lucky to be raised in a home where Mom taught us all that stuff growing up. When I was in college taking my culinary arts classes I had to take a baking class. It just blew my mind that I, literally, was the only one who had ever made my own bread, biscuits, pie crust, etc... From scratch before--it's all I ever knew. In fact, I had to ask everyone else what they did to get that stuff because it didn't occur to me that you could buy it all from a store, lol.

Thank you Mom and Dad for raising us kids "from scratch" so to speak. Learning how to work and play together on the farm as a family when we were kids was the best experience of my life. I got my love of plants and gardening, animals, and cooking from you. We learned how to problem solve, how to get along, how to take care of each other and our pets, how to save and spend our money wisely, and build our own testimonies of the gospel, but most importantly you taught us how to love each other and rely on our savior Jesus Christ. Thank you for being the best parents you knew how to be. I love you.

Toot! Toot!

This last Tuesday night was our ward's annual cake auction that the young women put on to earn money for girls camp and the like. A few weeks ago I was talking to a few women in the ward about the auction and they were telling me that there are one or two cakes that go for $100-$150, so everyone kinda saves up for this night knowing its all in good fun and for a great cause. I, of course, signed up to make a cake since that's what I do.

I have a friend who doesn't really know how to cook or bake so I invited her over one night to teach her how to make and decorate cupcakes, so she had something to enter in the auction. We had a great time, and she was pretty proud of herself for the way they turned out.

Not to toot my own horn or anything......but TOOT! TOOT! I'm pretty sure Stephen and I stole the whole show. We had dinner and a talent show and then you had to buy your own dessert at the auction. So Stephen signed up for the talent show playing his guitar and singing Howie Day's "Collide" and he was so amazing! I love listening to him play. There were others who playing the piano and sang a song, but Stephen was by far the best act of the night. One of the little girls I taught in primary came up to me after Stephen finished playing and whispered in my ear, "He was so awesome! Stephen is my favorite tonight." It was so adorable I had to laugh.

So my cake, evidently, was saved for one of the last desserts for auction, so before it was up for sale I leaned into Stephen and told him I was hoping it would at least go for $100 since I heard earlier that some go that high. My cake went for a whopping $300! That's the highest amount any cake has gone in all of our ward's cake auctions ever. Our bishop bought it, haha. I was pretty amazed to say the least. We had such a fun night with everyone. Oh, and Stephen and I bought some tuxedo mousse dessert thing that was so good.

Ok, with all that being said there are some disclaimers. the cake design was not mine. I found it on the internet, not pinterest, and thought it was so cute, and I couldn't resist recreating it. After I saw the cake a few days later someone pinned it pinterest; go figure. But kudos to whoever first made this cake! Also, the grass and Easter egg cupcakes did come from pinterst and Alissa who called me up and told me she wanted to make them. So thank you Alissa and pinterest for the grass cupcakes.

Chandelier

I finally did it! After 10 months of sitting in the spare bedroom with all the unloaded boxes from moving last year, I painted my chandelier. It didn't turn out like I had initially planned, but it looks pretty good if I don't say so myself. I LOVE it! Here are some before and after shots:

BEFORE

 Dirty, dingy, and gold

 Scrubbing with my toothbrush to get it all clean

 There were 75 individual crystals to this chandelier

AFTER

 Tad-ah!!!