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!!!

So Excited!

A few weeks ago I spoke at a relief society activity and told a little bit about myself so the ward could get to know me better. I talked about living on the farm and all the fun times we had working and playing as a family. I talked about how Stephen and I met and what I like to do in my spare time, etc... I still get comments every week at church about how someone loved my stories and how "exciting" my life is. They all thought the story of how I met Stephen was hilarious and "oh so cute!". It was a fun night and just what I needed to feel more a part of my ward since being in primary, I don't meet a whole lot of people.

 Anyway, I saw the ward's achievement/activity day leader at the activity, and day dreamed about how fun it would be to be part of activity days (as they now call it). I thought back to when I was in achievement days and how much fun I had with my friends after school making crafts and eating food.

Fast forward to last Sunday....

I was sitting in primary trying to get my kids to stop hitting each other when the first counselor of the bishopric called me out. I was really sad because I just knew this was the end of my primary career. So the first thing I asked him was if they were going to release me from primary. He asked, "well do you want to be?" I said, "No way, please, please don't release me!" He laughed and said that they would like to call me as the new activity day leader which includes all girls primary age 8-11 since our primary is on the small side. I blurted out a big loud "YES!" before he could even finish his sentence. I asked if I could still teach in primary and he said that was OK, and activity days would be an additional calling...for now. I don't want to leave primary because I love teaching those 4,5 and 6 year olds. This calling came as a big surprise, but I couldn't be happier. I have my first activity day at my house this week with 12 girls. That's a lot, but I am up for the challenge.

It's so convenient too because all the girls just walk across the street to my house from the elementary school since I live right there. which means I have to hurry home from work since I get done as soon as school lets out. I have so many ideas--probably enough for the next several months right off the bat with spring coming in a few short weeks. I can't wait!

Busted

Awe man! It's only the middle of February and my exercising/healthy eating streak has come to end. In fact, it really only last a week, haha, go figure. Ever since my visit to Twin I can't get back in my groove. I'm pretty sure it was that gigantic salad at Idaho Joes that did me in, lol I still can't believe I ate the WHOLE thing plus my piece of corn bread; Becky, why didn't you stop me?! Stephen and I are still eating healthy-ish at home, but I have absolutely no desire to work out.

Stephen had a dozen roses delivered to the house for me this last Wednesday. I loved them, but I love Stephen even more. I have had his valentines gift planned out for weeks. I put it all together just a few short hours before Stephen got home from work on Wednesday. It couldn't have been more perfect. I made some heart shaped strawberry pie tarts and wrapped them in cellophane with a cute homemade scratch off card that said "to my sweet tart" and hid it in his work car so he would find it in the morning on his way to work.

I'm not much of a valentines day celebrating person; I mean Stephen and I don't expect anything from each other, but my thought is this: I know there are lots of people who loath valentines day, but since there is a day every year devoted to your loved ones why not celebrate? We celebrate our love everyday, Stephen and I as do most people, but it doesn't hurt to have a special random day in February to make them feel extra special. I do not, however, like all the commercialism of the holiday because some people take it way too seriously and judge their relationships by what they received from their significant other or lack there of; I like to stick to the homemade cards and love notes and treats that mean a thousand times more than going and buying ridiculous stuff that really has no meaning. But to each their own. My favorite thing about this holiday, like any other holiday, is decorating my home with pink and red heart decor:) happy valentines day!

Winter Blues

For the month of February, Stephen and I, well really I decided that we need to start eating better and get off our fannies after we come home from work. We worked out a clean eating menu for this month and found a Jillian Michaels workout to do together every night. We are trying to stay away from sugar and desserts as much as we can, and absolutely no pop. I'm really excited about this, but the problem is finding the motivation to do the workouts. Eating healthy isn't too difficult for me; it's the exercising that I hate, then there's the cold weather outside that makes me want to cuddle and bundle up on the couch even more. I hope this works and that we can get to a point where it's part of our daily routine.

I also can't wait for spring so I can kick the cat out of the house and watch my hundreds of bulbs I planted last fall bloom. I'm excited for the warmer weather so I can take Stephen camping to a few neat places I found here in Utah, and scratch off some of my bucket list items. I think this will be a great year for us, and if it's not we'll pretend it was anyway.

I don't make New Years resolutions because they always seem too big, hard, or long to achieve, so I work things out one month at a time. January was miserable with all the extreme cold temps, snow, and ice so I'm starting with February. Does anybody have any tips for exercise motivation? Other than  the way I feel when I look in the mirror before I take a shower, haha!