Blog Dedication

I have been addicted lately to looking at craft blogs. I love looking at all the fun creative ideas and tutorials and dreaming about being able to do them. Some of the ideas I actually have done, which makes me very proud of myself! I have been doing a ton of things lately and then I just realized, why am I not blogging about all of this! I love looking at other people's blogs, so I bet they would like to see a few things I am up to (hopefully!). So here it goes! I hereby dedicate myself to being better at updating my blog! (Now that I've said it in writing, there's really no going back!) So I hope to share some of the fun things I've been up to and the pictures I have been storing on my phone in hopes of one day updating my blog.

So here it goes!

To start things off, I wanted to show you this hilarious picture.

This is a picture of our dog Annie (the left) and my inlaw's dog Sandi (the right). This picture doesn't do the size difference of these two dogs any justice. Annie is probably 1/6 the size of Sandi, if not smaller. But you know that saying it's not the size of the dog in the fight it's the size of the fight in the dog? That very much applies to our little Annie. She is playing tug of war with a sock with this big dog! Needless to say, she didn't win, but she gave it a good fight and once she even got the sock away from her! (but the rest of the time she was tossed around like a rag dog) But hey, they had fun!

Housewife success!

So apparently all I needed to do to become a better cook is have a child!! Well that and practice...and ask recipes from all of my family...and practice some more...and have good friends that help me practice! Lately I have had several success stories when it comes to the kitchen! Those of you who know me know that this is a pretty big deal to me.

First success story was a dinner that I made for Mike and I. Actually, it was breakfast foods but we ate it for dinner. I successfully cooked bacon, pancakes, and eggs! There was no burns on me or the food!

(I thought I had had a positive cookie baking experience until I took the cookies out of the oven and burned my bicep, that's what happens when you grab too far on the sides of the cookie sheet and then bend at the elbow to pull the sheet out)

Here is a picture of the breakfast/dinner

Thanks to my mom, sister, and grandma I have made several different recipes over the last few weeks. I made banana bread, a chicken and rice recipe, stir fry, and a few other things, go me!

The next adventure was a little more aggressive. I watch way too many cake decorating shows, cake boss, ace of cakes, famous cakes, ultimate cake-off, and many others. I have always wanted to try fondant on a cake, but I have heard that fondant is super hard to use. I have a good friend who was willing to let me use her expertise (and her kitchen!) to attempt this task! We bought all the stuff we would need and we used a special recipe for Marshmallow Fondant, which is supposed to be slightly easier to use. It was sooooo much fun! It was a little labor intensive but not too bad. Here are some pictures!

Here is my friend mixing up the fondant. It looks way sticky but it was pretty easy to knead and make it firm.

I forgot to take a photo of the middle step, of just putting the fondant on, but we put the fondant on the cake and then decorated it with frosting. So much fun!

The finished product! Isn't is so pretty?! I was pretty proud of us, thanks Kelsie for helping me!

I'm going to try and keep updating my blog more often, it's a work in progress but I'm working on it!

Cooking adventures!

I have never been a very good cook...in fact over the years I have made many humorous mistakes in the kitchen. Not all are disasterous but most are pretty funny. Well getting married didn't really help me in this area, in fact I've probably gotten worse! Some of my stories include using salt instead of sugar in chocolate chip cookies, leaving the stove on all night long, and using corn meal instead of bread crumbs for a chicken recipe. My most recent story happened just this last week. We had invited Mike's cousin Kristi and her boyfriend Richie over for dinner and games. I was in charge of the main dish and a salad and Kristi was going to bring rolls and dessert. I decided to make chicken fettucini alfredo. I bought all of the ingredients and I had everything ready. The morning of I took a bag of chicken out of the freezer to begin the defrost. I looked at them and thought "These look a little strange" I even took a picture and called my mom to ask her if chicken can go bad in the freezer. She got my text picture and said they didn't look bad but check them more as they thaw. Here is the picture for you to judge for yourself!

Looks like perfectly good chicken, right? Can anyone guess what I had done? What I believed to be a bag of chicken breasts was actually pork chop...yup I was preparing to make pork chop fettucini alfredo. Well by the time I had realized my mistake I was running short on time and wasn't sure I would have time to go to the store and get chicken. Then I rememebered that they make pre-sliced, cooked chicken breast that would be perfect for my recipe. I rushed to the store to buy myself some. While I was at the store I decided I would get a cucumber to add to my salad. As I'm searching the poultry section, I can't find ANY of those little strips! By this point, I really didn't have time to do anything else. I called my mom, frantically, and she said she had some that I could use. So I bought my cucumber, and drove like crazy up to my mom's.

On the bright side, the salad turned out GREAT! See?

I began making the alfredo and cooking the noodles. I had purchased two packaged of fettucini noodles. I started cooking one of them and then decided that maybe I should cook both. Apparently I misjudged the amount of noodles, because I ended up making WAY too much. Oh well, it's better to have plenty of food than not enough!

Look at all those noodles!!

All in all, the night went really well, we had a lot of fun and every one promised that the food tasted good. It's my goal to become a better cook and not be so stressed about the entire cooking process. Hopefully things go better, if you have any amazing cooking tips, feel free to let me know!

We're having a baby!

Ok ok...this might not be news to everyone seeing as how I'm 6 months pregnant, but I'm really bad at keeping the blog up to date! But here it is...We're PREGNANT! We are having a baby girl due May 21st. Things are going pretty well! We recently bought our first home, it's a two bedroom town house that is very nice and we love having a place to call our own. Mike was just promoted to manager at his work and things are going very well with his job, we are all so proud of him!

Here is a picture of our very first crib! Mike set it up the other day and we put the bedding in it.

Since we're having a girl, we're going all pink with this baby!

Here is a profile shot of our baby girl, isn't she adorable?!

Her cute little foot is the second picture and third is proof that she's definitely a girl!

Honeymoon Cruise

Although it's 6 months late, we finally found our pictures from our cruise. We went on our honeymoon about a month after we got married. We went on a cruise to Cabo San Lucas and Ensenada Mexico, we has a blast!! Here are some of the highlights!

This is the first view of our ship, it was huge!

This is the grand staircase, it was so pretty and elegant.

Our waiters sang happy honeymoon to us at dinner and we had to kiss the entire time they sang, it was so much fun, we were laughing while kissing.

This look was pretty much how our faces looked the entire cruise, we had the best time!

*Conflict Resolution*

I went into my boss yesterday at the Pharmacy to speak to him about the problems I have been having with certain employees and the way that they treat me. I truly wanted to quit that job, but I'm very non confrontational (on certain things) and I was nervous about doing it. When I went into his office to quit, I began explaining to him the problems that I have been having and why I felt the way I did. He expressed his apology for the way I had been treated and told me that he didn't feel it appropriate for anyone in his company, janitor or not, to be treated that way. He told me it was my decision, but that if I wanted to stay he would speak with those departments and try to improve my working environment. I felt he truly cared about me and my position with them, so I'm going to give it a try! Hopefully things will improve, because I haven't enjoyed being treated that way, and if they don't I always have my option to quit!

I am still trying to find more full time work, because this will help Mike and I get qualified for a home loan. So if anyone knows of anything or hears of anything in the Pocatello area, let me know!
I have applied and sent resumes to several dentist offices in town, for both office work and dental hygiene assisting. But I'm willing to take anything!

*Changes in our life*

I always get bugged about updating my blog, and I know I should do better, but I have been slightly busy lately! Here's what's new in our lives!

-Mike is doing really well at his job, he makes a lot of sales and really enjoys his coworkers!
-I have been working 4 jobs over the past 6 weeks. I am still at Gold's Gym teaching swimming to little kids, I work at a communication lab on campus, I still have my students, and I recently got a job cleaning at a pharmacy. I don't really enjoy the pharmacy job and I will probably be quitting it soon...They're just not very nice to me and I don't appreciate a job where I'm treated that way.
-We are still living in Inkom, but we're trying to buy a house. Because Mike works mostly on commission, we can't qualify for a loan on his and my basic salary. Even though we would make enough to afford it, we can't qualify...
-I am loving being married, it is a lot of fun and I enjoy it a lot. My husband is amazing and treats me like a queen!
-We have been so busy with our school schedules...It's been slightly intense! But hopefully all will go well and we'll pass all of our classes.