Dear Santa,

(This would be a post for Santa – cuz you know he uses all this technology to keep up with everyone, he’s gotta keep up with all the Christmas wish lists somehow  – and friends and family, and of course, whoever else wants to shower me with fabulous gifts this Christmas hee hee)

Now, I’ve tried really hard this year to be good, so here is my wish list for this year :)

(for your convenience, you can click on the picture to go right to the website!! – anything for you Santa!!)

Category: REALLY WANT ;)
LOVE THIS. It’s software that goes on the computer for my Cricut and with this I can cut out ANYTHING. No really, ANYTHING (or so I’ve been told). You can take any image or font off the computer and print it out with the cricut. Oh yeah, I have to figure out the cord I’d need to attach the cricut to the computer…working on that… 

An Escali kitchen scale. Scales grams AND ounces! We use these at school and I LOVE IT. They come it so many different colors!!!! But of course, I would like the color shown ;)

Ha ha, sensing a theme yet? I found this on Amazon. Santa loves these convenient websites, I just know it. A KitchenAid hand blender. In “Empire Red”. I could make LEMON CREAM AT HOME WITH THIS!!!!!!!!! And chocolate ganache! and mousse!! ;)

Category: Nice to Have (I know Santa appreciates it when you are organized in your gift requesting.)

RED Melamine Mixing bowls. From Williams and Sonoma (totally in love with that store…) Yes, I am one day going to have pretty much all red and black tools and appliances in my kitchen. It’s going to be SWEET.  

Okay, I realize that this might seem like a weird thing to want. I’m not a star wars type person. but aren’t these ADORABLE?! Yes, i just called darth vader adorable. But he is…as a cookie. If I got these for christmas, I would probably make my siblings make these with me while we’re visiting them for the holidays. :) Good bonding time, yes?

  And of course, a little of this wouldn’t hurt ;)

Love,

Baby, It’s Cold…in here…

Okay, so we’re trying to cut costs and delay using our heat for as long as possible. This was John’s idea. (important – it was a good idea though…) That means our thermostat show this: (or lower)
When it’s already 40-50 degrees outside anyway, this isn’t much of an improvement, I’m not gonna lie ;) When it was down to 60, I drew the line.

“We are NOT letting the place get below 60!! If it does, we ARE turning the heat on!!”

So that was the agreement. It finally got to 59 on Friday, but I didn’t care because we were leaving for Nauvoo in less than an hour. ;) But 60-65 is still REALLY cold!!! I made those cupcakes for the Harry Potter party, and I left out a stick of butter to soften so I could make the frosting. I pulled out the butter and we went to the Temple. Two. Hours. Later. We were home and the butter was STILL not soft enough the cream!

A few nights before, we were getting ready for bed and John found me like this:

So I’d like you to meet my new best friend:
The space heater! I convinced John that this was a good idea. We could just move it to wherever we are, and it’s MUCH cheaper than trying to heat the whole apartment. You see how the light is on? Yeah, it’s on pretty much whenever I’m home ;) Along with the heater, we’ve found other ways to keep warm. Like walking around in a blanket or snow jacket (sometimes both) or, my personal favorite, leaving the oven open once we’ve turned it off after cooking something. All that yummy heat in the kitchen…oh yes :)

Are we crazy? Probably. Given the rate that Chicago is cooling, we’re probably going to be using the heat soon. But hey, last month our gas bill was only $20, so it’s not complete insanity, right? ;)

A little late…

I know, but better late than never right? I’m sensing a theme here…But anyway, I wanted to show you some pictures of the second project we did at school this week. Because of Thanksgiving, we were losing a day of the curriculum for celebration cakes, so we didn’t actually get to do the mother’s day cake, we just did the techniques on little cake boards covered in fondant.
Here’s what we would have done":
The flower on the top (in the pink) is done with a technique called quilling. It’s actually a form of paper art, it was done by monks and nuns in the middle ages and is also done by scrapbookers and paper crafters. Then the cake decorators decided they should get in on it too ;) The white rose show directly above is done by doing what’s called brush embroidery. It’s supposed to look like it was stitched on, get it?

Anyway, we started off the with brush embroidery. I like the way it looks, but I’ll admit it’s not my favorite thing to sit down and do…here are my roses :)

The quilling was pretty fun, it’s has a quirky, whimsical look to it
After we did this, we all wanted chewing gum…it kinda looks like that bubble tape stuff, don’t you think? ;)

And that was pretty much it for this project. This next week is sculpted cake which is going to be pretty intense!!!

By the way, do you not LOVE the new layout?!? Michelle directed me to this ADORABLE site to get blog templates! I’m SO ready for Christmas and SNOW!!!!!!!!!! :)

Thanksgiving and Nauvoo!

Okay, so I’m way late on the happy thanksgiving and the gratitude-ness, but better late than never, right? and it’s still November…so…there. :)
I also didn’t want to burden you all with the knowledge that John was really sick on thanksgiving. yes. it was so sad. THANKFULLY, it was not MRSA. But the food in his insides…well, they wanted to be on his outsides…’nuff said. So at John’s insistence, I went by myself to my aunt Michelle’s for turkey dinner. I felt really bad, but I’m glad I went, because I found out Michelle had only cooked a turkey because we were coming. Otherwise…well, she doesn’t know what they would have had for dinner. Besides, who would want to miss out on this?
(Michelle has requested that when I have my own show on the food network, she would like to guest star as “the crazy aunt”. ;) I think we have an opening…)
So I had yummy food with Michelle and Mark and my crazy cousins and we packed up a nice (LARGE) tupperware of leftovers for John to eat once he was feeling better :)
So some of you know that we were planning on going to Nauvoo with the youth at Church for this weekend after Thanksgiving. With John being sick, we weren’t quite sure what we were going to do, because John was one of only two leaders for the boys. It was already a day before departure, so asking someone else to go would be SUPER last minute. Well, John managed to find two guys in our ward who could come and give him a priesthood blessing and he felt fine Friday morning and we were able to go on the trip. So we are SO grateful for the priesthood and willing ward members who came to give him a blessing!!!
We had a great time in Nauvoo. It had been 5 or 6 years since I’d been and about 10 since John had been, so it was really fun to see everything again, and the Temple hadn’t even been finished when John was there last!! We drove down Friday morning and got there in time to meet everyone else down there so the youth could do baptisms. It. was. freezing. cold!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Oh, and before I forget, we stopped at a walgreens on the way and I found the COOLEST japanese erasers at the checkout line!!! … and I wanted to show you… ;)


LOVE IT!!! I think the light bulb is a favorite. But I digress. Isn’t the temple just beautiful?? He’s freezing. Can you tell? 
Do you LOVE my earmuffs?! I just got them last week!! Now my ears stay toasty warm :) 
Once we were done with baptisms, we headed over to the lodge we stayed at for those two nights. There ended up being a double booking so we stayed in the basement that first night because there was a family of 9+ on the main floor. They left the next day, so we had the whole place to ourselves the second night. It was HUGE. So that first night we played some group games and the other family got in on it and we had a GINORMOUS group for “Do you love your neighbor?”!!! So fun. We all stayed up WAY too late and finally crashed sometime after midnight.

Saturday we saw the sites. We started off with a video at the visitors center, then found out we were just in time to go on a carriage ride. Also FREEZING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I tried to get other people to look at me for pictures…but it didn’t really work. I actually don’t think they could hear me over the wind… 
  After the ride we drove around and saw the blacksmith’s the seventies hall, the bakery, the gunsmith, the brick yard, the print shop, the post office, the cultural hall…and probably others…I just can’t remember now…
   John has decided he wants a collection like this…  After lunch we went and got FUDGE. Peanut Butter for me, and Rocky Road for John!
Nom nom nom…
After fudge, we had some free time and we split off into groups and went around town. We stopped at a fabric shop (my idea – some of those fabrics were SO CUTE!!!!!!!!!) and I about jumped out of my skin when I rounded a corner and saw this guy:
So John wanted a picture with him. Creepy? Yes. Why is he in an adorable fabric shop? Haven’t a clue.
That night was pretty low key, we had dinner and played some more games, but after a little while, we were all ready for bed. We got up early this morning for 8am sacrament meeting and then we all headed home. John and I stopped by Carthage Jail, but when we got there, it didn’t open for at least another hour and a half. So we just walked around and took some pictures before we left.

It was certainly a reminder to me of how grateful I am for the many, many sacrifices that Joseph Smith made so that we could have the knowledge of Jesus Christ and his atonement, of families that can be together forever, and of the love of our Heavenly Father for each one of us.

And now were are finally home!! After driving 4 1/2 hours through Nowhere, Illinois, we were pretty happy to get home :)
Happy Thanksgiving!!