My mom has been in town this week and we've been helping with preparations for my little sister Sarah's wedding. We spent all day Saturday wedding dress shopping and Sarah picked out a dress. Yay!

And here are the babies with their grandma.


We've made a lot of progress but there's still so much to do. Wedding planning is fun but it's hard work.

It's that time again...

It's that time of the year that I start getting sick of the winter and start longing for spring and summer, warm, swimming, and vacations. I especially can't wait for it to get warm so I can start going on walks with Lucas again. I miss taking him to the park. I watched Couple's Retreat with my sisters last week and in the movie they go to a resort in Bora Bora. Doesn't it look amazing? I want to go so bad.


And to get ready for the summer we got Lucas swim gear. Isn't he so cute!

T-shirts

I just can't get over how cute and grown up my baby looks in t-shirts. He looks like a little boy.

And he likes to play with the other little boy in the mirror.

And give him kisses.

And in case the t-shirt doesn't convince you of how grown up he is, look what I caught him trying to steal this morning.

Oh yeah, he knows where the good stuff is. We better be careful cause he likes to drive the car too and I wouldn't put it past him to go on a shopping spree.

I Love my Valentine

We celebrated our fourth Valentine's day together by eating dinner with this as our view. We went to the Roof in Salt Lake and it was so much fun. The food was good, the atmosphere was perfect, and we just spent the night laughing and stuffing ourselves. Check out our desserts.

The view of the temple was so perfect for Valentine's day. I was constantly reminded throughout the night that we have been sealed together for all of eternity and this man that I love so much will be my Valentine forever.

Random

On Saturday morning I went to a bridal fair with my sister Sarah that's getting married in May. While we were there we were looking at this one invitation place and checking out the invitations they had and we found this.


This is my cousin's wedding invitation. Provo makes the world seem a whole lot smaller.

Fancy Lunch

On the spur of the moment I decided to invite some girls in the ward over for lunch. I bought the ingredients for the lunch earlier in the week, but it was a last minute decision to invite a bunch of people. It was so much fun. I made Cape Cod Chopped Salad, with Macadamia Nut Chicken. I got the idea for the chicken from my dad's Tilapia recipe, but I used macadamia nuts and chicken instead of almonds and tilapia. It was Delicious, and it was so much fun to hang out and do something out of the ordinary.

The babies played with refrigerator magnets. They were entertained for so long. It was really funny.

Thursday Dinner

So for dinner last night I decided to mesh two recipes together. I wanted to make Shrimp Scampi but Ryan hates Shrimp so I took some ideas from this Shrimp Scampi recipe, and this Garlic Chicken Pasta recipe, and made up my own recipe. It turned out pretty good, but I want to make some adjustments next time I make it. I was going to put the recipe, but I'm not totally satisfied with it yet, so you can either email me if you want it, or wait till I have it just right and I'll post it. One of the things that's different in this recipe that I've never done before is to boil the pasta in flavored water, and then keep the juices as part of the sauce.

And here is what it looked like when it was done. It was really good.

Cookies

I've posted about these cookies before, but I love making them around Valentine's Day. They are so easy and they taste so good. If you want the recipe, click here. Here's all the cookies before I frosted them.
Ryan and I are in charge of the ward blog, so I made these cookies as a reward to those that participated in last month's blog challenge. Look at how cute those are. Don't you wish you had participated?

Since there was only one person that participated, there were a lot of left overs for us. Yay!

Wednesday Dinner

Another hit! I made Mexican Lasagna. It was so easy, and probably Ryan's favorite so far. I don't know why but he always seems to like the easiest, and simplest things the most. My favorite is probably still the ravioli but this one was a close second.

And here's some more pictures of Lucas. He was really grumpy during lunch today. He kept swatting at the spoon and screaming, and sticking his hands in his mouth and pulling his hair, and getting food in his hair in the process. He was a mess. And I was really frustrated.

So I threw him in the tub to get him all clean, and he perked right up.

And I just love these pictures of Lucas and Ryan. And yes our baby is playing with a box of Ibuprofen. Whatever makes him happy.

Tuesday Dinner

Success! Last night's dinner was a lot better. I loved this dish and will definitely make it again, with some adjustments. I made, Rosemary Chicken Breasts, Brown Butter and Balsamic Ravioli, and Warm Spinach Salad with Pancetta and Sweet Vinaigrette.

And here's some pictures of Lucas. He likes to play with the swiffer. He pushed it around the kitchen all morning long.

Monday Dinner

Thanks for all the recipe ideas guys. I'm going to have to try some of those. For my new cooking adventures, I decided to start off with something easy. I made Parmesan Crusted Chicken Breasts with Tomato and Basil and Potatoes with Peppers and Onions. It was alright. I LOVED the chicken, but the potatoes weren't my favorite. Hopefully tonight will be better. I'm thinking ravioli.

Bored

I've been really bored with our dinner choices for a while now, and by the time dinner rolls around I have no desire to make anything because nothing sounds good or exciting. So I either throw something together that isn't necessarily good or healthy, or we go out to eat which definitely isn't healthy and isn't good for our budget either. So, I just spent the last hour on the food network website looking up fun new recipe ideas. I'm going grocery shopping as soon as Lucas wakes up from his nap, and hopefully tonight we'll have something yummy for dinner. I'll post the recipes that are a hit. And in the mean time, if you have any yummy dinner ideas, let me know.

Last Day

Today was my last day of work. I probably won't have another job for a long time. I worked at Novatek for almost 2 1/2 years. I really loved it there. I loved almost all of my coworkers, the work I did was pretty enjoyable, and they've even been letting me work for 10 hours a week for the past few months since I had Lucas with my same hourly wage and benefits. This really was the ideal job for me and my family; it was such a blessing to us. I'm excited to stay at home and be a full time mom. It will be a lot easier for us, give Ryan more time for graduate school, and me more time with my cute little baby. But I am a little bit sad to be leaving all my friends and a job that has been so good to me for the last 2 years. I had my last lunch today with all my favorite coworkers and I brought my camera to take a picture and I forgot. I'm so sad about that. Instead I'll post a picture that was taken a while ago, but still has all my favorite people in it.

This is the group of people that I spent countless hours working and laughing with. I'll probably still see them every now and then, but I will miss them and the fun times we had. Thanks.

Pictures

These are just some random pictures taken in the last few weeks. Some of them were taken with Ryan's cell phone camera so they aren't very good.

Bowling with friends...



Shopping at Ikea...

Get Well Soon, Jason!

My brother and I were skiing at PCMR on Saturday. It was one of the most beautiful ski days I've seen in years. Unfortunately, a reckless rider plowed into my brother full speed from the side. I called 911 and ski patrol was on the scene within about 3 minutes.
He was taken to the hospital and after x-rays and some lab work, they determined that nothing was broken and that he would be okay. He still has trouble standing, but he should be better in a few weeks.Get well soon, Jason!