Pumpkin Carving

As many of you may know we're expecting our first baby the first week of March. We thought we'd let you know what we're having. Happy Halloween!

Werewolf's Bar Mitzfa

I LOVE Halloween  its part of being a member of my family. How many of you can say that an entire 6 foot wide closet in the hallway was 100% dedicated to Halloween costumes while you were growing up? That's what I thought. :) I love decorating for Halloween almost as much as Christmas, so we thought we'd share a few of our favorite decorations around our new house. 

This can also be heard in our house as we decorate because its just hilarious. You may listen while you look through our photos to get into the mood. 

 This is my ultimate favorite that I inherited from my Mom, the Halloween Queen herself. 

 Every home needs a sparkly skull somewhere.

 Haunted Tree, dont mind our temple pic 

in the back. 

This one used to freak my roommates out so bad at college that I still to this day send them a pic of it in Oct every year just to remember how awesome it is. :)

BOO!!!

Green thunb

Green thumb: noun: an extraordinary ability to make plants grow well.

 I have lots of really great "growers" in my life. My dad is a tomato grower extraordinaire. As well as potatoes, peppers, squash and a list of other things in his garden. He's just more well known for the tomatoes. And why not bask in the fame, they're stinkin hard to grow. Some of you even know that my brother Nathan got his Ph.D in plant genetics. He's written a book people! Fact is, I am just not one of them. I have here for you today proof of that. 

Kallam will attest to the fact that every year I get super pumped up about growing stuff. "This will be the year" I always say. This was the year that there would be no excuse of "well the 110+ temp cooked my plants" or the excuse of "it would've kept growing, but its in a cup, and I don't have a yard to plant it in". This was the year that I was going to earn my green thumb!  We slaved all summer pulling weeds, tilling dirt, planting and watering. I even spoke to them, giving them pep talks when no one was watching. Around September I gave up. Nothing worked. Nothing happened. Things had sprouted and grown, with no fruit to be had. Then today my old planters caught my eye. I have neglected these things for more than a whole month. There, on a shriveled plant was a tomato. I ran to the back yard, and the whole back yard was filled with raspberries! Can you believe it. All this time, my plants just wanted me to get out of their way. Here's a look at what my plants did when I stopped trying. Does this work with kids too? Just asking for future reference. 

Its green I know, but its freezing every night so if it wanted a fighting chance it shoulda showed up sooner! 

My Dad's Homecoming

As some of you may know my Dad was recently honored at our home town homecoming assembly. Every year they pick two people in the community(man and a woman) to dedicate the entire assembly to. These are people that are loved by many including the graduating class that chose to honor them, and have made a great difference in the school and community. I was lucky enough to get to go to the assembly and mostly i'm just writing this post up so my siblings can feel like they were there too. 

Most people know that my dad is...shall we say easily embarrassed by a spot light being put on him of any kind, for basically any reason. So of course no one wanted to tell him until he was there and it was too late. They started talking about the person they were nominating without saying the name, but once they got to the graduating year of the nominee he made this face at us...

Then he knew :) That's the best face ever. FACT.

The cheerleaders escorted him from the audience to center stage as they continued to talk about all the awesome stuff he's ever done, and all his FABULOUS bulldog children. At this point there was also a group of faculty behind us that kept yelling things about how he was everyone's favorite coworker and employee. It was really sweet. 

Here is Mom pinning his flower on him

I think he looks like he's having a pretty good time. Mom was just thrilled that she was able to keep it a surprise for him.

 There is a lot of clapping that goes on at these assemblies. So much that you'll get fatigued.  Pretty much every song you need to clap along, and they do it twice, its just tradition. I didn't notice this until I grew up and was not a professional clapper(cheerleader).

 And here is after the assembly. It was so cute to see so many people come up to him and talk about how much he was really appreciated. I never thought i'd grow up to get to see my DADS homecoming :) We celebrated by treating the nominee and his wife to Dairy Queen on us where even more people congratulated him. Nice job Dad, way to be an awesome Bulldog for LIFE. You gave us a legacy to be proud of, and you still do. 

 SO CUTE!!!

Social ineptitude

Sometimes Kallam comes home from class and says things like...."Everyone in my building is so NERDY" and then I say "You're an engineering student sweetie" and everyone knows exactly what I mean. Even Kallam, bless his heart, often does not speak the same language as me. And i'm not talking about his mean bilingual-ness. I mean, he'll tell me a joke, and I wont get it. He told me one last week that I assume was about math....I still don't get it a week later. :) So we laughed SUPER hard this week when we found a short clip from a cartoon about engineers that pretty much summed everything up. Its only 60 secs but enjoy!

Lost phone pics

Lately I had a phone break. I had gone almost two weeks where I would charge it, and then it would completely die after a 3-5 min conversation with someone. Most days I had to choose between calling Kallam for 4 mins on my lunch break or being able to dial 911 on the way home if ever needed. Most of the time I took the chance, but 4 mins, REALLY? A girl cant live like that. So on our microscopic budget(tuition hits us hard a few times a year) I down/up graded to a phone without a camera. I was devastated to think that a few of the pictures that I never had the gonads to erase would be lost forever. Kallam saved the day and up loaded them on our computer 5 mins before making the switch. But I got to thinking that no one had really ever seen these but me, and random and fuzzy as they are spacing any where throughout the past 6 years that I've had a phone, someone out there will enjoy them. :)


This is the picture that Kallam sent his family to tell them he was "official" with someone. His sisters didn't really care and just wanted to know what kind of shoes I wore. I guess they can tell alot? Apparently I passed so flats or mary janes are safe to say just in case anyone else ever needs to answer that question.

I have always wanted to order the giant piece of cake at claim jumper, its like the size of my entire torso and the pic does NOT do it justice. But....I have a deathly cheap husband. I will never forget how loved I felt when Kallam ordered this for me when I went to the bathroom one night. 

Us boxing while we were engaged at college

 And us in hawaii on our honeymoon

 This is a halloween costume that we didn't get any other pics of. When Kallam put on that ninja suit and awful wig, it was like he became a different person. He was so funny and confident that some people at the party didn't recognize him.

These girls saved my life my first semester of college. Lame boyfriend + no friends = awful. This was my first night out with my new found friends at a huge bonfire. Still friends to this day in fact. Needless to say lame boyfriend is not around. 

 My nieces when they were very small on our trip to Florida.

  

Some of you may know that I paid for college by working at an observatory 3-4 nights a week. My job was to fit as many kids/accompanying adults onto a motorized space ship that showed them a video and moved their seats while inside. I may or may not have been expected to wear a fake lab coat and other space ship launching necessities. I also may or may not have snuck  a bunch of my friends in on a weekend, one of whom is mocking me in this picture. Don't break that pressure gauge off Erin....its also fake. 

The annual Mud-bowl happens each year at EAC, this was also one of those home-sick/save me moments with my awesome friend Erin. 

And finally two pics with my most amazing cousin mary. One where she came to visit me while I went to BYU, the other trying on every pair of sunglasses in party city. 

THE END

The 4th day of July

Probably a widely known fact that Independence day is my FAVORITE holiday. It has good food, no pressure to get the perfect gift, family and awesome fireworks. Here are a few shots that we got with our friends and family that we met up with in Winslow to watch the largest fireworks display in all of Northern Arizona.

Wow....we're so cool with our sparklers. 

Heart stars and ....lips? Apparently I didn't get the memo that we were copying lucky charms. Lets just pretend its a horse shoe shall we?

 Sorry its so fuzzy Randi, the setting on the camera got switched somehow. 

 And....sorry you're headless. But its a great one of the kiddos!! :)

 Now some of my favorites of the show. 

The Winslow Galaxy...

 You didn't know you could see the Northern Lights in Winslow? Psh....think again!

 And just in case you didn't feel like you were there enough...video!

The Grand Finale!

Recipe-Key Lime Cupcakes

Ok, having the 5th person ask for the key lime cup cake recipe that was so stinkin good was the last straw that pushed me to finally get on here and post it. I wanted to make sure and post it before summer was over because I think of it as more of a summer cupcake that is refreshing....like lemonade or something. There are alot of recipes out there and I combined a few ideas till i thought it was right. Here it is :)


1 box LEMON cake mix( i'm a cheater I know, but it was tasty!)
1/2-1/3 cup lime juice
1/2-1 box lime flavored gelatin mix(keep tasting it till you like it, but you want it to be sorta strong cause the frosting will tame it down)
few drops green food coloring if desired to make it look bright! ( I used the gel but liquid would word fine)
I just followed the eggs, oil, and/or water measurements that were on the back of the cake mix i used, because they are going to differ a little.

Frosting
2 pkg softened cream cheese
1/2 cup butter
2 cups  powdered sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla, or a little more if it needs it.

Like I said, I will be making these again sometime because I thought they were different than the usual but still amazing.

ENJOY!

FUN.

FUN. is a band. Flagstaff was lucky enough to see them in concert last week. I was lucky enough to take Kallam to his first real concert(because Josh Groban does NOT count). Our friends Necia and Tyson even got to come to the concert with us!

We even went down to the standing room only section so we could be super close!

Just in case you didn't feel like you were there partying with us enough, i've included the video of them performing one of our favorite songs. Hats off to Kallam for controlling his urge to dance while the song was being played so that it wasn't shaky. You may even recognize the song from the radio, cause its EVERYWHERE. Enjoy!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cRiDmBJN3rU&feature=youtu.be

Needless to say, Kallam is fully converted to concerts, and FUN. was fun. (I had to)