Happy Holidays

It has been a while and life has been crazy around here. So, here is an update.

The first Monday of December my sisters and I get together and make holiday goodie plates, it is always fun and a joy! This year the holy trinity, the magic 3 as it were, got de-railed. Janelle got sick and was not able to come, so it was just Tiff and me. . . . and it was not pretty. Janelle was going to bring the ginger snap dough so we deiced to make fudge instead. The "fudge" was awful, grainy and just ick. Then our meltaway cookies were a complete disaster too. We ended up with three items that were okay, but overall I think we learned a valuable lesson, the magic doesn't work unless all three of us are present.




I had a wonderful birthday. Dave took me out for sushi and a movie. We saw "New Moon" the teen vampire werewolf movie. I loved it and Dave was a good sport to take me. We also had Patti and Wynn over for lunch and we had one of my favorite meals, a Chicken Cordon Bleu type meal, but with a mustard-bacon-mushroom-colby jack favor. So good. I also got some lovely cards.



We got a fabulous Christmas gift from my brother's family. It was a little beat up by the time it arrived.



But the contents were unharmed. It is a wonderful Christmas quilt, it came with little squares that match so Spencer can play a matching game. Spencer LOVES it, we play it several times a day. I am going to post some video footage of it, he thinks it's the greatest. We love it too.

We also went to the ward Christmas party on Friday, Spencer had a ball, running around like a maniac. It was great to meet some new neighbors and Santa made an appearance. They also did a nativity. It was a great evening all around.



And finally we got a family gift with some Christmas money we received. We got a lovely lamp and chair for the office. It is wonderful to have a reading chair in the office now. Can't wait for Christmas eve and Christmas day, we have family coming to visit and I promise lots of photos.

Temple Square

Yesterday we started a new family tradition, or rather resurrected an old one from when we lived here before. We went downtown to Temple Square to look at the lights. It was wonderful! We went downtown on the train and Spencer was in heaven, to him the train was more impressive then the lights.

Janelle and Chris met us there and we looked at the lights, watched and listened to The Nativity enactment and took some pictures. It was great to have dinner together and enjoy some hot chocolate after. Ahhh, I love the season.






Here are our stockings, we have one up for "little one." Unfortunately, little one will not be home this Christmas, but next year I am looking forward to Santa filling it with all sort of goodies.

Merry Christmas

I LOVE THIS! My sister sent it to me.

Going well. . .

We started potty training on Monday. It has gone well, really well. He only had one accident a day on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. Yesterday was a perfect day- no accidents. Today is also a perfect day, so far.

On Monday we had to run an errand and we were gone about 30 min. and Spencer did great! On Wednesday we were gone for about 2 hours (for visiting teaching) unfortunately he had his one and only accident while we were gone.

Yesterday we ran to the library and he did great. He has really grasp the idea and is doing spectacularly.

We are still doing a diaper at night and whenever he is ready we will make that next step, although I think it will be awhile.

Tonight we are going to Temple Square and look at the lights, we are driving to Trax and taking the train downtown. Spencer will LOVE it. I am also making sure we pack the stroller. This will hopefully make a great family tradition.

A skill you use for the rest of your life.

So, my dear friends, the day has come. We will start potty training Spencer tomorrow. This is a rather exciting time around here. We have made the necessary preparations. Spencer has big boy underwear. They make lots of great choices so that I think Spencer is excited about it. We got some with Lightning McQueen and Mater, also superheros and a variety of Disney/Pixar characters. We also got Spencer a special stool so he can reach the sink and sit where he needs to (of course it is "Cars" too.) So now Spencer has all this great stuff that he is excited about.



I have cleared my schedule for 3 days. Here is the plan:

1. Lots and Lots of special drinks. . . Capri Suns, Chocolate Milk, soda, Bob the Builder Juice. . . All the most exciting things we can think of for him to guzzle down.



2. Tomorrow morning we wake up and get dressed, first thing we go to the potty. Then he gets to wear the big boy underwear.

3. Starting out every 15 minutes we try to go potty. I have a timer that automatically reset to the last time you entered.

4. We stay on the kitchen and play, read, do play dough lots of activities. Then off to the loo when the timer goes.

5. We will adjust the time between tries as seems appropriate.

6. Encourage him to drink, drink, drink.

7. Have lots of spare clothes on hand and be prepared to do lots laundry.

That is the plan. My neighbor used this system to train all 5 of her children. She has a little girl Spencer's age who she just trained and it seems to have worked well. She said it takes about 3 days. After that there is the occasional accident, but they are good to go.

Wish us luck :)

New Video

I had to file a claim with YouTube saying the music I used was "fair use." I didn't end up with the songs I wanted, but this is close enough. My grandparents are getting the full video on DVD.

Video of our Trip to Idado

I had some problems with YouTube on this one. They muted the entire sound track (all audio from the video and music.) The entire video is silent, so bummed. Apparently one of the songs I added in the background is not "pre-licensed" on YouTube.

I burned it to a DVD for my grandparents, so maybe they will be the only ones who can see it . . . Oh well, so much for the wonders of technology. I might see if I can work something out.

Trip to Grandma's

Well, it has been a couple of weeks since our trip to Grandma's house in Idaho. Things have been so busy around here I haven't had time to update all y'all.

We left very early on Wednesday. Spencer was so excited when we moved him to the car from his bed at 4:50 AM that he couldn't go back to sleep. He kept saying "Aunt Betty and Uncle Don?" then "Grandma & Grandpa V, V, Veselka?" (At first he said "Ba-selka" then we said it was "V. . V. . Veselka" now he says the "v" sound a couple of times before he says Veselka.)

We arrived in Boise about noon and dropped in on Aunt Betty, Uncle Don and Carol (my mom's cousin.) It was great. We got to see their home. It was perfect and charming. They are close to everything (great shopping) and it is on one level. We had a great visit. Spencer was entranced by the box of toys they had. He sang a couple of songs and was in heaven playing with cars after sitting the car for 6 hours. Aunt Betty even let him take a car home. It was Luigi (from the Cars movie.) Spencer loves it and still plays with it everyday. Carol also gave him some books that were (and are) a big hit!

Eventually it was time to say goodbye and head to Grandma & Grandpa's house a couple hours away, but it was a perfect way to stop and re-charge after our hours in the car. Here are a couple of photos.




We made it to Grandma & Grandpa's house in the afternoon. It was great to see them. This was out first visit with Spencer and it was great to see him play in the same living room that I played in when I was his age. (Some of the toys were the same too! It brought back lots of memories to see a polymer neon green Pinocchio and wooden blocks.)

We had lots of time to chat and reminisce. My Grandparents were in good health and it made me happy to see them doing so well. My grandma made this wonderful Apple Spice Cake. It was to. . . die. . . for. I normally do not go for baked apple anything. . . but this was soooo good. I had two pieces and refused to leave without the recipe. As memory served. . I had two more pieces the next day too. I plan to make it next fall and try them as cupcakes/muffins with caramel frosting.

I got some great footage on the flip video camera. I still need to put together a video montage of the trip. As soon as I have that done I will post it here. Until then, enjoy some photos.

New-do

Well, I finally had enough. I was feeling so oppressed by my hair, I mean who's the boss anyway? I am the boss of me, and my hair so I just chopped it off.

This morning my hair was especially relentless in it non-compliance with my will. My hair is just too stringy when it's long and because I have to color those ridiculously pre-mature grays, I can feel my hair is dry almost, fuzzy. . . (I hate fuzzy.)

So this morning I woke up and called a couple neighbors to see if I could find a pinch hitter to watch Spencer while I went to get my hair cut. Thankfully my neighbor just up the street was able to. . . bless you Stephanie!

Now my long and stringy (and occasionally fuzzy) hair is replaced with short and sassy. Ahh it's good to be back! This is not the best shot, but it will give you an idea. I am sure that I will get some better shots when we go to Idaho to visit my Grandma next week.

Before:


After:

Happy Halloween!

Spencer and Dave headed off to the land of sugar and goodies tonight. We got some photos and some footage of the evening. Our neighbors did a "spook alley" type thing with a mummy and wolf-man. There was also a coffin and "scary" witch. From what Dave said they had a lot of fun.

Spencer was Bob the Builder and here is a video peek of the night. . .

Pen-tol

Spencer has made a new joke. Instead of calling a pencil a “pencil” he calls it a “pentol." He thinks this is the funniest thing . . .ever. I finally got some “pentol” footage. After I filmed him we watched the video and he laughed even harder at the video then he did in the video.

After we watched the flip video together I told Spencer it was time to put the flip away. . . instantly he had a tantrum. Since I still had the flip in my hand I thought I would capture the moment and share, (since the blog is private now and only 25 people actually read/see this.)

The ups and down of toddlerhood.

Wednesday

Not much happening. . . just a quick mundane update.

We went to the library this morning, after the visiting teachers came. My November book club book came in "The boy in the striped pajamas" I am currently reading "The Good Earth" (so far I like it.) These two book will be #49 & #50 for the year. It is good to have a goal and reach it. Although I think next year I will just be reading without a goal. . . although I am pretty competitive. . . I just might set one.

Today we got our property tax break down and last year we paid $117 for the county library. Worth. Every. Penny. I think in the last year we have borrowed over a 100 books and a handful of movies. Plus we get story time every Wednesday with an activity. I have also taken Russian Lessons online with Mango Languages through the library. Maybe I should have been a librarian. . . Of all the taxes we pay I consider this one a privilege.

The funeral for Sadie was on Monday, it was a sad and emotional day for everyone. Yet, there is a power in knowing that the Lord is at the helm and families are forever. The signing for the grandpa went better then I could have hoped. At one point a person was sharing a story about an ancestor from Scotland. . . and the sign for Scotland just came to me. I had probably seen that sign once 7 years ago and all of a sudden I was signing it without even thinking about it. That happened time and time again over the hour-plus service, it was a testament me that the Lord does bless and sustain us.

Still no news on the adoption. . . I am starting to think it wont be this year. . . nothing is happening. A blogging buddy of mine (at a different agency) was told the family ahead of them in line just got invited to go to Kaz and their agency told them that their LOI was about 2 months away. . . ouch. I have no clue where that leaves us, but I think being cautiously optimistic is a good policy.

I will update for the Halloween weekend and promise pictures and maybe a video.

Just Like Dad

Dave got a phone call for work, he took his phone and laptop into the office to work. Spencer followed Dave to the office, watched him for a minute then went to the family room.

I followed him and he looked so cute I had to film it. Spencer loves the flip camera and it is hard to film him without him wanting to touch the camera.

Enjoy:

Sunday

On Friday morning we got some devastating news. Our neighbor’s two year old daughter had died. This sweet angelic girl is the same age as Spencer, they had play-dates and were in nursery together. Sadie died suddenly on Thursday when she stopped breathing due to the croup.

All day Friday I was in shock and couldn’t believe Sadie was really gone. I brought some flowers to their home with a card, but was so emotional all I could do was give it their son and say, “Tell your mom I say hi.” I turned to go and almost burst into tears. This is so overwhelming. We had a play date scheduled with the twins (Sadie has an identical twin sister) for Thursday but because the girls had the croup we postponed it.

On Friday Dave and I planned to go to the opera. I wasn’t sure if I could go, but thought I would try. We left at intermission to come home. The entire weekend has been so sad and yet removed from reality.

Last night my neighbor gave me a call, I was so surprised to hear from her. I felt on the verge of tears and falling apart, I just wanted to tell her how much I love Sadie and their family and how I feel so keenly their loss. I wanted to offer support and love, but my throat choked up and all I could say was, “I have been thinking about you so much.” She asked if I heard about Sadie, I said yes. She asked if I could do her a favor. . . I said “anything.” She asked if I could interpret for her father, who is deaf.

I know some sign language, but it has been years since I did anything seriously. Even then I was not even a level one interpreter. Just a casual signer, but I told her I would happy to do anything for their family. She asked me to sign the sacrament meeting this morning, and the family prayer and funeral services tomorrow.

Last night I spent time practicing and viewing videos for ASL. I felt very unqualified but wanted so much to do something. This morning I woke up early to practice again. I asked Dave to give me a priesthood blessing, I needed divine help. He blessed me that I would be able to give this service and remember the words I needed. He also blessed me that I would be calm.

Today I felt that the Lord did bless my hands and mind. I was able to interpret the meeting, the signing came to me more easily then it should have. There were still words I missed but I think overall it went well. I hope at the funeral and graveside service tomorrow I can serve this family and that the Lord will continue to bless me.

This is just a sad and sorrowful time.

Chopper-One. . . come in. . .

Today Spencer had a real treat. We have a new hospital that is just opening up 10 min. from our home. It is lovely and state of the art. Today they had an open house for the public to tour the facilities. We got to see the MRI, CT scanner and X-ray rooms. We also got to see the operating rooms and Primary Children's Out patient hospital. It was great to take the tour.

The primary reason we went was because they said there would be a helicopter, ambulance and fire engine there. Of course knowing our boy how could we pass that up?

We first saw the ambulance. Spencer really liked it, he was able to look around in the back and the paramedic also let him sit in the driver's seat and push the siren button. He was in heaven.





Next we went to the helicopter. Spencer kept saying "big helicopter" and "big blades." The life flight crew was great and even let Spencer "drive" by letting sit in the pilot's seat.





The only down side was that we missed the fire engine. I guess the local fire department was there earlier in the day but were called away. Spencer was sad to miss the fire truck, but he had a great time. On the tour of the children's wing he saw a a truck book and he conned a hospital admin person to read to in. It is a great facility and I can't wait to have such a nice hospital close to us. It officially opens Nov. 1.

The waiting is killing me. . .

Well peeps. . . it has been 40 days since we got our letter from the DOE logging us into the system in Uralsk. Last night I had a dream that I was in the office of the DOE and watching them put our paperwork together and sending us out our Letter of Invitation. I have been thinking about it almost non-stop. . . we have got to be getting close.

Our agency is getting their Hague accreditation renewed this week and the major focus is getting that done. So this week we will most likely be quiet.

Just waiting. . . and waiting some more.

Bob the Builder & Karla the Sewer

It looks like we have a Halloween costume winner. Let me present. . . Bob the Builder:




So Spencer LOVES Bob the builder and you can hear him everyday say, "Can we fix it?. . .. Yes we can!" We really limit his TV (about 30 min./day. . . 4 or 5 days a week.) But even with limited exposure to Bob he loves it. So when we found the hard hat, tool belt and some other accessories it was a no-brainer. Spencer was so excited to try on his hat and loves to hit things with the hammer . . .now I am wondering if it was such a good idea :).

I also had a busy day yesterday with a sewing project. It is that time of year again to bust-out the winter duvet. There was a little problem, the duvet cover 1) did not match the bedding we got last Feb. and 2) It was stained, it had some green marker/ink type thing on it that will not come out.

I priced some duvet covers. . . sad. It seems that the ones I liked were in the $100 range. . . very sad. So, what's a girl on a budget to do? I took an old sheet (from a previously homemade duvet cover, some old pillow cases from the sheet set that came from the matching bedding set and a King size sheet from Target $15. Toss it all together and. . . poof.

Update on the ultrasound

I posted about some “protocols” that might be changing in our adoption process. Well, it looks like like the protocols for gender selection have (or will) change. We originally were expecting a girl. As you know by the pink nursery and all the cute girl clothes we have ready for “little sister.”

Well “little sister” has now been replaced by “little one.”

It is kind of exciting! We will truly be surprised by the gender, (like not having the doctor check the gender on the ultrasound). It looks like we won’t know the gender until we actually get there and meet our child. If we have a boy we will have a bit of painting and shopping to do, but there is such an excitement about it. We have already talked about boy names. . . so far Percy and Hector have been ruled out :)

We will keep you posted as we know more about “little one” and when we might travel.

Yeah for brothers. . .. and sisters too!

Conference Weekend

This last weekend was General Conference Weekend. It is great to get together as a family and listen to the leaders of our church give such wise council and advice. The speakers were from North America, South America, Asia, Africa and Europe. It was amazing to hear so many voices from so many cultures all focused on and sharing a message of peace and happiness.

We got to see Grandma & Grandpa and Janelle & Chris and Spencer's cousins too. We had fun hanging out and playing too. When the choir sang "Love is spoken here" Spencer was mesmerized and at the end shouted, "I love that song!"

We also made "Priesthood Scones" during the Priesthood session and Janelle brought honey-butter to indulge in on Saturday night. It was simply a perfect weekend.



Here's the video to prove it. (My favorite part is Spencer singing in the last segment.)

50 books. . .

My goal this year is to read 50 books, I am currently in the middle of book 44. I really enjoyed all the great books I have read and am glad I tired some books that I normally would have passed on.

What I have discovered about my reading tastes:

1. I love Young Adult fiction (Sci-Fi/Fantasy) with strong female characters with lots of adventure.
2. I adore a good memoir and absolutely can’t stand the mediocre ones.
3. All graphic novels are not created equality.
4. Classics are classic for a reason. If a book is 100+ years old and still in print there is a reason.
5. A great tip I learned this year from my husband. Read the first chapter in the book store/library and if it doesn't keep your attention. . . pass. There are too many great books out there to waist your time.
6. Being part of a great book group makes reading a great book even better. . . and even makes reading a mediocre book more fun.

That’s what I have learned so far this year. Viva la reading!

Adoption News. . . Still waiting

We got an email for our agency yesterday. It is always good to get an update, we did not get the coveted “LOI” (Letter of Invitation) but it is always good to have more information.

We did receive a letter from the local officials confirming that our dossier has been received and that we are registered as “prospective adoptive parents.” It goes on to state that our LOI will be sent to the Department of Foreign Affairs. This letter was dated Sept. 10, 2009. It is good to know we are logged in.

There was another piece of news. When we logged into the system, we logged in at the same time with 2 other families from our agency. The in-country facilitators passed on some information to our agency about timing. It looks like maybe 2 of the 3 families will be invited to travel by the end of the year. So, there is a 1-in-3 chance we will not travel until 2010. We are waiting to see. There is a tight feeling in my gut.

If we are not going to travel this year, I need to know. I have totally cleared my schedule and am wide open to travel and leave my life here for 2 months. If I have to sit around for 3+ months with nothing to do, I will drive myself (and Dave & Spencer) crazy. I am already coming up with ideas to keep myself busy if it looks like 2010 is our travel date.

It seems adoption is never constant or reliable when it comes to timelines. We knew when we signed up there was a chance it would not happen this year, but the hurry-up-and-wait aspect is difficult.

We also got an update about some changing protocols in the process. We should get more information about that soon and when we find out more we will keep you posted.

Until then. . . more information is always good.

Book Club

I am so excited. I am in a new book club. My neighbor and I were in another book club and without going into too much detail, we decided to start our own book group. We invited about a dozen ladies in the neighborhood and had our first meeting last night.

So fun!

It looks like there are about 10 of us (give or take.) Last night we voted on the books to read this coming year and there are some great ones. Here’s our list:


Salt: A World History by Kurlansky, Mark
The Last Lecture by Pausch, Randy
The Agony and the Ecstasy: A Biographical Novel of Michelangelo by Stone, Irving
Pride and Prejudice by Austen, Jane
Seventh Son (Tales of Alvin Maker #1) by Card, Orson Scott
The Hunger Games (Hunger Games, #1) by Collins, Suzanne
The Three Musketeers by Dumas, Alexandre
The Great Divorce by Lewis, C.S.
The Historian by Kostova, Elizabeth

I am so pleased with the mix of books. We have some non-fiction, sci-fi/fantasy, classics, even a vampire novel to round out the selections. This is going to be a great group of books. I also love the ladies, some I have known for years and others I just met.

Here’s the book-group-bonus. . . . We are reading “The Three Musketeers” in May and are planning to all go out to dinner that month and then attend a performance of “The Three Musketeers” at a local theatre. I can’t wait.

This month we read “The Scarlet Pimpernel” and then attended the musical. That was a great idea and so fun, I am glad we are carrying on the tradition.

Keep your love locked down. . .

It looks like we will be going private. On October 1st I will be updating the status of the blog. If you would like an invitation to continue reading the blog leave a comment on this post with your email address and I will send you an invite.

A few of you asked if there was some weird thing that happened to us recently, the answer is no. All is well with us, but a friend kind of had a scary experience. We talked about doing it after the adoption was complete, but I think we will make the leap now.

Leave a comment if you'd like an invite :)

Dave suggests. . .

If you're not comfortable leaving your email address out there in public, I'd recommend disguising it like this:

karla.youknowwho at yahoo dot com

This should prevent any automated snoopers from scooping it up. :-)

Private?

So, we have been talking about take the blog private. It seems there are a lot of nut-jobs out there. The only thing I don't like is when a blog goes private it doesn't work with Google reader, even if you are approved. So we are looking at all the options, maybe moving to Word Press where you can password project certain posts. At any rate, we will be making some changes with the public/private options. . . stay tuned.

Having fun with the Mac

I just had some fun putting some clips together with the Mac. I took a bunch of clips from last year and put them together in a montage video called "Spencer 2008." Normally I try to keep clips on the blog to about a minute. This is about 5 min., a little longer but I had so much fun putting it together. I can't wait to start creating movies with clips from the Flip.

Adoption Update

Sorry, no real news. . . just an update.

Short Story: We are still waiting.

Long Story: All our paper work has surmounted all the political local and international hurdles. Our complete dossier is in the hands of the local facilitating team in Uralsk. So, that part of the story is great.

What we know is; we are not the next on the list the matched with a baby house. There are "several" families ahead of us in the process that will be granted an invitation to travel before us. We don't know how many and we don't know if they also hope to be matched with an infant girl.

We also know that one family has been invited to travel Oct. 20. It is highly unlikely we would be asked to travel before this other family. Our best hope is to travel in November and hope to be home by the end of the year.

At least we are hearing news, we only wish the news we was more exciting and less. . . patience building.

Spicy Thai Lime Chicken

I am trying three new recipes this week. On Monday I tried Beef Pot Pie, not quite inedible but I will certainly never make it again.

Last night I tried a Spicy Thai Lime Chicken, totally delicious! It was a simple, fragrant and we all loved it. Here’s the recipe if you want to give it a try.

Spicy Thai Lime Chicken

1 1/2 to 2 lbs. diced chicken (I diced mine quite small. It was like a filling)
1 cup breadcrumbs
4 scallions (or green onions) sliced
1 Tablespoon ground coriander
1 cup finely chopped cilantro
3 Tablespoon Sweet Chili Sauce (I used the mild variety and it still had what I could call a medium “kick.”)
1-2 Tablespoon Lime Juice

Vegetable Oil for frying

1. Preheat over the 400 degrees F.
2. Mix the chicken and bread crumbs in a bowl
3. Add scallions, coriander, cilantro chili sauce and lime juice.
4. Using damp hands, form the mixture into small evenly shaped balls.
5. Heat oil in deep frying pan and cook chicken until browned all over.
6. Place chicken on baking sheet and bake until cooked through (5 min. for smaller size, 10-15 for larger sized.)
7. Serve with rice and additional Sweet Chili Sauce to taste

*As a side note, when I made the ball shapes they ended up falling apart, as soon as they were served in a bowl to serve over rice. It looked more like a filling then shaped balls, which I liked better. If you would like the ball shape used ground Chicken instead of finely diced chicken.

Testing the Flip

We got a new digital video camera! I won a gift card from filling out a survey (I know, wow. . . people really do win something from a survey thingy.) And we have been talking about getting a new video camera for awhile. All of the videos I post here are from my (Dave's) camera. It has a video feature, but as you can tell it is usually grainy. Our new video camera is called "The Flip."

I just took a test shot of Spencer, and wow. . .this thing is 100x better then the old one. The picture is HD and looks really sharp. I will try to post the test footage for you to see. Can't wait to use it in Kaz.

Lemon Cheesecake

Here is that fabulous recipe from the bridal shower straight from my sister. . . enjoy.

Cookie-crumb crust:
1 cup Animal Cracker cookie crumbs ( I used mostly animal crackers... but I ran out and used some graham crackers too)
3 tablespoons sugar
4 tablespoons butter - melted and kept warm

Filling:
1 1/4 cups sugar
1 tablespoon lemon zest (about 3 lemons)
1/4 cup lemon juice
3 8oz. packages cream cheese cut into rough 1 inch chunks and left to stand at room temp. (about 30 min)
4 large eggs at room temp
2 teaspoons vanilla
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup heavy cream


Lemon Curd:
1/3 cup lemon juice
2 large eggs
1 large egg yolk
1/2 cup sugar
2 tablespoons butter cut into 1/2 inch cubes (chilled)
1 tablespoon heavy cream
1/4 teaspoon vanilla
pinch of salt

Crust: pre-heat oven to 325 degrees. In food processor, process cookies to fine, even crumbs. Add sugar and pulse 2 or 3 times to incorporate. Add warm melted butter in slow, steady stream while pulsing; pulse until mixture is evenly moistened and resembles wet sand. Transfer to 9 inch springform pan. Press firmly and evenly into pan bottom, keeping sides as clean as possible. Bake until fragrant and golden brown, 15-18 min. ( my oven did it in about 12 min) Cool on wire rack to room temp about 30 min. When cool, wrap outside of pan with two layers of tin foil. set pan in roasting pan.

Filling: While crust is cooling, process 1/4 cup sugar and lemon zest in food processor until sugar is yellow and zest is broken down. Transfer lemon sugar to small bowl; stir in remaining 1 cup sugar

In standing mixer, beat cream cheese on low to break up and soften slightly. With machine running add sugar mixture in slow and steady stream; increase speed to medium and continue to beat until mixture is creamy and smooth, scarping down bowl as needed. Reduce speed to medium-low and add eggs 2 at a time; beat until incorporated about 30 sec. scraping sides and bottom of bowl well after each addition. Add lemon juice, vanilla and salt and mix until incorporated; add heavy cream and mix until just incorporated. give batter final scrape, stir with rubber spatula, and pour into prepared springform pan; fill roasting pan with enough hot tap water to come halfway p sides of springform pan. Bake until center jiggles slightly, side just start to puff, surface is no longer shiny, and instant- read thermometer inserted in center of cake registers 150 degrees, 55-60 minutes. Turn off oven and prop oven door with potholder or wooden spoon handle; allow cake to cool in water bath in over for 1 hr. Transfer springform pan without foil to wire rack; run small paring knife around inside edge of pan to loosen sides of cake and cool cake to room temp about 2 hrs.

Lemon Curd: While cheesecake bakes heat lemon juice in small nonreactive saucepan over medium heat until hot but NOT boiling. Whisk eggs and yolk in medium non reactive bowl; gradually whisk in sugar. Whisking constantly, slowly pour hot lemon juice into eggs then return mixture to sauce pan and cook over medium heat stirring constantly with wooden spoon (I used a rubber spatula) until mixture registers 170 degrees and is thick enough to cling to spoon, about 3 min. Immediately remove pan from heat and stir in cold butter until incorporated; stir in cream, vanilla, and salt then pour curd through fine-mesh stainer into small nonreactive bowl. ( I didn't do that because I don't have a fine-mesh strainer) Cover surface of curd directly with plastic wrap; refrigerate until needed.

To finish the Cake: When cheesecake is cool, scrape lemon curd onto cheesecake still in springform pan; spread curd evenly over top of cheesecake. Cover tightly with plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least 4 hours or up to 24 hours.

Sewing the day away

I finally got some time today to work on little sister’s crib bedding. I am pleased with the final product and at about half the price of purchasing a complete set, I like it all the more.

Big Boy Bed

We made the leap my friends. Spencer is now officially sleeping in a Big Boy Bed. We waited until the weekend was over to make the change. So, Sunday night was the first night in the new bed. He slept through the night without any problems.

Nap time is a different story. He likes to get up and play or leave his room, so we are still working on that one. But overall I would say we have a winner.

Dancing Bonus

The Wedding Weekend

Our family celebrated this weekend with my sister’s wedding. Thursday all the family trickled in from far and wide. Our house had an additional 8 people camped out. Everyone was a good sport about sleeping on air mattresses and taking shifts showering. It was great to have everyone under one roof!

Here’s the weekend in pictures:

Friday all the ladies got together for a bridal shower brunch. We had the most divine lemon cheese cake that Tiffani stayed up late the night before making. SOOOO good, once she emails me the recipe I will post it here.









On Friday evening we all (both the bride’s and grooms family) got together for a delicious Italian dinner. The food was so good, we ate at Bucca De Bebepo.



That night we picked Sandy up from the airport as we drove by the temple she got this shot:



On Saturday morning my sister was married in the temple for time and all eternity to her sweetheart.






Spencer loved being around all the family. Here are some pictures of him showing off his new moves, learned from Uncle Jay.






The outdoor reception was perfect. Again, the food was divine, the setting was bursting with greens and the overcast day made the weather perfect.





Of course during the course of the reception a select few were able to sneak away and take care of some car decorating business :) (Observe: The Ring Leader)





Before the happy couple made their escape, there was time for a daddy daughter dance before Janelle was turned over to Chirs for their first dance as man and wife.





After the couple took off for the honeymoon we all went back the local B&B (a.k.a. our house) for some hangout time and to remove some much despised high heels.





It was a perfect weekend. I loved every moment of it.

(Soon, I will be posted a bonus video of grandpa and Spencer warming up the dance floor)