Christmas 2011

Ashley's dance - Ash is really becoming an accomplished little dancer. She takes 4 classes 6 hours a week and she got her point shoes this year. This is her Jazz company and ballet recital.

Family Christmas photos

New Time-Consuming Hobby

One of my new hobbies: My friend, Amy, and I made jewelry and did a couple of boutiques over the holidays. It would be really fun to have time to make it into an actual business.

Flashback to Fall

I feel like I've let life get ahead of me this year. I've been picking up some side projects and part-time work, which means my social networking and blogging have fallen by the wayside. I miss the fun of documenting our year on the blog, so here are a few updates in a nutshell:

Pumpkins from our garden, a few neighborhood kids, Ashley as a Halloween gypsy, Grace as a fairy princess.

You can click on the collage to see the actual photos better.

Kourtney is 14. No really. FOURTEEN.

Ashley is 11

Hot Chocolate Talk

These are the pics Kev snapped of my friend Kim and I participating in our annual neighborhood Valentine's dinner. The theme this year was SNL. We have some funny people in our ward who did some great skits. Kim and I somehow agreed to do our own version of "Coffee Talk"--making it of course "Hot Chocolate Talk." Here we are feeling verklempt.

Um, I don't know what we're doing here, except for showcasing our fabulous nails.

Here we are admiring Barbra. I worked on my New York accent by watching Youtube and Cake Boss.

Recipe for Exploding Eggs

Here is my favorite new recipe for exploding hard-boiled eggs.
Place two eggs in saucepan with egg timer. Fill pan with water and place on stovetop at medium-high heat. Now go upstairs for about 45 minutes, forgetting eggs completely.
Let eggs continue boiling until the water all evaporates and the bottom of the pan begins to burn. At this point, Kevin will say to Grace: Did you hear that popping sound? Is somebody downstairs?
Cry: Oh, my eggs! I completely forgot.
Be sure to time this exclaimation precisely as the smoke detector goes off. Voila! Your eggs are done. Now run downstairs to see the results. Note the nice hole burned through your egg timer and the charred black layer burned into the bottom of your pan. For an added touch, try to get the force of the exploding eggs to knock the pan off the burner so a large clump of hard-boiled yolk lands on the burner, sending sulfery smoke bombs throughout your kitchen.
After making certain that no permenant damage has been done, laugh and take pictures.



The stovetop with the burner off and the smoke bomb put out.
A view of the underside of the microwave. There was a one-foot radius of egg explosion covering every surface.
Close-up of charred egg bits. I had to get the vacuum out to remove all the bits after spending twenty minutes wiping everything off.