The White Christmas

We had a delightful Christmas today. Gracie did a good job opening her gifts and was a good sport with very little napping all day.
It was so nice to spend the day with family.

Then it started to snow.

And in 30 minutes we had a good inch and a half (at least!) before we knew it. Knowing that we live in the STEEP Avenues, we decided it'd be a great idea to leave early and head home so we could get home. There was very low visibility and one slide off on the way home.

Then it started to snow harder.

And harder.

And even harder.

It was officially a blizzard when we got to Temple Square and we were slipping and sliding through the intersection before we even got to any of the hills.

Then I freaked out. I'm from California and don't do snow. If I'm going to be out in the snow at all, I want Rob to drive. He's really good (and patient with me). And even Rob didn't think we could make it up the hill in our little Honda. We had four options which were thus: 1) try to find the least steep avenue to go up, but we didn't even think that we could get up it without it being plowed; 2) wait for a plow to come and plow B Street - this may have taken all night since not even State Street had been plowed; 3) turn around and head back to Bountiful and pray that we could make it to the Carters and into their hilly driveway; or 4) park and hike home.

We chose option 4. And, like the pioneers of old, we hiked through the snow. We parked illegally in 2-hour parking, dumped everything out of the baby bag that we didn't need and filled it with the most valuable things that we could carry (the cameras and laptop, but had to leave most of the presents). Note: I didn't even have a coat, just a light cardigan on. So, Rob wrapped the baby in all the blankets we could find. I strapped on the laptop bag, the camera bag and the baby bag and wrapped myself in a couple of wool blankets we had in the trunk and hoofed it up to our home. Also note: I was wearing the flimsiest, most non-traction flats that you could find. We huffed and puffed up the hill and made it home with nothing more than a bit of superficial frost-bite on Rob's head and my feet. You think those pioneer treks give you a glimpse into the pioneers, try this. Thank you, ancestors! Here's a photo of me when we got home.

Whoever was "dreaming of a white Christmas" was safe at home by the fire. It's all a beautiful lie. I hate white Christmases!

Santa Baby

In my Am"anne"da Geddes fashion, I tried to put Grace into a stocking, but alas, she was too big to look cute in it. :( So here's what we'll settle for...Santa Baby!

My mom had this cute little outfit just waiting for a cute little munchkin to put into it.

She didn't so much enjoy being out while it was snowing, but as usual, she was a trooper!

Merry Christmas!!!

News Flash...The Queen of Raspberries is Crowned

AP (Amanda's Press) - Hear ye, hear ye, the Queen of Raspberries was crowned this morning. At approximately 7:15 am Grace Annette Carter was officially given the title of the Queen of Raspberries. The coronation was done in a very small ceremony attended only by her faithful and humble servants, Rob and Amanda Carter. The Queen was very gracious and accepted the title with a big smile and, of course, a raspberry. It is reported that the Queen's favorite time to blow raspberries is right after nursing when there is excess milk left over in her mouth that makes for a good shower for herself and anyone holding her.

Funny

I was just organizing my photos and labeling them in folders and I came across this one from Rob's birthday dinner. The Carters have a tradition of doing a "squeeze" shot where everyone squeezes the birthday person and makes them laugh and squeal and whatever other funny noises you can make them make. This photo is funny because the person taking the picture (Annette?) was apparently only focused on Rob and Grace. What a good little squeezer she is! The eye was one place no one had thought of yet!

Grandma Millie

I'm ashamed to say that these are the first photos we've taken with Gracie and her Great-Grandma Millie. We had such a nice time visiting with her last night!Four generations of Carters.

Family Dinner

We had another monthly family dinner here on Sunday. Kylee and Gracie looked really cute in their Chirstmas dresses.

Duck face for her daddy.

I want the binky!...No! It's mine...But I'm bigger....Mommy!.... is about how the conversation went after this photo was taken.

Nativity

Drum roll please.... Here are the pictures from Gracie's acting debut as Baby Jesus in "The Nativity" at the Annual Gweaston reenactment. She was very cute and did a great impression of a boy baby (that's why we wear headbands...).

The Puffy Vest Photo

Here is the photo that you all are dying to see, thanks to Grandma Marge upstairs. Not the best... or maybe it's true to life? Who knows, that's why I'm asking I guess. :) I wrote the original post hastily and made it much better in my head on the way to Target, but alas, twas too late. I was thinking that you all will think one of the following: a) her vanity is overwhelming; b) I'm concerned for her mental health; or c) she's amusing. I hope it was the latter, for that was the intent. So, what do you think, teeny bopper, chubster, or age-appropriate? :) Oh, and there were no sneers to note at Target in case you were wondering.

The Puffy Vest

A long, long time ago in a land called Provo there once was a little freshman girl from California called Amanda. This girl loved the sunshine and had never really wore many sweaters (except when she wanted to look fashionable, but was way too hot in them). Her first winter in Provo she was very, very cold. Good thing this lucky girl had two fantastic parents who rushed to her aid and came to Utah and bought her some proper winter coats and a cute cream puffy vest. After that, the girl lived happily warmer (most of the time) ever after.

Flash forward to today. It's freezing and I feel like I have nothing to wear. I've decided I hate bulky sweaters and turtlenecks (as hard as I try, I can't stand the throat restriction!). I'm also in this limbo of being a mom, but still being young, but giving up my "younger" clothes, so some days it's really hard to get dressed. So today, feeling adventurous, I pulled out my puffy vest and put it over a maroon long sleeve tee with dark jeans and cute flats and dressed it all up with fatty pearl earrings and a bracelet. In the mirror I think it looks alright, but I have this fear that if Stacey and Clinton showed up and put me in the 360 degree mirror and I explained why I think its cute and appropriate for someone my age that they would laugh and cut me off and ridicule me and all the people watching at home would think "what the HECK does she think she's wearing?!?!?!" But, despite my fears I am leaving the house like this anyway to brave the cold world. I'm hoping that at least I won't see the sneers of the people at Target today who think I'm nuts. Chances are no one will notice or care, but I will be thinking about it and that's all that really matters, right? :) Thoughts on puffy vests?

Mom's Spaghetti

I couldn't get it to format in the sidebar, so here's this week's recipe. This is my Mom's recipe for spaghetti. It is amazing! It takes some time to chop everything (we were amazed how much faster it went when we got our hand-me-down Cuisinart!), but it is so worth it! This is for a single recipe, but I suggest if you're going to go through the effort, just make a double or triple while you're at it. It freezes well in quart zippys. Each zippy feeds the two of us for two meals. Bon Appetit!

1 1/2 Lb Ground Beef

6oz Can Tomato Sauce

2 Medium Onions, Chopped

4 T Olive Oil

4 Small Garlic sections (skin & cut fine)

1 Lb Spaghetti

1 tsp Salt

1 1/2 Ribs Celery (string & chop)

28 oz Can tomatoes

2 T Parsley (dried) (or 4 T Parsley, fresh, chopped)

1/4 tsp Pepper

1/4 tsp Rosemary (crushed)

1/4 tsp Oregano

Saute garlic in oil until very lightly (golden) brown. Remove & place in pot for sauce cooking. Add tomatoes and tomato sauce and begin gently heating. Saute chopped onion & celery until very lightly brown. Add to tomatoes (if preferred the tomatoes may be blended prior to start of sauce). (If using mushrooms, they may be sauteed with the onions and celery the last minute.) Brown the meat and add to the sauce pan. Add spices, parsley, salt and as much pepper as desired. Mix together, chopping tomatoes as you stir. Simmer covered 1 Hr. then uncovered 1 Hr. Stir occasionally to avoid burning.

Heat 5 Qts water in large sauce pan. When boiling, slowly add spaghetti whole or broken. Stir to keep spaghetti separated. Cook until tender (5 to 7 minutes ‑ do not over cook). Drain in colander, rinse well with hot water ‑ drain and return to pot. Add sauce mixture or if desired serve with sauce spooned on top. Sprinkle Parmesan cheese on individual servings as desired.

Gingerbread Houses

Rob's family has a tradition of making gingerbread houses every December. This year we decided to make a pirate ship that turned into the Santa's Jolly Roger. We were really proud to have accomplished the ship with no hot glue, because that is cheating.

Santa was El Capitan and apparently has a thing for himself, since he is also the masthead.

And really, what would any ocean scene be without a surfer being followed by a shark?

Grace is becoming more interested in things daily. She reaches for anything she can find. Here she is "playing" the Wiggles guitar, and eating it too.

Happy Birthday Rob!

Gracie and I would like to wish Daddy/Rob the best birthday ever. We decided to celebrate with a great photo of him that shows how much fun he is:Rob, you are the greatest, kindest, funnest, thoughtfulest, sweetest, everything-est dad and husband that we could ever ask for! We love you sooooooo much!

Solvang

On Saturday, we went to Solvang, a cute little town in central California that looks like it was beamed straight from Denmark. The day started out inauspiciously with Gracie blowing out of her diaper into the Baby Bjorn...she must not have liked what she was wearing because she got a new outfit out of it. Solvang was incredibly busy, but we had lots of fun!
We ate a tasty lunch at this little sandwich shop.

Then we went to Ingeborg's Chocolate Shop. Yum-O! I'm holding Haribo Peaches - we found these as our favorite treat when we were in Spain. There, they're called melocotones.

These are flodeboller - aka chocolate boobs. A favorite treat, mostly because of the nickname.

Grandpa was incredibly entertaining with his quacking while Rob, Mom and I shopped.

Gracie loves hanging with her Grandma!

Good Milk Comes from Happy Cows

...and happy cows come from California. I've been thinking as I've been nursing Gracie this weekend that good milk comes from happy moms, and happy moms come from California! :) (I'm sure all you non-Cali moms produce good milk too....) Anyway, that's how it feels. It's been amazing to me how easy it is to forget. I love being here. It is so refreshing to wake up to blue skies and a palm tree right outside my window. It's so nice to have some moisture in the air. It's especially wonderful to dig my toes into the sand and let the waves wash over my feet, however cold the water is. I love California! It just feels so good to be here!

We have had a great week so far. On Wednesday, we went down to UCLA so Rob could interview with their MBA admissions people. (He did a great job, by the way). Then we stopped at Diddy Riese for some tasty ice cream sandwiches.There was horrific traffic headed back North, so we decided to take the coast route and got there just in time to experience a gorgeous sunset. I snapped some photos as we drove, they just don't do justice to the experience of being there, but here they are:I felt like the paparazzi driving through Malibu with my camera out the window snapping away. It was sort of fun! :)

We had a delightful Thanksgiving. It started with the boys putting the Christmas lights up on the house.

I am glad Rob didn't die...

Then we drove to Santa Barbara to Ellie and John's for dinner. My favorite part of the day was getting to walk on the beach with the family. This is one of my favorite traditions - going for a walk on the beach on Thanksgiving and Christmas. It is just amazing to enjoy Mother Nature's beauty on the holidays. This was also Grace's first trip to the beach. Have no fear, it was a well-documented milestone:
It wouldn't be Thanksgiving without the turkey and it was fantastic! My cousin Terrell barbecued it on a spit. It was smoky and delicious. The whole dinner was fantastic and it was fun to visit with family that we don't get to see very often since we live so far away!

Gracie must be getting good milk, because she sure has had a happy mommy this week!

The Thrill of the Hunt

The Tanger Outlet Center in Park City used to run an ad that said "It's the thrill of the hunt...more than amazing deals...Tan-ger Out-let Cen-ter...It's the thrill of the hunt!" Rob and I have a little tradition wherein we shop on Black Friday. While we usually find some great deals, I think that Tanger has nailed it. Going out on Black Friday is for the thrill of the hunt. We did it again this year, but this time was in California, where people are apparently nuts for a deal (but thankfully not as nuts as they are in New York...). We headed to the Outlet Mall at 10:00 pm on Thursday. Holy cow, there were a lot of people. The night had an inauspicious beginning when we were ticketed for stopping for 1 minute in a fire lane - that lame-o cop! Then while we spent 15 minutes in Ralph Lauren our car battery died from the lights being left on (remember Mom, this is not the car that has lights that turn off automatically...). It was all up hill from there, and really how could it not be? There was a gigantic line at Banana Republic.

Although we waited in line for almost an hour to get in to Banana Republic, I appreciated them for it. It was nice to be able to shop without the crush of people and tourists assaulting my olfactory senses with their less than ideal hygiene. I am constantly amazed at the people who travel to our little ole Camarillo Outlets. After Banana Republic was finished at 2 am, we were tired and ready to go. Would you believe that the line to get into the Gap was even longer than the Banana line? Thankfully we met some BYU grads in line at Banana who were so kindly willing to jump our car. Even at 2 am there were hoardes (not exaggerating) of people coming in to the mall. There was even a little tiff over the parking spot that we weren't even completely out of while we were jumping the car. The whole experience was amazing to say the least.

The best part was that we went to the Gap tonight (Saturday) - yeah, they were fully stocked with all the same deals they had the other night, just without the insanity. I felt pretty good about that.

Recipe Sidebar

After I posted about all my fun cooking and freezing adventures, Andrea suggested that I share my recipes. So I am going to add some of my favorite recipes to my sidebar. I'm having fun with trying out freezer recipes, so I hope you will too! I love trying new recipes, so if you have any recipes to share, please let me know and I'll post them. Happy Cooking!

If you don't get me out soon, I'll GNAW my way out of here!

Grace likes to chew. On anything.

Adventures in Cooking

It's been way too long since I've posted, but life just got a little nuts. I'll tell you about it. We have recently started budgeting again and man, does it feel good to know where all the money is going. While we're not amazing at it yet, we're working on it. Right before we got married we listened to the audio book by Dave Ramsey called Total Money Makeover. I think it has changed our married life in ways we will never know. I highly suggest it to anyone interested in this sort of thing. I digress, so anyway, we've been budgeting again (we took a hiatus over the summer when things were crazy with Grace being born, we shouldn't have, but we did) and the area that we most often bust is food...what does that tell you about us? :) So with my new found hobby of couponing, I've decided to stick with the food budget tighter. With that and a little inspiration from Money Saving Mom last week I decided to start making freezer meals that are homemade, but that require little or no preparation besides warming in the oven. Little did I know that this is an exhausting venture, especially when you have a small child that will only nap when it's most inconvenient for you! Last week I made 4 lasagnes, 6 meals of winter white chili, and 6 meals of spaghetti. I was so proud! Then I finished off the week by cooking my first turkey and it wasn't so bad! Whoo-hoo! The last one I tried with my old roommate was a distaster (good story, ask sometime - this was the roommate who lit the kitchen on fire...). The worst part by far is the clean up. This is what my kitchen looked like when I was finished with the lasagne day:

It may not look so bad, I mean it's only a few loads of dishes, right? Wrong! You should see the countertops! It's embarassing! Needless to day, I'll be doing a repeat of my super scary Halloween mopping!

This week, I'm planning on adding to the frezer stock a few meals worth of homemade turkey noodle soup (from the turkey adventure on Saturday) and a couple of chicken pot pies. I think that will be it for me until the New Year, but I'm proud of doing that much. It really makes me feel good to do things like this and it's helping with the budgeting by buying things on sale and using them!

Gracie Loves Her Uncle Brian

Tonight we had dinner with our nieces and spouses and ishes (the ones who are related by marriage). Gracie loves her Uncle Brian.

Isn't he handsome? Ladies, good news - he is single!

Colleen and baby Kylee.