My Friend Katie

My friend Katie is a very talented photographer and she is doing a Photography workshop tour this year. Taking place in Las Vegas, San Antonio, Denver, Seattle, Idaho Falls, and Salt Lake City.  She is giving away one spot in her workshop for free! Normally $225, the workshop also includes a copy of her book. Enter at the link below for a chance to win!
Also, I would love to go to her workshop and will probably go sometime this year anyway, but wouldn't it be fun if I won it?! :)

http://kevansphotography.blogspot.com/2012/01/key-to-taking-pictures-workshop.html

Also if you are not interested, just ignore this post ;)

New Favorite thing

Thanks to my friend Julie I found a new favorite thing (besides pinterest).

I loved it so much that I had to share it with you. The site is called Tagxedo
Why yes, that is a squirrel made from words on our blog. :)

 This next one is from the talk that President Uchtdorf gave called "Your Happily Ever After."

Making Turtles with Grandpa Tuckett

Grandpa Tuckett's vanilla Pudding

I just made my grandpa's pudding for the first time and it was delicious!! And really not complicated. Mmm it was just what I needed on this slightly stormy night. Thanks Traci for sharing the recipe with me! 

Grandpa Tuckett's vanilla pudding
2c whole milk
2-4T butter 
Heat in pan on stove while combining in seperate bowl:
1c sugar
1/8-1/4 c corn starch -use more for thicker pudding
3 eggs
1/4 pint whipping cream (1/2 cup)
Mix with wisk then add to almost boiling milk. 

Stir in figure 8 motion until boils and thickens. Then add:
1/2 tsp vanilla

Enjoy! My favorite is to eat it while it's still hot. If you want chocolate pudding, just stir in milk chocolate chips to the hot pudding. 

Conference Weekend

I couldn't get over how cute little Landon's hair is! Its all fluffy and so blonde I just wanted to rub his head all the time. On Sunday in between conference sessions, Landon and I went outside and sat on blanket in the grass and took pictures. Being in Texas has made me miss the beautiful, soft, green grass that Utah has. So I took advantage of that every chance I could. We had a great time hanging out on the lawn waiting for my friends Rachel and Jason to stop by. I also took this great video of Landon that I had to share.    

I love Utah in the fall. The leaves are so pretty and the weather is nice during the day, but it's just starting to get chilly at night. Thanks to my Mom and sister Traci, I was able to use their leftover (going to expire soon) JetBlue credit to get a cheaper flight. I love spending time with my family and friends while back home. Conference weekend (a weekend full of inspired church speakers, check out http://mormon.org if you want more info)  is always a fun time to be home around family. It means we get to have girl's night on Saturday and meet back together with the boys for dinner. And Sunday morning means my sweet Dad has made cinnamon rolls for the family. Mmmmm they are so good! I forget how yummy they are when I don't have them for a long time. Which is probably a good thing or I would need them everyday. need. 


Natalie was really awesome to make fun conference bags for the boys that included some  bubbles. Naturally they had to take them outside and play with the bubbles. Tanner being 5 had no trouble jumping down off the porch with his bubbles open..... Landon was another story. Poor kid jumped down while holding his newly opened bubbles and got drenched in soapy liquid. Well, half of him got drenched in bubbles. I ran inside to find a towel,  because Natalie was laughing too hard to do anything, including breathing. :) Luckily being covered in slippery bubbles didn't stop Landon from enjoying them. 




I am always really happy to catch up with some of my friends while I'm in Utah. I wish I stayed longer than a week so I could see everyone that I want to. But what do you do? I love any amount of time that I can spend with them, catch up and have fun! This little guy has grown up so much since the last time I saw him. I love his curly hair! 

This picture down here is of my former roommate Lindsay. We were roommates in Provo 5 years ago. (whoa that's weird. when did I get old?) We haven't seen each other since before I moved to NYC and she moved to Korea. So it had been like 2 years. And now she lives in California and I live in Texas. Luckily we happened to be in Utah the same week! It was so nice to get together and chat and hang out and go shopping! I love that even though it's been years, we can still just be friends and not be awkward. I also got to go to my other roommate kelly's wedding where I saw our other roommate Talli and her sweet baby. It was a great weekend for reuniting roommates.  




 I am so grateful for the good friends and wonderful family that I have. Thanks for always making me feel loved. I got to play with other friends and family that apparently I didn't take any pictures of. So know that I still love you guys, and I'm not leaving you out ;)

My abs hurt

I have the bubons and I think I'm dying, or I have a really nasty cold, either one. My abs hurt from the continuous coughing this past week. I thought I was feeling better today and attempted to go on a little outing to CVS to pick up more medicine. Of course as soon as I walk inside the building, I can't stop coughing. And not the polite cough, but the hacking my lungs out going to pass out kind. I contain myself enough to walk up to the cashier to purchase said medicine and she asks me how I'm doing today. I can barely stop coughing enough to tell her that I've been better. She understandably laughs and tells me to have a better night. If only I could. :) I have spent the last few days lounging about in my pajamas and trying not to die every time I cough. I've neglected everything that can be neglected and instead spend my time curled up in my Ohana bag (similar to a lovesack) watching Harry Potter movies and Project Runway marathons. My diet consists of hot orange juice, water, crackers and cough drops. The positive to all of this is that I have already lost 5 lbs and at least my abs are getting their daily workout.

Also it finally rained here, like a lot! You know how in movies where it seems like the rain is totally fake because it's just too much water at once? yeah, it was like that. Kind of like being under a waterfall...kind of. It was nice to have rain again.

Matt had a birthday!

I made my very first pie for Matt's birthday! It turned out pretty good and now I know how to make a berry pie. We had a yummy dinner at his mama's house on Sunday (thanks Laura for making it!) We had fun! I love this boy and I'm glad he was born :)

Beach time :)

Labor day weekend

Rainbow cupcakes with Emilie

We had Austin and Emilie come hang out with us this weekend. Matt and Austin had some guy time while Emilie and I baked these cupcakes. They turned out beautiful and tasty! I've wanted to try these ever since I first saw them on ourbestbites.com. We had a lot of fun making these! My favorite part was biting into them and seeing the layers of colors. :)

Allergy Test Results

Very excited to get these results! If you are closely related to me, then these results might give you an idea of what you *might* also be allergic to.

Here's a list of my top allergies:

- Birch
- Live Oak
- Bahia grass
- Bermuda grass
- Johnson grass
- Timothy grass
- Sage
- Dust mites
- Cats
- Mold (alternaria alternata)

Surprisingly, I'm not allergic to Cedar and am thus immune to Cedar Fever which affects a lot of Texans.

The allergy test was a lot less uncomfortable than it may look! It's true that my back was very itchy during the 15 minutes I had to wait for allergens to react with my skin, but then they came and gave me liquid Zyrtec, and washed my back off with alcohol, and put on anti-itch cream. Then I was pretty much back to normal except my back felt warmer than usual, but not uncomfortable at all. Basically, if you can sit for 15 minutes with an itchy back, you can do an allergy test like this.

I'm looking forward to starting allergen immunotherapy shots next week. Fortunately, the allergy clinic is literally across the street from our apartments, so I will be able to just walk over if I need to for my shots.

Yay modern medicine!

Allergy Test Finally!

Been wanting to find out *exactly* what I'm allergic to! It's totally gross - but now I know!

Parp?!

We went to play at the park! Matt loves to play frisbee at the park. Just look at his face, he's happy :) I used to hate frisbee...I was never good at it and often ended up hurting myself on the lame plastic scratchy edges. But this frisbee is the best!! It's easy to throw and catch, and it doesn't hurt me at all! We also had a fun juggling session in the park by the lake. Yes I said juggling. We're cool.
We have been adjusting to living in suburbia again. Groceries are so cheap its kind of ridiculous. It's handy to have a car, but I feel like we are always filling it up with gas. I never realized how pretty Utah grass is in the summer until we moved here and all they have is this terrible, crunchy, brown, dry, weedy stuff. You do not want to walk barefoot in that. Although it has been nice to live close to some of matt's family!
Until my laptop is working again, I can only upload 5 pictures at a time on my phone. So here are today's 5 for your enjoyment. :)

Oh and if you don't understand the title to this post, then you should go check out hyperboleandahalf.blogspot.com and read about the party. You won't regret it, or you might. It's hilarious. Just saying. :)