What We Have Been Up To

When the weather is in the 70's, it's hard to stay inside all day.

We like to go for walks to a little park by our apartment. As you can see, Elise loves to swing.

A Valentine treat that is O so sweet

Chocolate Cherry Stack Cake

I made this cake a couple of weeks ago and it was delicious!! I thought I would share the recipe from Better Homes and Garden. I made the cherry frosting and it turns out kind of runny but it has great flavor. Also, the recipe calls for you to slice your cake and make layers but I just kept it as one cake and put on lots of frosting.

Enjoy!!

Chocolate Cherry Stack Cake
3/4 cup plus 1 tsp. all-purpose flour
1/3 cup plus 1 tsp. unsweetened cocoa powder
1 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. ground cinnamon
1/4 tsp. salt
1/3 cup unsalted butter, softened
3/4 cup sugar
2 eggs
1 tsp. vanilla
1/2 cup sour cream
1 Recipe Cherry or Chocolate Frosting, recipe below
1 Recipe Chocolate-Dipped Cherries, recipe below (optional)
Directions
1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Grease two 6x2-inch round cake pans or spring form pans. Mix 1 teaspoon each flour and cocoa powder; dust pans. Set pans aside.

2. In bowl combine 3/4 cup flour, 1/3 cup cocoa powder, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, and salt; set aside.

3. In large bowl with electric mixer beat butter on medium to high for 30 seconds. Add sugar; beat until smooth and fluffy. Beat in eggs and vanilla until smooth. Beat in sour cream and flour mixture. Pour batter in pans; spread evenly.

4. Bake 22 to 26 minutes or until top springs back when lightly touched and edges begin to pull away from sides of pan. Cool in pans on wire rack 10 minutes. Remove from pans; cool on rack.

5. Use serrated knife to horizontally cut cakes in half to make 4 layers total. Place bottom layer on plate; spread with 2/3 cup frosting. Repeat with layers. Place top layer on cake. Heap remaining frosting, swirling in peaks. Refrigerate. To serve, top with Chocolate-Dipped Cherries. Serves 8.

6. Cherry Frosting: In large mixing bowl combine one 8-ounce carton sour cream. 1 cup whipping cream, 1-1/2 cups powdered sugar, and 2 tablespoons maraschino cherry juice. Beat on medium-high until fluffy.

7. Chocolate Frosting: In large mixing bowl combine one 8-ounce carton sour cream, 1 cup whipping cream, 1-1/2 cups powdered sugar, and 1/4 cup sifted unsweetened cocoa powder. Beat on medium-high until fluffy.

8. Chocolate-Dipped Cherries: Drain 16 maraschino cherries with stems; pat dry with paper towels. In small microwave-safe bowl combine 1/2 cup semisweet chocolate pieces and 1 teaspoon shortening. Cook on 50 percent power (medium) 1-1/2 to 2 minutes or until melted, stirring once. Dip cherries in chocolate; place on waxed paper until set. Store, covered, up to 24 hours.

Once he was sad...

He deserves to be happy
I am so glad he is dating this girl:
If you haven't heard, Jesse is dating Holly from season 12 of the Bachelor. Go Team Jesse!!

*This is now Jim writing. As you can tell, all my efforts to ban Yvonne from watching reality television have failed... I cannot assume any responsibility for her blog posting, and disavow myself from "Team Jesse", although, if you think about it, the guy is pretty charismatic. Love you Yvonne, but seriously, our daughter won't have a chance if you expose her to this stuff. :) It's already enough that you make her dance to the Ellen show...

What We've Been Up To

Now that we have been home for awhile, and back in the swing of things, I wanted to get caught up on my blogging. We had our first "winter" storm of the year. Not much of a winter storm according to me, but the schools closed early Tuesday and then started late on Wednesday due to the "icy" conditions. What made it really weird was that for the past couple of weeks we were enjoying 70 degrees with sunshine... Anyway, I'm not much of a cold person so I hope our old weather comes back!

Here is a bit of what we have been up to lately:

We watched the inauguration of President Obama.

Elise and I stayed in our pajamas all day and watched the festivities.

No matter what your political views are, it's neat to watch history being made.

Elise got an early birthday present from auntie Tasha...

But, as you can see, she was more interested in eating the paper than unwrapping it.
Elise loves her new super soft blanket. Thanks auntie!

It is so cute when she lays on her blankets.

All we say is "oh, so soft" and she automatically lays down.

It doesn't get much cuter in my honest opinion!

Our poor little one has a cold. It is her first "real" cold/illness. She has a runny nose and this awful cough. It's sad when she coughs, it sounds like she has a lot of junk in there. Still not as bad as her asthmatic father when he gets going... Anyway, we took her to the doctor because I wanted to make sure there wasn't a problem with her lungs. No problem, the lungs are great, but her sinus' are draining to her throat --hence the reason for the cough. I don't like that she is sick, it makes me sad and a little scared as a new mom.

On a happy note Elise is 10 months old! She is not walking yet, but she does pull herself up and can stand when she is holding on to something. She likes to stand all by herself with her back to the couch. She thinks she is a big girl who can play with the big kids. I am fine if she doesn't start walking too soon.
She loves to play in our closet while I get ready in the mornings.

She is gonna love shoes just like her mama!




P.S. On a side note, she crawls everywhere and gets into anything that is near her. Therefore, living in an apartment without much room presents a few "exploration" problems. We bought a fence thing that we put in the living room and connect it to the couch. That is the fence you see in the background. I promise she is not a caged animal. Mostly she just loves to walk all around it while holding on. She actually sits and plays with her toys instead of always getting up on the computer desk or TV stand. It works great!

To my grandparents, auties, uncles, cousins and friends

Thank you for letting me come and stay, play, and crawl at your houses over Christmas. I really enjoyed my time in Utah. Seeing snow for the first time was so much fun for me. I am glad that I have so many people around me who love me so much. I look forward to seeing all of you again in a couple of months.

Until then this video of me should do. If you listen carefully you can hear me saying hello and then I'll wave to you.

Love, Baby Elise

Christmas 2008
We have had a wonderful month visiting our family and friends in Utah. We are so thankful for all of our blessings.

Our holidays this year were spent together as a family

We enjoyed the beautiful lights on Temple Square as we were running to our car after an evening with the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. We were trying to beat the traffic, downtown was a nightmare.

We enjoyed the snow.

Jim enjoyed driving his old truck.

Making carmel apples at my cousin Pam's house is a tradition. We girls all had a great time. I always make a few extra we can eat.

We all came at different times so this is who was there when we were leaving.

Cousins played together.

Jim got to play with his favorite niece.

Jim was able to go snowshoeing. He went alone which I strongly discourage him from doing. He covered over 10 miles that day. I am glad he was able to go to his "happy place"

I love that he took a bunch of beautiful pictures. This is one of my favorites.

This is not one of my favorites. What the ??? Do you think bear spray would keep this animal away? Good thing he didn't have to find out. He said it was most likely a cougar. I guess they don't like tall things with large packs on.

Elise enjoyed her 1st Christmas

She also enjoyed just hanging out.

It snowed some more.

Does it get any cuter?

We hung out with our wonderful friends at the happiest place in American Fork....JCW's.

Last but not least my baby who is not so much a baby anymore turned 9 months.

Back to the real world we go. Jim has already returned back to Texas and started school. Elise and I will be joining him at the end of the week.

Home Sweet Home

We are home. We are happy. Life is great.

And by home I mean we are in Utah.

Everything's Bigger in Texas

They aren't kidding.
This huge grasshopper was on our screen the other day. It was 3 inches long and the most disgusting thing I have ever seen. My hand is there as a reference. Don't worry it was outside on the screen and my hand was safely inside on the glass.
The sky here is HUGE and the sunsets are gorgeous.

The biggest thing in Texas...my HEART. It loves this girl so much.
Notice the nice red mark on her cheek. It was our first big owie. She was kneeling and took a dive onto her toy box. I am afraid this won't be the last of her owies. The same day she hit her head on the entertainment center. Poor girl.

Our computer got a virus. It has been getting fixed all week. I have felt somewhat out of it not having a computer. The other day I called Jim at school and asked him if he would check my email for me. He opened my email and said I think you should go to the library and read your email there are way too many. I had forgotten how nice it is to just check my email throughout the day. Although I must admit it was nice not having that distraction during the day. I like to look up a lot of things on the Internet. Especially living in a new city I will pass by a store or a restaurant and if I haven't heard of it before I will go home and google it. That is how I have found some of the "gems" here in Lubbock.
We leave to go home for the holidays in less than a week. I am so excited to hang out with my husband without school or work for 3 weeks. Also, I am going to get to meet my nephew Riley for the first time. My brother Brad and his wife are coming in from
San Juan Island, Washington. It will be the first time my whole family has been together since their wedding 3 years ago. I am looking forward to spending time with family and friends!!

A Typical Day
Elise loves to play with her toys.

She love to play with Bentley. He is a 2 year old we have watched a couple of times a week while his parents are at work & school. It is fun to see her play with other kids.

She loves to play around our files and computer desk. We live in a 2 bedroom apartment and so our computer desk is in the living room. Whenever she can she crawls over to it and plays with anything she can get her hands on.

Nap time is the beset!! I love that she fell asleep looking out of her crib.

Playing--she's 8 months old, that's what she does.

Going on walks and to the park. We try and go on a family walk a couple of times a week. Elise loves to be outside. Since our weather here is still really nice we are able to go out almost everyday. I am so grateful for where we live. We are in a great neighborhood that is so quiet and close to so much. The park is just around the corner. This girl loves to swing at the park.