behind the scenes

On a lighter note... A good conference session wouldn't be complete without delicious food to go with it! We were out of most ingredients, so I had to get creative. Luckily this puff pancake is simple and a crowd pleaser! It grows up the sides of the pan and leaves a big crater in the middle, so in our house we call it a dinosaur footprint. Emmett gets so excited when we turn on the oven light and see how big it's grown.

Add a little fruit preserves and powdered sugar and you're good to go!

Later that evening we made another of Emmett's favorites - "Brownie cupcakes"

These are made with the Ghiradelli mix you can buy at Sam's Club. Heavenly!

Like I said.... one of Emmett's favorite treats

I can't look at these pictures with my mom's favorite Wanda Lindstrom song playing in my head!

"Tiny fingers caked with frosting,

and a wide grinning face,

didnt know what I was in for,

when he asked for a taste

But I'll never forget,

how you were way back when,

cause my heart took a picture then"  <3 p="">

Forgive his red, swollen eyes, poor guy was sick this day

After we stuck our brownies in the oven, we worked on our dinner - Mango Chicken

Are you wondering where Jared and Tate were during all of this?

Wonder no longer.

In Jareds favorite chair of course! Where else? Haha.

This is Jareds "look at this cute baby" face. :)

All in all it was a great, uplifting conference! How was yours?

noche de chicas

What is a wedding without a wild bachelorette party? Okay maybe not that wild. But it's still a rite of passage - no wedding can go on without one!

Kirsten and I teamed up to throw Kaity a fun girls night, and I made a delectable spread of goodies. After all, girls night isn't complete without sinful treats!

As official bachelorette, Kaity got to drink out of this beautiful specimen all night 

It even looks like her!

I forced her to play the traditional newlywed quiz/chubby bunnies game

and unfortunately she didn't fare so well...

...then a game of pictionary

(Ashleys special rendition of a Candy Necklace)

And Thennnnnn a lot of these :)



Mission: Girls Night - accomplished!

Baby Oliver's Fantabulous Shower

We threw a baby shower for one of my best friends, Natalie, a few weeks ago. I was in charge of food and games and our friend Jordan did the decorations. The result was amazing! I think Jordan and I need to go into business together! haha. Natalie's theme was a nautical/under the sea theme with coral and turquoise.

Jordan did the drinks, and used mason jars and vintage straws. So cute!

On the bottom right are the DELICIOUS creamy chicken taquitos, which can be found here.

There is actually a funny story behind these... I was up late finishing all my baking the night before and asked Jared to help make the filling for the taquitos. We all know men aren't the most attentive to detail, and this case wasn't an exception. Instead of cumin, Jared used CURRY POWER, and ALSO accidentally doubled it. Luckily he was able to scoop some back out. (I didn't find out he had used curry powder til I was at Natalie's the next day!) BUT everyone was oohing and aahing over these taquitos and asking for the recipe!! haha. So all was well! And we now have a secret ingredient...mwahaha.

Okay so this picture doesn't do my sugar cookies justice, plus they had been transported in the car in the hot sun for over an hour by this point. But these were my biggest feat. I think I made 50-something of them and piped and flooded them all with royal icing. They were sooo good. I'm definitely keeping this recipe on hand for the future! 

              These were my "clams" . Cookies with pink icing and a yogurt covered raisin in the center.

And here's a zoomed out shot of the whole table. Jordan also did the cake with the cute banner, and notice all the cute decorations she did with her silhouette

Here's the 3 of us at the end of the shower. I didn't take any pictures of the rest of the decorations because I was so busy running around, but you can see some of them hanging behind us!
PS Don't judge my pictures...I don't exactly have the nicest camera, and Nat's mom's house has a big skylight at the top which made for some difficult lighting! haha

The games were a hoot, in particular the one where we made big 8x11 headshots of Josh and Natalie, and had people cut and paste them to make their "baby". The results were HILARIOUS! Let's just hope baby Oliver doesn't actually end up looking like any of them...

Thanks Natalie, for letting us help out! We can't wait to meet baby Oliver (who may be born at any minute now!)

Bakerella

My sister Kaity is interning with the City and helps organize the events/recreation. They had a big extravaganza for the 4th, and one of the activities was a bake contest.

I entered a couple different treats to support her. First up were my delicious Malted White Chocolate Kit Kat Cookies. The cookie dough itself has cream cheese and chocolate malt powder, and it is rich and sweet. Then you mix in white chocolate chips, semisweet chips, and pieces of chopped up WHITE Kit Kat bars. The result looks like this

Next up, I made Carmelitas. Mmm they are so good. They have an oat and brown sugar crust on top and bottom, and sandwiched in the middle is an entire jar of caramel sauce, a few chocolate chips, and chopped nuts.

Here I am proudly showing off my creations

Kaity went and snuck a peek at the voting sheet for me to give me an update on the standings. She said my Carmelitas were in first place and my cookies were tied for third! I was totally excited. Then they called everyone over for the announcement of the winners.

I was sitting there just waiting for my name to be called... Third place was announced. Wasn't me. Second place. still wasn't me.  Finally the time came for the grand prize (I was preparing myself to stand...) and NOPE it wasn't me! Can you say ripped off?!? Haha! Kaity says they must've not wanted me to win because I'm her sister and it would looked rigged. Oh well. At least we know who had the most votes. LOL

Oh and want to see what Em did during all this?

Ran around like a crazy man

Rode around on the golf cart (don't worry, we didnt drive with him back there)

and my personal favorite... had a ball with all the balloons

So despite not being recognized for my culinary skills, we still enjoyed ourselves! Next time right?