Well hello there!

Welcome back, self. My oh my do we have some catching up to do. 

We've just hit our 1 year mark being back in Utah and it has been one glorious year.

 Since I totally dropped the ball on most of 2015 on updating this little old thing, here is a small recap of what we did in 2015...

-We hiked...a lot
-Found a love for the great outdoors
-Started and stopped running multiple times. It's a love/hate kind of thing
-I had a miscarriage (that's about the time I stopped blogging and lost most motivation to keep up with it)
-Evan started pre-school
-My husband launched an EDM record label
-We've had countless family dinners and activities
-We swam and splash padded all of summer
-We made new friends
-We pumpkin patched
-We baked fall time goodies, hello pumpkin everything!
-We took advantage of the beautiful fall weather, and played outside all day almost everyday
-We trunk-or-treated and trick-or-treated and left with way too much sugar
-We celebrated a day of being thankful with a big Thanksgiving feast breakfast and dinner
-We decorated for Christmas
-I crafted and used way too much glitter, which is nothing new. It looked like a unicorn threw up.
-I baked, and baked, and baked.
-We made a homemade gingerbread house and decorated it
-Went to Riverwoods for their Christmas lighting
-We celebrated Christmas with both sides of the family. It was lovely and crazy all at the same time.
-We didn't celebrate the New Year, I'm pretty sure we fell asleep before 10pm
-And well here I am now

I can't promise I'll be back often but for now, I will leave you with our Christmas family pictures. It's been years since we've had pictures so when my sister-in-law agreed to take ours, I was all too thrilled. I literally had my outfits picked out in September...we didn't take them until December...
If you're in the Utah area and looking for a great photographer, check out Carly Bingham.

Life as of late

Okay. Well we've had some craziness over the past month that kind of wiped me out and took away all motivation to keep up with this little old thing.

 Maybe someday I'll write about it but for now I'd just like to update with a major iPhone photo splurge.

My favorite thing about my blog, is looking through old posts and looking at the pictures.

 I should actually, probably get around to printing all my pictures but that would just require way too much work and I think we've already come to the conclusion that I am insanely lazy. 

And with that being said, prepare for picture overload.

It was my husband's 30th birthday the end of May. We celebrated with homemade curry, vanilla cake filled with Malteesers ( European version of malt balls)

After dinner, he partied like a 12 yr old and flipped his heart out. Literally. I think it killed him the next day. 

Evan was in heaven. A place designed for you to climb and jump off of everything. Pure joy.

Oh park days. We don't go to the park nearly enough but when we do, we make sure we go out with a bang. Or a trip in this case. Evan tripped pretty hard while he was racing another boy the slides.  And that was the end of our park day. He cried for like an hour and then every time he talked about it, he cried. Trauma...or drama...

The 2 looks of a child who tripped and thought it was the end of the world, and then 6 hours later, realized it wasn't.

We also LOVE the splash pad. We definitely miss our Florida splash pad, that one was amazing, but Utah has some awesome ones as well.

Donut day...does it really need an explanation?

I babysat my nephew a few weeks ago and by the end of the day, it called for a massive Swig run. 

Coke zero plus lime and coconut? Amazing-ness in one little cup.

It must be the Florida in us, but we don't leave the splash pad for a little rain/storm. We do leave when lightening appears though. We play it smart.

Okay, how come no one ever told me how funny kids are. This kid cracks me up constantly. He has such a personality and I just adore it.

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Ah, the biggest change to happen in the last 6 months. I chopped and colored my hair! I haven't colored my hair since I graduated from hair school 4 years ago. I decided that I definitely needed a hair makeover and I am so happy with it. It is a bit shorter than I would have liked, but that was my own fault. I told my girl to chop an extra 1 1/2 inches and now I'm wishing it was 1 1/2 inches longer. Doh. Lucky for me, my hair grows incredibly fast.

This is how I feel about taking pictures of myself. I dislike it. A lot. I feel like an idiot when I do it, but I felt it was necessary to brag about my new do. 

So there you go. Our life for the past month in one "little" post. 

Now it's time to start my 4th of July baking projects! Woo hoo! 

Does anyone else get excited over this? 

I see a lot of watermelon everything coming up!

A Batman birthday party

This post is coming a tad late, a month and half to be exact. My little guy had his 4th birthday the end of March.

 Having just moved, we didn't really have any friends to invite, but we did have tons of family which was so nice. 

My heart would break just a little when people would ask him who was coming to his birthday and he'd say his best friend from Florida. 

But even with the lack of friends at his party, I'd still say he had a blast. 

For months he had been telling me he wanted a Batman birthday. 

And that's just what he got. 

Nothing huge, nothing extravagant. Just a party filled with yummy food and a large, loving family...and cake. A lot, a lot, of cake.

Happy birthday, my little man. You are my world. I hope you'll always stay my sweet (mama's) boy.

Why hello!

Hello, my long lost blog.

 I may or may not have fallen off the blogging bandwagon. After the move, I became very unmotivated to do pretty much anything.

 I lost interest in crafting. I lost interest in baking. I lost interest in taking pictures, and I lost interest in updating social media. 

There were times where I felt like deleting everything. 

And then there were times where I was pumped and ready to jump back in to everything social media related.

But then there was the feeling of being overwhelmed with it all which... overwhelmed me. 

That's when I decided that I needed to take a break from blogging.

I needed a break from posting copious amounts of pictures on Instagram. 

I just needed to have a short break up with caring about posting my life. 

Does that make sense? Can anyone else relate?

 Now that I've had my few months break to rejuvenate, I am ready to get back into the things I enjoy doing. 

I have so many projects on my mind that I can't wait to share with you guys over time. And I'm hoping most of all, that one BIG idea will come together shortly so I can share.

Thanks for sticking around and I hope I can continue to update and share the things that are most important to me in my life with this little blog of mine.

Now, with all of that being said, I want to recap our weekend. 

As I'm sure you are all aware of, it was Easter weekend. 

And Evan was an egg hunting machine. 

He thoroughly enjoyed shaking, opening, and explaining what was inside each and every single plastic, Easter egg. 

(Thanks, YouTube Kinder Surprise eggs)

The Easter bunny knew how much fun he'd have doing this, so he made sure to put just a few M&M's in each egg so that way he'd have a crapload to find and open. And yes, I like to use the word "crapload." I'm classy like that.

Along with it being Easter,  we also had the opportunity to hear from our Prophet and Apostles  on Saturday and Sunday during our LDS biannual General Conference. I thought it was a great way to spend Easter and kind of hope it works out this way every year. If you'd like to re-watch or read any of the amazing talks, you can do so here.

A fun tradition that I know most people do, is bake homemade cinnamon rolls during this time. And while I fully embraced that last year, this year we did something a little different. We had popcorn! Lots and lots of delicious popcorn. 

I placed an order through this cute little company called Mom and Popcorn a few weeks ago for Evan's birthday party. I was so thrilled with all of the yummy flavors they sent us for it, that I may or may not have kept a stash so we had some to munch on during the conference talks. 

 

Is it weird to think that popcorn is beautiful? Because I do. 

And while it was almost as impossible to choose just 6 from the 50 unique popcorn flavors, I was thrilled with our final decision.  We chose to serve up vanilla, watermelon, pina colada, Denver Style (caramel and white cheddar), tomato basil, and my favorite out of them all, parmesan and garlic. 

 Oh. my. yum! This stuff is addicting and I will for sure be using them again for parties, events, and for straight up snacking on.

And a big, big thank you to Mom and Popcorn for their awesome service. They were so easy to work with, and delivered top notch goodies. I already have my next order lined up and it will most definitely involve chocolate... a lot of delicious chocolate!

Go check them out here and make sure to comment below the flavors you're looking forward to try!

Life changing berry sauce

I am not even exaggerating a little bit when I say this stuff has changed my life. 

It's almost like having summer in a jar

 ( I know I skipped a season)

I seriously want to pour this sauce over everything. 

And I may or may not have been eating it by the spoonfuls. 

This is so easy to make and you're taste buds will love you forever for adding this to...well everything. 

I made this for a family we were having and we served it over cheesecake with fresh berries.. But I can guarantee it would be delicious over pancakes, crepes, angel food cake, yogurt, a spoon...

You get the point. 

Go ahead, make yourself a batch and maybe even a few extras for your neighbors!

Ingredients

1lb bag of frozen mixed berries
1/4 cup sugar
2 tbs fresh squeezed orange juice
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/4 tsp ground cinnamon

In a saucepan, combine all ingredients over medium heat. Simmer for about 10 minutes, until berries are thawed and soft. Stir occasionally and lightly mash with a wooden spoon, or masher.  Remove your saucepan from the heat and let it cool for about 15-20 minutes. Place berries and sauce in a blender. Blend until smooth. You can either serve it as it is, or if you're picky, strain the sauce through a fine mesh strainer to get rid of the berry seeds. Store in a glass mason jar and serve over the dessert of your choice.

A Valentine's Day Drink

Valentine's Day quickly creeped up on me. 

I thought I was prepared and ready for it, and then found out that we'll probably end up spending the morning, day and night moving. 

I can't say I'm too bummed about it though. 

Because that  just means we're getting one step closer  to settling down.

It also helps that I've never been a huge celebrator of the holiday. Don't get me wrong though, I'd never turn down a box of See's chocolates and a chance to go shopping.
And I do love any excuse to bake and craft,  so I guess I will fully accept this holiday with open arms.

Now on to the simplest mixed drink around. 

A Shirley Temple.
This drink brings me back to my childhood. Especially because I think that was the last time I had one.

 This is perfect for anyone that needs a last minute idea for your loved ones.
These adorable, sparkly drinks are sure to brighten up the day for your cute little ones and also for your hunky older ones.

What you'll need

Mason jars
Mod podge
Sponge brush
Glitter
Heart gummy candies
Wooden skewers
Lemon-like soda
Grenadine

To make your jars: 

Add a thin layer of Mod Podge to the bottom of your jar. 

Sprinkle a generous amount of glitter, and tap the excess off. 

Continue this for however many stripes you want, using different colors.  

Set aside to dry for an hour.

 

To make your drink: 

Assemble your heart gummy skewers. 

Pour 1 TBS of Grenadine into your glittered mason jar. 

Top it off with your lemon-lime soda and garnish with you gummy skewer. 

 

Serve it up and 

have a happy Valentine's Day!

*Moment of truth, I thought it was Friday. Whoops