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

Weekend update

 This weekend was filled with a few cousins and few good donuts. 

Evan and I headed up to my parents to go get some early celebratory donuts for my parents (almost) moving into their new house. 

We won't go into details but donuts felt necessary so we made it happen. 

We traveled up north to hit up the Dunford Bakery. 

Once you walk in, you're welcomed with the delicious smell of freshly baked donuts. They then have trays of stacked donuts that you can choose from. 

It's a fill up your own box, kind of service.

 My nieces were in heaven with the abundance of baked goods, and Evan only wanted the chips.

 Ha! 

He took one bite of his donut, said yuck and dug into a bag of plain potato chips. 

He is definitely my mini me. I hated donuts growing up and would always choose salty over sweet. 

If only that were still the case...

 

 Donut eyes, it had to be done.

Later that day, we headed back to Provo for some "Fire and Ice" event that was happening at the Riverwoods mall. 

They had a few small ice sculptures that seemed to melt faster than they were suppose to because of this odd, warm, winter we're having. 

There was some music and a few vendor booths that were set up. To be honest, it was bit underwhelming but Evan still had a fun time and that's all that mattered. 

I'm looking forward to fall time again when they have some fun activities going on. 

It's only 8 months away....

And somewhere along the way, my almost 4 year old turned into a teenager. He looks so old to me in the picture on the left.

Cupid's Arrow Cake Pops!

Happy February everyone! 

Can anyone else believe that January has come and gone? This year is already going way too fast. 

I can't say that I'm too sad about it at the moment though. 

I am so looking forward to finally moving in to our place and setting up our home. 

And it'll be nice to get back to some normalcy.

With that being said, I thought it would be fun to celebrate the beginning of the month with a little Valentine's Day post. 

Any excuse to bake, right?

What you'll need

24 cake pops (recipe and instructions here)
gold sprinkles *
1 sheet of gold glitter paper
glue gun

*After you dip each cake pop, sprinkle a small amount of your gold sprinkles on the tops. Make sure your chocolate is still wet, or else they won't stick. Set them in your Styrofoam to dry.

Once your cake pops are dry, it's time to assemble your arrows. Start by cutting out the ends of your arrows in your gold paper. 

I cut little slits on the sides to show some feathering. 

Place a small dab of glue on at the end of your stick and glue on one of your arrow's ends. 

And that's it! Now you have some adorable treats to serve up for your special Valentine.

And one last thing while we're on the topic of Valentine's Day.

Has anyone checked out Minted's Valentine's Day card selection? 

They have some seriously adorable foil pressed cards that I'm slightly obsessed with. 

Here are just a few of my favorites.

| 1 | 

| 2 |

| 3 |

| 4 |

Go check them all out, you won't be disappointed, I promise. 

skiptomylou madincrafts keepingitsimplecrafts tipjunkie sugarbeecrafts mandysrecipeboxblog

ladybug-blessings nap-timecreations homestoriesatoz memoriesbythemile

hunwhatsfordinner raisingmemories 
cupcakesandcrinoline  simplydesigning 
iheartnaptime 

Merry (late) Christmas!

Okay, I am slowly getting caught up. I can't wait until we are in our own space and I have unlimited access to a computer. But in the meantime, thanks for your patience and sticking around with all of the slacking!

This Christmas was like any other we've had before. 

This year, we were able to spend it with both sides of the family. 

Most of Conryd's family lives here in Provo, and has for years. And my parents just moved to Utah on Thanksgiving. So we now have both families within a short driving distance from each other. How great is that?

We spent the first half of the day with Conryd's side, opening presents and eating lunch together. Evan loved being the center of attention and all of his cousins were sweet enough to let him open up their presents for them. Evan didn't care if they were for him or not, he just really enjoyed tearing up that wrapping paper. After the gifting festivities were over, we had a delicious lunch prepared by my sister and mother-in-law. I think it was safe to say that everyone over ate and felt fully satisfied by the end. 

The second half of the day we headed up to my parent's to open a few more presents and to have dinner with them. It was a quite, quaint, night and was the perfect way to end a crazy day. 

I can't wait to spend all of our Christmas' with family.

Here are just a few pictures from Christmas Day.

There was zero snow on the ground until the night we flew in. That night, it snowed, and snowed, and snowed. It was a Christmas miracle.

 I've said it before and I will probably keep on saying it, but we are seriously so good at taking family pictures...

At this point, Evan was still convinced that he didn't need to wear a jacket.

Does anyone else family do Christmas crackers? I know it's a South African thing and I am fully embracing it. I mean, they come with these adorable gold crowns. Win.

 

We went and saw the "tree of life" in Draper. We didn't get very close because it was so- cold and we didn't feel like treading trough the cold, snow to get any closer. This was also the first time I've ever seen Evan shiver and tell me, "Mom, I'm so cold!" Welcome to Utah!

This was technically the day after Christmas but it had a giant tree in the picture, so I had to post it.

I am quite sad to see this season go. I feel like I didn't get to fully embrace it because of all of the craziness.
I guess that just means I will just have to go all out next Christmas. Oh darn.

Until next year...

I'm Back!!

Holy cow. That was the longest blog break ever! 

 To start off, we have finally moved back to Utah! And we couldn't be any happier about it.

Our current living situation is a bit off at the moment, hence why I've been slacking on the updating. We're at my in-laws in 1 bedroom, with no computer or TV.

 I only have my husband's laptop to use and when he's not using it during the day, we're using it at night to catch up on our shows. 

But I finally have a few minutes to catch up. 

We ended up moving from our tiny Miami apartment on Christmas Eve. Yes, ON CHRISTMAS EVE! At the time, I was stressed out of my mind and super bummed that we wouldn't be able to fully enjoy the holiday season because of all the packing. 

And taking down our decor early was just sad. 

But after a few crazy days of packing, we finally made it to the airport. And shockingly, being at the airport on Chrstimas Eve was the least stressful part of our whole ordeal. 

There were hardly any cars on the freeway, which never happens.

 There was no one in the security line, which NEVER happens. 

And we ended up being 2 hours early, which never happens. 

I don't think I've ever been so calm and relieved to be in an airport or even so calm while flying. 

It was actually amazing. 

And after 2 planes and 10 hours later, we finally landed in sweet Salt Lake City. 

Here's what our lovely Christmas Eve looked like.

 

Our last time driving in Miami. I can't say that I'll miss it...at all.

 You can tell that they really wanted to talk and hold a conversation.

 Christmas Eve from 34,000 ft. up.

 At least we had "The Grinch" to help get us through the first 4 1/2 hrs.

 So we look tired and worn out, but wouldn't you after 10 hrs of traveling plus moving?

This kid could hardly wait to open the presents his grandma (Nans) had for him. She let him open so many presents the night we arrived. It never ended. I don't know who enjoyed it more, Evan or Nans.

Printable Christmas Tags

 

Today I am sharing with you some FREE downloadable, Christmas tags. 

Am I the only one still obsessing over black and white? I would have loved to have added a few B&W items to my holiday decorations but since we're moving on Christmas eve, I was unable to buy any new Christmas decor...according to my husband.

And so with that, I am living vicariously through these tags, dreaming of what my place would have looked like if I could have fully decorated this year. 

Oh well, maybe next time! 

Happy Saturday!

Click the link below to print out your own tags for your presents under the tree.

 FREE DOWNLOAD HERE!!!

iheartnaptime

Christmas Cookie Series #5: Gingerbread House

Oh man. 

Have you ever over estimated your ability to do something, and then just laugh hysterically when you fail at it?

 That is exactly what happened to me when I made our gingerbread house this year.

 I made my first, from scratch, gingerbread house last year and I remember being surprised at just how easy it was.

 Sure, it was a bit time consuming, but it wasn't hard and I really enjoyed doing it. I kept that in mind, and I set out to do the same thing this year. 

I made the mistake of not saving the recipe I used last time and couldn't find it anywhere, 

I checked out so many different recipes before I settled on one. 

I finally found "the one"and I went with this Food Network recipe. 

I then used a template I found on Martha Stewart. 

After I had cut out the walls and front/back, I realized the template did not provide the roof. 

All it said was measure out 2 pieces that were 6.5in x 7.5 in. 

Well, I totally underestimated my talent in eye ball measuring. 

I thought for sure I was spot on with the sizing...and then I tried to glue it onto my walls and realized I was about an inch short. Ha.

 I figured I'd just glue it on anyways and cover the huge open gap with frosting and gum drops. 

The next day when I was going to decorate it, I noticed that one side of the roof had fallen off and that it broke into 2 pieces. I then noticed the other side was bending and starting to cave in. 

At that point, I threw the whole thing in the trash.

A week later I decided to give it one more shot. I wasn't going to go down in flames.

 I whipped up another batch of gingerbread, this time using this recipe and baked it for 15 minutes at the suggested temperature. 

I then left it in a 200 degree oven for another 30 minutes to make sure it was really hard. 

And I let it dry in the oven (turned off) all night.

I used this template for the house and love the look of it. 

Evan was a pro decorator and had so much fun placing, and eating, the candies on the house. He still points to the house everyday and says, "See, it's me house!"

Now, I just need to remind myself to revert back to this post next year, so I don't give myself another big gingerbread house headache. 

Sorry for the long boring story, but I felt I needed to explain myself to make me feel better :)

A platter filled with candies. I think my favorites are the Necco waffers. I'm slightly obsessed with how (half) of the roof turned out

I know, you're jealous of my amazing icing skills. 

It's pretty, right?

Evan totally made this gingerbread house, a gingerbread house. I had high hopes of keeping it uniformed and mess free, but I love it more this way. I couldn't not let him help me on the big house. His eyes had that sparkle and honestly, it was more important that he have fun memories of decorating than for me to be a Grinch about what my expectations were of how it was supposed to look. 

(I apologize if this post sounds scattered. We are in the midst of some changes around here and to say I am beyond exhausted would be an understatement.)

To see the rest of the cookie series, head on over to here