Recipe Blog!!!!

I finally got my recipe blog up and running with a couple recipes to start it off with! Go check it out! There will be lots and lots more to come. :D

littleladychef.blogspot.com

Also be sure to check out the post below, it's new. Funny I should get my recipe blog going after the post about how my kitchen is doomed....

Our kitchen is doomed.

Really. It's true. With the messes and accidents that happen in our kitchen, you would think we had 4 year old quadruplet boys.

The curse started (oddly enough) after we had been cleaning out the huge cupboard the serves as a pantry. My parents didn't move hardly any of the food out of it when they moved. So one night, Doug and I spent a couple hours taking everything out that we wouldn't use and hauled boxes and boxes of their food downstairs. We completely cleaned the inside of this huge cupboard and put all of our stuff back in.
Near the end, I got a can of Dr. Pepper out of the fridge, opened it, and had drank a little out of it. We thought we were done but spotted a jar of spaghetti sauce on the counter that we had forgotten to put away. Doug grabbed it and walked over to put it away. I had my Dr. Pepper in my hand, and as he reached to put the sauce away, he hit my hand (or the can) with the bottle, and my can of Dr. Pepper fell to the floor. Only, instead of just spilling, something horrible happened. It hit the ground and fell on its side, and suddenly started spinning so fast that it just looked like a purpleish red circle. And while it was spinning, it was OF COURSE spraying our entire kitchen, wall to wall, with Dr. Pepper.
I was soaked past my knees, Doug was soaked too, the wall closest to the scene was dripping from about 3 or 4 feet high down. The cupboard we had just spent 2 hours cleaning was dripping Dr. Pepper. Mind you, this cupboard is about 3 feet deep and a couple feet from the ground, and the back wall of it was dripping too. The food we had put inside now had brown polka dots. The nearest counter had gotten it to and my stovetop was even covered. Our other cupboards were dripping. Don't forget the floor had a puddle near the can, and sprays across the room....and we hadn't bought a mop yet AND it was around 11 at night. This Dr. Pepper not only had an incredible range, but it also got clear high up on things.
Now, I wish I had a picture of the carnage to show you. But at the time, I was so mad that it wasn't funny. I stood in the same spot, my legs dripping, speechless, just staring for I don't even know how long. Doug at one point said, "It's funny." and I snapped back, "No it's not!" I finally moved and we started to clean up. I was trying not to cry and I asked him to feed the animals while I cleaned. He walked away and I started to cry. Now it's HILARIOUS, but trust me, it wasn't then!

And that's how the curse started.

Next, (only a week or so later) I was reaching into the fridge for something, and knocked out a can of leftover pineapple. I yelled in frustration and stomped back to the bedroom to tell Doug, "Come look what I just did." He said, "Did you spill something?" And I said, "Just come look." He came out and we both had some good laughs about it. This time, I took a picture.

And last, (at least to this point), I was cooking dinner and got thirsty. I got out a can of my newfound friend Antioxidant Cherry 7-Up. I was browning hamburger to make Tory's tater tot casserole. I usually get low enough fat content hamburger that I don't have to drain it, but for some reason, it was fatty enough this time that I had to drain it. I tried draining into a little can and was struggling, so I decided to just tilt the pan and spoon it out. I had the pan tilted so the fat was near one edge and I didn't want to set it flat again while I grabbed a spoon.
I looked around for something I could set the pan handle on to keep it tilted enough. Viola! I saw my can of 7-Up on the counter right next to the stove and it was the perfect height. Now I'm sure you can guess what happened next, and sadly enough I knew it was a bad idea but I still did it. So I set the handle on the can. Surprisingly enough it didn't knock it over immediatley, but while I was spooning grease out something happened and the can tipped over. It was just far enough from the edge of the counter that when it tipped, the pop ran down the cupboards before hitting the ground. Yuk.

Let me repeat, our kitchen is doomed. I'm sure there will be more funny stories to come, stay tuned!

UPDATED!!! [finally]

I just spent forever posting a ton of new blogs and making it look prettier. Start at the bottom, I'm too lazy to do it backwards so it appears in the right order. :) ENJOY!

Doug's Birthday!

Tuesday was Doug's birthday. I surprised him with this totally homemade cake. Homemade frosting is so delicious but I didn't realize how difficult it is to make without my mom's commercial mixer!!


We went out to dinner and then to the new Fast and Furious movie. We both absolutely love the series and the new movie is no let down! The stunts are INCREDIBLE!

He got spoiled for his birthday. A new Garmin nuvi 255 surprised him alot! He has been really really wanting a GPS.

The other, littler gifts were a sweet pen, a car freshener, and a 3 pack of his favorite gum. The GPS definitely stole the show though. :)

Nauvoo road trip: Part 3

After we went to Libery Jail we went to dinner and to a hotel we found a coupon for, for really cheap. As cheap as the coupon was for, I knew it was not going to be a nice hotel. However, I was not expecting what we got. We got there and had to buzz in to have the hotel person unlock the door for us to come in. It reeked of smoke inside. I was a little worried and asked her after we checked in if stuff would be safe in our car over night. She said, "Oh yeah. Just lock your doors." We went to our room, and besides it smelling so strong of old urine it almost killed me, this is what we found:

This is one of the holes in the boxsprings.

Here is the bathroom tile...

And the hole in the bathroom door added a classy touch.

We stayed in there for a few minutes when I decided I wanted to pop some popcorn we bought because my game was on. We called the lobby and of course there was no microwave in the entire hotel. We drove to a gas station to use their's and they were supposed to be open, but they were apparently closed. And not just closed, but a huge chain was wrapped around the door handles. This confirmed my fear that we were in a bad part of town. We kept driving and found an open one...with bars in the doors. Yikes! We obviously didn't know we had picked a bad part of town beforehand. That night, we slept on our emergency blanket from the car and used Doug's dirty t-shirts over the pillowcases. I'm surprised we haven't contracted any strange diseases yet!

The next we woke up to monsoonal rain and wind. On our way out of town we stopped for gas. After a few minutes of pumping gas, Doug opened my door and said, "Uh...I think we have a serious problem." My heart dropped. "See those black things over there?" He pointed across the parking lot. "Those black pieces are our gas cap." I told him to go grab it. He brought it back, and BY MIRACLE, when it blew off the car and got ran over, the only part that got shattered off was the handle part. We still had a working gas cap! Minus the handle, but hey, it still worked. What a blessing!


We stopped that night in a totally fine hotel luckily. The next day we drove the rest of the way home. Our only misfortune the rest of the trip:

Holy crap! I was bending over to grab something and heard a huge thud. I looked up and to my surprise saw this huge...crack thing...in our windshield! I gasped and the rearview mirror was blocking Doug's view of it so he bent around and freaked out too. Stupid semis kicking rocks at us! We are so lucky it didn't break our whole windshield though!

The end :)

Nauvoo road trip: Part 2

Read the post below first!

The next part of our trip was Nauvoo! Driving in, it was nothing like I had pictured. We had an awesome historic hotel for cheap, and when we got there, they were running a half off special those nights! I love travelling off season! All the shops and buildings were closed when we got there so we just looked around and made plans for the next day before going the famous buffet that just so happened to be in our hotel We ate SO much! Their dining rooms could hold hundreds of people all at once and were so pretty! Here is the one we were in:

Our table was right under this huge fake apple tree! So pretty!

The next day we went shopping and then into the historic buildings of Nauvoo. I am trying to resist posting tons of pictures so maybe I just won't post any of the buildings. We went to the bakery where you get a free gingerbread man cookie. Yum! Then we went to the family living center where they have demonstrations of how things like making bread, candles, rope, rugs, barrels, and pottery were made back then. Since us and one other family were all that were there, we got to keep stuff they made! So cool! Then we went to the blacksmith shop where we watched the missionary make a mini horseshoe. We got one of those too!

That night we went to the Nauvoo temple. It was so special to be there! The temple president greeted us as we walked in and then after when we left. He is really friendly! It was also really cool to see a rose that President Hinckley painted on one of the paintings.

The next day we went to Carthage Jail on our way out of town. I learned so much there!

After Carthage, we drove to Independence, MO to see Liberty Jail. This was one of my favorite parts of the trip because of how much it strengthened my testimony. When you see the conditions they were kept in for 5 months, you can understand why Joseph asked, "O God, where art thou? And where is the pavilion that covereth thy hiding place?"

Seeing all these sites was amazing and I am so glad we went! The trip strengthened my testimony so much. There is no way Joseph Smith could have suffered all the things he did if the church was not true. The saints were so strong to leave their beautiful city. It is amazing to see where they walked as they left town, knowing they were living their homes that they would never see again. Being in Nauvoo made things personal for me. I am so excited to re-read the Doctrine and Covenants now that I have seen many of the places they lived.

For the last part of our trip, read the post above! It's funny and worth reading, I promise.

Nauvoo road trip: Part 1

Doug and I decided about 2 or 3 weeks to go to Nauvoo for spring break. Pretty spontaneous for a week long trip! My parents had already invited us to their house in Wyoming the first weekend of it because their stake was getting the Draper Utah temple dedication. So we started the fun road trip with a weekend in the beautiful Pinedale, Wyoming.

A dollar to the first person who sees what is "wrong" with this picture. J/k. See the deer in those people's backyard (right behind the porch)? Driving around town you see deer and moose running around everywhere! Crazy huh?

Fremont Lake. There were breathtaking views all over in the mountains.

Our next leg of the trip was supposed to be to Mt. Rushmore. The morning we were supposed to leave super early, my parents checked the weather for us and found out there was going to be a blizzard right over the roads we were supposed to travel. I am used to living in Idaho where when a blizzard is predicted, it never happens, so I didn't really buy into it. Doug and I were exhausted though and decided to sleep some more and check the weather again. What a blessing! A Wyoming DOT webcam that had earlier shown wet roads was now a complete white out! My dad being the awesome navigator he is, printed us off maps of how we could skip that leg of the trip and go directly to Omaha, our next stop for the Winter Quarters Temple.

This is my favorite temple now! Look how pretty the doors are. The inside is incredible.

In Omaha we also went to Carrabba's, a delicious Italian restaurant. If you ever see one, go!! We went to Cabela's (AMAZING!) and a huge mall where we saw this sweet food drive display:

Wall-E! Isn't that the sweetest thing ever?!

Continue on our trip with part 2 (the post above)!