Journal Jar: Childhood Friends

March 21, 2013

Describe your childhood friends and something you did together.

The first friends that I can remember are Lauren Barlow (now Foster) & Megan Shane. Lauren lived up the street from me in our old home by Viewmont High School. We would play dress up and play with Lauren's American Girl dolls. I loved playing with her AG dolls because I always wanted one. I remember I lost my first tooth at Lauren's house while watching Mr. Limpet and eating mac & cheese :)

Lauren, Me, Megan

My elementary best friend was Mindy Smith. We did everything together! Every year during spring break (4th grade-6th grade) we would go down to her grandparent's condo in St. George. We would empty out the hall closet and shove a card table and two chairs inside and play "Veterinarian". One of us would be the secretary and the other would be the vet. We'd take care of imaginary sick horses & dogs. My most favorite/funny memory would have to be climbing on the roof of the Fisher Price log cabin in her backyard to watch her cute neighbor, Brian Roberts, mow the lawn with his shirt off...

Mindy & Me

My longest childhood friendship was with Amber Thorne. I moved in across the street from her in 4th grade and we instantly became amazing friends. We had so much fun together filming our cooking shows as Sunny & Moony. We jumped on the trampoline for hours, used scooters to get everywhere and went to Lagoon almost everyday of the summer. We would even dress alike. We had these disgusting matching orange tank tops that we wore with jean shorts. I went to my first concert with Amber (Brittney Spears- before she turned skanky).

Meg & Amber at the Brittney Spears concert

(yeah...that's my hair)

I had such fantastic childhood friends and I am grateful for the influence they all had on me. Love you all!

Journal Jar: Chore Time

March 20, 2013

Journal Jar Question: What were your chores as a child? What was your favorite and least favorite chore?

I remember my mom was a chore nazi. While back then I loathed Saturday mornings, I am grateful for her high cleaning standards. She taught me how to do my own laundry, wash a window without streaks & how nest to clean a toilet.

My favorite chore as a child was probably vacuuming. For some reason, I thought that if the vacuum was running, no one could hear me singing. I'd turn on my latest Backstreet Boy CD and sing along. I also enjoyed mowing the FRONT lawn (the back was just too big and difficult).

My least favorite chore was toilets (and still is my least favorite today). I'd rather do laundry everyday than clean a toilet once a week. I never really liked doing dishes. Today I still pawn off most of the dishes to my poor husband. Occasionally I'll plug in my iPod and get down with the dishes but that is a rare.

These are the only pictures I could find of me doing "chores" as a child

Mind Over Platter: The First 10lbs- Operation "No Belly Prize"

March 16, 2013

Today I reached my first 10 lb loss! After 5 weeks of good eating habits & some exercise, I'm definitely seeing the results. I don't quite see it in the mirror yet but I feel great about my progress. 

Losing weight & becoming healthy is a wonderful gift but to give myself even more incentive along the way, I have made a goal/prize chart. This week I get to go pick out some new earrings for reaching my first 10 lb loss. 

So far on schedule with my weight loss, here are my overall goals:

Loss Goals:
10lbs- March 16
20lbs- April 6
30lbs- May 11
40lbs- June 15
50lbs- July 20
60lbs- August 24

I should be down to 160 lbs by September 21st

Prize List:
10lbs- Earrings
20lbs- Website (purchase my own domain and switch this blog to my new site)
30lbs- Shoes
40lbs- Haircut
50lbs- Purse
60lbs- New Outfit
Goal Met- $50 shopping spree

Flower Pot Cake

March 9, 2013

This Saturday our ward is having our annual dessert auction. Anyone (but mostly the youth) can bring a dessert, craft or service to auction off. The money is split and given to the young men & young women groups for summer camp. Our ward goes crazy at the auction. We'll have cakes sold for 100s of dollars.

McKenzie & I put our brains & talent together and made flower pot cakes. Pretty, eh?

Here's what we did:

Make your cake mix

Line mini cups (found at any fast food ketchup station) on baking sheet

Use pastry bag or ziplock baggie with tip to fill cups with cake mix

We found that the best looking cakes were the cups we filled barely half way with mix

Trace bottom of pot on paper and use for stencil. Use styrafaom on bottom of pot to stick the skewers into. Cover styrafoam with l=plastic wrap then foil and jam in bottom of pan.

Using the same circle stencil, trace cake.

Our layers: Styrafoam, Cake, Chocolate Pudding, Cake, Chocolate Pudding, Graham Crackers

Dyed skewers with food coloring & used gum drops to hold mini cakes on stick

Place "flowers" in the pot

Don't forget to frost your flowers.

My recipe: (makes 2.5 cups)

1/2 cup shortening

1/2 cup butter

4 cups powdered sugar

3 tablespoons milk

1 teaspoon vanilla

Mix shortening & butter until fluffy then add the rest. We added 2 drops of yellow food coloring but, you can add whatever color you desire!

PS. While making all this yummy goodness, I only ate ONE mini cake :) My motivation? Knowing I had to weigh in the next day...