Our life in a nutshell...

WE ARE BUSY!!!!!! I am seriously the worst blogger ever! I don't know how I let 2 months get away from me! I have so many pictures I need to update, but I figure I'll just bag it and start from here... But, since I have no pictures for this post, I will update you in words how that last two months have gone.

- Between work, home, being mommy, being wifey and supporting a husband who works full time, goes to school part time and is Assistant Scout leader.. I have lost my marbles!

- Does that mean I have to have a clean house too???

- I have no idea how I get so busy that I have found no time to blog.. SHAME!

- I got my 6 month raise at work.. wahoo!

- JJ is getting bigger and bigger before my eyes.. I am amazed by him every day

- Jeff started his CNA class this week. He says it seems quite overwhelming, but he will do just fine. In fact, he passed four tests todayWahoo!!!

-JJ is starting to suffer major seperation anxiety. At this point I thought it would get easier, but it seems to be going the opposite.

- My bday in January was good, I got the whole day off to spend with JJ and we went out and had a nice dinner

- Valentines Day this year marked the BEST one ever.. I got Jeff and Ipod, and he got me an Ihome for my Ipod touch.. They have both been the best presents ever!

- March 1st was our 6th wedding anniversary.. I am stunned and proud!

- Did I mention that my little baby is getting huge! I just can't get over how smart he is and how much he teaches me every day. Mostly patience.

- I learned this past month about the precious nature of life while watching a dear friend lose his mother. I hate funerals. And I hate people I love in pain.

- I am jealous and proud that Jeff is so dedicated to his schooling and the gym!

- I am learning to love my calling in the nursery. Learning, I said.

- I love my ward family

- I appreciate the way Jeff and I have made it through this economic crisis unscathed, although I can't say I hold much faith it will stay that way!

- I LOVE my support system!

- We got a new car!

- I finally organized my pantry.

- Jeff is getting Lasik this Friday, yippee for a quick trip to Salt Lake! (And a BAD wife who will shop while her man recovers in the hotel room!)

- I need to go to bed. The alarm will sound in 6 hrs and I have yet to dry my hair

Happy blogging! And I will not let 2 months go by again without blogging.. Don't lie, I know you are wiping the sweat off your brow in relief!

Bath time, Before & After, and our Holiday weekend....

The holiday weekend has been SO nice! I had (most) Saturay off, Sunday and today! Its been so nice being home with JJ and feeling like being just a mom and nothing else has been awesome! We started off the weekend with some UFC fight night at our house with friends. It wasn't that great because Rich Franklin lost and that didn't make me happy, he got totally jipped.. But that's a story for another day! Moving on to Sunday, I must admit, I REALLY was not in the mood for church. You know when you have those days when your so uncomfortable in your dress and your hot and just hate sitting there! If it wasnt for having the lesson in Nursery, I woulda ditched! We had some friends invite us to the park and a BBQ, which made it even that much harder to go.. But in the end, I was glad I did, it was a nice meeting. After church, my niece Kolbey invited us to be with her when she reciever her Patriarcle blessing. It was a sweet blessing and such a spiritual experience to be there. Thanks Kolbs for including us in your VERY special day! The rest of Sunday kind of flew by since we have the crappy time (1-4)!

Today, I had the bug to redecorate a place in my home I have been itching to do... Pictures will follow! My sister and brother in law and kids also came up today and visited. We had a yummy lunch prepared by mom, of course :), and just kind of hung out. It was nice to catch up and visit. JJ loved Jax the dog! Aunt Leslie let him hold the leash and take him for a walk, he was in doggy heaven! I hope everyone had a GREAT 3 day weekend :) Happy blogging....


I just thought this was a cute pic to share! JJ is LOVIN him some bubbles lately!



So. here follows my weekend project. I decided that I was so done with the orange on one of my main walls.. Don't let the pic fool you, I DID NOT have neon orange on my walls! It was more of a deep rustic, but I was tired of not using my awsome armoire for something more.. beautiful. Not just movies and books.... So.. I went to the local thrift stores and DI.....

BEFORE


And.. AFTER!



I found all this white china at DI and LOVED the idea of displaying it! I also give credit to a blog I follow religiously "JOYS OF HOME". You can see the link on my page. She has pretty much decorated her whole home with thrifty buys, and I love her creativity. I have to admit, I stole the empty picture frame idea from her. I love it so much, I am really starting to like the ecclectic and more odd sense of style, like thrift store mis matched furniture for my home, which means I have some MAJOR redecorating to do :) My taste has changed and I am on the journey to change it.. I also changed up the wall color to a muted oatmeal. I did this little change for... sit down.... $16.00!!!!! I am going to try and find some tall white vases to put on the little tables on the side and stick some black rustic stick in... SOOO.. waddaya think?!?!

My recipe for 'crack'

Accalaids to Shawna, who has officially named my blog! I have been asked by many to post the recipe for these babies.. It has been very flattering having everyone telling me how yummy these cinnamon rolls are.. I took a basic recipe and a very confusing and involoved recipe and married them together to create these bad boys.. Once you make them, you will never go back. They will be requested at every party, dinner, sunday night treat, and pretty much any other time there is a reason to eat your weight in sugar. Enjoy

Maple Cinnamon Rolls

Ingredients (dough):
1 quart Whole milk
1 cup Vegetable oil
1 cup Sugar
2 pkgs. Active dry yeast
9 cups All purpose flour
1 heaping tsp. Baking powder
1 scant (just less than full) tsp. baking soda
1 heaping Tbs. Salt

Ingredients (filling)
1 1/2 - 2 cups Melted butter
1 cup Sugar
Cinammon

Ingredients (Icing)
1 bag Powdered sugar (2 Lb. bag)
2 tsp Maple flavoring
1/2 cup Whole milk
1/4 cup Melted butter
1/4 cup brewed coffee**
** I use 2 oz of Stirling's brand flavor syrup. You can find it in specialty stores. If you don't have access to the syrup, you can always visit your local coffee shop and ask if you can purchase 2 oz. of "coffee royal" flavoring. All the flavor, none of the coffee!
1/8 tsp salt


Directions:
Preheat oven to 400 degrees. In a large stew pot, combine 1 qt. milk, 1 cup vegetable oil and 1 cup sugar. Sclad the mixture, heating just before boiling point. Revmove from heat and let sit 45 min - 1 hr. When the mixture is luke warm, NOT HOT, sprinkle 2 pkgs (2 Tbls.) Active dry yeast. Let the yeast sit for a minute and get moist. Then add 8 cups of the flour. Stir mixture together and let sit for atleast 1 hour.
Aftter 1 hour, the dough will have raised. Now add 1 more cup of flour, 1 heaping tsp. baking powder and 1 'scant' tsp. baking soda and 1 heapinf Tbl. salt.
Stir the mixture together. At this point you can either make the cinnamon rolls or put the dough in the fridge for up to two days.

When you are ready to make the rolls:

Sprinkle surface of counter with flour. Take HALF of the dough and roll into a rectangle shape. Drizzle 1 1/2 - 2 cups of melted butter, then 1 cup of sugar. Followed by a generous amount of cinnamon.. Pile it on baby!
Starting at the opposite end, roll the dough tightly towards you. Some of the mixture will probably seep out, but its ok. Pinch the seam of the roll to seal it.
Spray pans with non stick cooking spray. (Half of my dough takes up about 3- 9x13 pans). Cut the roll into 3/4 - 1 inch thick rolls and place in pan. Repeat the process with the other half of the dough.
Let the rolls sit 20-30 mintues to rise, and then bake at 400 degrees for 15-17 mintues.

While the rolls are baking, make the icing:
In a mixing bowl, add your powdered sugar. To this add 2 tsp. maple flavoring, 1/2 cup Milk, 1/4 cup melted butter, 1/4 cup brewed coffe (Or coffee flavored syrup) and 1/8 tsp salt. Wisk together for a thick creamy YUMMY icing!

When the rolls are LIGHT golden brown, take them out of the oven. As soon as you take them out, drizzle your maple icing over the cinammon rolls and enjoy! I perfer just a drizzle of the icing, too much is overpowering. Its totally up to you and your own individual taste :)

I hope someone makes these so you can give me some feedback on how they turned out!

New Years Eve 2008

So this year was pretty low key for us, we decided to stay home with the kids and have movie night! Of course, we had to start our festivities off the night before with a little of this...

And of course, New Years Eve cannot exist without soma this....

And who can watch a movie without this yummy stuff... mmmmm
Then, we popped in a little of this guy....

And, of course, what kid can watch a movie without this purty???

A tent is not a true tent without 25 pillows and 25 blankets... and popcorn!!!
While the kids were enjoying their viewing pleasure.. Mom cracked the whip on these darlings..

I just had to give you a shot of this.. Is it hormones, or does everyone else eat Oreo Cakesters while they are baking homemade cinnamon rolls????

The kiddos enjoying some tent time.. Man I make one helluva' tent, if I do say so myself!

As the ball dropped.. Dad had already dropped! I guess we wore him out! Doesn't he look cute with gingerbread men wrapped around his neck keeping him all cozy and warm?

At this point, these cinamon rolls were becoming a bit time consuming.......


But in the end.... nothing made New Years Eve Day better than these homemade maple icing babies waiting for me in the mornin'!


They were enjoyed by all.... I was warned to never bring them to my friends house again... she said they were kinda like crack.. just calling her name from the kitchen counter.. That's the best compliment I ever got on my cookin!


I hope everyone had a safe and happy new year! I hope that this year brings nothing but happiness and blessings to you all!! I wish for you, my family and dear friends, prosperity, joy, wealth beyond measure ( and I don't mean the bling bling kind), pure happiness and peace. I know we all have our rough days, and living in this economic time can be challenging, and at times, feel impossible. But I have a true testimony that we will all make it through this. I am a firm believer that that which does not kill you, only makes you stronger! For some, it is harder than for others, but I believe we all feel the trying times on our own levels. Let this year be the best.. and for hell's sake, can someone actually keep their new years resolution to "LOSE WEIGHT" so I dont' have to!?!!?
There are so many things I want to accomplish this year, some more personal than others, and I will spare you the details! My number one resoultion that I really hope to keep is to keep in touch better with all my family and friends, make my relationships closer, and surround myself with people that bring the best in me out...
Happy New Year to all... and to all a GOOD NIGHT!

Finally...Our Christmas Festivities!

This year Christmas was perfect! We started off the festivities by putting up Christmas lights on our house. This is the first year we have ever done them, and it really made me feel like we were "home" for the first time since we have been married! On Christmas Eve, we had our annual "go to Grandma and Grandpa's" night.. The kids all got jammies and blankets.. SURPRISE! This year was especially fun because Grandma and Grandpa decided to get individual gifts for each grandchild and child instead of family gifts..They got Jeff and I a start on our food storage and gave us two months worth for four people, they also gave us the chart of what to buy every month to keep building it! We really loved that, we have been wanting to start it so bad, and they really gave us a head start! I can't believe how much they got for everyone, remember, thats 6 married kids and twenty somethin' grandkids! Thanks mom and dad, we LOVE you! After we opened gifts, Lisa I and the kids decorated sugar cookie ornaments. It was a fun night, and we didn't get home until about 10 pm.. we came home and really didn't do much, just the normal get showered and ready for bed and JJ was down for the Christmas morning count....


JJ was VERY excited to open gifts on Cristmas Eve, he was 'helping' grandpa hand them all out :)

We drew names this year, as we do every year, and Spencer drew JJ.. He was SO excited to buy JJ a gift, and as you can see, JJ was So excited that Spencer drew his name.. he LOVES Spencer!


Here we are making our sugar cookie ornaments... you know none of them got to the tree.. wierd.


JJ creating his masterpiece..
You can see in this picture that JJ was eating the decorations as I was putting them on.. this child is not crafty.. AT ALL!
Here is our finished green... snowman.



Christmas morning was so nice because we slept in until 9 oclock! JJ's not to the age yet where he wakes us up at all hours of the morning.. thank goodness! We had a good time opening presents with our little guy, it was just us three this year and it was very chill..just the way I like it!
Can you see Jeff holding JJ's arms down... it's cause we couldn't keep him away from the presents, and I needed a Chrsitmas morning photo op before he was touchin those presents!


The first present was opened, and you can see that I have no others until he is playing with the toys.. There was no taking pictures during that time as I was containing JJ's excitement and catching the paper as he flung it in the air for 30 straight minutes.... Down below is the ultimate Tool Bench gift, that he is in love with! He wouldnt stop playing with it, it was so fun because 'Santa' and I put it together on Christmas Eve, and brought it out all put together, it was so fun to play the fun part of the parent! He got so many presents, I can't even start, besides the fact that his birthday was 6 days ago.. This kids got it knocked!

Do you like that in the background there are still presents to be opened? Once he saw this, it was over... Until the Nerf gun got opened, then EVERYTHING else was invisible!
I totally LOVE this picture because I love the swirlie in his hair from sleeping.. that is the classic Christmas morning hair do!


Here is mom ( looking gorgeous if I do say so myslef, in her makeup from the day before) holding her loot.. Santa brought me an Ipod touch! I LOVE IT!! It is so fun.. Jeff got me some pretty rocking presents this year, I hope my gifts to him compared...

Here he is, holding the big one.. I got him a Giants team jacket and a Giants sweatshirt with flannel jammie pants.. He loves them :)

All in all, we had an awesome day, and I was SO sad to see it leave...but there is always next year, right???!?!?!
HAPPY NEW YEAR TO EVERYONE!!!!

Dear Syd...

I tag you.
Are you happy?

BABY TAG....

1-Where were you when you first found out you were pregnant? In my bathroom at home.
2-Who was with you? Niesha and Jeff
3- How did you find out that you were pregnant? I took a test becausemy mom tols me that she knew I was pregnant after she went with me to a dr. appt. She said she listened to me explain to the dr how I felt and she said "girl, you just told that dr you were pregnant, now go home and take a test!"
4- What was your first reaction to finding out you were pregnant? Excitment
5- Who was the first person you told? I called my mom and sisters.. Of course Jeff already knew.. and Niesha!
6- Did you plan to get pregnant? Yes
7- Did you tell everyone else right away? Yes and No.. we told most of our inner circle, but I waited until after the first heartbeat and ultra sounds just to make sure everything was ok
8-Was everybody happy for you? Totally.
9- Did you go out and celebrate? No, we just talked about our plans non stop
10- Did you want to find out the sex? Yep. We found out as soon as we could
11- What was the sex? He's a boy!
12-Did anyone throw you a baby shower? Yep.. My mom and sisters and some of my friends.
13- If yes, who? I just told you!
14- Did you get any outfits at the baby shower that you just knew you weren't going to put on your baby?Bahaha! Doesnt EVERBODY!?!?
15- How much weight did you gain? Well I lost 18 lbs my first trimester, then in the next two, I added 23 pounds, so I guess technically I gained 5 lbs haha
16- Did you lose all of the weight that you gained? All but skin! Thank God for an awesome hubby who was so willing to purchase some nip and tuck! haha
17- Did you get a lot of stretch marks?Not a ton... just the typical ones around my belly and hips.. but they got cut off, my next ones when I have another will be there forever!
18- What did you crave the most?I didn't crave anything much.. I was so sickened by smells, everything stunk!
19- Did you crave anything crazy? Not at all.. boring tag eh?!
20- Who or what got on your nerves the most?Everything always gets on my nerves, pregnancy didn't change a thing!
21- Were you married at the time? YES
22- Did you have any complications during your pregnancy? Not one, I was VERY lucky!
23- Where were you when you went into labor? At home after the appt to get my membranes stripped for the UMPTEENTH time!
24- Did your water break? Nope the nurse had to break it
25- Who drove you to the hospital? Jeff
26- Did you go early or late? Early. my due date was the 30th or something, I had him on the 19th...
27- Who was in the room with you when you gave birth? Just me, Jeff and the nurses and Dr... that's kind of a private sacred moment to me, that I just wanted to share with my husband!
28- How long were you in labor for? Labor.. 19 Hrs... Delivery about 30 minutes
29- Did you have any drugs for the pain? An epidural.. hello I AINT superwoman haha... It was AWESOME!!
30-Did you go Natural or have a c-section? All Vag baby! haha and not ONE stitch if I do say so myself.. K that was a little TMI hahaha
31- What was your first reaction after giving birth? I asked if his huge bump on top of his head would go away.. then I kissed him and smiled for the camera :)
32- How big was the baby(s)?8 lbs 4 oz.. and 19 1/2 inches long
33- Did your Husband cry? Um. No.
34- What did you name the baby(s)? Jeffery James Johnson
35- Does his name have any significant meaning?Jeffery is daddys name.. James is granpas middle name.
36- Did you have any visitors? my mom and dad and sister
37- Did the baby(s) have any complications? Nope just a massive bump on his head from the doc pulling him out a little funny! It was gone by the next morning :)
38- How old is your baby today? He just turned 2 last Friday
39- When is the next one(s) coming? Hopefully sooner than later....
40-If you could, would you do it all over again?Hells yes! He is my MAN I love him more than the whole stinkin universe... and then some :)
NOW I TAG Andrea and Rickell ( Just pick a kid to talk about Rickell LOL)