Since my last post...3 years ago!

So much can change in just 3 years, and so much has! My plan is to write a few posts regarding the most significant changes we experienced or fun things we did in the last 3 years, but obviously there isn't time (or interest) for me to post about everything. Here is a running list of some of the things we did/changed/experienced over the past 3 years just to quickly catch us up. Included are links to photos, if interested in going down memory lane with me!

• June 2011, we took an amazing trip to Kauai with my immediate family. Kauai was breath-taking and action packed. That vacation was an incredible amount of fun & I still reminisce about how beautiful it is there.
• September 2011, we spent Labor Day weekend at the coast with Josh's family
• January 2012, I started selling Paparazzi Accessories, because I wasn't already busy enough???
• March 2012, we moved from our 3 bedroom apartment in Beaverton to a 500 sq ft apartment downtown, called the Celio. Do any of you realize how small 500 sq ft is...? I still have nightmares!
• Spring 2012, Josh & his brother Tyler opened a food cart called Dog-On-It near PSU campus. It was a fun and exhausting experiment. Originally intended to be a Japanese style crepe food-cart that turned into a hot-dog business, literally overnight just days before opening. The hot-dogs were deliciously fattening and I could write many, many posts about our dog-on adventures with the food cart. They closed the cart at the end of August, because lets face it, Josh was about done with his degree and it was time to get serious about a "real" job. Overall, it was a cool experience-lots of work, lots of secret sauce making at 2am, and LOTS of late nights+early mornings juggling a small business as well as full time school. We even catered an elementary school summer carnival with 2 days notice!
• September 2012, I attended a Paparazzi convention in Las Vegas, with my friend Diane. My mom met us there and it was giggle filled and fun. Just ask my mom about the "almost dead fish" dance move, and you'll get the idea.
• October 2012, we moved from the 5th floor 500 sq ft apartment to a two bedroom 1,100 sq ft apartment on the 11th floor because Aubrey moved in with us! What a roller-coaster that was thanks to job & car drama. I loved having my sister there with us, and under different circumstances I think it would have been a lot less stressful for all of us. 
• October 2012, my older brother Seth tied the knot to his gorgeous wife Sonomi in the Bountiful Temple. She is such a great sister-in-law and addition to our family. I feel like we are more complete with her as part of the family. They are living in Seattle, WA where Seth works for Boeing. 
• November 2012, we found out we were pregnant with our first baby! Yay!
• December 2012, Josh graduated with his BS in marketing and HR management from PSU. Way to go Josh!!!
• January 2013, Josh started working full time as a product manager at  Dunder Mifflin Graphic Products. We were incredibly blessed that he had more than one job offer & was able to be hired right out of school.
• January 2013, I took a trip to Cancun, Mexico with my Dad...thanks to Paparazzi! What a blast that trip was. I was lucky to have an awesome travel buddy and someone who loves tropical vacays as much as I do. I have lots of stories about morning sickness while on that trip!
• January 2013, I was hit by a car while crossing the street near my school campus. Obviously, I'm ok as was my 11 week old baby in my belly. But uh, yeah. ouch! I'm still dealing with this one.
• February 2013, Aubrey moved back to UT and we found out we were having a BOY!
• March 2013, we bought  OUR FIRST HOUSE! 
• April 2013, I quit working at my beloved WPPTC to focus on completing my Interior Design Degree, recovering from above stated pedestrian vs vehicle incident, and to continue growing our little bean. What a huge relief it was to no longer juggle full time work & school + pregnancy!!! First time in nearly 10 years that I didn't have to work. Thank you Josh!!!
• June 2013, was my last quarter of school! My last day of school was also on our 5 year wedding anniversary (June 14th).
• June 19th 2013, my brother Daniel left for his LDS mission to Phoenix AZ. I miss him every day.
• July/August 2013, I covered vacations at WPPTC and loved being back at work for a few weeks.
• August 23rd 2013, little Griffin was born & our life really began.
• October 20th 2013, Josh blessed Griffin at our church & my family (minus Seth, Sonomi, and Daniel) were able to attend. 
• November 2013, we enjoyed Thanksgiving in Maui with Josh's family and our adorable 3 month old. Twelve of us were able to enjoy ten sunny days in Hawaii, and we really enjoyed the whole island. I must say, if I had my way (and lots of money), we would do this every year!
• Christmas 2013, was spent in Oregon. My Dad, Aubrey, Seth, and Sonomi came to stay with us over New Year's and we had a blast together. I've really missed my family and we ate great food and spent late nights playing dominos and watching movies. There is a certain level of silliness that can only be reached when my siblings get together, and I sincerely hope spending New Year's together becomes a tradition. 

I think that is a fair amount of updates, and gives you a good idea of what our life has been like the past few years. I'll do my best to keep things updated without overloading the blog with pictures of Griffin. No promises though ;)

Long Time No See

Well, its safe to say it has been a LONG TIME!!! I'm excited to get the blog up and running again.

I'll work on getting back up to date soon. But something I am excited about is getting my Mary Kay VoxBox soon!!! WooHOO!!!

Had to share...

Happy Birthday Amy!

(any excuse lately to make a few more yummy cake pops, I'll take!)

Confetti cake with vanilla frosting-my favorite!

Happy Easter!

This Easter was made even more fun with my recent cake pop hobby. Shanti and I got together the week of Easter and made some cute Easter cake pops to share with the office & we got together with the Horton's to dye Easter eggs!

Of course these are the cuter version of what we made from the book Cake Pops!

I wish we had been able to find the sprinkles & edible pens used in the book, but we made do! Although, they would have been much cuter with eye lashes!!!

Same technique as before. bake a cake, crumble, mash with frosting, roll, chill, dip in chocolate, decorate & enjoy!

Our Easter night was complete with cake pops, chips and cheese dip, and Code Red Mountain dew! Thanks Horton's for supplying the Easter Egg kits!

I promise our eggs were more vibrant in person...and not this boring!!! =)

Cute and hard at work!

Courtney & Jared's beautifully dyed eggs!

MORE Cake Pops for my Sunday School kids

I forgot to take pics of our Easter Baskets this year...so just trust me, they were cute and yummy! Easter dinner was spent at Gary & Diane's and it was a great day!

Ok, so I'm obsessed

April was a month filled with my new favorite treat. CAKE POPS! It all began with Shanti's birthday (a coworker of mine) and quickly became a new favorite treat. I originally saw the idea on Bakerella.com, which is a cute blog of the author of the book Cake Pops. Thank goodness for Powel's book store, because all other book stores in the area were sold out and I couldn't wait to buy this book!

I had to try out these cute little babies first...after all, anyone who knows me KNOWS how much I love Ice Cream-so these had my name written all over them! I was so excited to try them our for Shanti's birthday. A labor of love like this was only worth making them for someone that I adore! (ha I was up till 2am on a work night making these, so I hope she liked them as much as I did!)

The process of making cake pops is pretty simple actually!

First, make a sheet cake following the normal instructions & let it cool. I used a Betty Crocker cake mix because it is simple and I heard they crumble better than homemade cakes.

Once completely cooled, grab chunks of the cooked cake in each hand, and crumble into a large mixing bowl by rubbing the two pieces of cake together. I was surprised by how easily the cake crumbled. Make sure to break apart any larger pieces.

Next, scoop 1/2 can of frosting (I used chocolate) into your bowl with the crumbled cake and mix with your hands!

The frosting acts like a glue for the cake pops-I didn't expect them to be so moist once mixed together, but if your mixture is too dry the cake balls wont hold together. It you add too much frosting then they wont hold there shape.

Roll them into ping pong sized balls and place on wax paper.

Depending on the amount of time you have, place the cake balls in the fridge for 2 hours or freezer for about 10-15 minutes. Then need to be chilled before dipping, but if they are too cold your candy melts coating will crack. I was short on time, so I placed them in the freezer till they were chilled but not frozen.

Using a serrated knife, cut about 3/4 inch off the top of your ice cream cones-this will make them the right size to hold your cake pops. Place the cones in a styrofoam sheet, making sure they are securely pressed in so they can hold the dipped cake pops.

Melt about 1/2 lb of white chocolate melts in a double boiler or fondue pot. Mix in some food coloring of your choice (pink was a no brainer!) You could melt the chocolate in the microwave, but using my fondue pot was so much easier for temperature control.

Once the candy melts were completely melted, I dropped one cake ball in at a time and completely covered it in chocolate (mixing it around with a spoon) I then placed the coated cake pop on top of the cone allowing the excess chocolate to ooze down the side of the cone making it look like melting ice cream.

I then covered with rainbow sprinkles...

Then melted dark chocolate....(I used a spoon to scoop a little melted dark chocolate from my fondue pot and drizzle it on top of the cake pop to look like melted fudge)

Then topped it off with a jaw breaker for the "cherry on top". Red chocolate covered peanut M&M's would have worked really well too, but I didn't want to purchase a whole large bag of peanut M&M's just to use the red ones. I do NOT need more chocolate around! =)

I also dusted them with a little edible glitter, just for some sparkle.

I think they turned out pretty perfect! and I was blown away by how TASTY they were!

My Redeemer Lives!

My first PMCO concert was an amazing experience. There is nothing like a really successful concert to help you realize that the time commitment and rehearsals are all worth it. It was such a jam packed week filled with extra rehearsals/dress rehearsals, and 3 nights of performances. Each night was better than the last and I'm thankful for the opportunity to sing with a choir and orchestra of such caliber.

It was also so great to have Courtney along with me for the ride! I love having a choir buddy. Is it weird that this choir experience feels so much like my high school one? I know its dorky to be so excited about choir, but I LOVE IT! Here are some photos from each night.

Courtney and me cheesing it up on night one of our performances!

Rather than investing in a choir dress just for this first performance (I just paid for a new uniform but it wont be ready until our summer concert) I borrowed a dress from a coworker. Josh's first thing he said to me as I was walking out the door was "Hey Hermione, Where's your broom?" Jerk!

I was even too cheap to buy a pair on black nylons...Josh's church socks worked just fine for me!

I probably could have taken the time to at least find matching socks...

Look at those vowels! These pictures are so funny to me..

Dallyn Vale Bayles was such a great performer and I loved hearing him live

Night 3

Glaring at the brunette bobble head directly in front of me. She swayed, bounced, & bobbled all week. I was lucky if I could see the director!

Our Director David Thomas

I LOVE this picture of the lady on my left (PAM) She is so intense and what a perfect depiction

Ahh...another great pic =) You go Dallyn

This old guy was the highlight of my Easter concert experience. Before an a'capella piece he played the chimes 3 times before a young fellow orchestra member took them away from him. Our director was about to lose his mind. Needless to say, I felt bad for the old confused man. He just wanted to start our piece off with a little pizazz!!!

Short little clip of our choir, sorry about all the background noise!

Mr. & Mrs. Stayner 03/11/11

Jessica & Eric were married in the Salt Lake Temple last weekend-March 11th. I felt so lucky to have been even a tiny bit involved in their wedding & we had a great weekend getaway. I loved spending a few days with my family and I tried to soak up as much sunshine as possible while escaping from the Oregon rain for a short time.

Jess had asked me to be her escort at the Temple, and it was such a privilege to join her on her special day. Every moment brought me back to almost 3 years ago when Josh and I were married in the same temple. It was an amazing experience. Both remembering my own day when I married my best friend-and participating in Jessica & Eric's wedding. Thanks Jess for being such a good friend and for sharing your day with us!

Me Cassandra & Jordan

Josh was convinced that it was a bonnet that I was going to wear to her reception...



The Candy Bar



Off to Fiji