Early Christmas

Christmas came early because the whole family came to Utah to celebrate Bryant getting married. We met on Monday at Thanksgiving point for some more photos with Santa! We were sad that Will couldn't be with us. We are trying to figure out how to photoshop him into the pictures! 

Tues I got half a day and got to shop with mom, jess and jenn at City Creek. In the evening Jess and Charly came with us to  wedding reception for Boomer Hawks where we got to catch up with Winters, DeMouras, Fitzgaralds and Ketcheson's. It was fun to see everyone again! Then Jess of the pleasure of coming to Zumba with me!! She loved the class as much as me (well  that might not be possible) but it was fun dancing side by side again!

Wed was Bry's wedding. We worked half days and then rushed to the kitchen to finish the cupcakes for the wedding.  The wedding was simple and sweet. We are so happy for Bry and Jen!  We were glad we go to be there and glad I got to have my whole family there.

Wed night was a cake pop marathon except for the fact that I got really sick and Jake and Linda and Jess had to step in and save the day! They were up really late finishing cake pops for me! Then they both were throwing up themselves. 

I took off Thurs and was feeling so much better but with Linda sick I was glad I could step in. Thankfully KAren said the kids could come and play. I had so much madness going on with groupon orders and was up with Jake until 2am Thurs night and 3:30am fri night trying to get our orders done! 

I finally got to spend some real time with my family Sat night. We all went out to Outback and then hung out at the condo my parents rented. Overall I was pretty exhausted from the week and wish I had a few more days. My mom said she cried on the plane because she missed us already. Glad to have parents that love me so much! 

Can't wait for them to come back!

Foto Fly Santa

Fotofly is smart! They don't have lame santa pictures. They have these GREAT santa pictures where you can use a real santa in your pictures or have one of the parents dress us as santa so the kids aren't freaking out! We weren't smart about this. We decided our kids would have to love the real santa. It lasted about a min....enough to get these great shots, but Logan was not happy with the real santa and cried most of the time. Zoey was mesmerized with Santa as you can see. Another photo experience for the books! The staff was great and the price was AMAZING! $25 for a flash drive of all these shots. Can't wait for next year! 

Cake Pop Craziness

Jake and I just completed the two craziest weeks of our lives. We decided to go ahead and feature a groupon for our cupcake business not expecting it would be get out of hand. With Jake and I working and not really having any other help with the business, we had such a hard time keeping up with phone calls, and emails and text messages and an even harder time making all the orders.

Our typical day has been waking up at 6am, sometimes earlier, going to work (where I run around for 8 hours) and then baking until 1-2am. Last friday and this past Fri we were up to almost 4am trying to get orders completed. I honestly didn't sit or sleep for two weeks. But.....we made it through the worst of it....we think.

We also went ahead and hired a few people included 1 full time employee that start the beginning of Jan. He is young and excited and eager to help us get this business of the ground. We are eager for help!! We really hope he can help this business reach it's potential. It's bee so hard to do ourselves. Owning a business has been so much work. Hard, hard work. Most days last week I had a break down. I am hoping good things are to come and that I can look back on those past two weeks and smile about the lessons I was learning.

What I am learning about myself is.....

I CAN'T do everything!
I just want to be with my kids after work and enjoy the evening with my family
I LOVE zumba. (these past few weeks, Zumba has been a life line for me. I feel truly happy dancing!)
I don't need my own business to be happy
I really like my teaching job and find myself wishing I could focus on it more, other than wishing I could focus on the cupcakes more
I really love my husband and we are perfect for each other

I hope in a month or two I am less stressed and frazzled about the monster I created here. I don't want to hate this business. I still love the concept and feel we really grow this business and have it really take off.

We will see what is in store for us!

The Baby Situation

I teach Teen Living to 9th graders and part of the curriculum includes them taking home mechanical babies. These aren't just any mechanical babies, but super advanced, if their heads tilt back too far it registers as abuse, babies. Each baby is about $700.
With it being my first time learning how to distribute the babies I made sure they had my cell phone number to call me for emergencies. Melissa was visiting for the week and we decided to go out for dinner with me, her, Jake and Tyler Fraizer.
In the middle of dinner at Chilli's I get a call from one of my students. I hear the baby screaming in the background and in a really calm voice he tells me that his key for his baby hasn't worked at all and the baby had been crying for 4 hours.
Poor guy.  So, I try to get him to try a few things and have him call me back in 5 min. I fill in the table with the story so they are fully prepped when I get the second phone call.

He calls back and baby is still cry.... make that screaming in the back. He still remains so calm. Maybe the kid is about to cry at this point, so I teach him how to do the emergency shut down. I hear the 3 times and does the baby shut off.... nope.  Keeps right on screaming. I am dumbfounded at this point. Meliss and Tyler are dying laughing as I am trying to save this kid from this baby that clearly isn't shutting off! Then I go into panic mode and start brainstorming on how I can get this baby to crying. I start saying things like...

" Is there a trunk of someone's car that you can the baby in?" and "do you have a lot of blankets you can put on top of the baby?"

I am sure people in the restaurant would have called the cops if they overheard.
I get off the phone and tell him to call me back in 5 min if the baby is still crying.
Thank goodness he didn't call back because I was trying to figure out how to tell him how to kill the baby so it stopped crying! lol.
The four of us just laughed the entire night about the whole thing!

 Monday the report came back that the poor baby had died of neglect since the key wouldn't work.

Oh... the job of a teacher.

Rainbow

How can you not feel God's love when he sends you a rainbow like this?

Happy 29th Birthday Jake

5th Anniversary - Another Trip to USU

 Jake and I had such an awesome weekend in Logan last year that we thought we would do it again!

We both took 1/2 day at work on Friday, got some lunch at Macaroni Grill (where we had our first date) and then decided to go and see if we cold trade in our car for something with better gas mileage.

We ended up getting a2007  toyota yaris. We are happy with it. It's simple and takes reg gas and gets better gas mileage! We have been driving so much with work and the cupcake truck that the mazda was just sooo expensive!

So, we headed up to Logan after that and checked in to our favorite room..... Rich's Drive In! We headed out to dinner at Cafe Sabor and then vegged out in our room the rest of the night watching movies and eating popcorn and cupcakes (that were not very good).

Saturday we hit up a bunch of spots around town and got some USU shirts. We had to go to Firehouse Pizza where they actually still remembered me. Everything was so yummy! We both gained like 20 lbs in one weekend.

We went to Wal-mart to buy Zoey a "scary present" which is what she requested and then we headed to the game. It was so amazing to see all the Aggie love. Everyone was in their White homecoming shirts all day and the stadium was PACKED! I love that about Logan! Everyone loves their aggies!!

We ended up leaving the game early. It was kind of boring actually so we headed out and got a strawberry avacado shake that was actually really good. Good for jake for trying things I never would be brave enough too!

It was a great weekend with my favorite person ever.

Happy 5 years to us!

Dora Fiesta & Fun! Zoey is 3!

Zoey is three!! Not a toddler anymore! (still throws the best toddler tantrums sometimes!)

Jake and I have been so crazy busy starting our Cupcake Truck, (our what?! more to come on that soon), we felt like Zoey needed a fun little birthday party and a day focused on her and how awesome she is!

The girl loves Dora, so fiesta it was! My mom was in town from NY and Linda helped make some great fiesta friendly food and we threw quite the big "little" party. Just having JAke's family alone can fill the entire house, plus my brother and his fiance and Will and his fiance's daughter came. Also our favs Heather came with Calvin and Shea.

We started off with the pinata since it was getting dark. My mom found these awesome fake moustaches and sombraros and we decorated the kids up with them. They looked hilarious as you can see in the pictures. They all took turns hitting the pinata. It was one tough pinata. Jake and I ended up smashing it ourselves so we could release the candy. It was cute seeing everyone hit the ground the fill their bags with candy!

We had a big nacho bar and Linda made a cute little Dora cake. She was so happy to have everyone sing and loved blowing out her candles. She was even more excited to open her presents. I was overwhelmed with happiness at the amount of love this little girl of mine has in her life. Everyone brought a gift and I didn't expect anyone too. She was so thrilled with every single little thing about the night!

Zoey is just amazing. Smart and funny and happy and so fun to just be around! I can't wait till she is older and we can go shopping and out to lunch. Heck. I could do that with her now and she would love it.

Happy Birthday Zoey!! We love you!

Street Sweets & Eats - The New Baby

One day Jake and I just got sick of lame people making it impossible for us to accomplish what we want to accomplish in our lives. So many shady people seemed to have entered our lives, and we gave and gave and gave to them never thinking they would just take complete advantage of us. But...they did.

We have always wanted our own business and cupcakes have always been a part of me and a part of me and Jake's marriage and with the food truck revolution going on one day we just said "Let's do this". And so....we are. We started a little food truck business called Street Sweet & Eats. We do cupcakes, cake pops, hot paninis, weddings, catering, lunch boxes. We had a blast putting together the logo and the concept. We are really proud of our truck and it truly is our little newborn!

Wow! We have been working so hard. Never in my life have I worked so hard, and I've never been one to laze around on the couch either. (oh to laze around on the couch!!!) We both knew it would be a lot of work, don't get me wrong, but it has been WAY more than both of us ever anticipated. With our full time jobs and our little family, we just struggle to give the business the attention it needs right now. It's been like, well here is this awesome truck.....now how do we get it places?! ha.

We need 1 really awesome employee. We think we might have found one, and are crossing our fingers that it works out! At the time being we have no one to run the truck in the day (which is when we have been making all our sales). My bro drove the truck for us the past few weeks and now we are going to have Jake's dad help us a few days. Hopefully we will have an employee by the end of the week!!

Our investor sees a REALLY big picture for the future. If I could just see $1000 in profit a month I would be estatic! He sees selling it for a 7 digit number in 5 years if we do it right. Well, whatever happens, I am proud of me and Jake. We have managed to still be on each other's side and not at each other's throats. We like working on the truck together. Wish we could just wake up every morning and say "hey! Where should we park the truck today?", but keeping our full time jobs is the smartest thing we can do right now. We want to build a house so badly, and dumb face is still renting our baltimore house (and not paying) and we are currently waiting to hear what happens in eviction court in a week.

I know with winter coming it won't be a crazy busy season, but we are hoping to have some steady growth and really kill it in the spring and summer. I think we will use the time to build on catering for businesses and weddings and other events.

I am not sure I love the stress of a business owner. I have always felt really safe and confidant in teaching. It's a weird feeling.....worrying about all these little things. Every time I put a sticker on our packaging I just hear.... "10 cents, another 10 cents...." I know so many can relate to me right now. I am not complaining, just saying.... I totally get it now.

The baking hasn't done wonders for my diet either. I am almost done training my part time baker. She is awesome and will keep me from blowing all my hard work I put in to loose all this weight. I have gained back like 7-8 pounds. It's depressing. I was supposed to start my diet again today. I just ran around all day and whatever made it into my mouth was not even close to dieting.

All in all, Jake and I are excited about what we created with the business... but also to be honest, we are nervous, and tired and some days just really hate how busy we are. Utah def doesn't understand the food truck industry like Baltimore does. Cupcake trucks don't really exist out here. We are going to MAKE people catch on with the rest of the country!

We have been so so so lucky to have so much help from Jake's parents. We owe them majorly!!

Well....here's to cupcakes and lots of successful stories to come!!

Conference Weekend

It's been a great conference weekend! Jess came back from school for the weekend cause she couldn't miss out on the cinnamon rolls they make every conference weekend! We all just laid low the whole weekend. I am still in the same pair of leggings that I put on Friday. I haven't attempted any make up either. That is my kind of weekend!

Saturday we made cinnamon rolls and ate till we basically threw up! They announced almost right off the bat that they are changing the age of missionaries to 18 for guys and 19 for girls. Jess really felt like it was answer to prayers and already set up her 1st appt for tues! Wow! We are all excited for her!!

 After 1st session Jake and I had our first appointment at the design center to build our house. Very overwhelming and excited. We keep going back between a few places where we want to live. Lehi is where our current plans are to build, but we keep considering South Jordan, where Karen and Brad live. A lot of consider and think about.

After 2nd session the boys left for Preisthood session and Tammi and MAdi and Logan came over and we all went to Zupas. It was so busy, but I was craving something healthy. The pina colada salad and cauliflower soup were so so good!!

After the guys got back, Jake went to get the Halloween decorations. We opened them in the front room and eVERYONE got so excited about decorating! We we all outside hanging lights and putting decorations on the lawn and windows. Zoey was saying "I am so excited!" She loves Halloween! She can't wait to be a bat! :o)

Today we all had a nice big breakfast and are just lounging around listening to conference. It is really nice to be here with Jake's family. They love our kids and us and we are lucky they are in our lives!

New School Year & New Beginnings

I always dread a new school year. And can you blame me..... teacher's get all summer off. It was quite the extended summer for me with leaving Baltimore in Feb and doing some subbing here and there. Mostly, I just got to enjoy my kids and being with them and having a wide open week was pretty amazing. 

Jake and I have a tenant in Maryland who doesn't really pay her rent and the eviction process seems like a nightmare, so we have been putting it off every time she gives us a little bit of money and because we are afraid she will destroy our lives through the eviction process. We will see what October brings. 

Anyway, with that said, I decided to get a job so Jake and I could try to get out of some of the debt that has been drowning us. I think I get my first pay check tomorrow or Tues and that will be a huge relief. 

I am teaching middle school now in an area of Utah that is a bit rough. The school has a bad reputation, and I have witnessed it myself after 1 sub job that basically was the worst day teaching in my life. Yet, somehow here I am, full time at the same school.

The first week was rough. I hated it. But after 5 weeks, I actually am enjoying it. The students are not bad at all. The new administration is really kicking things into high gear and I certainly am not letting anyone get away with anything. Overall, they are really good kids. I feel more connected with them then I ever did with my high school students. Strange.

I do not like the middle school schedule though. I can't keep up and before I know it the bell is ringing and I have to get going on my next lesson. I think it will take some good time to get my brain functioning at the right rate. 

Ok. Well, I must run and get Zoey settled for bed. Logan is teething and grumpy and I put him down early tonight. Zoey is currently in the "why?" stage. It's not cool having to explain EVERYTHING you are doing. lol. She sure is cute though, Gigi too!

The Bachelorette Party

We had quite the crazy weekend in July for Sarah's Bachelorette PArty! We all met in Vegas and got a big suite in Planet Hollywood and just danced the weekend away!

Sarah's Wedding

I didn't get to post any pics of Sarah's wedding yet, so here are some great ones! The colors turned out awesome and fun and perfect to reflect Sarah and her fun loving personality!

The wedding went great! It was a little crazy getting the flowers and Jake to the wedding. Jake's flight was canceled so I ended up carpooling with Meliss and Enoch. Jake got into NYC a little later, and came up in my dad's truck later in the evening. Poor guy had his flight canceled while he was in Denver. He had Logan too and it was a nightmare trying to get him on a different flight. Thankfully Laura was in Colorado and came to the rescue and let them crash there over night.

The first thing we did at the wedding was learn a choreographed dance Sarah wanted the bridal party to perform at the reception! lol. The dance was to Love Shack. It def got the bridal party friendly quickly. 

We headed to a rehearsal dinner where Jake finally met us near the end. 

The spent the evening and pretty much all night making all the bouquets and boutineers for the bridal party. It was funny to be doing it in a hotel room in a little part of the room, trying hard not to wake up Liss, Enoch and Jake. The flowers came out nice and thankfully didn't die!

In the morning, the girls headed to get hair done, but I took Melissa with me to help set up some flowers at the lake club where the wedding would be held. The area was so pretty and rural, and the lake house and golf course looked awesome. 

Sarah had so many people helping out with getting the wedding set up. She is lucky to have so many people who love her so much. It was really special seeing all these people come together to create the perfect wedding for her and Nick.

The wedding was perfect. Everyone looked great in their yellow dresses and Sarah was a perfect gorgeous bride!! It was perfect weather and everything went so smoothly! Now... on to KAri's wedding in June 2013!!