Matt & Lindsay Wedding Cake

(The pics look like I made the sugar flowers blue instead of purple but you get the idea :))

Hello Y'all. Yes, I'm still alive. :)

My fave brother-in-law Matt got married July 2nd in the Boise Temple. My sweet new sister-in-law Lindsay asked if I would make the wedding cake. After some anxious hesitation, (this was after all my first wedding cake and I've only taken two decorating classes) I agreed.

It turned out to be an awesome experience. I learned a TON on this maiden voyage and realized that, thankfully, my severe lack of artistic talent isn't so much a necessity in this hobby as is the knowledge of the science behind it. (And boy did I have to do my research as I needed to transport the cake from Kaysville to Boise w/out room/time for error )

My sweet hubby put up with a lot of anxiety and tears from his perfectionist wife during this process and I'm so grateful that he still wanted to claim me after all was said and done. He even gave me a hug and kiss after the reception and told me how proud he was. He also said I'd better start a portfolio because it looks like I need to start a business. Hehe, we'll see (I've got to focus on my seemingly always pregnant tummy and the little blessings therein and then we can think of selfish ventures :) )

Happy Eternity Matt and Lindsay! Thanks for letting me be a small part of such a special day! :)

Halloween Baby!!! :)

Those who know me well are aware of my obsession with Halloween. Seems weird, I know; especially since my personality is anything but goth-ish :) I just love the crafts, decor, colors, and of course pumpkins! Weeeelllll, I had my first ultrasound and Dr. Meek told me my due date is on October 31st...yeeeaaaahooo! Most likely it will be before Halloween, which is good because I'd hate to have him/her's big day not be all his/her own. But it does mean that mom will go ALL-OUT come party time. I already can hear the other kids..."mom, how come so and so's party was cooler than mine?" Hehe, I've already started brainstorming ideas. :)

And We're Back!

So ya know when you put off something for a while, thinking that you'll get to it; and that "a while" becomes so long that every time you think about it, you simply close your eyes and plug your ears, just hoping it will go away? That's been the blog lately ladies and gentlemen. You get to a point where there's so much to post that it's almost not worth trying to catch up. Sooo, Here are a FEW highlights from the past 7 months and we'll just continue on from here. And people wonder why I don't have a facebook/myspace/twitter account...I barely take time to answer emails let alone keep everyone updated on what muffin flavor I had for breakfast! :) Kudos to everyone who's lives are much more organized than mine.

GTU- I've become a non-regular regular on Good Things Utah. Every 6 six weeks or so I do their cooking segment and have a blast every time. This last segment my best friend/couz (the one on the far right) came to the show to watch. It was so fun to have her there. It's always more fun when I get to show off my fam to the girls. Thanks Lex! :)

If you want to see the videos, you can log onto abc4.com and click on good things utah. From there, the best way I know is to put the recipe name in their search engine. Here's the recipe's I've done thus far from oldest to most recent: Cilantro Lime Chicken Rice Bowl, Mint Chocolate Chunk Ice Cream, Halloween Night Bites, Cheap Choice turned Gucci Prime Beef Roast, & Not your Mama's Lasagna Rolls.

My next scheduled time on the show is April 28th @ 10am... stay tuned! :)

This picture of cabinet handles may be confusing but it's the closest pic I've got that describes our next update. We've bought our first home! I guess I should say we're in the process. We've gotten approval letters, now we're just waiting for the papers. Which, because the home was a short sale, has been a 3 1/2 month process!! We feel really blessed nonetheless. It's in Kaysville, which is a city we both feel is perfect for raising a family, and we got an amazing deal on it. Because we got the home for so much less than we were expecting, and because we saved our pennies, we've decided to make the house our own by doing some SERIOUS remodeling. I'm sure much of the updates in the weeks and months to follow will be of our little construction project: since it will undoubtedly consume our lives until we intend to move in this summer!

I've jumped on the cake decorating bandwagon (too many Cake Boss and Ace of Cakes episodes :)). Here are my maiden voyage cakes. Hopefully one day I can get good enough to do cakes for friends and family as a little home business on the side. That's the plan anyway...we'll see how that one goes! The Hawaiian themed cake was for my sister-in-laws' sweet sixteen party. The Loui Voitton purse cake (yes I know it looked more like a brown paper bag) was for my fashion diva sister-in-laws 20th b-day.

Ty's one stinkin years' old! I can't believe it. We had a fun little party for him a couple of weeks ago. As soon as I get some photos scanned I'll get them posted. It's been so fun to watch him grow. I've never fully understood what people meant when they describe something as the most rewarding/difficult thing/time they've ever experienced...until now. I love you son! You make me smile every single day. :)

For my Christmas present, Ryan surprised me with a weekend getaway in Midway. You know that Swiss themed town 20 minutes north of Park City? Oh my goodness it was beautiful! We stayed in this full on house that we had all to ourselves and it couldn't have been more perfect. The ice castle in the pic was at the Zermatt Resort we went and toured (which is just like walking down a little Swiss village). The pizza pic is my re-creation of what we had at Maxwell's New York style pizzeria in Park City. It was AMAZING! Paper thin crust, Alfredo sauce base, 5 Italian cheeses, sun-dried tomatoes and a balsamic reduction sauce drizzled on top....mmmmm getting hungry. We, no joke, ate the entire thing in one sitting. (And then went for gelato afterwards! :) )

So remember the first time I went on GTU, I made version of a recipe I submitted to the Cache Valley Cheese Signature Recipe contest? Remember how I had made it to the finals and was invited to a cook-off against the four other finalists with judges and everything? Here's the update: The cook-off was at the Utah State fair park and we had to make our dish and present it to 5 guest celebrity judges. The pic is of me giving my little speech to the judges as they tried my dish. Afterwards, the winner along with the $5000 grand prize was announced at the Salt Lake Bees baseball game that night. Let me just say, that check behind me in the pic is now in our home waiting to be hung in our future garage. :)

Here's probably our biggest update thus far. Ty's so excited in the picture because.......HE'S GOING TO BE A BIG BROTHER!!! Yeeeeuuupp. We're prego again. I'm not sure on the due date (long story :)) but my guess is the end of October. I'll let ya know as soon as Dr. Meek does an ultrasound at the end of this month. Ry has been sooo cute. As soon as I gave him the OK to let the cat out of the bag, he's been like a puppy out of a box. We're also happy that Ty will have a buddy so close that he can be friends with.

Yeeeaayy for family! :)

Ty Time

I haven't posted pics of Ty in quite a while, so I thought I'd repent. This post has made me realize how much I'm failing to capture this whirlwind summer. I don't have tons, just enough to see how much our little guy's growing...and he is!

I found this and just had to get it...we can't wait to get Ty his first tool belt! :)

We've found lately, especially since he's started to giggle, that our little frankfurter is ticklish! Grandma Julie is the best at finding his funny spots.
"Whoa, dude, are you seriously interrupting me during play time? Come on."

"No, seriously. Can't you see I'm a little busy?"

"That's just not cool, man. Let's just talk about this for a sec."

WARNING: THE FOLLOWING IS A DIZZYINGLY LONG POST BUT WITH SEVERAL EXCITING TWISTS AND TURNS. KEEP YOUR HANDS AND ARMS INSIDE THE RIDE AT ALL TIMES...HERE WE GO!!



The last few weeks have really been appeasing to my OCD...Obsessive Culinary Disorder. :)
Prior to having Ty, I never really just sat down to watch TV. Nursing however has given me several 30 minute bouts throughout the day to do so. During the morning I started watching Good Things Utah, the local television program produced by ABC 4. Every day on the show they have a cooking segment featuring restaurant or other business chefs. During a particular time of wanting to get out do something out of the sometimes mundane norm, I thought to myself, " I wonder if they ever have joe-shmoe average viewers come on and do the cooking segment?" After a little thought I decided, what the hey, and emailed the executive producer and asked that very question. I quickly received a response saying that it was kind of rare but once and a while they did have viewers on the show. They also suggested I send them a recipe if I wished. I responded with one of my little family's staple dinner recipes, a cilantro lime chicken recipe I created after craving Cafe Rio flavors one day. Three weeks went by and after figuring that it wasn't a recipe or person they were interested in featuring, I forgot about it... that was until I got an email from Reagan, one of the hosts on the show, inviting me to come in two weeks and do the cooking segment. :)
I had a blast preparing for the show (I think Ryan may have gotten sick of the same dinner about 4 times in two weeks, however :) ) I was all ready to go when, the day before, I received a letter in the mail. At the same time I sent Good Things Utah my recipe for their consideration, my brother-in-law Matt suggested I send it to the Signature Cache Valley Cheese contest. While I thought I would be out to lunch at the thought of anything coming of that one, I decided to go ahead and enter.
The letter I received in the mail was a notification that I had won the first prize, along with four other people, in the contest and was now invited to a cook-off on August 21st against the others to compete for the grand prize! I couldn't believe it. I started reading the fine print just knowing that there was something I misunderstood. While I came to realize that I had indeed won, I also read something that made my stomach drop. Come to find out, should I accept the cash prize and the cook-off invitation, Cache Valley Cheese would now own all of the rights/privileges to my recipe with one of the stipulations being that it could not be published anywhere else.
What was I going to do?! I couldn't very well cancel a live TV show 24 hrs before but at the same time, being a young married couple with a child, $1000 cash prize with the chance of winning $5000 would certainly be more than helpful. I thought to myself, "oh, what are the chances that the judges of the contest would watch the show...I'm sure I'd be fine." While that's probably true, I could answer truthfully the temple question that asks if we are honest in all of our dealings with our fellow man. Soooooo, I put my thinking cap on and ultimately decided to do the show but alter it enough so that it could be deemed a different recipe and still be called cilantro lime chicken (the show had been advertising it as such for a few days so that was pretty critical.) Since I had to give the computer gurus time to post the altered recipe on ABC's website, I had all of 30 minutes to completely change things up and give them exact ingredient amounts/methods. So with a big prayer in my heart and a leap of faith, I gave em the recipe and spent the rest of the day trying to prepare to show thousands of TV viewers how to cook a meal I had only prepared in my head. :) Thankfully, my prayers were most certainly answered and everything turned out great. I truly had a blast and have been invited to come back again for a round two.

Here's the link to the video if ya have a hankering to watch the segment. Just click on the picture.


http://www.abc4.com/content/about_4/gtu/recipes/story/Cilantro-Lime-Chicken-Rice-Bowl/MqST_5xF9kGGuRSRdfqQag.cspx

San Francisco

As part of a yearly time-share thinga-mabob, Ryan's family invited us on a vacation to San Francisco. I'd never been outside that airport and since it would be over our 2nd anniversary, we thought it'd be a great excuse to get away for a week. To be honest, with the thought of leaving our 3-month-old, as well as subsequent days of crying spouts and thoughts of the most assured psychological harm I would be causing my son, (Obsessive worrying comes with the mantel of motherhood, right? :) ) I almost didn't go and even looked at plane tickets half way through the trip. But with enough reassurance from my loving husband and Grandma and Grandpa Herd who would tend our little son, I decided to go (stay :)) and try and have some fun...and we did!

I really do love Ryan...it was just really cold on the bay at night! :)

Ryan at UC Berkley. When I flew in later that day, I told him ironically what happened on the plane. The girl sitting next to me said I looked like I went to Berkley. Hmm, little did she know that I'm a regular listener of Rush Limba!

Six Flags: Even though the wait was an hour long, this ride was worth it!

Chinatown! This place is huge; we didn't even see half of it. But I did walk out with a sweet pot sticker press that my sweety bought me. :)

"Can I take your picha?"

Sea Lions at Pier 39. These guys' whole day consists of sleeping on the pier and literally fighting for the best spots. It was comical to watch these 800 lb blubbers push each other around and off into the water.

The famous Boudin Sourdough Bakery. They had this big window where you could watch the masters at work...I was in heaven!

Ghirardelli Square...Oh my goodness is all I can say. :)

Ry luvs long walks on the beach :)

One of the funnest things we did on our trip was to rent a tandem bike and peddle the Golden Gate Bridge and it's surrounding areas. Here we are with Alcatraz in the background.

ALCATRAZ! This was definitely a highlight of the trip. The tour was given by actual wardens and inmates of this once maximum-security prison.

JELLY BELLY FACTORY! I was seriously like a kid in a candy store. (I kinda was in a candy store now that I think about it :)) And for all of you kids, young and old who are fans of Harry Potter's Berty Botts every flavor beans: they've expanded their repertoire of vomit, grass, and dirt to flavors like rotten egg & skunk spray (and yes, I tried them both! blaaah!)


This artistic piece of "Aaaanold" (sorry about the glare) is made with 100% Jelly Belly's...crazy the time people have on their hands.

We took a day trip to the redwoods and WOW, HUUUUGGE! Yes, that's a single tree behind us. We were both looking at the top of the tree when the photo was shot but because of the lighting it looks like our own little sacred grove experience or something. (sorry, that was probably a little 'sacrilege') :)

Just to give you a sense at how big the redwoods are...this one was taken from inside the tree. There was a hole in the trunk large enough for us to crawl in. We were standing up straight and accompanied by five of Ryan's cousins as well.

Not only are they tall but these things are oooold as well. Ryan and I were joking around and figured that the timing works out, give or take, that Moroni could have planted some of these redwoods.

Our condo was actually located an hour north of San Francisco, in the middle of wine country. On our last day we decided to take a tour of the Korbel winery. (Don't worry, we had white grape juice normally reserved for the kids during the wine tasting portion of the tour. :))

Ryan's mom (on the left) and aunt Lyn acting a bit tipsy at the wine tasting :) I would be too if I just spent $800 on a bottle of sparkling champagne!

Ty AKA Dude, Little Stud, Little Man Child, Mister, Son, etc!

For all of you Brian Regan fans out there, this one's for you. "You were so kind enough to feed me and I don't know how to thank you other than...pinky fling!...thank you, thank you from the bottom of my heart...from the depths of my soul! yadda, yadda, yadda" :)

Oh to be like a baby and have the ability to sleep anywhere!

I swear this kid has terrets syndrome (sp?)...his arms are always moving! :)

"Mister" started smiling a couple of weeks ago. He seems to currently reserve them only for his mom, dad, Grandma Herd and uncle Ryan, though! :)

Little Man Child is also starting to focus on things more consistently...time for mom to start setting good examples because he'll be a sponge from now on.

Ty with his favorite Uncle Ry, who, by the way, is a better little mother than is real one!

Snugglin' with mom :)

Just chillin'....again with waiving arms! :)

Dude with his Grandma Herd...and looking pretty cool if I do say so myself! :)

So we're definitely on he verge of creating a little chunk. He currently eats 4-5 oz every three hours and if I give him more in between feedings, he'll take it!!

Calming down after the dreaded bath time :)

Sooo, I've realized that being a Herd automatically dictates that you have the "nickname gene." It's almost impossible to call someone by their first name and almost more impossible to have just one nickname. Ty, aka Little Man Child, aka Little Stud, aka, Dude, aka, Mister, aka Son...those are just our most common titles for our baby boy who is now 10 weeks old! Honestly, he'll be learning to ride a bike tomorrow!