Although we know it’s a tradition, Devon and I did not keep the top tier from our original wedding cake to freeze and eat on our first anniversary. I knew there was no way that Devon would eat something that has been sitting around in a freezer for a whole year, and we had heard from other people that their own cakes tasted pretty “freezer-ish” at the one year mark. I didn’t think much of this until I started making rolls for our anniversary dinner on Sunday and came up with the bright idea that I would make a mini wedding cake for us to eat. It sounded simple in my mind; I would make an almond cake with raspberry filling just like we had at our wedding. I had a cake mix and raspberry preserves I could use for the fill layer. Except oops, once I take out the cake mix I see that it is expired. No problem, I think, I can make a cake from scratch. A glance in the fridge showed I had one egg, and that was reserved for the rolls. No problem, I can google. I’ll find a recipe for an eggless cake from scratch. I found a few recipes that got good reviews on Allrecipes, so I gather all the ingredients and realize that the key sweetener is sweetened condensed milk. Normally I have this on hand, but of course I don’t right then. Googling again (no, I haven’t given up yet) I find that you can heat 1/3 cup of evaporated milk with a cup of water and a few tablespoons of butter and use that as a substitute for sweetened condensed milk. (It really tastes just like it.) I made the cake and it turned out surprisingly light and fluffy. It held together fairly well without any eggs. After it cooled, I whipped up some seven minute frosting, since to be honest I really don’t like buttercream that much. I frosted the cake liberally with huge waves of glossy white frosting. It really was beautiful. Unfortunately, neither of us had any room for it after dinner, so we set it aside to eat the next day. I thought about taking pictures of how pretty it was, but figured that was something that could be done the next day as well. Well, this is what we came home to the next day:

The frosting deflated overnight and pooled near the bottom of the cake. Tasty. I ate a bite just because I didn’t want all my work to be wasted, but the rest of the cake went in the garbage. The lesson is, if you decide to make a cake and don’t have ingredients on hand, just stop right there. Do you really need a cake anyway? Do yourself a favor and go out for dessert.

One year ago today, Devon and I were married. It’s been a fabulous year for us, and I think a lot of that is due to our wonderful families who helped us become the people we are and who gave us so much support throughout the year. This year would have been very difficult without that support, so we thank our families with all our hearts as Devon and I begin year number two together.

‘Twas the week before mom comes, and all through the house

everybody was cleaning, even my sweet spouse;

The spices were arranged in their drawer with great care,

and I hope that my mom will actually look in there.

The sheets and blankets were made on the bed,

And clothes were hung in the closet instead.

The carpets were vacuumed, and the floors got a sweeping,

While all Devon’s books were stashed away (for safe keeping).

The furniture was polished until it started to glow,

and the organized closets almost seemed to echo.

The baseboards were dusted, as well as the vents,

and the silverware was rid of all fingerprints.

I scrubbed both the bathrooms; even the light covers got a clean,

And the fridge and the stove are the neatest they’ve been.

When my mom gets here, she’ll look around her and say,

“There’s nothing for me to help clean, so let’s SHOP!”

One week until Mom and Aunt Jan come to visit! Yay!

If you asked me my top five favorite things about BYU, one of those would have to be the Cougarettes. They are a precision dance team of about 20 female students, and they are amazing. I first saw them when they performed during half time at a football game my freshman year and from then on had a reason to attend those games. In fact, there were times when my roommate Emily and I would show up at the games during half time just to see the Cougarettes. No joke, folks, they are that good. They were the National Collegiate Dance Team Champions in 1997, 1998, 1999, 2001, 2005, 2006, and 2007. They have a performance near the end of the Winter semester every year and Emily and I never missed one. This year I went with Marie, and we both loved it.

Us loving the performance

Our favorite routine was one choreographed by none other than Tabitha and Napoleon, familiar names for those of you who watch So You Think You Can Dance. We couldn’t tape it for you, but someone taped a performance of the routine during a basketball game. Here it is:

embedded by Embedded Video

It loses a lot when you are so far away and can’t see the movement so well, but trust me when I say, the Cougarettes are amazing.

For those who are not familiar with baseball, Joe Mauer is a catcher for the Minnesota Twins. He was born and raised in Saint Paul, MN, and has played for the Twins his entire career. He is a two time gold glove winner, three time batting champion and last year’s MVP. And he’s a catcher. Needless to say, he’s a fan favorite. Oh, and did I mention he looks like this:

He’s pretty popular with the lady fans as well. He will be a free agent at the end of the 2010 season and the Twins are definitely trying to get a new deal worked out with him, or face angry mobs of Minnesotans throwing beer bottles and lutefisk at the new stadium. Word is that Mauer wants to stay with the home team, but in case he is undecided I thought I’d write him a little letter.

Dear Joe,

I know you’re busy right now with Spring Training about to start, but I just wanted to drop a line and highlight a couple reasons why you should re-sign with the Twins.

1) The new stadium. You survived the Dome, and now you get to play here:

It would be a shame to leave after one year.

2) I hear they don’t give away free fishing lures at other ballparks.

3) You can search around, but you won’t find another manager that looks more like Santa Claus than Gardy. I promise.

4) Don’t make the Twins get rid of Joe Mauer sideburn night

As a side note, I’ve been to one of these promotions and it really is the most hilarious thing to see bald men and older women alike sporting fake side burns. My favorite, however, was the kid who put them on as giant eyebrows.

5) If you stay long enough, Prince will probably write a song for you.

6) I hear Minnesotans melt in warmer climates.

7) Sure, the top dogs can win, but when the underdogs win it’s even more exciting.

8 ) Tens of thousands of female fans wearing pink #7 shirts

9) I hear all the food at the new stadium will be on sticks.

10) If you stay, we’ll see what we can do to get Bert to circle you.

Please consider these reasons among the many others I’m sure you’re considering. My husband and I hope to see you at a game at the new ballpark sometime this summer.

Sincerely,

Nicole

Smith’s grocery store has a killer deal on roses for Valentine’s Day. Check it out:

I don’t know what kind of Leather they are including, but that has to give them the edge over Walmart’s deal. And Baby Breath, too? Whoa.

In-N-Out Burger opened their first Utah locations within a few months of each other at the end of last year, and as far as I can tell they are always busy. The Orem location always seems to have 20+ car lines so we were excited when the American Fork location opened and was not quite as busy so we could finally see what all the hype was about. The hype is about a delicious hamburger and darn good fries. That’s pretty much all they have on their menu, besides a couple flavors of shakes. It’s so good, though. We’ve probably eaten there four or five times, and considering that could be half of the times that we’ve outen out since we moved here, I’d say we liked it.

One of the great mysteries of our church building in Utah is the lack of coat racks. At first I just assumed I wasn’t finding them, but then I realized that there was only one (pictured above) for the entire building. I would guess that about 500+ people meet in that building every Sunday, yet there is just that one measly coat rack for all those people. In Minnesota there was one at every entrance, I think. The other mystery is that it is always nearly empty. Every time I hang up my coat there I feel like I’m breaking some unwritten code, but I still do it. Who wants to carry around their coat throughout church?

Not to suddenly turn into a craft blog, but I thought I’d post some of the little projects I’ve been working on lately because 1) I’m proud of them, and 2) you can see the lack of blog updates lately isn’t due to complete laziness. Just partial laziness.

First of all, Devon and I discovered this home fabrics store that is amazing. Their regular prices on the big decorator fabric are about a quarter of what they are at JoAnn’s, and they have a clearance section where you can get a yard or two of fabric for a couple dollars. The fabric is all beautiful, and I’ve had this compulsion to go there and buy fabric several times since we discovered it. It’s almost a sickness, I think. I buy the fabric, bring it home and wash it and then fold it and put it in the closet (more on the beautifully organized closet later) to be forgotten. Finally I decided I couldn’t get any more fabric until I used some of the stash, so I decided to make Valentine’s Day placemats. I got to use three different kinds of the fabrics I had bought, and made use of the fact that a couple of them frayed beautifully in the washer.

The second project was making a napkin to match the placemats. Not napkins. Napkin. It’s really cute; it’s on the table underneath the chocolates and bottles. Luckily I washed one before I made others, though, because it came out all wrinkly and I decided that although I can occasionally iron placemats, there’s no way I would iron napkins every time I want to use one. Therefore, it is now a decoration.

Project three was decorating the coke bottles that you see on the table. We have a plethora of the soda bottles thanks to Costco and the lack of curbside recycling in our town, so I sewed fabric covers for them for the heck of it.

I had to thank one of the teens that I teach at church for something she did, so I took one of the decorated bottles and filled it with cola candy and topped it off with some oilcloth and a note:

Cute, huh? You have to shake the bottle like a crazy person to get the candy to come out, but I didn’t realize that before I filled it. Oh well. Next time I’ll do brown M&Ms or something.

One of my favorite local companies here is the Sweet Candy Company. Basically, they make the best sugary candy ever. I was introduced to their candy back in Minnesota by a friend who had brought back some cinnamon bears from Utah and was generous enough to share them with me. Once I realized we were moving out here I think it took me maybe a week before I realized that one perk of moving to Utah was getting those cinnamon bears any time I wanted. Then, once we were out here, I learned that they don’t just make cinnamon bears. They make all kinds of sugary goodness, like jelly beans and gummy things and candy corn-ish things. When the grocery store put all their candy 75% off after Easter I raided the Sweet bins and got this:

Doesn’t look like a lot to you? Let me put my hand in there for size reference:

It was a lot of candy. I put it in a tupperware and we gradually worked on it for a few months until I gave up some time in July and threw the rest away. Some squirrel somewhere got a huge buzz, I’m sure.

Also, given my love for conversation hearts, especially cheesy ones, Sweet’s hearts win hands down for the best phrases. Where else are you going to find hearts that say, “Slow Down”, “Not Now”,  and “No Way”?