dear mr. officer

sorry i pulled to the left shoulder of the freeway when you flipped your lights on me. i feel like if i would've tried to work my way to the right, it would look more like i was running away. i know you'd disagree. but i had about .5 seconds to decide, and i don't do well in these situations.


thanks for apologizing for your "attitude" and for dropping the f-bomb on me because of the situation above, and i know i nodded and acted like it was fine. but i don't forgive you. a little uncalled for. and definitely unprofessional. i think we should have just called it even at that. you could have let me go.


also, thanks for picking me. one little black mazda, out of all, oh... 40 other cars around.... to pull over for going "over the speed limit". I don't know how long you've been doing this, but even though the construction zone signs say the speed limit is 55... you know nobody actually does that, right? actually, i KNOW you know, because you TOLD ME YOU DID. i specifically remember you saying "i know nobody pays attention to those signs, and treats these areas like a normal stretch of highway..." um yes.


and when you questioned me, i said i was following the flow of traffic, the mini van in front of me, for instance, that had moved over just before you flipped your lights, to go faster... you admitted to knowing that HE WAS GOING FASTER.


so even though the cars in front of me, and next to me (including those 2 semi's) were all going 70, some even faster... thanks. i appreciate your rotton cherry on top of my spoiled ice cream of a day so far.


also? thank you for issuing a "warning" for following too close. no, i was not aware that any time you are going over 35 mph, you are supposed to have 160 FEET between your car and the one in front of you. maybe you should inform EVERYBODY ELSE ON THE ROAD. it would probably be helpful.


thanks for cutting me off mid sentence and walking back to your car. i guess i'll just figure out the answers to my own questions, since you didn't come back.


and thanks for having that other officer pull up behind us, making me feel like i was about to get searched. that was awesome.


you have a nice day, too.


**it has not been my day. why can't i get pulled over on days when i am in a good mood? that way, it wouldn't really be a downer as much. the only other time i've ever been pulled over (over 3 years ago) was also on a crap day. do they do that on purpose? i think they might. i appreciate the law and everything. i am a huge supporter of officers, and doing their jobs. but it just sucks when it's me! out of EVERYONE ELSE it's me.


good thing today is over. the not-good part, at least. because my husband will be home soon (not soon enough) and we will have a great night with friends. and that will fix the problems.


that and traffic school...

an [unrealistic] christmas list

with nothing to post, and christmas being the only thing on my mind lately, i thought i would share with you and unrealistic wishlist. i say unrealistic because half of this stuff, i found on pinterest, which usually means it's out of my price range, and also because i really don't care what i get for christmas this year. it's already the best christmas in history because i get to spend it with Devin for the first time as a married couple! we could be in all sorts of trouble with money and life, and i would still probably count christmas as the best day ever.


nothing wrong with ooh-ing and ahh-ing over pretty things i can't have, right? haha...









there is a lot of trust going on in our house right now. devin and i staked out stash spots for hiding christmas presents. he knows that all the things i got for him are hiding in the coat closet. mostly in a box that says "don't even THINK about peeking". and i know all of my presents from him are under the bed or in his dresser.


but the thing is... Devin is just too good to me to peek. he knows i love surprising him, and he wouldn't want to take that away from me. And he knows I won't peek because I love surprises, and there is no fun in a surprise if I just ruin it for myself.


last night, we wrapped some of our presents for each other, because i tree needed some gifts under it. we took turns turning around or closing our eyes until the other had the present mostly wrapped. we crack me up.


it's beginning to look a lot like christmas :)


they say it will snow on friday. and i how they're right. because i think i'm ready...!

brilliant in the most strangest of ways

oh, Miranda July. how you disturb and inspire me. 

this is unrelated, but I recently started following The Daybook Blog (which is where I saw this video for the second time. so i guess this isn't entirely unrelated...) anyway, Sydney, the genius behind it all, is on cloud 9 in week 1 with a new baby boy.

she did a series where she had other bloggy mamas share their most priceless moment during the first week of motherhood. they were all beautiful. so well written. 

and if i haven't been saying i'm baby hungry for the last 2-3 months... then I am now. (BUT. chloe just publicly admitted the same. and she's gotta be first. 2 1/2 years vs. 6 months? please. after you!!! :) haha)

it will be (at least) another year or two... or three.. before this ashby family is ready for a little one. but it's still okay for me to swoon over babies and smile to myself when i picture it happening to us. and i am content with swooning and picturing for now.

Giveaway!

My sister in law, Amanda, is having another WEEK OF GIVEAWAYS! Hair accessories are so popular right now, especially the little baby ones, and I can assure you that Amanda (her company is called Addison Renee Boutique) makes the CUTEST ONES PERIOD. Make sure to follow her blog here to get more info, and to have a chance to win some of these awesome prizes!!! (also visit my PRETTIES tab for more links to different ways you can see/buy her cute stuff!)

busy weekend

before I tell you about the weekend, I might as well just post all the photos of Aria from Thursday. I put her hair in a little ponytail on top of her head and she rocked it! Also? She is obsessed with wearing my watch, and is constantly pretending to tell time on it. She likes to say how many minutes it is until Daddy comes home. She is the cutest.

I didn't have to work on Friday, so I had planned to have my best friend, Valeri, who is about 4 months pregnant come over and we made a bunch of crap, really. We both made wreaths (which turned out.. .meh... i think i'll try again later. haha) and I made some more ornaments for our tree out of scrabble letters (tip: I just wanted the letter tiles, and didn't want to spend $25 and buy the whole game, so I went on amazon and bought 100 letter tiles for $15! sweet!) I also made homemade oreos and tried out cake pops for the first time for a bridal shower the next day.

 

 When Devin got home, we headed to the wedding reception of our good friend, Cameron! He married Crystal, and they are so great together! The night we got engaged, we tried to go to Olive Garden, but the wait was too long, so we went next door to Zuppa's, ran into these two, and had dinner with them! They are the first people we told in person! We were so happy with them, and also entertained by there "drive-thru" reception! Cam is also Dane's older brother. Dane is one of our very best friends.

After the reception, we headed to Winger's for dinner with Jason and Bailey! They have been Devin's friends for a long time, but this was the first time I met them (outside of our wedding reception, I think). I recognize them from Devin's portfolio, though. Their engagements are so cool! Devin did some amazing shots with their chaco's :). We were all feeling sick after we left, but it was still good to see our friends!

Saturday morning, I had that bridal shower. It was for a cute girl in my home ward that I've grown up with, Meghan. She has 4 older brothers, and her future husband is exactly like them! So happy for her. The cake pops (which were more hassle than I had hoped) were a huge hit, but I don't know that I will ever make them again.

After the shower, I went home and slept, because I didn't sleep good the night before, and Devin was gone all morning/afternoon helping Jason and Bailey paint their new house! When he got home, we puttered around for a little while and got really bored, so we went and bought a storage unit!

We had been talking about getting one for awhile, because we have next to NO storage in our house. Our second bedroom, which we use as Devin's office, has been piled floor to ceiling on one wall with camping, fishing, climbing, and golfing gear. It hasn't ever been un-liveable, but it's just clutter that gets in the way. Especially with it being winter, and we won't get much use out of any of that for the next few months.

We looked at several different local storage unit places and settled on Alpine Storage. They're awesome! We just got a little 5x5 space, which is more like a storage "closet" -- but it works perfectly! it's less than 5 minutes from our house, and it's so easily accessible. And cheap! It was worth it.

When we got home, we cleaned and re-organized the house, ordered pizza, turned on the Oregon and BYU football games, and played Clue and Bananagrams all night! It was such a great day!

Today, Devin let me sleep in. He said I looked too cute sleeping there to wake me up. Love that man. By the time I woke up on my own, he had been up for about an hour, had cleaned the kitchen, put dinner in the crock pot, and was sitting on the couch eating cereal.

After church, which was great because we only had 3 kids in nursery, we got home and decided to put up the Christmas tree! I'll post about that when it's all done, because it's not. Then Brandon came over and we had dinner. We had pork butt (literally) which had been in the crock pot all day with onions, carrots, tomato sauce, balsamic vinegar and garlic, some cheesy rice, and broccoli with banana cream mousse for dessert. So good! After dinner I wrapped some christmas present and now I'm helping Devin with his HUGE homework assignment.

Good weekend. Excited to get back to work and back into our weekly routine. Excited for next weekend when my cousin, Brad gets married! That, too, will be a great weekend! And also excited for Thanksgiving this year!

fool-proof frosting

I don't know if I've posted this on here before or not, so I thought I'd be safe and post it [again?]. Mostly because I've posted lots of recipes lately that include frosting.


I had a frosting recipe from my mom for years that used crisco, and I never liked it. The taste was okay, but the consistency was subpar compared to others I had tasted, so I asked my sister-in-law Amanda for a recipe. She is an incredible cook, so I knew I could count on her to have a good one. This is what she gave me! So simple!


1/2 cup (one stick) unsalted butter, softened
1 1/2 tsp. vanilla extract
2 cups powdered sugar, sifted
2 tbsp. milk


Cream butter with hand mixer, gradually beat in powdered sugar. Beat in vanilla. Pour in milk. Combine well. Add coloring or flavor as desired.


*Amanda's advice is to be careful about the milk. It might not seem like enough, but it is. Definitely don't over (or under) - do it.


*This makes a relatively small batch of frosting. Sometimes it's enough, other times it's not. You probably just have to judge that yourself. But it's so easy to make, and takes hardly any time, that it wouldn't be a problem to make a second batch if necessary.

cake pops

um. these are probably the funnest dessert ever! they are a little bit of a process to make, but it's worth it!


what you need:


cake mix
frosting
chocolate for melting (i like white. it's pretty!)
sucker sticks (i get mine at Robert's)
sprinkles or other toppings (i love using sugar pearls)


1. Bake cake. Cool completely. Crumble. (you can use a food processor to crumble it, but your hands work just as easily.)


2. Mix cake crumbles with enough frosting that the cake holds together when you squeeze it.


3. Refrigerate cake balls until firm. (*Keep in mind that you don't want to dip them in chocolate while they are too cold, because the chocolate will stick wrong, and it won't be pretty! So firm, but cool. It sort of takes awhile for them to get hard-ish.)


4. Melt a small amount of chocolate. Dip sucker stick in chocolate 1/2 inch, stick about half way through cake ball.


5. Place in fridge until dough is firm around pop. (Mostly until the chocolate is just rock hard, really.)


6. Melt chocolate, dip cake pop (completely submerge).


7. Lift out of chocolate, hold over bowl, and tap the hand holding the sucker stick lightly to get excess drips off, turning the pop evenly as you go.


8. hold upside down for a few seconds to let the chocolate dry before turning right side up and placing in holder (you can use styrofoam, a bowl of rice or small candies... whatever you can find!)


9. Dip again and repeat process if desired, add sprinkles/other topping.




BIG TIP:
I just flat out CANNOT melt chocolate! Never could. It is an impossible task. And for this recipe, the chocolate needs to be extremely runny. Like... chocolate fountain status. So after searching and searching and repeatedly yelling out loud "I DONT HAVE A DOUBLE BOILER!!!" I discovered the secret. And I feel like a weight has been lifted, a door has been open, and my life has been SAVED! The secret to melting chocolate? For every ounce of chocolate you are melting, add 1/2 tsp. of shortening!!!!! Even a little more if you feel like it, I know I did. It worked like a CHARM!


Also? It is a HUGE help if you have a saint of a husband like mine that helps you solve the chocolate melting mystery, and melts it all for you and helps you did the cake pops. He is LITERALLY the best. THE best. I LOVE that man. Maybe it seems like a small thing, but I am so glad he helped me so willingly. He is the best!