Life is a Yummy Waffle

My Mom's side of the family has a gathering and dinner once every 3 months, the dinner happened a couple of weeks ago. We had yummy waffles, cinnamon sauce, and sausage. It happened to be when Becky, Aubrey, and Parker were still in town (yeah!). Mom wanted to take some pictures of all the cousins, we greatly missed Miss C but the pictures turned out cute and displayed the personalities of the kids all very well.

This one cracks me up every time I look at it.

Aubrey and her cute hair that Aunt Libbey did for her.

Becky, Aubrey, and the Joel's bear

Aubrey with Joel's bear and Jacob with his bear that Grandma made for him.

Endless Words

They say that a picture is a thousand words and I believe that they express many emotions also. Somehow when asking Kyle to take a picture for me it ended up as these pictures and many more (where lots of words and emotions were expressed).

How to Eat a Pancake...Candace Style!

A couple of weeks ago Candace and Anna came over on Friday night, we went to Trafalga and played a couple of activities and then watched a movie---it was super fun to have a sleepover with my roommates. Saturday morning I made pancakes for breakfast and couldn't believe that I hadn't taken any pictures yet, so of course I had to get the camera out and take some. Candace was a great model :D

Conference Sunday

Conference was wonderfully rejuvenating as normal! (You can listen/watch/read the talks here) I love the opportunity every 6 months of getting to listen to the Prophet and the other leaders called of God. It's a unique thing that we have, hearing words meant just for us and these latter-days. Besides conference my weekend was also filled with a bridal shower, puzzles, taking family pictures for the Skousens, and many more things!

Sunday morning began like this:

I was not too pleased to see the snow...yes it's beautiful but I was hoping that we were getting closer to spring/summer rather than winter.

Brea and Darrell joined Mom and I for the afternoon session, so we got to spend sometime with this cuteness.

Addie and her Daddy took a nap sometime during the afternoon session.

Brea and I may or may not have worked on and almost completed a 1000 piece puzzle!

As soon as the session was over we got ready to take family pictures, Brea has been wanting to take them for awhile and having time where all of them are together doesn't happen very often so we took advantage of the time (despite the snow that wanted to fall on us).

Day 3

A picture of the cast from your favorite show.

I watch way more TV than I should but if I were forced to pick my favorite it would be a toss up between Castle and Bones. I like both of these shows because all the characters work great together, both off chances to think and learn. And I really appreciate that though there is chemistry between two main characters and it is obvious that they like each other (at least to me...they're a little slow :D) the writers haven't had the first thing that happened between them be sex.

Day 2

A picture of you and someone you used to be close with.

I'm sure that I have a picture with this person somewhere in my collection but it's at my Mom's house and not on a computer. I used to be friends with ___, she lived two doors away and we played together almost everyday from when she moved-in in Kindergarten. In middle school her parents got a divorce and both parents got re-married, things started going downhill for her from there. She brought a knife to school and threatened someone and so was suspended from Toledo. Her Dad got a transfer to a different store and they thought it came at a perfect time. I saw her once in high school but we never talked. We're "friends" on myspace but it makes me sad to see what has become of her life.

Day 1

A picture of yourself with fifteen facts.

1. I grew up in a little town in Oregon on the coast...most people have never heard of it and when they hear the name they think it's in Ohio, Washington, or Spain.

2. Despite what it may seem like sometimes I am not a huge fan of being the center of attention.

3. I try not to live with regret and to have a smile on my face.

4. My blog is my journal and scrapbook, I am more constant at it than I have ever been with the other two (and many other things).

5. I have been to 3 of the 7 continents and hope to some day go to at least the main 6.

6. I would much rather it be raining than sunshiny or snowing.

7. I'm a softy for romance books.

8. I wish that I could just be done with school and be teaching in some other country.

9. My favorite words/sayings probably are "Hi" or "Merry Christmas" (need not be Christmastime).

10. Besides wanting to be a teacher my other dream jobs have always been to own a bakery, bed and breakfast or be a party/wedding planner.

11. I love that my Mom has moved to Utah but sometimes feel like I am in limbo and don't have a "home" anymore

12. With so many of my friends and siblings married I have much of my wedding already planned.

13. Sometimes I have days where I just feel like crying, no reason why...I hate those days.

14. My names comes from Little Women (and connections to family via Elizabeth). When I was younger I was disappointed that my parents had given me the character who died and I wished that they would have named me Elizabeth so that I had the choice of what to be called (I'm a big fan of Beth now...I like to be unique :D).

15. I strongly dislike talking on the phone, it's just so awkward to me.

There's Some Bread in the Oven...

the oven, the oven. There's some bread in the oven, the oven, some bread! (sang to There's A Hole in the Bucket :D)

Last weekend at Libbey's exchange party I got two awesome things...a blender (which I've already used twice this week while making the Sweet Pork) and a bread maker! I was so surprised and excited that I got two really big items that would be useful now and in my future home. When I told my roommates found out that I got a bread maker one was excited because then she could make pizza dough and another talked about cinnamon rolls (which I am sure both will be made at some point). I was excited to just be able to make bread! So last night I did it (let me tell you it smelled SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO good!!!!). Last night at about 11:30 I heard the beeping telling me that it was finished, I was so excited and ran into the kitchen with the camera prepared to take some pictures.

Such a beautiful shade of light brown.

So tall and pretty (I'm not proud of it or anything ;D)

I was so impressed with how clean it came out of the pan, that was one thing that I always remembered from when I would make the bread in my Mom's bread maker, that little mixer arm wouldn't stay in the pan and it would come out in the bread so then we would end up tearing out half the bottom to get it out. Stinky! :(

If only you could see the steam that was coming off this as I took the picture!

You'll be glad to know that less than 24 hours from it being finished it is all gone (with the help of my roommates of course---I left a note for my roommates when they woke up that they could have bread, my roommate Anna said "I notice that you didn't exclude Anna from that, yeah!")

I'm excited because next when I go to my Mom's I get to grind wheat so that I can make whole wheat bread, yum, yum!

Christmas Cards Season

It's that time of year again...everyone is getting together their Christmas Cards and Letters together (some are even on top of the ball and already have them enveloped and sent).

You may not have heard of this awesome thing that Shutterfly is currently doing...all I have to do is blog about this and I will get 50 FREE Cards! How cool is that?

I hadn't originally planned on sending out cards this year, last year I bought them and they were so big it looked like I loved myself just a little too much (:D) but last night my roommates and I were taking some roommie pictures when we had one that we thought would be perfect for a Christmas card. I liked the idea of sending them out as roommates and figured why not.

Just at quick glance I have found several card ideas that I like...

Just to show a couple.

If you haven't worked with shutterfly before you should try it out, it is a really simple website and they have tons of beautiful designs for fairly inexpensive.

Also...if you want to get your own 50 free cards check it out HERE!

Zai Jian to Sister Peterson

On Wednesday my freshman roommate Erika entered the MTC here in Provo. She will be there for 12 weeks before going to TAIWAN!!!

She flew in early and Tuesday evening we had a good-bye get-together at another roommate, Chelsea's apartment. It was fun to be able to see Erika for a little while and get to talk to her a bit. I'm so excited for her that she is going on a mission and super duper excited that she is going to Taiwan.

Because I came at the end of the party and a lot of other people had already come and gone there wasn't lots of people in this picture but we decided to get as many 55th-ers as there was before the rest left. I love how close my ward is and that we continually gather in large groups and always want to take a picture of everyone that is there.

Erika and Chelsea

Katie and Erika, this guy in Chelsea's ward was super sweet and had written something around 6 pages of advice for Erika from his own experience on the mission. It was super sweet considering he didn't even know Erika...so she spent sometime reading that after everyone else had left.

By the time everyone had left we realized that we were all very hungry, especially Erika who had been standing close to 3 hours talking with people and not eating anything...so we made a trip to In 'n' Out Burger, my first real experience there.

Chelsea, Katie, and David---obviously all very distracted by different things :D

When we dropped Erika and Chelsea back off at Chelsea's apartment there was much time taken with hugs before we could leave.

I'm so excited for Erika with the adventures that she is going to experience and that she has made this decision to devote her time to serve Heavenly Father. The people of Taiwan will be very blessed to have her serve them, she will bring a spirit and love that only she can.

Brea and Kimmy

While we were waiting for Darrell's brothers to show up when we had dinner on Sunday I tried taking a good picture of Brea and Kimmy. They kept on being dorks, the funny part was that they would never look at each other and half the time they would have the same exact dorky expression on.