What's in a Name?

1. Your real name:
Emily

2. Your Gangsta Name: (first 4 letters of real name plus izzle)
Emilizzle

3. Your Detective Name: (fav color and fav animal)
Green Horse

4. Your Soap Opera Name: (middle name, and childhood street)
Anne Rimview (This doesn't really work for me because I didn't have a middle name but everyone always said Anne went well with my name)

5. Your Star Wars Name: (the last 3 letters of your last name, first 2 letters of your first name, first 3 letters of mom's maiden name)
Tonemfis

6. Your Super Hero Name: (2nd favorite color, favorite drink)
Blue Root Beer

7. Your Iraqi Name: (2nd letter of your first name, 3rd letter of your last name, any letter of your middle name, 2nd letter of your mom's maiden name, 3rd letter of your dad's middle name, 1st letter of a sibling's first name, last letter of your mom's middle name)
Mtaiwjr

8. Your Witness Protection Program Name: (great-grandmother/grandfather's first name and Jones)
Edith Jones

9. Your Goth name: (black, and the name of one your pets)
Black Dodger

Play along at home!

Anyone Seen the Suave Commercial?

I love this commercial. I don't know why but it makes me smile every time I see it. Go to this website: http://www.suave.com/ then click on the "Our Story" tab, then on the "Advertising" tab. I hope you can find it. I couldn't link it directly to my blog. Sorry. They also do a series called In the Motherhood. They have real moms write in stories and then the actors act them out. It is pretty funny. Click on the "Motherhood" link to get to that. Season 1 Episode 1 is my favorite. Anyway, I hope you enjoy it.

Valentine's Day Tradition

My mom always made this cake for my dad on Valentine's Day. She would make one just for him and then another one that all the kids had to share. I thought it would be fun to continue the tradition for Chris. He loves it; I must admit it is very delicious! I thought I would share the recipe. It is pretty simple but takes a lot of time. I hope everyone had a great Valentine's Day and President's Day weekend!

Cherry Berries on a Cloud

MERINGUE SHELL
Heat oven to 275˚. Cover baking sheet with heavy brown paper with a 9” heart shape drawn on.

Beat until foamy: 3 egg whites
¼ tsp cream of tartar

Beat in: ¾ cup sugar, 1 Tbsp at a time.

Continue beating until stiff and glossy. Do not under beat. On brown paper, shape meringue into 9” heart, building up side. Bake 1 ½ hours. Turn off oven; leave meringue in oven with door closed for 1 hour. Remove from oven; finish cooling meringue away from draft. Top with either cherry or raspberry filling.

FILLING
3 oz cream cheese, softened
½ cup sugar
½ tsp vanilla
1 cup chilled whipping cream
1 cup miniature marshmallows

Blend cream cheese, sugar, and vanilla. In chilled bowl, beat cream until stiff. Gently fold whipped cream and the marshmallows into cream cheese mixture. Pile into shell. Cover; chill at least 12 hours. Just before serving, top with Cherry Topping or Raspberry Danish Dessert.

CHERRY TOPPING
Stir together 1 can (1 pound 5 ounces) cherry pie filling and 1 tsp lemon juice.

RASPBERRY DANISH DESSERT
Follow package directions using 1 ¾ cups cold water and 12 oz frozen raspberries.

The Story of Chris and Emily

The year was 2003; I was home from BYU-Idaho for the summer. I also had three older brothers who were not married home for a short time. We decided it would be fun to do a “Thomas date night.” The plan: find dates for each other, go out and have a lot of fun. Of course being the only girl, I had dates lined up for my brothers way in advance. On the Monday before our designated date night we went to a ward Family Home Evening at I.B. Perrine Elementary school. I played Ultimate Frisbee and had a great time. My brothers played softball and that is where they met Chris.

Driving home from our activity I started teasing my brothers about still not having a date for that weekend. We saw Chris walking with his friend and so Brett decided to turn the car around, corner Chris in the parking lot of his apartment and ask if he would like to go out on a date with his little sister (who was sitting in the back of the car!) Chris reached through the window to shake my hand; something he later kicked himself for doing because a friend claimed that was the worst thing he could have done. Unfortunately, Chris had to work and couldn’t go. I heard through a mutual friend that he was thinking about asking me out but didn’t know if it would be awkward since we didn’t really know each other. Weeks went by and I didn’t hear from him.

Eventually we met again. We were at a CSI playing Capture the Flag with a big group of people. As I was leaving with my friend Courtnie, I saw Chris walking ahead of us with some other guys. I thought maybe if I did a little harmless flirting I could boost his confidence enough to get him to ask me out. Well it worked! He finally asked me out. We went to Thomsen Park and played volleyball, rugby, Frisbee, had a picnic, and then went to the drive-in to see 2 Fast 2 Furious and The Incredible Hulk (two of the worst movies ever!) We made fun of the movies the whole time. Chris kept calling and we kept going out. I sure am glad that he stuck with me; I know I didn’t make it easy.

I love you so much honey! Happy Valentine's Day!

Movie Reviews

I always like to hear of good movies or not so good movies so I don't have to spend five whole dollars renting a movie that wasn't worth it. I have seen a lot of movies recently so I thought I'd give you my evaluations.

Amazing Grace: good, true story but a little slow. Not really what I was expecting but still a pretty good movie.

The Ultimate Gift: really great, feel-good movie. The acting is not the best though and of course a couple of cheesy parts.

The Jane Austen Book Club: really weird. I'd say, not worth it.

The Ex: some funny parts, the guy in the wheel chair really bugged me. It was okay.

27 Dresses: Good chick flick. The end was a little cheesy but aren't they all.

So there you have it. If you guys have seen any good movies lately pass them my way. Thanks

Two Milestones

I am so proud of us! Gordon has passed two huge milestones the last few months; one of them I am a little ashamed to admit—he is finally off the bottle! I know, I know totally embarrassing! I have plenty of excuses but I will spare you all. It was so much easier than I expected. I thought it was going to be painful for all of us since the first time we tried to even get him to drink out of a sippie cup was hard. He did so good and he doesn’t even take anything to bed with him; no milk or water. And he eats so much better during the day. I don’t know why I didn’t make this connection; he never ate very good and it was a constant struggle with us. Now that he is not drinking so much milk he has a much better appetite—it makes sense!

Also, Gordon is now sleeping in a toddler bed. He does so good. The first night he went right to sleep. We bought him a Disney Cars bedspread for Christmas hoping that would make him excited to sleep in a bed. I don’t know if that was what did it for him, but… Anyway, we do put a gate up across his doorway so he can’t get out in the middle of the night or anything, so I’ll bet that helps keep him in his bed—knowing that its there. The one drawback is that he doesn’t take a nap anymore. He didn’t really take a nap in his crib either but at least I could put him in there for awhile. Now we do quiet play time in his room and sometimes it works and other times it doesn’t. Next big milestone: Potty training. I think we will save that one till the new baby is at least 4 months! And I am not excited.

Wild Week

So, sorry about the blogging hiatus. Chris and I went up to Twin Falls this last weekend and I stayed with my parents until Wednesday and then my little sister came back with me to spend the rest of the week in Logan. It was tons of fun but it will be nice to get back to some kind of regularity. While my sister was here we thought it would be fun to make a fancy looking cake. Here is a picture of our creation:


It is called Black Forest Delight. It was pretty good. I seriously think I gained 20 pounds this last week. We ate so much and had so much fun. We also made some Raspberry Stuffed French Toast with Custard Sauce and that was really good but didn't look very good. We did a girls day on Saturday and went to the mall and got my ears pierced, got massages and facials, and went to Borders to read gossip magazines and talk. Gordon really loves Katie and he was sad to see her go.
Gordon had tons of fun at Grandma's house too except that he preferred everyone else over me. I guess it gave me some good relaxing time but it kind of made me sad. I think Gordon is going to have a really hard this week as things get back to normal--cause "Mom is so boring." I have Zero energy these days. Seriously, I need to have this baby so I can get back to taking care of my family!

Lost Forever!

So I am a big "Lost" fan. If you haven't seen it or even know anything about it there is a clip on youtube that does a series recap in eight minutes. Here is the link:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NjlysFlW1Mw It is very imformative and pretty funny.
My parents were teasing us - most of my family is addicted to "Lost" - that we have wasted so much of our lives watching this show instead of just watching this eight minute recap. Anyway, I am really excited about it especially since all the other shows are on reruns because of the strike. So Thursday nights from seven to nine, you'll know where I'll be.

Remembering Gordon B. Hinckley

Chris and I were sitting on the couch when we heard the news that President Gordon B. Hinckley had passed away. It saddened us greatly. Even though President Hinckley has mentioned that his time here was coming to a close, it almost seemed that it would never happen. I remember when he was sustained as our new prophet, I was in the fourth grade. President Hinckley has been the only prophet that I really remember. He is such a great man. Chris commented on how wonderful it would be to pass away and no one who has had the privilege to know you could think anything bad of you. He was always so optimistic and uplifting. I will miss his wonderful sense of humor and the power of his presence. I will always remember the amazing opportunity I had to shake hands with the prophet. I was about thirteen years old and the Young Women in my ward took a trip to Salt Lake to see the Legacy movie and to do baptisms for the dead in the Salt Lake Temple. It was a really wonderful trip. On Sunday we attended a ward at the Joseph Smith Memorial Building and we were told that President Hinckley might be coming that day. We were so excited at the chance to be able to see the prohpet. Anyway, about ten minutes into the meeting, in walked President Gordon B. Hinckley! At the end of the meeting we were all able to go up and shake his hand. He had such a wonderful spirit about him and a big smiling, positive attitude.
When Chris and I were trying to think of names for Gordon, Chris did not like anything! While we were sitting in sacrament meeting I started writing "churchy" names on the program. Chris fell in love with the name Gordon. He said what a wonderful man to be named after. I hope that our Gordon will take on President Hinckley's optimism for life. He will truly be missed.

Disney Princesses (New Poll)

Out of all the Disney princesses I would have to say that my favorite is Belle. I just love that movie. I was watching it once when I was in high school and I started crying when the beast "died." I just had to laugh at myself because I knew I was being so ridiculous. When I was a little girl my favorite was Aurora but I think that was just because we didn't own that movie and so I hadn't seen it very much and I my imagination tends to make things better than they really are.
My older sister has a two year old daughter who is in love with all the princesses and my sister was telling me how she thinks all the princesses are annoying. The conversation, or should I say sermon, went something like this: "Ariel, she is so spoiled! I hate that song that she sings about wanting more: I want more, I want more; man she is so annoying! And Cinderella, who is that happy all the time? No one can be that chipper! Jasmine has such huge eyes and a tiny waist...I don't think they are very good role models..." I think she was just getting a little sick and tired of watching the same movies all day every day. I couldn't help but laugh it was so funny how serious she was about really loathing those princesses.