Amen.

Sometimes you're just knocked down by the power of heaven.

President Dieter F. Uchtdorf

Work & Glory

Tonight I was able to attend the Temple. I have a favorite one just over the mountain that I consider my 'regular' one, and then there is one more south that is also very lovely. But tonight I felt like I needed to go to a certain Temple that I'd never been to before. It was a little out of the way, I figured it would be a little busier (turned out to be a lot busier!!!) and I just really didn't know why I felt like I should go there. Once I was there however, an older man in a wheelchair came in, along with a woman who looked about 50. The old man was her father, and they were attending the Temple that night to do the work for her deceased mother. I couldn't stop the tears from flowing when I heard that. Families can be together forever, that is the whole purpose of this life. I needed that reminder tonight.

 39 For behold, this is my ^awork and my ^bglory—to bring to pass the ^cimmortality and ^deternal ^elife of man.

 This is why we're here - this is why I'm here.

Birfday

Another year come and gone, and it was a pretty great one!

Yesterday was simple and wonderful.

Spent the morning outside with Mr. Rafe. His Nanny has bunnies in her backyard right now, and he kept searching our backyard to see if there were any hiding around...

Went to the zoo for the afternoon, and the weather was absolutely marvelous.

The night before the big 2-3 I celebrated by trying out a new recipe for bread, and dancing along to Taylor Swift's "22".

The dough had to rise over night, and so I found a nice bowl to put it in, covered it with plastic wrap, laid it out on the counter, crossed my fingers and said a prayer (or two...)

Before....

 AFTER!! IT ROSE!! YAY!!

 It just looks lovely, does it not?

This bread is super easy to make, and what I love is the blogger also added other ways to dress up this easy loaf!!

Recipe found here.

Life is blessed.

I Love.

I love my drive to work.

I love and miss my brother so much. Especially tonight, after getting a wonderful email from him on his P-Day.

I love Elder Eyering.

Mountains to Climb

I love my sweet son forever.

 

And I love Mr. Darcy.

He's just really got it going on.

Snicker Doodle Loaf

The first word in the title of this blog is the perfect word to describe this evening.

Snicker.

I found a blog that I really love. The girl is super cute, classy, and has linked me to some really great recipes. So tonight, I thought I would try out a snicker doodle cookie recipe of her own that she had posted, contact her & let her know I was using her recipe, and we would become instant blog friends for life.

Yeah. Not doing that anymore.

Why?

Remember. Snicker.

Sometimes my head gets really large. Like last 4th of July, my siblings and I went bowling. They each scored above 100, and I had like... a 85 or something like that. So at the end of the game we're wrapping it up, and I swaggered around to them and said:

"So... looks like I beat ya both!!"

*crickets chirping*

"Paige.... you lost...."

I had confused my bowling game with a golf game. Golf is the one you want a lower score in.

So tonight, I pulled out my ingredients, started snapping adorable pics of the baking process, trying to come up with cute little anecdotes to add with each caption. I played a little Guys & Dolls, measured the salt out in my hand and then threw it in the mix like they do in all the movies.

I should have seen then that I was being far too cocky.

Well. I'll just let the pictures show you.

All the lovely ingredients. The big flaw of the night happened in the first step, when I creamed together the sugar and "butter"- which by the way is just one of the most delightful things ever, it feels like magic once the sugar and butter really start connecting.

I like to pronounce this as "cream of tahr-tahr"

things got a little intense when I tried to open the can though... had to get a knife out to "lift" the darn seal... I should have just stopped right then.

Here is the batter all nice and prepared, a little cool to the touch because I had put it in the fridge just as the recipe had asked for... but something was just not quite right about this dough....

And here we come to the most important realization of the night.

Kids, there is a HUGE difference between the following two items:

One is yogurt. The other is butter.

And so the 'snickering' began. The dough wouldn't come together properly to make a cookie ball, and my poor heart crumpled at the realization that I had failed as a baker this night.

At the suggestion of a friend, the entire batter went onto the cookie sheet and

thus the Snicker Doodle Loaf was born.

The family said it tasted great...

We all know where liars go.

Just sayin'.

 Good thing Mom had bought Girl Scout Cookies a few days ago.

Late Night

I found myself at 9:30 PM (approximately 15 minutes ago) sitting alone in my living room, with Bailey (the dog) tooting like nothing I have ever experienced before, and watching Breaking Dawn Part 2. 

I felt like I could hear Nancy Grace yelling at me (or really talking in the normal level of her voice)

"Have you lost your mind?"

I didn't have to put up with any of that- the tooting or the horrible acting going on in front of me!!!!

Unfortunately, back when I was crazy, I read all 4 Twilight books. I was Team Edward. Until book three- then I was Team Jacob. And then once Jacob imprinted, I was Team- 

HOW DID I JUST WASTE THREE YEARS OF MY LIFE ON THIS!!!!

Unfortunately since I read the books I had this feeling I had to watch the movies. But that feeling ended tonight, around the point where Renesme was first shown and she was halfway a computer generation.

A computer generation.

Gah.

Fortunately! I had just spent the evening working on a wonderful recipe- which can be found here:

The Diva-Dish

While waiting for it to bake I had red boxed that uncomfortable movie and was trying to pass the time till I could taste it! Despite the movie, the bread was well worth the wait :)

So here is my cute little pic-by-pic of the process

All the ingredients- The Diva-Dish used coconut sugar, but my pantry was out of that kind...

I also imagine she didn't use the tacky packages of applesauce...

And she probably had real maple. I'm slightly embarrassed by this.

"Wet" & "Dry" Ingredients

As if admitting to spending $1.28 to red box Breaking Dawn isn't embarrassing enough, the story behind this picture is a little silly.... Since I was a child, I have never- like ever- remembered to grease any pan that I have used to bake with. My family and I have had countless muffins & brownies without bottoms. Poor guys. Anyway. I placed the bread mixture into a pan and then remembered I hadn't greased it. Now, there was no specific instruction saying to grease the pan... but I decided it was probably because that is a no-brainer and I needed to be an adult and do the smart thing. So I emptied out the pan, and dirtied another one (and sprayed the pan beforehand).

So pretty in the oven!!

 And VOILA! Yes that is a cheesy yellow hand towel that I set under the bread to try and make it look pretty. 

I was up at 5:30 AM this morning. 

It is late. 

Give me a break.

Well the bread tastes great. And now I get to fall asleep with the smell of orange and cranberries on my hands- unlike Sunday night, where all I could smell was the aroma of my sons' dirty diapers...

he had 5 on Sunday.

I love being a Mom. I really, truly do.

CES Devotional

Sometimes you just feel like talks were prepared with you in mind.

CES Devotional, Elder Bednar

March 3rd, 2013