I'm getting old...

Last Wed. was my 25th Birthday! I can hardly believe I'm a quarter of a century already! I'm getting so old. Where does the time go? I had a great day, thanks to my many wonderful friends who called me, emailed me, brought me treats, etc.

We took a family picture just for fun before Caleb took me out to dinner. (Thanks for watching Caysja, Carlie!)

Me eating my "Birthday Sunday" at Texas Roadhouse. Right before this, they had me sit on their "saddle" and the whole restaurant gave me a big "yee-haw" for my B-day. A little embarrassing...luckily Caleb couldn't find the camera in my purse in time to get a picture of that!

It was so fun to have a real date with my Honey--such a rarity!

This is the AWESOME homemade card that Caleb made me for my Birthday! Seriously, he makes the best cards. It was his homemade b-day card to me when we were dating that made me fall in love with him four years ago and this card almost rivals that one!My sister-in-law sent me this cute clock. (She knows I love home decor!) Thanks , Kynda!Here's the new swim suit I bought for my B-day. I LOVE it! (Sorry, I forgot to rotate the picture, but you get the idea.) I was in great need of a new suit since I am at the pool nearly every single day!




My friend Kristy was so sweet and took me shopping at the mall and to Cold Stone for my B-day. Yummy! I had been craving it for quite some time. Thanks Kristy!

My wonderful friends gave me some awesome treats and cute cards for my B-day. Thank you so much Carlie, Becky and Sara! Everything was so delicious! Pictured here is also the handmade bracelet that Alissa made me. It's just beautiful, Alissa--thanks!

Thanks to my parents and parents-in-law for the clothes and money. Everyone helped make my day so great!

It's nice to be pampered once in a while...

A week ago today, I had a little minor out-patient surgery done. It wasn't a big deal, but they did have to put me "out" for a few hours. Anyway, it was so nice to be spoiled that day. My friend Kristy watched Caysja for me in the morning and took me to the hospital (thanks Kristy!) and then Caleb picked me up and this is what I found waiting for me at home. He'd made me a cute card, bought me flowers, and some yummy cadbury eggs! What a great husband I have!My friend Becky was so nice and brought me dinner that night from Cheesecake Factory where she works. It was SO good (especially the cheesecake). Thanks, Becky!

Caysja was so cute and kept bringing me every stuffed animal and blanket she owns and putting them next to me.

Caleb was so nice and missed two of his classes to stay home and take care of both Caysja and me. That was good because I was so tired all day!

Happy Easter Everyone!!

So even though this isn't Caysja's first Easter, it's the first one where she really "gets it" if you know what I mean. It's been so fun to hide eggs for her all week! She LOVES finding them--even with nothing in them! Here she is opening her Easter basket after church today. She got some fun swim toys, watercolor paints, and of course, her Easter dress.

Pictures after church at our apt. complex

My little doll!

I just love Caysja's Easter dress...little girls are so fun to dress up! (I made her hair bows too!)

Caysja got a little spoiled on Saturday...we ended up going to not one, not two, but THREE different Easter egg hunts!! The first one was at Sprouts at 8:30 am, then Midwestern University at 10am, then our apt. complex at 11am! She came home with 7 containers of play doh, bubbles, bracelets, rings, a beach ball, stickers,--and more!

Caysja at the Midwestern Easter egg hunt

Midwestern campus--Caleb helping Caysja "walk" on the water

Caleb helping Caysja "hunt" the eggs at Midwestern

What a perfect day!

I was so impressed with how much work they put into the Midwestern Easter celebration for the kids. They had an Easter bunny (that Caysja was terrified of!), blow up toys, and all kinds of cool prizes--not to mention treats!

Here we are at Sprout's Grocery store for the first egg hunt of the day

On Friday night we actually went on a DATE and got a baby-sitter (*shock*)! We went to the Mesa temple Easter pageant. First we went to Cafe Rio for dinner (which we got 'to go'), then the pageant after that. We went with our friends, Becky & Zac, and Kristy & Matt. The pageant was beautiful...even though we were kind of in the back. Some of the costumes were pretty neat. I wish I had gotten a picture of them. I couldn't believe how many people were there! I heard an estimate near ten thousand!

What great friends we have here! We are so lucky!
(Me, Kristy, Matt, Zac, Becky--Caleb is taking the picture)

He is Risen

We've done so many fun things for Easter. I will post some of the many, many pictures we've taken this weekend soon, but today I just wanted to say that I am SO grateful and I consider myself so blessed to have the knowledge that our Savior, Jesus Christ, lives. I know with all my heart that He suffered and died for me, for all the sins I am guilty of, and that He rose again the third day. I am so grateful that I can repent and be forgiven and try each day of my life to be more like Him. I sang with my ward choir today an arrangement of "As I Have Loved You" and it almost made me cry. I can't begin to comprehend the incredible love that our Savior has for each one of us. "Greater love hath no man than this, that he lay down his life for his friends." (John 15:13)

Bees, Bees, Bees!

So I guess you know it's spring when you get 7 (yes, 7) bees in your apartment in one morning!!! I had the door open this morning because Caysja and her friend Halle were playing outside (climbing the stairs and everything) and the next thing you know, Caleb gets home from school for lunch and there are bees everywhere! At first I thought there were just three...but no, there were 7!!! We had a horrible time trying to get them all out and I was so afraid they were going to sting Caysja or something. She kept calling them "beans"--it was so funny! My wonderful Honey saved the day and we finally got them all out--(though some of them did have to die, I regret to tell you).

Can you beat me?

I found this fun speed typing test on a friend's blog and thought I'd see how I did. Her score was 88!! I definitely am not on the same level, that's for sure. It's kind of fun to do though, and then you want to do it over and over again to see if you can beat your own score!

71 words

Speedtest

Bread Recipe

Okay everyone...you asked for it, so here you go. Just FYI--making bread is harder than it looks, so "if at first you don't succeed, try, try again!" (And plan on it taking about 2 1/2 hours of your day.) This recipe is mostly my mother-in-law's, but it has a few tweaks of my own. It makes 4 loaves. I have a Bosch machine that I LOVE, but Kitchen Aids and other mixers work well too.

2 c milk
2/3 c shortening
heat these two together in a pan over low heat until shortening is melted, then add...
2 c cold water and mix together

add:
4 t salt
2/3 c brown sugar
2 T white sugar
4 eggs
2/3 c powdered milk
4 T (heaping tablespoons!) yeast (instant yeast works best)
mix together then add:

approx. 14 cups of flour
(I use 100% whole wheat flour, but that's because I grind my own and I use Montana white wheat, which is really light. If you buy wheat flour from the store, it's most likely going to be 'red wheat' and it's too heavy to do all whole wheat so I recommend doing half white and half wheat flour, otherwise your bread will be a brick and won't rise much--believe me, I know!)

You can add flour until the dough is no longer clinging to the sides of the bowl, but be careful not to add too much flour or it will be too heavy and won't rise very well.

Put it in a separate bowl, cover with a cloth and then place in a warm spot to rise for about 30 min. (I put it in my oven.) After 30 min, punch the dough down and then let it rise for another 30 min. After that, take it out and shape into 4 loaves. Put into pans and then let rise again for 15 min. Then turn on the oven to 325 degrees and let it bake for 30 min. (It will continue to rise as the oven warms up.)

Then...enjoy--YUMMY!!

If any of you try it and have questions or need help, please let me know! Good luck!

What have we been up to lately?

Sorry this is such a random post. We're glad to finally have a camera that WORKS! It seems to be a nice camera too. We've been doing some fun family things lately since Caleb isn't as stressed this semester (yet...)

We were given a backpack baby carrier by some neighbors of ours and it's SO nice! (We borrowed the one we used over Spring break.) We just love it and have already used it several times. Caysja likes it too, as you can see.

Overlooking Glendale from the top of Pinnacle Peak. We went on a hike for FHE

Our new backpack carrier that we LOVE!

I love the smell of homemade bread...Saturdays are my day to make bread and it makes our apt. smell sooooo good (plus it's so yummy to eat too!) I think in the three and a half years that we've been married, we've only bought bread twice that I can remember.

Sweet kisses from my little princess!

This semester Caleb has started a new class where he has to "dress the part" and actually wear scrubs and all. He wasn't too happy about it as you can tell, but I think my Honey looks so handsome! He looks like an official "Dr. Roberts"!

Last week our ward's playgroup had an Easter egg hunt at the park. It was lots of fun and I took tons of pictures, but turns out I was actually taking "videos" and not pictures since I didn't know how to work our new camera yet! These are the only two real pictures I took. Oh well.

Caysja and her friend Halle

Camera broke...

Sorry I haven't been blogging much lately. Our camera broke so I couldn't take any pictures for a while. It makes me so mad because this camera wasn't that old at all! Rrrr! We bought a new one recently so that problem is now fixed! I will post lots of pictures soon...

American Idol

Yea! My two favorite contestants on American Idol are in the top 12!
Brooke White is my favorite girl, (she's from Mesa AZ!), and David Archuletta (from Salt Lake) is my favorite guy. They are are both SO talented and also LDS! I hope one of them is the next American Idol!

Our Spring Break!

Wow, I can't even begin to describe how nice it's been to have Caleb home with us for a whole week! Caysja and I have had so much fun with him and it's gone by too fast! Here's an overview of what we did (we tried to squeeze as much as we could in a week):

Mon.--Caleb caught up on his sleep!!/FHE/babysat so our friends could go out to dinner
Tues.--went bike riding all around the hills of Glendale
Wed.--went to the Wildlife World Zoo with some friends
Thurs.--drove to the Grand Canyon and spent the day there (what a view!)
Fri.--hung out at the pool (enjoying the 80 degree weather we've had all week!) and played games at our friend's house
Sat.--went on a hike up Camel back Mountain near Scottsdale and had a BBQ at the pool that night with a bunch of our friends

I don't think the week could have been any better!

Bike riding around Glendale

Caysja had to bring her baby along too

check out this HUGE old cactus we found!

dinner at Rubios (fish taco Tues.!)

At the zoo with the Hamar and Morris family

feeding the giraffes was so fun!

the giraffe licked Caysja's hand--she didn't like that too well!

the cool white tiger

we took an "Australian"boat ride

feeding the goats at the petting zoo--they ate Caysja's skirt and Caleb's shirt!

The Grand Canyon

inside an old Indian "look out" tower built in the 1930's

What an incredible view--breathtaking!

On the edge of the cliff someone had built a snowman so we had to take a picture! Caysja didn't like the snow too well. I guess she "forgot" she's an Idaho girl!

I've always wanted to see the Grand Canyon, and now I've done it

Hiking up Camel back Mountain--Cholla Trail--(Caysja getting some ZZZ's in the backpack)

It was a hard hike (s0metimes on all fours!), but the view was totally worth it! You could see the entire Phoenix valley--ASU, downtown Phoenix, everything!

Hanging out at the pool

Caleb and Caysja built a sandcastle together