Christmas Eve 2009

Amy Jo, Amberlee, and Autumn at the Lawrence’s

 

Momma Kaye and Lila

Autumn hiding out under the Lawrence’s tree.

My Grandma had so many fun appetizers and desserts at her house for Christmas eve.

My brother Riley came home from the Army for Christmas. He gave this sword to the whole family to hang in my grandparent’s house. It is the kind of sword that our anscestors would have used and Riley had it special made. It has the handle with symbols of our name: Andreasen. There is also a family crest embroidered with gold that hangs from the sword. My grandpa was so excited. It was a neat present for the whole family.

My side of the family has a family tradition: Every year on Christmas Eve everyone eats a little cup of pudding. One cup has an almond hidden inside it. Whoever gets the almond is dubbed the king or queen of Christmas. On Christmas day they get special treatment and don’t have to do the dishes or clean up wrapping paper or cook and so on.

Benjamin’s reaction when he found the almond in his pudding.

After appetizers at the Lawrence’s and treats at my grandparent’s we had a fancy dinner at the Romney’s. It was such a fun night. Thanks everyone!!!

Crescent Creations

Everyone check out my food blog. I am doing a fun experiment through Pillsbury and myblogspark.com. I just have to recreate one of the three recipes listed on my food blog and post about how it turned out. In turn for the publicity they are getting, they send me free dough and a free holiday serving platter so that I can make and serve the recipe. Here is the good part:  they will also send free dough and a platter to one of my food blog readers. I wont be having the giveaway until I make the recipe, but when I do all you will have to do is comment on the post with the new recipe for a chance to get the giveaway. In the meantime, go vote on which recipe you think would be the best on my food blog: www.ediblexperiments.blogspot.com

Original Thai

Gillian Grant is visiting America again. Benjamin introduced her into the gospel on his mission to Wales. She took us out to Original Thai (main street in Rexburg). It was such a fun time! We got satay chicken appetizers and Benjamin got half of a crispy duck. It tasted sooooooo good!!! I got a pineapple duck curry. We love Thai food! I highly recommend Original Thai. Thanks Gilly!

Crispy Duck
(I know it might sound strange, but it was soooo yummy!)

The Fourth of July!!!

Apricot Cheesecake!

Floating the canal with Amberlee and Autumn

Strawberry Shortcake

Fireworks!

My sister Emily and one of her chickens

Autumn and Anthony heading to the canal

We had a blast during our fourth of July break! We went to the parade in the morning, then went to a Barbeque at the Romney home. We had apricot cheesecake and steaks! Then everyone floated the canal (I took pictures). Then we crashed the next barbeque at my Nikki and Eric's (my aunt and uncle). There was red, white, and blue cheesecake! (have you guessed that cheesecake is my favorite?) It started pouring, so we moved inside. Then we went to the Rexburg fireworks with my family and lit off our own at my parents house.

Food Blogs

I love to cook and I love experimenting with recipes and making up my own recipes. Someday I want to make a small cook book. For now I will practice on my food blog. You can see pictures of all the meals I attempt and posted recipes. Here is the link: www.ediblexperiments.blogspot.com

Benjamin's favorites:

• Carmel Apple Cake
• Sweet Yumminess (chicken or pork) and Lime Cilantro Slaw with Cafe Rio Rice
• Sweet Mango Sticky Rice Dessert
• Cheesey Garlic Drop Bisquits
• Curry
• Stuffed Zuchinni
• Anything with veggies
  
• Any Fish Recipe

Also, I highly recommend my sister's food and recipe blogs, too! Lydia and Chelsea. Lydia has a lot of really yummy recipes and I check it everyday for new ideas. Chelsea is an amazing cook. She actually has taken a lot of culinary classes. I think she is taking some in California right now and she had a culinary minor from BYU-I. Her blog has lots of recipes for people with food allergies. I used to have a very limited diet, so she made the blog for me. I love it. I highly recommend her Summer Chicken Recipe.

Birthday Bash

Benjamin bought me this book! He wants me to read it to him when we finish Inkheart.

My visiting teachers brought me a whole plateful of these cute cupcakes and the matching purple flowers shown above. I love purple and green together!

Happy Birthday Grandma Jo!

My little sister made me a wooden pokey stick. She cut down the willow, peeled off the bark, rounded the bottom, carved the markings, and widdled it to a point. Thanks Emily!!! I love it!!!!! Your the best!

What a season of celebration! A few weeks ago my new cousin Kyle was born. On Feb 26th it was my Birthday and my Grandma Jolene Nissen's Birthday. The 28th was my visiting teacher Vivian's Birthday. Yesterday (March 1) was Papa Ben's Birthday, Tomorrow is my Aunt Nikki's Birthday, The 4th is my Brother in Law Jonathon's b-day, The 5th is my best bud Catherine's birthday, and soon my new nephew Stewart #3 will be born. April 2 is Grandpa Gary, Tax day is mama Kaye, and April 27 is my brother Riley. We will celebrate for him early becuase he might be at boot camp on his birthday. Oh and I almost forgot my nephews Jacob and Myles recently both had Birthdays and my sister Kylie. Happy Birthday Everyone!( Sorry If I missed anyone. ) 

I have always had awesome birthdays.

 16th birthday: the high school caught on fire. I was at school just long enough to get a few gifts from my friends and a first date with my sweetheart (now my husband). We were let out of school for the rest of the day and a few days after to let the smoke air out. That day a bunch of my friends went over to Little Ceasers and bought a bunch of 5 dollar Pizzas. At the time it was right next door to my dad's office. He saw Jessie Rudd outside with pizza and he asked what was going on. She said that the school was burning down and school was let out and a bunch of people were going to suprise me. My dad hurried an called me to tell me they were coming. He knows that I only like mild suprise parties. He gave me chance to clean up the house real quick and get cute before the boy I had a crush on (agian, my husband) came over with flowers, pizza, and a big group of people. 

17th Birthday: I was going to go on a date with Benj on my birthday. The day before, when I asked him what time he would pick me up, he made up some excue like, "oh, yeah, I forgot about that. Maybe another time ok?" Then he just walked away without another word. I was terrified that he didn't like me anymore. So instead I went to lunch with Brodie, Jeff, Lindsay, Mal, and Kendra (my theatre friends). After a few hours of hanging out at Jeff's house, my dad called and said that he had a scary feeling that something bad was going to happen and that he wanted me to come home right away. I thought I was going to die on my birthday! So I hurried home. I opened the garage door to pull the car in and inside was the giant 15 seater Romney van. Benjamin was standing there with flowers and a bunch of my other friends, my brother and cousins. We loaded up the van and Benj took us to Blast Off for a few rounds of Lazer Tag and pizza. It was so fun! Then we took everyone home and Benj and I watched a movie together. 

This year I got a new Camera!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Thank you mom and dad! We are really excited to be able to take good pictures. It is an Olympus FE-20. It has 8 megpixels and a bunch of different settings. I don't know much about photography terminology so i am not sure what that even means. But I sure do love it.  Benjamin also made me breakfast, and took me out to dinner. He got me that book shown above, a bunch of lotions that I like, the Paul Mitchell Hair stuff I like, a gift card for The Hair Academy so that I can go pamper myself, and some craft stuff (Cyrstal Laquer). Thansk everyone! 

Check it Out: #1 StewART Studio Announcments

Hello every one! I have a lot of new blogger friends and family. I just want to inform the new comers of some great links I have on the side of my blog. Keep an eye out for spotlights on some of my favorite sites. Check it out: 

Bethany and Jonathon Lawrence Trial Wedding Announcments: 

They chose the grey one above.                             

Wedding  Announcement-Kylie and Anthony

Our Christmas Card:                                                                 

My Bridal Shower Invite & Baby announcment

1. StewART Studio Announcments: My sister in law Lydia Stewart makes amazing digital invites, calanders, announcments, blog headers, collages, wedding announcments. Her prices are reasonable and you can choose the colors, pictures, words, style, and size. You pay one flat rate fee and you keep the final product and can reproduce it as much as you want. She made me a personalized calander( sooooo cute), a Christmas Card, and a Bridal Shower Invite. I think they are wonderful!! There are a few pictures above of some different creations. 

Sweet Heart Dinner

I wanted to make a special dinner for Benjamin on our 10 month Anniversary and for Valentines Day. I a fancy invitation. He was supposed to RSVP to the owner of the fancy resturaunt (my sister). I was just going to do it at our home, then I got the idea to try to do it in the Jungle Greenhouse on campus. When that didn't workout I decided to go out to my parent's house to make the food and set up. I was running out of time, I hadn't started cooking, and Benjamin still hadn't RSVP'd. I was frustrated and Benjamin was confused becuase he didn't even get the invite. I was about to give up and just make a dinner to take home. My sweet brother Riley took over. He recruted Emily and Joseph, my other siblings, and they turned the bonus room where Riley's band practices into an amazing dinner for two. He used things around the house, the fun V Day decorations I had brought, and sheets. He covered up the instruments and exercise stuff, put little flickering electric candles everywhere. Brought up chairs and a table cloth. Covered the lights with red crape paper to give the light a red pink hue. It was beautiful. the flowers Benjamin brought topped it off wonderfully. Michael Buble was playing in the background. We had Sangria in big goblets with heart shaped ice cubes and heart curly straws. I made pesto-basil stuffed tomatos, and shrimp pasta. Riley cooked most of it. I used the leftover salad my family ate at dinner. Emily made a blueberry, blackberry, pudding parfait with heart and lips sprinkles. They quickly served the food and left us to be alone. They were amazing. They seriously whipped it all together in 30 minutes. I really love my brothers and sister. Thanks for saving the day, Riley! We love you!

LaPizzeria!!! A fun, cheap date!

Benjamin and I had a BLAST last Monday. We went out to eat at La Pizzeria in Rigby, Idaho. It is a mix between food from Argentina and Pizza. We spent around 12 dollars total and got:

A GINORMOUS calzone with artichoke hearts, ranch sauce, mushrooms, and marinated chicken inside! We got to choose 4 toppings and a sauce. We picked random toppings just to be crazy and it was delicious!!! I loved it!

A huge plate of the best cheesy bread sticks ever!!! The bread was delicious with herbs and cheese and two dipping sauces: ranch and marinara. If you go there, they are a must!

A big basket of curly fries.

And a fried cheesecake stick thing with ice cream.

We were so full and it was way better than we expected! They also have a pizza/salad/soup buffet like Craigos. And their famous Bambinos (Argentine Empanadas with pizza toppings inside.) Its just on Main Street in Rigby.

My New Mixer

Spiral Ham Glaze

Pizza Dough

My wonderful wonderful wonderful mixing machine! I love it so much! It is so compact and it works so great! I love it! I use it all the time. For Christmas Benjamin got me a Bosch mixer. Our cousin Kimery Whiting helped out (she works at a Bosch store!) Thanks Kim! check out my cooking blog to see some of the fun things I've made with it!