Christmas Movie: Week Three

Congratulations to Tom for being our winner last week, although we have to give props to Tehani because we heard he had a little help. Presenting this week's quote is good ole St. Nick dressed to the nines (and no, the picture doesn't have anything to do with the movie... we just thought it was funny).

Good Luck!

P.S. In case you were wondering, WE added the black bar. YIKES!!!

Fall Fun

It has been fun to see so many of you during this holiday season... for those we've missed we can hope to see you soon. Life has been crazy at the Douglas house lately. Lincoln is walking now and with his new mobility comes a daredevil streak that I don't particularly care for. For example, he's learning to stand up in his high chair, he's trying to take on the staircase by himself, and he's crawled off the edge of the bed. Let's just say he's keeping me busy.

Nate is finished with this semester of school and he gets a few weeks off (hooray!). He's loving his new job and I think we're all enjoying the new & improved, less stressed out Nate. I've been subbing at least once a week lately, which is fun, but I miss Lincoln terribly when I'm gone. I've also been involved with some ward groups (book club/cooking class) which have been really fun.

Big news in my family is that my brother Nate got married over the Thanksgiving holiday (Welcome to Cynthia & Xander!!). It was an intimate wedding & family dinner at Cynthia's parent's house and guess what? I was asked to make the wedding cake. I get pretty nervous about it when it comes to crunch time, but I think it turned out really well.

Here's some pictures of our happenings these last few weeks:

Lesson learned:
Don't turn your back on a toddler. Ever.


Lesson learned:
Diets & Thanksgiving don't mix... especially when Diane is cooking.


Lesson learned:
Good decorators aren't perfect;
They just know how to hide their mistakes.


Lesson learned:
Baby proofing Christmas doesn't have to cost a fortune.

Christmas Movie: Week 2

Just to reiterate the unofficial guidelines, I have the comments hidden so you each have a chance to guess without the answer being given away. After a day or two (or on the following Monday) I'll reveal the comments & post the winner. So far you have all gotten the movies pretty fast, so wrap your heads around this one:

Christmas Movie Monday

In honor of the holiday season the movie quotes for December will be from our favorite Christmas movies. There will be a special surprise for our winners this month.

Here is the quote of the week (Great movie!):

Movie Monday

Melanie & I got to talking the other day about our dear little brother Jon and how we'd tortured him while growing up. Never really maliciously, but he did go through plenty of teasing and taunting... like the time we dressed him up in drag so we could practice our hair and make-up skills.

Lincoln will never have to suffer from older sisters, but he does have a cousin that worked her magic the other day. Imagine my surprise when I found him chewing on a naked barbie while wearing Cada's crown jewels.

Presenting our quote this week is our little Lincoln. Enjoy!

Houston, we have standing!

Lincoln is getting so big! When I came home from mutual last Tuesday and opened the front door, he was just standing in the middle of the room as casual as can be, with his daddy nowhere in sight. Apparently Nate & Lincoln had been practicing the trick for 20 minutes before I came home and Nate dashed around the corner when he heard the door open.

Here he is, in all his standing glory, little Lincoln!

Movie Monday

Congrats to Heather for winning last week! Your picture will now hang in our hall of fame for the remainder of the week. We stole a still screen shot from the actual movie for this next quote... hey, does that guy look familiar?

P.S. Just so you know, your comments will be hidden until the winner is announced. We are still getting your guesses, but we want to give each of you the chance to test your movie IQ before the answer is revealed.

Good Luck!

Movie Monday

The movie quote of the week is provided by our own creepy-crawly Lincoln, who was dressed up for a Halloween party when he uttered this phrase:

Congratulations to our winner last week. The correct answer was "Thumb Wars" and if you haven't seen it, you need to check it out for a big laugh. The grand prize includes bragging rights, an all expenses paid virtual trip to Guam, and a spot on our hall of fame for the week in question.

Good Luck!

Halloween

Halloween was so much fun! I took Lincoln to my old school for the annual costume parade (with Liz & the boys) and then we helped out in one of the 4th grade classes. LJ was quite the little celebrity! That night we went to a local trunk or treat with Nate's parents and had some fantastic homemade root beer and hot dogs.

We found a cute little bear costume for Lincoln and so we themed our costumes around him. We were going to be the 3 bears, but I couldn't find my glue gun that day and so I had to fashion our costumes with just a stapler and a utility knife (just call me McGruber!). I ended up being Goldilocks and Nate went as a bowl of porridge. Overall our costumes turned out pretty good. I think the total investment was $15.00 for Lincoln and $0.50 for Nate & I. Yep. Sounds about right.

Movie Monday

I must be bored today. I played on Photoshop and made this comic-style self portrait and I thought of a silly game to play. You see, Nate & I play "Name that Movie" all the time... I think the movie trivia came along with the last name because all of the Douglas boys seem to play. Anyway, every Monday I'm going to post a movie quote and we'll see who can name the show first.

There is a grand prize, of course.

Enjoy!

Comments...

Michelle told me that there was some kind of error that wouldn't allow her to make comments... and we just thought you didn't care! :) I think the problem is resolved, so feel free to add your thoughts if you'd like.

Thanks!

Nate & Jen

One Shot Bakery: A Wedding Cake Gamble

I'm not totally sure what I was thinking, but I volunteered to make the wedding cake for Jim's wedding. It was one of those ideas that sounds really great until it's actually time to do it. I wasn't in it alone though, because Liz baked all the cakes (chocolate & pumpkin chocolate chip) while I made the icing & the fondant from scratch. Karen M. & Karen D. both helped out by filling & frosting the cakes with vanilla buttercream the night before the wedding.

Ultimately I did the majority of the fondant work... covering the cakes and then cutting out & applying about a zillion fondant leaves. I stayed up most of the night before the wedding finishing and when Karen & I set up the cake at the luncheon we wrapped each layer with brown satin ribbon. Then we placed a satin bow on top and dangled the ends down the cake. We thought it needed green and so we added sage green ribbons dangling down the sides. There ended up being 7 ribbons... one for each member of their new family. I scattered the leftover fondant leaves on the beautifully dressed table and breathed a HUGE sigh of relief that it was done. I don't know if you've seen the cakewrecks website, but that's what I was afraid of. Luckily, I think it turned out pretty well, seeing as it was was my first wedding cake and only my second try with fondant.

Check it out below and let me know what you think.

Jenny

P.S. We decided we'd call ourselves the one-shot bakery, seeing as we only had one shot to get it right! There was even a little place card by the cake to prove it.

Our Business Card

The cake stand was set on a fall wreath... very pretty!

A bit closer (the white on white detail is hard to see)

Here is the best close-up I got of the leaves.
They were cut in 3 different sizes and were individually veined.

Fall is here again!

How time flies! It seems like every blog post starts out with "sorry it's been so long..." or some kind of excuse. Anyway, I'll just say that things are going swell here. We had a full September and our October is looking to be just as busy.

A few weeks ago we (the whole Thayer clan) went on a picnic with my cousin Tarin & her family (incl. 4 super cute little girls) down at canyon park in Cedar. It was fun to see her because it's been YEARS. We've also gotten to see the Douglas side of the family because Nate's brother Jim just got remarried last weekend. The Douglas gals have been up to our eyeballs in wedding stuff... including 100 carmel apples & a wedding cake (more on that later). All in all, it's been fun to see everyone and we can't wait until we see all y'all again.

Nate & I also have an announcement. For those of you who haven't heard, Nate got a new job in Cedar with the Leavitts. He is very excited for the opportunity to work with Jim again and he's also excited about the prospect of living in Cedar again (good mountain biking apparently). I'm dragging my feet on that one, though. I liked living in Cedar, but I really like where we are now... our ward, our friends, and our house. It's just been wonderful the past 3 years. We probably will end up back in Cedar, but there's NO way I'm moving just when winter is under way. So, we will just have to see what the future holds.

Lincoln is still growing mighty fast and he keeps us on our toes. The sneaky little guy is getting into absolutely everything so we've had to develop a baby prison of gates, pillows, and blockades to keep him out of things.

Until later-

Nate & Jen

Lincoln trying to get past the pillow blockcade...

Success! I got to daddy's guitar!

You fools! Pillows cannot stop me!!!

Lincoln at the baby gate

I'm a trouble maker, but I'm cute enough to get away with it!

Cake Wars 2008

Hello all. A little over a week ago Jon (my little brother) & I celebrated our birthdays together with a little get-together at my house. During the planning I asked Jon if he was making me a cake and he said "Sure. Are you making mine?" Of course I agreed and soon the cake wars were born. It's just more exciting to make it a competition. We figured that everyone at the party could vote on the best cake... using the categories of taste, appearance, technique, and adherence to the theme. The theme, by the way, was to embody the birthday boys (or girls) personality in cake form. Unbeknown to each other, we both started doing research on techniques on the internet and I even checked out all the books on cake decorating from the library.

Here is what we ended up with:

CAKE A: "SPOONS"

Jon made me a cake with a 3-D spoon on top of a rectangular sheet cake with playing cards & chocolate on it. He made homemade pound cake & fondant to carve & then cover the spoon. The cake was a traditional yellow cake with white frosting & chocolate bits everywhere. The spoon, by the way, comes from a story from my youth where I nearly killed my father during a game of "spoons" after leaping through a circle of bystanders, tackling my dad to the ground, and wrenching the last spoon out of his rather strong grip. Apparently this reminds Jon of my competitive nature!

Here are the detail shots:

Birds eye view of my cake.
(Notice the detail on the handle? Nice!)

The Amazing 3-D spoon.
(Excellent carving technique)

CAKE B: "MARLEY & ME"

For Jon's cake I went with a music/Bob Marley theme since he is musical AND since he is very, um, supportive of the Rastafarian movement (he's even WEARING a Rasta bracelet in the photo above). I did a 2 layer cake (both made of chocolate with cookies & cream filling) and iced it in homemade Italian buttercream dyed in the traditional Rastafarian colors. I made a portrait of Marley out of colored chocolate and covered the rest of the cake in chocolate music notes and chocolate guitars.

Here are the detail shots:

My Marley Masterpiece.
(It turned out even better than I expected)

Guitars & Music Notes
(Check out that craftsmanship)

P.S. I won.

Attack of the GIANT baby!!!

For those of you who know our niece Cada, tiny is an understatement. She's always been a petite little girl, but nothing illustrates it quite like this picture. Lincoln & I went to stay with Mel & Ry after the baby was born and Cada couldn't just get enough of her cousin. She loves to hold him, but judging from this photo pretty soon he'll be holding her .

Attack of the GIANT baby
Cada (3 years, 25 lbs) & Lincoln (7 months, 20 lbs)

The Hair Wars

Hello all! August has been a surprisingly busy month for us. The big news is that my sister
Melanie had her baby on the 11th. She endured 36 hours of labor (as did those of us lucky enough to be there with her) before the grand arrival of a nearly 9 lb. baby! Trace is adorable, of course. He has long fingers, long feet, and a whole head of black hair. I'd have to say that he has way more hair than Lincoln & Grandpa T. combined.

The Hair Wars
Trace, day 1 vs. Lincoln, day 215

Poor Lincoln! He takes after the wrong parent... his momma was practically bald until age 2. Anyway, the whole new family is doing fine (not counting the sleep deprivation of course) and Cada seems to be the ideal big sister.

Nate finished his summer school classes and is currently enjoying a short lived break before the fall semester starts. I just got called to the Young Women's organization, so Lincoln is enjoying his Sunday status as a ladies man. Honestly, he disappears during that whole hour as he's passed from girl to girl. I was really excited about the calling, though with Nate in the Elder's Quorum Presidency some Sunday's will require a bit of juggling.

In addition to Mom & Dad Douglas moving here in May, we are thrilled to announce that Spencer & Liz just moved in last weekend. We are excited to have them here for however long we get to keep them. It will be just like the good ole' days in Northfield...

Leaping Lincoln!

With the new school year starting I feel incredibly lucky to be home with the little man. I keep getting asked if I'll miss teaching (which I will) but I'm mostly delighted to just be mommy. Lincoln is growing like gangbusters! As you can see from the video, childproofing our home is imminent! Lincoln may not realize he's got knees, but he can sure get around to wherever he wants to go. Enjoy!

Jenny

I blog, you blog, we all blog for...

I blog, you blog, we all blog for... well we don't really know, but we're doing it anyway. We hope it will help us keep in touch with those of you who are far away... and maybe even those who live up the street.

Summer is full swing for Jenny & Lincoln... not so much for Nate, who is attending summer school at the moment. He's attempting to finish his master's degree in the next year while Jenny takes a much needed break from teaching to be home with Lincoln.

Lincoln just had his half-birthday and he's having fun blowing spit bubbles, scooting around on his tummy, and swimming at Grandma & Grandpa Douglas'. He is just the joy in our lives and we can't believe how much he's changed in the past 6 months. We hope you enjoy the slideshow of our favorite memories.

Until later...

Nate & Jenny

P.S. We've included a link at the bottom of our blog just for you, Spencer. Gleaming the Cube, anyone?? (The sequence is out of order; Watch part 2 then part 1)