The last of the Birthday Months

Birthday Months came out with a bang at my parents the day after all the moving.

Of course, my favorite meal (spaghetti) was served with a twist. Cincinnati Chili made by Nate.

Oh soooo goooooood!

Meat, chili, spaghetti and cheese. Nothin' else.

The locals in Cincinnati call it a three-way.

The recipe:

from allrecipes.com

Ingredients

• 1 tablespoon vegetable oil
• 1/2 cup chopped onion
• 2 pounds ground beef
• 1/4 cup chili powder
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1 teaspoon ground cumin
• 1/4 teaspoon ground allspice
• 1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
• 1 bay leaf
• 1/2 (1 ounce) square unsweetened chocolate
• 2 (10.5 ounce) cans beef broth
• 1 (15 ounce) can tomato sauce
• 2 tablespoons cider vinegar
• 1/4 teaspoon ground cayenne pepper
• 1/4 cup shredded Cheddar cheese

Directions

1. Heat oil in a large saucepan over medium heat. Add onion and cook, stirring frequently, until tender, about 6 minutes.
2. Add beef, in batches if necessary, and cook, breaking up with a wooden spoon, until browned.
3. Add chili powder, cinnamon, cumin, allspice, cloves, bay leaf, chocolate, beef broth, tomato sauce, cider vinegar, and red pepper. Stir to mix well. Bring to a boil. Reduce heat to low; cover and simmer 1 1/2 hours, stirring occasionally.
4. It is the best if you now refrigerate overnight.
5. Remove the bay leaf. Reheat gently over medium heat. Serve over hot, drained spaghetti. Top with shredded cheddar cheese.

After dinner. . .

Cookies and Cream, ice cream cake from Baskin Robbins. My dad surprised me when he told me that he was the one who picked it out. I love it!

Can't believe I'm 25!

Birthday Months Part II

I turned 25!

Wow, I can't believe how time flies. But we all say that, don't we?

25 is really important to me because when I was 18, most of my college friends were 25. They gave me a lot of advice about life and where I should be. I think I'll

take a moment to reflect.

My goals were:

1. serve a mission

2. get married

3. have kids

4. graduate

Well, the top two accomplished. The last two, are on their way. All I can say is that yes, I did learn from those really good friends. Too many of the girls I knew, told me that they hadn't done anything with their life when they were my age. They hadn't graduated yet, and we're waiting for Mr. Right to come around. That made me think that I wanted to experience life as much as possible and not just wait. I figure Mr. Right would come around at the right time! And he did!

I feel like I have done a lot since I was 18 and have grown as well.

I'm happy to say, I'm right on track with my ultimate goals.

For my birthday, I did a little bit of shopping. Kristen has introduced me to a wonderful makeup store. I love makeup and all the fun colors. But it's so hard for me to choose, so when I found this, it was perfect.

I love it. Now, if I feel like wearing blue one day and brown the next, not a problem. I also got a pedicure, decided to be just a little pampered.

After Kevin came home from work, we went to the BEST restaurant, Ghidotti's. It's up in Park City, in the Red Rock shopping center. Everything was perfect. The food, the atmosphere, our waiter and of course, the company.

fancy water

our appetizer (cheese and meats, including duck prosciutto)

It was so good that I forgot to take pictures of our actual meals. Kevin had a mushroom ravioli and I had Veal Marsala.

We also had Creme Brulee for dessert, you can see the remains of it.

When we came home, it was officially time to sing happy birthday!

Red Velvet cupcake from the Sweet Tooth Fairy

Thanks Kevin for spoiling me! It was a great day.

Birthday Eve

Kevin's parents invited us over for a pre-birthday dinner. We had my favorite, spaghetti!

Then we played a now family favorite game called Sequence. Sue likes it because it's about luck and not strategy. You also have to try and guess what the other person may be thinking. It was a lot of fun!

My in-laws gave me a huge red fleece blanket to go on our bed. I think it will go well with our Christmas sheets. Thanks!!!

I love NieNie

As part of our birthday months, I convinced Kevin to drive me to that school down south to hear NieNie speak. I was thrilled.

We arrived almost a half hour early, thanks to leaving early and some pretty fast driving by Kevin. What we didn't expect was an already filled auditorium. We couldn't find a seat anywhere and didn't know where to grab one (both of us have never spent much time in Provo). We ended up camping out by a post and stood for almost the whole talk (Kevin stood the whole time, I almost made it). We were just glad not to be in the very back. It was a pretty good view of the overcrowded room.

You can see Kevin's blue shirt by the post on the left. I'm right next to him.

Photo by the amazing Justin Hackworth

I was amazed at how brave Stephanie was and how she just stood right up without any hesitation to so many people. She told her story of her plane crash, I hadn't heard all the details before and can't even begin to imagine how hard it truly was to live through it all.

NieNie's Mormon Messages Video, just in case you haven't seen it.

I love it. It's my favorite one by far. It has given me hope during the hard times and strength to continue down this road we call life.

A few things that were hard for me to hear:

-Stephanie explained how she never got to see her Arizona home again. Her house was sold and Stephanie's sister prepared a new home for her family in Provo while Stephanie was in a coma. She explained that it was the house that they worked so hard to have; painting and decorating every nook and cranny.

-Once Stephanie woke up after being three months in a coma, still not being able to see her children. I can't imagine how difficult that was not to see your kids and miss out on all the wonderful things kids do for that long.

-When she did finally see her kids, Jane (her daughter) wouldn't look at Stephanie for the longest time. Stephanie said that it wasn't until she was home and had started taking care of the kids again when Jane could look at her. She said that she had to sneak up on Jane while she was in the bathtub and no where to run. Jane finally had to look at her mom again. Stephanie said she screamed, "We're doing this!" and a smile came from Jane.

-Stephanie shared of when she looked at herself in the mirror the first time. I didn't like hearing about how hard it was for her and how the moment built up. It would have been a hundred if not a thousand times harder for me. The doctor who was taking care of her in the burn unit had suggested having her look into a mirror. She didn't right then (I wouldn't have), she took more time and some encouragement from her husband before she really took a long look at herself in the mirror.

What I loved most:

-Hearing Stephanie say that she overcame it all.

-How she encouraged everyone to ask Heavenly Father to confirm that they're beautiful.

-Seeing all her family there to support her (and seeing all the people there to support her).

-Listening to one of my favorite people in the world be so amazing in a simple way.

I hope NieNie inspires you too, the way she does for me. The last thing that touched me the most is that when she came home from the burn unit, she started trying to doing things that she did before the accident. Such as putting on eye makeup and wearing earrings. I used to do all of that too and rarely do now, my energy is just gone for something like that. She said that her kids would remark that she was bringing herself home when she did those things. I am learning too, how to bring myself back from being so sick and taking it a day at a time. I'm trying hard to do those things again. It wasn't that long ago.

While it's terribly hard for me to say I'm beautiful, know that you are. I look at everyone and I can tell everyone that they're beautiful, without a doubt.

Birthday Months Part I

Kevin and I have birthday's close to each other. We love this time of year because despite our extra busy schedule with work and school. Fall means time to party. However this year, we were extra, extra busy so we created birthday months. For all of September and October, we get to celebrate a little bit at a time.

On Kevin's birthday, he turned 23 and we started out with something simple. The race was the next day, we packed up on the carbs at Marcello's off of Main Street in Bountiful. Our local favorite. It's a great little place with an amazing buffet on Fridays and Saturdays.

A sweet couple owns the restaurant but neither of them can hardly speak English. She speaks Spanish and is from Argentina. He's from Italy and it makes a good combination. All your Italian favorites and also on the menu, Argentine barbecue.

From there, we headed home and watched a classic that Kevin has never seen, "The Love Bug." The movie where it all started, the VW bug making it big and very popular. Gotta love Herbie.

Don't forget about this yummy cake. White chocolate raspberry, oh so good! It was a sweet evening.

The next weekend (went from 9/23 to 10/1), we set up a triple date with the parents at one of my family's favorites, Blue Iguana.

Two main reasons why we went there.

1. Kevin loves Mexican food.

2. They have a Mariachi band that plays on the weekends.

3. They'll sing "Happy Birthday" in Spanish.

We have a magnet on our fridge that says, "Life without Mexican food is no life at all!"

All Kevin.

We visited and had a great time with good food and wonderful music, taking all of us to Mexico. They even brought Kevin fried ice cream. He loved it all.

Happy 23rd birthday to my amazing husband! I love you more, always.