Expanding my horizons....

I hate to admit it, but the downward spiral of the economy has hit our nations hair salons. As a hairstylist, this really concerns me. I've been thinking about how I can bring in a little extra cash. Recently, we were visiting Nate's old roommate and his new wife, Tom and Season Giles. Along with some other friends that were there, including Aileen(a mastermind in this money making scheme), we came up with a way to make some more money. Season agreed to be my model/guinea pig. Here we are at the beginning of the pilot program. Thank you and sorry about how long it must have taken you to comb out this rats nest.

When I say rats nest, I REALLY mean it. This took us minutes upon minutes upon minutes.

In case you've been wondering, this is the look we are going for. Nate's from Hurricane, which is VERY close to Colorado City. We see polygamists with hairstyles like this everywhere we go in Hurricane and St George. As a trained and experienced stylist, I am completely dumbfounded as to how they get their hair to do this!!!! All I can do is stare with my jaw dropped while Nate is probably totally humiliated. It's unbelievably smooth with tons of volume and there is not a bubble to be found. And on top of that, I'm pretty sure they don't use and ounce of product, not to mention bobby pins! What on earth is their secret?????

Here is our finished product. Please don't enlarge this picture, I don't want you to see a close up version of the style. It's kind of pathetic.

For any of you ladies out their that want to get this great new style, call soon as appointments are going fast. And guys, this is a great birthday, Mother's Day or "just because" present. It's at a going rate of an inexpesive $25.99. Call now, before it's too late.

I DID IT!!!

Hmmm....where do I begin????
I was finally brave enough to make bread!!! I googled easy bread recipes and came up with one that didn't seem too intimidating. After all of your advice, coaching and motivation I decided that the worst that could happen was that it would be horrible and I would have start over. Nate has made bread before but I made it very clear that I wanted to do this on my own. Don't worry, I asked him about a billion questions. Especially about activating the yeast. Scary!!!

Here I am with the "cast of characters". Anyone who reads the Pioneer Woman's blog will appreciate that. If you don't, please start. You will love it. Nate and I make her recipes sometimes and have yet to find one that is not totally delicious and mouth watering.

Just kneading the bread as instructed. Don't you love my red Kitchen Aid? It was a must with leftover money from the wedding.

Hello amazing, hot, melt in your mouth honey wheat bread(not to toot my own horn). I must admit that it turned out fabulously. If you want the recipe, let me know.

OUCH!

Ok, we have an accident prone member of the Fawcett household. Someone keeps getting hurt. I know what you're thinking...he "fell down the stairs", right? I've already heard it from his brother and his friends at work. But I promise, I haven't laid a finger on him. A week and a half ago, Nate was playing basketball at the church and this happened. He's been limping around everywhere, but I don't hear much complaining from him. He's a pretty good sport. Please notice the difference in size between the right and left foot. It's been pretty swollen.

Just the other night, we were leaving a friends house and she called to tell me I left something there. I had Nate run in and grab it.(I shouldn't do that to an invalid) When he came back to get in the car, he opened the door and banged it right against his head. It split right open, leaving him a Harry Potter-esque scar down his forehead. Sorry this is the only picture I have though. If you're wondering, the bandaid is cut so it doesn't get caught in his eyebrow. In the words of my mom...'Poor Nate'. Get well soon!! P.S. He usually acts much happier about getting his picture taken!

Happy Birthday, Mr President

My dad had a milestone birthday on Feb 11, so we decided to have the President's birthday party on President's Day. It was a perfect match. We made him a little badge that identified him as Mr. President and we all wore badges that said, "Happy Birthday, Mr. President". Here he is in awe of his awesome party. My mom and Michelle put together some very cute and very patriotic decorations. Good job guys!

My favorite part of the night was the Dr Pepper tower. We gave him a very significant "60" Dr Peppers. My mom and Nate made the amazing tower. Here we are modeling next to the tower. (sorry Megan for getting cut out of the picture)

The coolest part about the tower was the logo. Nate got into photo shop and changed it up, which I thought turned out pretty nice. The most fun was when Michael and I cut out the little tiny oval shaped logos while Nate taped them to the bottles. It was worth it though cause they looked great!

And here we have our birthday boy. What a champ! Happy birthday dad (or Brian...I know who you are)!

Valentine's Day

Valentine's Day this year was a total hit! Nate did a great job of preparing the perfect night. He started out by picking me up at a friends house so it felt like a real date (he also had me leave the house for a couple of hours to prepare) We had a candlelight dinner of ribs and potatoes.
Here we are getting ready to eat. Don't we look hungry?

One of my favorite things about special occasions with Nate...his attention to detail (a quality I don't possess). He made these cute heart shaped ice cubes with red food coloring. He also did it last year, so now it's a tradition.

Here is the 4 layer chocolate cake he made me. He didn't have much room, so he wrote Happy Valentine's Day in short hand with m&m's. YUM! After dinner, we went to the movie Taken (part of my gift to Nate) and it was AMAZING! Go see it. My heart was pounding like 97% of the time.

We wanted to stay at a bed and breakfast that night, but couldn't justify the expense. No problem, Nate brought the theme room to us. He made this cool canopy over our bed. It was very impressive!

Lessons of the week....Cafe Rio is cheaper and making bread takes too long!!!!

Hi everyone. I just wanted to share what I've learned this week (as you can see from the post title)
Lesson #1-Cafe Rio is cheaper
On monday(our day off), Nate and I decided that we were going to be adventurous and try to re-do our favorite Cafe Rio meat.....the yummy pork.We found a recipe online that sounded pretty good. As we were looking at the recipe blog, it came to our attention that we have to have rice to go along with it, and the beans, and the dressing, and fresh tortillas.(probably because she listed those recipes as well) And what the heck...why not make homemade guacamole and salsa to go along with it? So off to Costco(for the uncooked tortillas, yum) and the grocery store we went. We had a HUGE list of stuff we needed. I have to tell you all that the total amount of our items was so big that I can't even post it on the internet!!!(if you really want to know, I'll tell you in person). Warning...making your own Cafe Rio is not something you want to do if you are trying to be frugal. I wish someone would have told ME that. Anyway, we came back home and got started. I do have to admit that we did have a lot of fun making the food. It is much more rewarding than standing in line at the restaurant, even though it takes pretty close to the same amount of time.....3 1/2 hours. When we were done, we had quite the spread and I must admit that it tasted pretty darn good! Our friends, Sadee and Mike joined us and were very impressed with our culinary skills, if I do say so myself!
Lesson #2-Makind bread takes too long!!!
This lesson is a sad one for me, because I can never seem to find the time to make it. In the past year or so, I realized I really wanted to be a great bread maker. My mom showed me how to make rolls in November, something I ever dared do myself. You might ask why. The answer is that I AM AFRAID OF YEAST! I have a fear that I will ruin the bread/rolls since I don't really know how yeast works. I finally decided that I don't care anymore and I just want to try it. The worst possible scenerio is that I have to throw it away. But now I have a new problem....IT TAKES TOO LONG!!! I thought I had time today, but when I looked at my recipe, I realized that the process is over 3 1/2 hours(ironically the amount of time it takes to make a Cafe Rio meal with your husband). Hmmm...I just realized that maybe I do have the time. I just need to enlist him.
OK, maybe this lesson is teaching me another lesson.....sorry that this post was SUPER random. Just a few thoughts for posterity.