A Frosting Recipe

Ok, ok, some back story. I. Love. Frosting. It's basically my favorite thing about cake. I mean, really, the cake is there to decorate the frosting in my opinion. My mom tells a story about when I was a kid, I went to a birthday party, ate all the frosting off my piece and went back and asked for "more frosting please." I love it. But really, really good frosting recipe are sometimes hard to come by. I have always struggled with vanilla buttercream. The recipe I usually used was always extra, extra sweet. Like, makes my cheeks pucker kind of sweet. It was good, but not awesome.

So then I tried a Vanilla Swiss Meringue Buttercream, which was good, but very, very buttery, and a very involved recipe. I actually rather liked it, but Jordan thought it was too buttery (and I received mixed reviews overall). If you ever have extra time and want something a little different, I suggest trying it. (I got it from a foodie website I love: Annie's Eats. I don't try EVERYTHING from there, but if nothing else I just love to browse... her photos are SO beautiful).

Ok. So I can't use that recipe all the time. Well, I decided to check Annie's site again (because I get the feeling she loves frosting as much as I do), and I found a happy medium between the two. Not too sweet, but not too buttery for Jordan (because, basically, nothing can ever be too buttery for me), and less work. Here's the recipe:

Easy Vanilla Buttercream
Ingredients:
20 tbsp. (2 ½ sticks) unsalted butter, softened
2 ½ cups confectioners’ sugar, sifted
1/8 tsp. salt
2 tsp. vanilla extract
2 tbsp. heavy cream

Directions:
In a stand mixer fitted with the whisk attachment, beat butter at medium-high speed until smooth, about 20 seconds. Add confectioners’ sugar and salt; beat at medium-low speed until most of the sugar is moistened, about 45 seconds. Scrape down the bowl and beat at medium speed until mixture is fully combined, about 15 seconds. Scrape bowl, add vanilla and heavy cream, and beat at medium speed until incorporated, about 10 seconds. Then increase the speed to medium-high and beat until light and fluffy, about 4 minutes, scraping down bowl once or twice.

I hope you like it!

Day Eighteen: Your Favorite Memory

Your favorite memory?

Who has one single, favorite memory?

Weird. Um, I guess if I have to pick one, I pick the moment they brought Clara to us after she was born. The actual moment she was born I was pretty exhausted. And confused. I really thought she was going to be a boy, and then she wasn't, and then suddenly the whole room was super busy with activity, and I couldn't figure out what to pay attention to, so I just kept asking Jordan if she was really a girl, and the next thing I know they're telling me that she's having a little trouble breathing so they need to get her on the CPAP machine in the NICU and I couldn't even think strait, it was all happening to fast and I was so wiped out...

But a couple hours later (after the most delicious Sprite I've ever had in my life) at 3:30 in the morning, they finally brought us our baby. And, oh she was so perfect! Jordan picked her up and said, "Oh, Amanda, she's so cute!" and I could literally see his heart melt. Even three hours after she was born she was so alert and bright-eyed. All we could do was admire her perfection. We didn't sleep until 5 am that morning, but I don't even remember being tired.

Day Seventeen: Your Favorite Birthday

Seeing as tomorrow is really my 25th birthday, I thought this post was fitting! I don't really have a favorite birthday, but I have a top ten countdown of my favorite birthday moments... so here we go:

10. Buying my own cake when I turned 20 years old in Nacogdoches. It was late at night, and the only cake left was a baby shower cake. I wanted a baby, so it was pretty much perfect!

9. Sitting outside the MOA at BYU with Jordan on the morning of my 23rd birthday. I was telling him how all I wanted to do that day was pet a kitten. :) It was very sweet and romantic.

8. For one of my younger birthdays (6, I think?), I wanted a tiered cake like a wedding cake for my birthday. That's all I wanted. I asked basically everyday. I remember obsessing over that cake. And my dad totally made it happen.

7. When I was a freshman in high school, I turned 15 during our flight on our way to New York. Everyone sang Happy Birthday to me. I was the only freshman and pretty shy, so I thought that was pretty darn awesome.

6. I turned 11 during a trip to Juneau with the jump rope team during a competition (this is so for real, btw). I was pretty nervous about it, even writing a story about it a month earlier for creative writing. They all gave me a surprise party! It was the first one I ever had, and I was SO happy!

5. I was pregnant last year (turning 24) and we went to Tucano's, which made me sick (not hard to do). We went to see Alice in Wonderland which made me naucous (not surprising). But Jordan fixed all that by getting one of my favorite board games: Dominion. I was sick, but having a blast!

4. My first birthday. I don't remember it. I don't even know if I have a picture, but it seems important enough that I simply managed to make it to that first year to mention it.

3. For my 18th birthday, I was in New York with my high school choir again! I visited the Empire State Building, went shopping, and then got a surprise party in the hotel with the most delicious cake and tons of presents. I mean, seriously, 18th birthday at the top of the Empire State Building? My life rocks.

2. When I turned 21 I was in Nacogdoches. The normal way to celebrate that is to go drinking. I, of course, do not participate in such traditions, so during opera rehearsal (Marriage of Figaro) two of my friends brought me a cake. Not just any cake, an amazing IGLOO cake. It was SO COOL! And it must have taken a lot of work. Thanks Mandy and Bonnie!

1. The most famous of all birthdays: Jordan was home from his mission just short of a month. He took me out to the Turtle Club(the most delicious and expensive restaurant in Fairbanks). I thought he was going to propose. He did not. I decided I had never tried the lobster, and wanted to try it. It said "At Market Price." I assumed it couldn't be THAT expensive, right? Oh, yeah, it was $55. And I liked Jordan's prime rib better.

Day Sixteen: Your Dreams

Ah, dreams. I think they're a very interesting thing to ask a stay at home mom for two reasons:

1. We're too sleep deprived to remember our dreams. Really, the only one-true dream is about more sleep.

2. In general, this IS our dream. Or, at least it is for me. I went strait from getting a Masters into Mommy-hood. It doesn't get much better than that!

It's hard for me to even talk about my dreams, because I have very loosely fitted "goals." I would like to start some voice lessons, both teaching and taking them. I'd like to audition for a couple of things. Maybe teach at a community college, maybe start my doctorate (very, very slowly).

Really, I have things I want to do, but my end goal is very cloudy... I'd like to perform, but only very part-time. I'd like to teach, but only very part-time.

See, the truth is that I am very happy with my life. And, at this point, I'm willing to go where it will take me. Things are going so well, I'm far more concerned something bad will happen to ruin it all than to really thing of things I want.

So. Dreams. Yeah. I'm very happy with my life. I dream that we'll have more children, that we'll be able to provide for them, that I'll continue to be able to stay at home with our babies, that they will be able to see me doing something I love, and that we'll all just keep trying to do the right things. And if some trial should come our way, I feel confident that we could meet it with strength and happiness.

Bad Day

I just need to get this out. First, I am STILL grateful that we got a job, and frankly it's probably way whiney of me to even be complaining... but, well, sometimes you just have a bad day. I hate moving.

Yesterday as I was walking out to do visiting teaching I tripped over the last step and twisted my ankle so badly I honestly thought I broke it. Jordan and I debated the merits of going to the emergency room, and I'm glad we didn't because I'm sure it's not broken now (at the time I was genuinely in a significant amount of pain), but it's a pretty nasty sprain. It's hard to get up and down and walk around the apartment as effectively as I need to in order to pack and care for a cute little baby. Lame.

Lately, Clara has decided to take 20 minute naps. This is actually probably my fault because we haven't been as consistent with her bedtime because we're so busy getting stuff done/saying goodbye, and so she's starting to get sleep deprived. But man o man is it frustrating when I go to start to do something and she wakes up about 5 minutes later, clearly still exhausted. People have offered to help and watch her so I can get more done, but how can I send her to people like this? It doesn't seem fair to say, "Here, put my kid to bed. She'll wake up crying in 20 minutes, but thanks anyway!"

First, I couldn't get my apartment listing on Craigslist. So then I got it on KSL, had two responses who both came and saw the apartment (which I just think is the best place ever) and decided to go with someone else. I finally did get it on Craigslist, got two responses but both decided it wouldn't work. It's SO frustrating! I should have never signed that year-long lease (they were pretty forceful about it) and really pushed them to do month-to-month (I don't know if I would have won, but I wish I had put up more of a fight).

On top of all of this, I'm leaving and I wish I could spend time with everyone. But here I am, stuck in a stupid apartment that one sell and doing the one thing I'm pretty sure I hate most in the world: Moving.

Alright, pity-party over. It's going to be ok, the apartment WILL get rented out, Clara will feel better when we have a normal schedule in Phoenix, and most importantly I can stop moving.

I really, really hate moving. Did I mention that already?

Another Blog!

Alrighty, not everyone may be interested, but... maybe you are. One of my favorite pass-times is to read, including current events. And I often have an opinion that I don't necessarily feel comfortable expressing on this blog. So I've started a new one, that deals mostly with current events, or commenting on trends, or maybe just discussing something I read that I thought was interesting. I started because I enjoy having intelligent conversation about what's going on in our world. Feel free to go on, comment, and maybe even write a post stating your OWN opinion. I'm not interested in having arguments, but thoughtful conversation (that includes people who don't necessarily agree with me). And, certainly, if you just like Happy Mommy Amanda and not so interested in loud, opinionated Amanda, keep reading this one! But for those adventurous souls, you can find my thoughts here.

Enjoy!

5 Months Old!!!

This is ridiculous. How can time go by so fast? And how can she change so rapidly in such a short period? I was thinking today of how my life has revolved around nursing her for the last 5 months! Every 2-5 hours for the last FIVE MONTHS I've been tied to this beautiful creature. And it doesn't bother me nearly as much as I thought it would...

Ok, lets see if I can break this down:

-Clara's favorite and most impressive trick by far is rolling over. She can go from her back to her front very easily and quickly. For some reason she's slower from her front to back (which is weird because that's what she did first). She can go all the way around to get somewhere.

-Grabbing things! She was a bit of a late grabber. Just not that interested in using her hands. She's still ok with NOT grabbing everything (which, I won't lie, is fabulous), but she's getting more and more bold.

-Very, very close to sitting up. Actually, she will sit up on her own for quite a while, but then if she bends the wrong way she comes toppling down. So... this is a "mostly." I say by 5 1/2 months she'll be a pro!

-Sucking her thumb. So, so, so cute. Indescribably cute. I should stop her, but I can't. It's too adorable.

-She's a TOTAL Daddy's girl. Poor thing is going to be heartbroken when dad has to work all day and she's stuck with Mommy. Daddy, somehow, always makes everything better for her. He'll go to put her to bed, and the next thing I know I hear her (very adorable) belly laugh.

-It's just amazing how she's discovering how to use her body. She bends all sorts of ways now. Arching her back to look behind her, lots of twisting, and TONS of wiggling.

-Lately she's started to jabber a bit more. Really, she just has a new sound that sort of sounds like yelling when she's decided she's bored and wants attention. It's basically "fake crying." She's upset, but not sad or angry. It's also very funny to hear this used to be quiet baby making such a big deal about getting her toy back.

-Still no hair. *sigh* My sister-in-law Anna recently had a beautiful new baby girl, Lizzie, with TONS of dark hair. We called her husband Mike and told him that we're having "hair envy." Jordan likes to remind me that this is my fault. He had tons of hair (like Lizzie). I was bald until I was two. Poor Clara...

-In our new ward, I'm fairly certain she is the the youngest. Actually, I think she's the only baby under the age of 1. Which is SO weird coming from a BYU Married ward. But it does get you a LOT of attention. She's just TOO CUTE!

Enjoy this video of Jordan making her laugh!