my valentines

VALENTINE'S.

my month has been full of pinks, reds, glue, and chocolate.

i made these felt fortune cookies for my darling primary class.

fortune cookies with the best kind of fortune/advice for my young ones.

my valentine's subway art, no glue needed.

my fabulous wreath that was intended for LAST YEAR'S valentine's day.  but i ended up finishing it a lot later  in the year.  i loved how it turned out but i probably won't attempt anything like this again.  i most likely will never ever ever have the time like i did before i had everton.

my valentines.  

i love my 2 white boys oh so much.

as for valentine's day DAY, my day consisted of being in the kitchen the entire day and everton clinging onto my pants screaming, making me immovable or he'll fall to his face screaming even more.

and during all of that, here's what i created...

WHITE CHOCOLATE RASPBERRY CHEESECAKE.

(click here for recipe)

MmmmmmHmmmm

mine definitely didn't turn out as "hearty" as the blogger's cheesecake.

when attempting this glorious cheesecake be sure to have a fine FINE mesh strainer to filter out those pesky raspberry seeds.  the strainer i used did ok in taking out most of them but some seeds sneaked their way in.  (thanks for letting me use your strainer tati!)

my hearts came out pretty wonky and they sorta look like teeth.

for this year's valentine's we decided to stay home instead of going out.  i had gotten tired of horribly long waits, food that didn't agree with our stomachs no matter how good it was, and maybe i was a little traumatized from last year's valentine's when i was about 6-7 mos pregnant and i had thrown up IN the restaurant, not in their bathroom, THE RESTAURANT.  i know i'm not dealing with nausea right now but it overwhelmed me thinking about going out for valentine's.

i volunteered to make a huge dinner for my lover and i.

the dinner menu

-ribeye steak with a spicy rub

-red potatoes with an AWESOME herb blend

-insanely buttery green beans

-honey butter rolls

dessert menu

-chocolate covered strawberries

-and that sexy cheesecake.

oh yeah, here's the third wheel.

happy valentine's from the caldwells.

♥

world nutella day 2012

it's a real holiday.  february 5th.

nutella lovers of the world unite.

the holiday started back in 2007 but i myself am just a recent nutella lover.

and after tasting what i like to call, "chocolate butta," soon after i gave birth to my everton, i was in love.

after finding out that there's a freakin holiday dedicated to the hazelnut spread, a few friends and i saw that it would be fitting to celebrate!  but since the 5th lands on a sunday, us marmons don't really like to party it up on the sabbath day.  so saturday we partied!

we all brought some kind of dessert containing the magical ingredient.

and i made NUTELLA CHEESECAKE BROWNIES
link to recipe can be found here.

the recipe calls for 6 tablespoons of nutella on top but i thought that 6 heaping spoonfuls would be better.

now, i'm not a very good swirler, but i sure did make a beautiful nutella cheesecake mess.

nutella, get in my belly.  now.

the nutella creations, consisting of nutella lava cookies, nutella cupcakes with diabetic coma inducing nutella frosting, nutella twix bars with dark chocolate, and my lethal nutella cheesecake brownies, which ended up a goopy mess that you pretty much had to eat with a spoon.  goopy, yet delicious.

my cute friends, jill and darlene.

mah gurrrrrrl

nutella nutella nutella nutella

too much consumption of nutella may cause chocolaty fingers, a smeared face, and worst of all, nutellabetes.

please celebrate world nutella day responsibly.

9 months

9 months!

where the freak has time gone?

everton has become what my mom likes to say in filipino regarding him or me when i was a baby...
MALIKOT!

it means naughty.

he's getting into everything.  he's mastered the art of crawling after turning 8 months and he's unstoppable. 

my days consist of everton pulling himself up to the couch, him feeling confident enough to let go, resulting in him falling and bonking his head.  i then scoop him up, rub his head, tell him he's still alive, and give him lots of kisses and cuddles.

REPEAT PROCESS.

all day.

he has scrapes and bruises on his noggin, with me gettin some extra baby lovin.

i just took him to his 9 month appt today and he's now 18.4 lbs and is 27 1/2 in long.
he's still considered teeny for his age but at least he's growing somewhat!  but one thing that's a little problematic is that he's pretty low in iron.  with a small change in his diet and some drops the doc gave us, everton should be good.  i had no idea how up and down a baby's development and health can go.  but other than that, everything looks great. and for that, i'm totally thankful.
along with the checkup from the doc comes with the dreaded shots!
poor baby.  he's takes em like a man though, he'll cry for a good few minutes then brush it off.  and they gave him WOLVERINE band aids!  and i got totally jealous.

everton also helps me clean the kitchen!  

psych.  he just likes looking at the baby in the oven.

lemme tell ya, these month by month pics are getting harder and harder to do.  it's when he started to crawl and roll over i couldn't have him laying down anymore.  so since month 8 i've been having him sit up.  but even that's been complicated.  i'm starting to think about duct taping the child to the wall so he'll stay still.

here's some behind the scenes pics in our monthly photoshoot.

here's my lovely fabric background, waiting to be wrinkled and puked on.

brett's been dubbed as the baby wrangler/treat giver when a certain baby starts whining or gets tired.

everton gets treats too...

batang malikot!

wrong way buddy.

he's seriously the worst model ever.

details about the new job

so brett has worked 2 days at his new job so far and seems to be a new man.  he's been loving his job with the church and is so pumped for all the things he'll be doing.

which will be......

handling accounts that deal with the utility bills for missions ALL over the world!

he works in a group of people that makes sure the church leaders don't have to worry about the bills and can focus more on their callings.

brett's also excited/hoping to put his portuguese and spanish skills to good use.

and that's the short version as to what brett's job entails.  

we will be staying in the fantastic city of tooele and don't plan on moving anytime soon.  salt lake is only 40ish mins from tooele so it's not that bad of a commute.  but brett won't be needing to drive to work because of the bus system that's available.  they take a few bucks from each paycheck and he'll be riding the bus from tooele to slc and back.  which leaves me the car when i need it for everton's appointments and such and it'll allow brett to relax and he won't get exhausted from all the driving.

this new job is such a blessing to us.  brett was chosen from 100 people who applied for this job and his boss had told brett that they prayed about him and that it felt right to hire him.  that just sounds amazing.  you never hear that often when it comes to the vast and scary job world.

the ONLY drawback of brett's new job is that he doesn't get to come home for lunch anymore, but for real, if that's the only "bad thing," i'll suck it up.

the mime.

everton's new developmental trick is pulling himself up to the couch and terrorizing brett and i as we use our laptops.  he hightails it to any electronic device that he can reach, slams on it with his cute fingers or chews on it with his piranha teeth, then falls and bumps his head or his booty.

he gets into EVERYTHING now.  holy crap.  it's tiring me out pulling him away from things and the darned kid is lightening fast getting back to the place i had just pulled him from.

"it's aiight mom, i can fix your computer. i got this"

no matter how much he frustrates me, getting into everything and chewing on cords, how can i get mad at this bubble face?

nighttime routine

every night, before i go to bed,

i HAVE to check on my everton...

just to make sure he's still awesome.

church suit up!

my amazing and hard working husband will not be working for wells fargo anymore.

turns out the banking business was just not his cup of tea, or in his case, his cup of dr. pepper.
brett just wasn't happy at wells fargo.
and what do you do when you're not happy with something?  try to change it!  if you can, at least.
so brett decided to try to change jobs.  he didn't want to leave wells fargo unless he had a job already.  so for a while he had been revamping his resume, getting in touch with any contacts or hook ups he has, and we've been fastin, a'prayin, and a'readin our scriptures.
and our prayers were answered.
brett had applied for a job with the church.
brett got an interview with them and about 2 weeks later he got the job!

he'll be starting on jan 23rd and will be working in downtown salt lake.  not at the official church headquarters building but in a building 1 block west of the conference center.
he is so freakin excited and i'm just so excited for him.

what exactly is the job, pray tell?

we don't know!  well they told brett a little bit about it and it has something to do with accounting...
i'll update soon about exactly what he'll be doing when he starts his new job.  all i want is for brett to absolutely love his job, even if that means living in utah for awhile longer.


you know, i seriously love being a stay a home mom. i love spending as much time as i can with my everton and i love watching him grow and develop into such an amazing little boy.  it is hard work though and can be frustrating when everton is fussier than usual.  i'm so grateful that brett works so hard so that i can stay home and take care of our son.  sometimes i feel bad not contributing financially to our income but i always try to support my husband in everything he does, attempt to keep the house clean as much as i can, and help raise our kids to be righteous people.  and that counts as contributing right?  well i think so.

as for the rest of our fam, everton and i are sick.  our days consist of sleeping (even more than usual), going through tissue boxes, red noses, nasal aspirators (for everton), drugs drugs drugs (for me), and lots of cuddle time.  i have realized that it totally sucks taking care of a baby while being in a state of near death.  being a mom actually became harder.

so no pics for today.  i'm sure you don't wanna see puffy red faces.  yet, everton's snotty face is still cute.

new year and a new calling

let us welcome the new year 2012!

the transition into the new year consisted of friends, family, games, lots of delicious food, and the bubbly (sparkling cider=derishousness)

on new years eve at midnight, the baby was already snoozin, brett and i shared a little smoocheroo, and we went to bed.

as long as i get a new years kiss from my man and some sparkling cider, i'm pretty much a happy camper going into the new year.

what an amazing year 2011 has been.  

we had a baby.

brett and i reached our 3rd year anniversary.

brett and i grew into our roles as parents this year.

i've gained such amazing friends here in tooele.

brett has worked a full year at his "grown up" job at wells fargo since graduating college.

we've watched our everton grow so much in the 8 months of the year since his beautiful birth.

we got a washer and dryer! which is pretty spectacular after living a few years without one.

we have so much to be thankful for that had happened in 2011 and we have so much to look forward to in this new year.

one new thing that's happened to me in the new year is i got a new calling in church.

i shall be teaching primary!

CTR 6 to be specific,

which means teaching 6 year olds.

at first i was really nervous, knowing that i'm teaching the future leaders of this world!

even though i'm really just teaching them basic basic gospel principles and there will be coloring involved.

my first lesson on sunday went great.

we learned about choosing the right choices in life and we did, indeed, color.

we colored our shields that says CTR, which means CHOOSE THE RIGHT.

the kids i teach are seriously so darling and a bit chatty.

one thing we have to look forward to this new year is everton turning one!!!!!

ugh, i'm not ready.