Singing the National Anthem at Chase Field

Today I got to do something incredibly fun.  Something I never thought I would ever have had the opportunity to do, and that was to sing the National Anthem at Chase Field for the Diamondbacks opener.  I couldn't believe it!  The choir that I sing in for Voices of Christmas was chosen as the group to come sing the National Anthem tonight and I loved every minute of it!  Even though it was quite difficult singing on the field because the massive sound system kind of swallows you whole and echoes ridiculously loud back to you.  But you know, it was an experience that I loved and I hope I will get the chance to do it again sometime. Here is a link to our song: National Anthem


Below are some of the pictures of us at Chase Field:

A Little Family History

So I decided to put my craftiness skills to work in my church calling this time.  I am the Family History teacher/consultant for my ward and I wanted to do it right.  There are only four lessons in the manual, and it doesn't seem like there is much to teach, but there is so much to learn!  The spread for my lesson today included family picture calendars, family cookbooks, journals, recorded CDs of songs done by various family members who have passed on, life stories, obituaries, birth certificates, death certificates, a hymn my ancestors wrote the words to for the hymnbook, marriage announcements, funeral programs, priesthood lines and pages and pages of ancestor's family history done by my grandmother. There is just so much more than simply indexing!

Leprechauns Are Lucky!

There was a lull at work today so I decided to whip out my crafty skills and draw me a leprechaun for St. Patrick's Day.  It's one of my favorite holidays, but I have no clue why.  I think it might be because leprechauns are cute.

Halloween-Snow White from Once Upon a Time

Even though it's been on for ages, I just got hooked on the show "Once Upon a Time."  Naturally, this year for Halloween I decided to make Snow White's hunting outfit from the first season of the show.  It took me eight months, several trips to JoAnn's Fabrics, and sometimes round-the-clock stitching to get it ready by Halloween.  Yes, I hand-stitched every piece of this outfit because I haven't quite gotten the hang of the sewing machine just yet.  All of that hard work payed off, however, when I won first place in the costume contest at work.  Now to start planning next year's costume!

The top picture is the actress Ginnifer Goodwin in Snow White's hunting outfit.  The other two are me in the one that I made:

Cheesecake Bake-off!!

Awesomeness has occurred!!  Tonight definitely got everyone on a sugar high!  It was my home ward's third annual cheesecake bake-off, and my first time being able to actually go, so I made a cheesecake!  It was my second time ever making a cheesecake, my first attempt being an Australian cheesecake that was quite bitter.  I actually had to adapt this most recent cheesecake from a cheesecake bar recipe into an actual cheesecake recipe, which took some effort, and it certainly didn't win any prizes.  I did, however, get a compliment on the brownie cheesecake crust.  The cheesecake I made was a chocolate chip cookie dough brownie cheesecake recipe, given below.  The picture is first of the bars that the real recipe makes, and then the second picture is of the already-sampled cheesecake that I made for tonight (I forgot to take a picture before-hand).  Then the adaptations follow.

Ingredients:

Chocolate chip cookie dough

- ½ of 1 package Nestle Toll House pre-made cookie dough

Cheesecake

8oz. cream cheese, room temperature
1/3 cup sugar
1 egg
1 teaspoon vanilla

Brownie (adapted from Alice Medrich)

• 8 tablespoons unsalted butter
• 4oz. unsweetened chocolate
• 1 ¼ cups sugar
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• ¼ teaspoon salt
• 2 large eggs
• ½ cup all-purpose flour

Instructions:

Cookie dough preparation

Crumble half of cookie dough mixture.

To make cheesecake

Add all ingredients in a bowl and beat until blended. Set aside.

To make brownie

1. Place butter and chocolate in a double boiler or a bowl over simmering water. Stir frequently until mixture is melted. Remove chocolate mixture from heat and stir in sugar, vanilla and salt. Add the eggs one at a time, stirring until each is incorporated before adding the next. Stir in flour and beat with a wooden spoon until mixture is glossy about 1 minute. Set aside.

Assembly

1. Pour 3/4 of brownie mixture into pan. Layer cheesecake mixture on top. Sprinkle crumbled cookie dough on top of cheesecake layer. Pour remaining brownie mixture on top. Use a skewer or a fork and drag it through the brownie and cheesecake mixture to create a swirled top.
2. Bake for about 30-40 minutes at 400 degrees F. Brownie will will be fudgy and cheesecake layer will be creamy.

Adaptations: I used the same cookie dough, but instead of making an entire layer of just cookie dough I did little pieces here and there to keep it from having too much of a cookie texture.  Then, I still made the entire brownie mix, but I put less than half of the mix on the bottom for a thinner crust and none on the top so that the finished product didn't come out too cake-y after being baked.  There was quite a bit of brownie mix left over, which my brothers proceeded to then eat.  I doubled the cheesecake part of the recipe to make it more cheesecake-y because with the original recipe, the cheesecake seemed like the least important part.  I baked it at the same temperature for the 30 minutes the recipe says to and it turned out pretty well, I think.  Try it for yourself and adapt it to your liking!  :-)

Fun With Rice Krispy Treats!

So, Thursday was one of my boss' last day working at Target.  His name is Bryan and he was one of my favorite people there, if not my favorite person there.  He kind of understood me a little better than everyone else does.  Anyway, for his last day, I made an entire pan of rice krispies drizzled with Ghirardelli chocolate and Kraft caramel, pictured below.  I then decided that I wanted to do something a little more special than just making a treat, so I molded a huge KISS out of another batch of rice krispies and then covered it in chocolate!  When I wrapped it up it looked like a gigantic Hershey's KISS!  He thought it was awesome.  :-)  Then, last night I babysat Jen and Lynette's boys, Jack and Ian, and we made dinosaurs out of rice krispy treats.  I don't know if you can tell what kind of dinosaurs they are, but we tried.  Then we decorated them with the left-over chocolate and all kinds of colorful sprinkles!!  Needless to say, we had fun with rice krispy treats this week.  :-)

Nail Time!!

Okay, so the title for this post is totally a pull from Blue's Clues' 'Mail Time' song, but it works, right?  Or, I guess it could be a pull from Home Improvement's 'Tool Time.'  Either way, I'm using it.  :-P  Yes, I paint and write and do all sorts of things with music and am just crafty that way, but one of my most exotic and flavorful canvases are my nails, believe it or not.  My nails are always changing because I get new ideas for fun little designs and themes.  I will also let you in on a little secret; if you look at my nails, you can tell what mood I was in at the time that I painted them.  Not that that gives you any idea of the mood I would currently be in when you saw my nails, but still, it's an interesting fact.  :-)  This first picture is the red sparkles, which is real polish, and black tips, which are the stick-on polish.  Sadly, these only lasted two days, because real polish doesn't stand a chance at work when I have to unload the truck.  Doing that destroys my nails and I have to do some major cuticle and nail care after that.  That's why I mostly stick with the stickers! (No pun intended).