Trip with dad

Dave and Miles are currently on a father/son get-a-way. Dave is on spring break this week so we decided that it would be nice for those two to spend some quality time together while I stayed home and worked on a few things around the house. They are in Tremonton visiting Dave's brother and are scheduled to come home Thursday morning. It hasn't even been 24 hours yet and I miss both of them TONS although it is nice to have a little break from being mom and wife. I took today and tomorrow off of work so that I could tackle our laundry room. When we got new carpet a few months ago everything (aka junk) in our closet and Miles' closet ended up in our tiny laundry room and there it has sit. I decided it would be good to devote some time to going through it all and organizing it. Spring cleaning! Gotta love it!

Dave has sent me a couple of pictures from their trip so far.

Golfing with Dad and Uncle Zach

"Say cheese!"

Government Shutdown

I have to say that I'm very glad that we avoided a government shutdown! Normally this kind of thing wouldn't affect me too much, but this year it would've really irritated me because of other events that have happened in our life related to our tax return and the adoption tax credit we are eligible for this year. Am I being selfish? Probably so. I know a government shutdown would've been a bigger deal to lots of other people, but let me feel sorry for myself for one moment...after all, this is my blog. Hahaha!

The story begins back on February 16th when we mailed in our tax return. We would've sent it in earlier than that had the final draft of the adoption tax credit form been complete. Within a couple of weeks the "where's my refund" option on the IRS website said that due to a processing delay it would be April 12th before we could expect our return. We were a little confused about what this processing delay might be, but there wasn't anything we could do about it. A little more time passed and then one glorious Friday we had a nice deposit in our checking account from the IRS, but it was missing the adoption tax credit and was just our regular refund money. We checked the "where's my refund" option online again and it now said that we would be receiving a letter to explain what further information was needed from us to complete our refund. It took a couple of weeks, but our letter finally came. This letter said that our return had been picked for review since we were claiming the adoption tax credit and that we should expect to hear something from them regarding their decision on our return within 45 days. The end of that 45 day period was scheduled for May 12th.

Yesterday we received yet another letter. This letter informed us that our return was being reviewed and that now we needed to submit our adoption finalization forms, receipts from adoption related expenses, etc. etc. This is all information that was required to be submitted with our original tax return. Dave immediately got on the phone to find out what had happened to all of this information we already submitted. Some lady at the IRS told Dave that the office that we mailed our return to is a completely different office then where the actual review is taking place and that we need to fax the same information we had already sent in to this new office. They could send our information between offices, but it would take at least six to eight weeks. So on Monday we'll resubmit our information and hope that they don't delay this any longer and just give us our tax credit!

I have to keep reminding myself that there are people out there that do fraudulent things which leads to these kind of measures needing to be taken so that only those who truly do qualify get the money, but...it is so frustrating to have to jump through all of these hoops to prove we are telling the truth. Ugh!

I am thankful though that our country values adoption and wants to financially help out families who adopt because of the high cost of adoption.

No different

Unfortunately this spring is no different than every other spring we've experienced since living in Utah. This state really likes to tease us! We get nice beautiful spring-like weather and our spring flowers start to pop up out of the ground and then we wake up one morning with this view out our window (pictures taken yesterday morning).

My bleeding hearts

Apparently the wind was blowing rather fierce with this storm (I slept through it all) and snow was blown back behind things that normally never get any moisture on them. The snow stuck to the side of the shed and also on to the siding on the townhouse. It is all pretty much gone today though so hopefully we can start to warm up again!

It's Always Fun When Grandma Comes!

My mom made the long journey from Kansas to Utah this last week to visit us. It was a short visit (or the time went by too quickly), but I'm glad she made the effort 'cause I know making that drive is a real effort, especially with storms along the way. We all had a great time. Miles really enjoyed having Grandma around. He hadn't seen her in almost three months, but he acted like it was just yesterday. I'm so glad that his little brain remembered her! I wasn't quite sure what to expect.

While she was here towards the end of the week the weather was beautiful so we were able to get out and enjoy it together. A few of the highlights of her trip were our visit to Cabelas, story time at the library, and playing at a local park. Below are some pictures of our week with Grandma.

Looking at the fish at Cabelas

Cheesy Miles with the moose at Cabelas

Giving Dad "loves" at one of Mom's favorite burrito places

Mesmerized by the entertainment at story time

Watching with Grandma

Looking at the ducks at the park

Slide time

Dad is too big for the slide

Swinging with Grandma

Any time Miles hears a plane fly over he points to the sky
He loves airplanes!

Forced to stop for a quick picture with Grandma

On the big swing
He loved swinging and looked as if he could fall asleep!

It's a little hard to hear Miles, but if you listen closely you can hear him saying, "Weeee!"

Business idea

I'm not sure this will ever happen 'cause I'm not very brave when it comes to things like this, but it is fun to dream about.

A little background information...on Valentine's Dave took me to a dessert cafe in Orem that he had heard about from friends and co-workers. When we pulled up to this house on the main drag in Orem, I have to admit I was a little apprehensive, but as soon as we walked in the door and looked around for a bit I was in love! The Chocolate is this stinking cute and fantastically wonderful place to get desserts such as cakes, cookies, cupcakes, cheesecake, bars, brownies, pastries, etc. The fun thing about it is that they've taken an old house and spruced it up so that each room has a couple of tables in it and maybe even a couch or chair so that you can sit down and enjoy your dessert. On Valentine's it was "Dessert by Candlelight."

As we sat there that night eating our delicious "Cazookie" (a big cookie freshly baked with vanilla bean ice cream on top) I thought it would be so much fun to open up a place like that myself someday. Anyone that knows me really well knows that even at 31 years of age I still struggle with what I want to be when I grow up. The idea of opening my own dessert cafe got me really excited and the wheels started turning in my head.

We decided to splurge and get me a KitchenAid stand mixer so I could start experimenting with different dessert recipes. So far I've used it to make two cakes from scratch (which I've never done before in my life) and pizza dough. I absolutely love the thing! My cakes haven't turned out exactly how I would like them too, but that is the point. My dessert cafe is years away from opening, if it ever even does! I need to start sharing my desserts though because the pounds are slowly going back up. UGH!!!

The catch in this little dream of mine is that I know I could not open something like this in this area because obviously it already exists. I'm thinking it would have to be something I tried to do if/when we ever move back home (Kansas). I envision this cute little cafe in some small downtown area in some small town in Kansas. How fun!

My first chocolate cake.

It looks horrible because I didn't have enough of the right size of round cake pans so I just used those disposable pans you can buy at most stores and they don't have straight sides. Also the icing didn't set up quite right and it was super runny. I think the taste of it was all right. The icing was made with semi-sweet morsels so it was a bit overwhelming. I need to try another chocolate icing recipe for sure!

My first white cake with butter cream icing.

This cake tasted delicious, but the icing was too thick! You can tell in the picture that I kind of just pasted the icing on there because it was so thick. I'll have to try it again and make sure I add more of the liquids (possibly more of the whipping cream???).

I'll just have to keep trying until I find the perfect recipe for all of the desserts that I would want on my menu. I've thought about taking a cake decorating class, but I've decided that I don't want it to be about how pretty the cake is, but how good the cake tastes! Simple!

It's been a while

We haven't had a lot of stuff going on lately, just normal life, so I haven't really felt the desire to blog. But Miles continues to learn and grow daily and I figure some of you might be interested in hearing what he is up to these days.

Miles' vocabulary is expanding tremendously. He still sort of focuses on one new word and says it over and over and over and doesn't really say the other words he has learned as much, but he still knows those words and will use them occasionally. One of his new words is "mess." If his sippy cup leaks a little onto something he'll say "mess" and wipe his hand over it to clean it up! He'll also say "mess" if he dumps his toys out all over the floor, etc. It is entirely too cute.

One day while we were eating lunch he held his sippy cup up to me and said something that sounded like "cheers" so I took my glass and clinked it on his and said, "Cheers!" Now every time we are drinking something he has to clink our glasses together and say "cheers." I'm not exactly sure what he was trying to tell me the very first time he did that, but to me it sounded like cheers and we've run with it. It is pretty comical!

He is becoming such a great helper. He loves to clean up his highchair tray after he eats and wipe his face and hands. Yesterday it was such a beautiful day outside so we went out and raked some leaves and he did a fantastic job at helping me put the leaves in a trash bag. He LOVES to be outside and begs for us to put his shoes (which is another word he likes to use these days) on so he can go out. I'm glad we've had a couple of nice days lately and am looking forward to it getting warmer and warmer.

Miles is starting to get a little picky when it comes to food. It is so bizarre to me too because what he devours one day he won't even touch the next day...so it has been hard to buy groceries for him. I've been able to get away with him eating something different than what I'm eating for breakfast and lunch up until lately. He has decided he wants exactly what I'm eating. I'm not very good at eating vegetables or a wide variety of food so that is becoming an issue.

With the weather being a bit nicer, we've been able to get out and explore. Miles has discovered the moon (during daytime hours) and loves to point it out and say "moo!" He'll point it out about a hundred times in the matter of 15 minutes or so. He also loves to point to the sky when he hears a plane flying over. Sometimes he gets lucky and can actually see the plane and that makes him super happy.

He is learning body parts and knows where a nose is although he refers to it as a "no." He also knows where eyes are. We are working on where our ears are because he currently refers to them as "eye" as well.

He likes to bark at dogs and loves to pick up things off the ground and hand them to whoever will take them from him.

It is so much fun to watch him learn and grow! We aren't quite as excited about the "fits" he throws when he doesn't get his way these days, but I guess that is to be expected in his toddler-hood.