My blog

Things have been busy around here. Here are some pictures of what we have been up to: Ewan's first football game! Daddy reading stories McGirlie's birthday! Sequioa National Forest with Grandma and Grandpa McEwen! McBoy's birthday! And finally, Halloween costumes! Buzz, Jessie, Woody, and Sid: Seriously, I was Sid! Why didn't anybody recognize me??? Doesn't everybody watch these movies non-stop??? Sheesh, Halloween is the worst.

Swig is a super yummy cookie and soda place in Utah. We found out about them through Bryce's sister, who managed at the Provo location for a while. They are known for their super dense sugar cookies, for which you can find hundreds of copycat recipes online. The thing is though, while the sugar cookies are great, the iced oatmeal chocolate chip cookies are THE BEST. So what the heck internet? Why are there no copycat recipes for those cookies??? Don't worry, I made one. Also all the other copycat Swig frosting recipes call for sour cream, but Swig's icing isn't refrigerated so I don't think that is right. I have my own icing recipe below. My copycat Swig Iced Oatmeal recipe differs from regular oatmeal cookies in a few ways: 1. Baking method. Swig cookies are dense and soft, kind of like eating cookie dough, but cooked, but not like a regular cookie...it's hard to describe. I will outline my method in detail below. 2. No baking soda, and just a hint of baking po...

A while back, there was a big stink about some fitness blogger lady who posted pictures of her super ripped body, her three kids, and the caption, "What's your excuse?" I don't really know what the deal was with all that because I mostly only read headlines. But I thought a bit about that headline. I don't have a super ripped body, I can think of a few excuses to explain why, but the thing is I don't actually feel like I need an excuse. I think it's great that this lady is super fit, that is her priority. I'm sure she does all kinds of great things with her family and job and makes time to work-out, but she doesn't do the same things that I do. I only workout in moderation because I need time to paint beautiful pictures, refinish furniture, read with my kids, read with my handsome husband, steam clean my floors, fix my TV, proofread essays, wash a hundred dishes, etc. They are not excuses, they are priorities. And thus, my "Theory of Constant ...

Seriously. What the haaaaack?

Handsome Bryce gave me a Fitbit in my Easter basket. I have really loved it so far, but I only barely discovered that you can connect with friends who also have Fitbits. Before discovering this, the goals and prompts from the Fitbit were nice guidelines, but I felt no sense of urgency. They weren't MY goals, they were goals chosen by Fitbit. Once I added my friends EVERYTHING CHANGED. Now the Fitbit is always sending me little prompts about how I am doing and how my friends are doing, and here's the thing, all my friends are way less lazy than me! The competitive aspect makes it feel more like a sport. In general I am not competitive, but in sports I have a furious desire to win. It has really helped me to push myself a little more and get a lot more out of my Fitbit. Unfortunately my friends are all super kind and supportive! I can't be motivated to exercise by love and sweetness! I require taunts and threats and badly executed slang! Do YOU have a Fitbit? Do you want to b...

As I mentioned earlier, I have been working on revamping our bedroom as a surprise for Handsome Bryce. Also, as I said, it turned out not to be a total surprise because I am not very sneaky. (Bryce saw a picture of these curtains which I left on the desktop with the name "Secret Crazy Curtains.") Be prepared, they are pretty crazy. Here is the room before:  To me, the curtains we had were fine, just resoundingly ok. The peach and green paint, were not fine though. First I painted the peach parts white, and the green parts tan. Then I needed new curtains. I looked all over. I soon discovered that I hated every kind of curtains currently sold in stores. They were all too twee, too generic, too grandma-ish, too ugly, too cutesy, too too too mainstream! Yes. I am a curtain hipster. I realized that I didn't want curtains, I wanted art. The only way that would happen was to make them myself. So I bought a $5 flat sheet from KMart and did this:  Much dramatic! So style! Wow! Soo...

I had a plan to surprise Handsome Bryce for Valentine's Day. I wanted to redo our cool (but unfortunately peach/orange and green) bedroom. It turns out, that is kind of a time consuming project, especially with two little kids, so I bumped it to be an anniversary surprise instead. It also turns out that two little kids have totally reduced my ability to be sneaky, and I ended up leaving clues everywhere by accident. So Bryce got surprised by the plans and pieces, but not the finished product. You can still be surprised though! I'll post finished pictures as soon as I finish painting. Here is a sneak peek at my redecorating project: Blue Pug Sculpture I want our bedroom to be comfortable and pretty, but still look like a bedroom where a man lives. So I have been looking for decorations that are neither pointless hoarder-items, nor floofy frilly girl-stuff. I was pretty excited when I stumbled on these dog sculptures by White Faux Taxidermy , but they were a little out of my pric...