Happy Spring!

Today was so great -- a whole day off with fantastic weather. I worked hard and accomplished a ton! I finished a mock-up of Andi's wedding dress. I ran 6.5 miles. I finished a new spring wreath for my front door. Maybe this will encourage Mother Nature to play nice -- I'm tired of pulling my freshly-potted flowers inside every night!

Conference!

I think there are few things I love more than watching General Conference at home in my PJs. And with last night's snowy surprise, today is the perfect day for that...and the perfect day for a delicious, homemade breakfast. Enter my favorite cinnamon rolls:



Light and fluffy, buttery and cinnamon-y, and loaded with gooey cream cheese frosting. Yum.

Cinnamon Rolls
2 cups hot milk
1/2 cup shortening, melted
1/2 cup sugar
1 tsp salt
1 Tbsp yeast
3 eggs, beaten
4 to 4 1/2 cups flour

1/2 cup butter, softened
1/2 cup sugar
2 teaspoons cinnamon

Mix the hot milk and sugar together. Add the yeast and wait for it to blossom, then add the shortening and salt. Stir in the beaten eggs and 1/2 of the flour. Add the remaining flour, 1 cup at a time, until a soft dough forms (it will be very sticky, but that's what makes the rolls so light and fluffy!!). Cover the dough and allow it to rise until doubled in size.

Roll dough out onto floured surface. Mix the butter, sugar and cinnamon into a paste, and spread it allllll over the dough (all the way to the edges). Roll up and cut with a string or a piece of dental floss in 1 1/2" widths. Place on greased cookie sheets and allow to rise again until doubled in size.

Bake at 350 degrees for 10-15 minutes. Makes 12-18 rolls, depending on how big you like them. :)

Cream Cheese Frosting
1/2 cup butter, softened
1 package cream cheese
1 teaspoon vanilla
2-3 Tbsp milk
powdered sugar

With an electric mixer, cream the heck out of the butter. Add the cream cheese and beat it well, too. Stir in a bunch of powdered sugar (yeah, I don't know how much), and add the vanilla. Add the milk, then additional powdered sugar as needed. Spread on hot cinnamon rolls and watch it ooze everywhere.

Double-yum.

Perfect

Today was the first Saturday off I've had in quite a while, so I had to make the most of it. After a grueling run on the treadmill, I started making a pattern for my sister' wedding dress, which I intend to make completely awesome. Then I spent most of the afternoon in Salt Lake with Scott. We ate authentic German food at Siegfried's-- super-fantastic. I must say, I never knew that wienerschnitzel is nothing like a hot dog, or that I would love rotekraut (red cabbage sauerkraut) so much. Siegfried's is like a deli/grocery store combo and has some really neat things. I couldn't leave there without my own jar of rotekraut, some European chocolates, and a bottle of gooseberry & kiwi jam -- which, consequently, is amazing.

After Siegfried's we spent a couple of hours perusing antique shops, then headed back to Orem for a Utah Flash game. I love basketball games, but I get so distracted from the sport itself. I love to people-watch, and spent most of the game making silly faces at a little boy in front of us. When the game was over, we wrapped up the evening at my apartment by eating ice cream and finishing Julie and Julia (we started it last night but both fell asleep).

I can't believe how much we packed into one day, but it was seriously awesome -- one of the best days I've had in a long time.

For Baby Tessa

I just finished a dress for my friend Traci's little girl. I used Traci's wedding dress for the fabric, and I am so pleased with how it turned out:







Also, on Sunday I made a fun breakfast for Scott's kids. We had heart-shaped pancakes and I set each of the kids' plates with a little Valentine's Day surprise.

Cute T-Shirt

I made this shirt for my little sister for Christmas. Well, I didn't actually make the shirt part....I could have, were it not for a time crunch and a severe case of lazy. Instead, I bought a long-sleeve tee from DownEast and just played around with it.



When I was finished, I almost went to the store to buy Little Sis a Christmas present, so I could keep this one for myself....

(P.S. Sorry for the lousy picture; I took it with my cell phone.)

A Couple More

Hello again! I know that Christmas was basically eons ago, but I wanted to show you two more of my holiday projects. I had so much fun helping a friend of mine make gifts for his kids.

The first was this car roll-up:



Cute, right? Wish I could claim this as my own idea, but I actually found the instructions here.

We also made the awesomest of awesome Santa presents...a tee pee for my little bud Charlie:



This bad boy was super-easy to make -- it only took us about three hours! You can find the full tutorial here.

Now that the holidays are over, I'm trying to get back to some of my own projects (I've always got heaps of them). This morning I finished a bathroom shelf makeover that I started back in July:



I found this shelf on KSL for $10 bucks. ugly, ugly, ugly! But I needed some more storage in my bathroom so I figured it was worth a shot...



Ba-da-bing, ba-da-boom! What do you think? A little bead board, a little paint, a little something-something to dress it up...I'm really happy with it -- and glad to be done! Time to mark that one off my list and move on to the next!

My Little Friends

It seems like most of my close friends now have little kids, and I love it. There's something about having them around that makes everything more fun....at least, I'm having a lot of fun. I love being called "Rachel H," love silly, twirling girls in tutus, and love knock-knock jokes with made-up punchlines that all contain the word "apple." Yes, apple. I've also had a lot of fun lately focusing some of my pent-up creative energy on little kid stuff. Here's a birthday cake I made a couple of weeks ago for my little bud Charlie:





And here's a little sneak-peek of some Christmas projects I just finished for Charlies sisters...



I can't wait to show you everything else I'm working on! But for now I've got to get some sleep. I'm off to Vegas tomorrow for a fun birthday weekend!