Wow... 5 MONTHS?

I should be ashamed of myself! 5 months of no blogging. Pathetic. Well, I can honestly use the excuse of being EXTREMELY busy, but it's still a sorry one. So let's see what I can do about updating you all about the past few months.

Eternal Blossoms is doing VERY well! I've done 2 weddings recently, and have another on July 27th, as well as August 6th! Find a photo below of a bouquet I did for Roslyn and Collin's wedding on July 1st:

This was an awesome wedding! Her colors were green and white and she wanted a little red/orange accent. I think I pulled it off :D I will have additional photos posted (hopefully) when we get the prints back from the photographer. Let's just say the CAKE was freaking awesome if I do say so myself!

I have also recently done a few funerals as well. One piece I didn't get a picture of and I'm so mad at myself! They wanted something that was completely different and non-traditional. So I did a giant curly willow frame and wove orange, pink, and yellow flowers all throughout it. Gerbera Daisies, Snapdragons, Tiger Orchids, etc. It was very unique and, according to those who ordered it, matched her beautiful personality in life perfectly. Another funeral I did was very close to home. A friend of mine from high school lost her 3-year-old daughter to an unusual strain of the strep virus. This loss was devastating not only to her parents, but to all those who knew this beautiful little girl. I did a couple hearts in her honor and donated them to the ceremony. No parent should have to go through the loss of a child in any way, shape, or form. It broke my heart and I wept with them as they said goodbye to their sweet baby girl. Please find those pictures below as well.

When I'm not working on flowers, I'm usually at my full-time job with Homeland Field Services. We are a company that works for banks to fix up old foreclosed homes and bring them back up to code. It's dirty work, but someone's gotta do it! I am client manager there, and work directly for our clients bringing them whatever they need. It's very stressful work, but very rewarding as well. I love this job! I almost hope to never open my flower shop because Homeland and its owners have been very good to my family and me. We are a very small outfit, but cover 10 of the western states (crazy!) and work out of an office in Bountiful. The people are great, and I don't see myself leaving for a very long time!

Scott is working for a company called Progrexion (yes, it's spelled correctly). They work with Lexington Law and help repair credit. Don't ask me, because I honestly have no idea how any of it works. He seems to be doing well there, but I'm trying to convince him to get studying and take the POST, which is a test that certifies him for police work. It's what he's always wanted to do and I want to see him do what he wants instead of what he has to do in order to keep our little family afloat.

ADAM! Oh my goodness, I have a toddler! Shame on me for not even blogging about his 2nd birthday! I've gotta hunt down those pictures. He got 2 tricycles and a wagon, so he's pretty much set for life as far as he's concerned. We're working on talking and he's getting better. Some of his favorite words at the moment:

**NO!

**Monsters!

**Nemo!

**Cars!

**Crackers!

**Cheese!
**Lilo and Stitch!

He is the biggest Pixar fan you'll ever meet in your life. His very first movie at a THEATER was Toy Story 3, which he of course loved. Lots of "Jess Jess!" and "Bruce!" (Bruce is what he calls a dinosaur) Over all he did very well and wasn't a bother to anyone around us. He's finally starting to put on some chub. We were a little worried for a while because he wasn't gaining any weight. He was stuck just under 25 lbs. for months, but has finally almost reached 30. We're working on potty training, but need a new potty. He's just not that interested right now, and honestly I wouldn't be either! It's hard work!

Everyone keeps bugging me as to when we'll be having another child. "Adam is almost 2 1/2 and you're not pregnant yet?" Ugh, I get it ALL THE TIME! It seems like everyone is pregnant. Yes, I really do want another baby, and soon too. But unfortunately we just aren't ready for that yet. I think Adam is happy being an only child at the moment, and I would honestly like to see him out of diapers before a second comes along. I don't want to be changing twice as many diapers as I do now! I'm hoping for a girl when the time does come, but I feel I'm destined to be the mother of all boys. I'm ok with that, I think!

This is good for now, and hopefully I'll get on here more often (yeah, we've all heard that before) to keep you more updated. I'll see what I can do about getting some updated photos of the boy up here so you can all see him.

Loves!

Em

My First Funeral Piece

I got a call from California yesterday for a funeral arrangement. She was sad that I had no pictures on my website, but wanted to support local business and called me anyway. She had seen something on 1800flowers.com on their Sympathy page and wanted something exactly like it, only NO lilies... I've posted what she wanted first, then what I did next. Pretty close, eh?

I drove around for over 3 1/2 hours yesterday looking for the right flowers for this piece. It was a nightmare! I had to have my mom help me out putting this together, as I have NO funeral piece experience whatsoever. Thanks Mamma!! All in all, I think it turned out beautifully and I hope to hear from the customer.

The flowers/greens used: Pink Roses, White Alstroemeria, White and Purple Stock Flower (the most DIVINE- smelling flower), Purple Liatris, Lemon Leaf, Leather Leaf in the back to hide mechanics. It stood about 36" tall and was just as wide.

My poor website is so empty! I wish I had more pictures to put up. This is the only one that I have up in my gallery as of now. I am NOT a professional photographer, so I don't want to put junk photos on my business website... *pout*

www.eternalblossomsutah.com Check me out!

Em

Em

Impossibly Easy Recipes

I'm sad that I didn't take any pictures of the really easy meals I made last week, but here are the recipes for you guys to try. Adam even ate both of them without any complaint! I plan to make a cute recipe box this weekend to keep all my new recipes. So here you go:

Impossibly Easy Chicken Pot Pie

Ingredients:

2-3 chicken breasts, cubed and cooked

1 can cream of chicken soup

2 cups frozen mixed veggies

1 cup Bisquick

1 egg

1/2 cup milk

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Mix together chicken, soup, and veggies. Spread in a pyrex baking dish. Mix together remaining ingredients and spread on top of chicken mixture. Bake in oven for 30 minutes or until top is golden brown.

I doubled this recipe so that we would have lots of leftovers!

Impossibly Easy Stroganoff

Ingredients:

1/2 pound stew meat

1 small onion

1 can cream of mushroom soup

1 small can sliced mushrooms, drained

1/2 cup sour cream

pepper to taste

Cooked noodles

In slow cooker, combine meat, onion, soup, mushrooms, and pepper. Cover and cook for 6-8 hours or until beef is very tender. Stir in sour cream. Serve over noodles.

This recipe was the first one that I had done w/out any real liquid in the slow cooker. It was weird, but it worked! I tripled this recipe because I think it was meant for 2. I've never used canned mushrooms before either, but that made it even more easy!

All in all, these recipes were soooo easy to prepare and they were delicious. I hope you all try them and leave me a comment! Let me know how they turned out for you.

Em

Nap Time! by Adam

Hello all, Adam here. I decided to give this blogging thing a try. And what a perfect day to start!

SO: Mom decided to put me down for nap time (bleh) at the usual time today. I didn't like it, just like every single day. So I decided to spend it a totally different way than the norm. I have this new thing I do nowadays. It's hilarious and Mom goes all sorts of colors in the face when I do it. I STRIP! From my head to my toes. Buck naked. Then, after mom notices, I scream at the top of my lungs and run all over the house. It's so awesome! Anyway, back to nap time. SO I screamed for a while, hoping Mom would give in and let me out, but to no avail. I go all quiet, making her think I went down for my nap. I'm in my crib, so I'm not able to run around like normal, but I had a better idea. I'll strip, and since my diaper is FULL of poop, I FLING IT ALL OVER THE WALLS!! (Refer to picture above. Yeah, thats a giant poop wad on the wall). I got it on my crib, all over the back wall behind my crib, on the floor, and smeared all over my sheets and blankets. And of course my hair had to be coated so that Mom HAD to give me a bath. I didn't have time to get all my clothes off before Mom came in. It had almost the same effect as if I were to run around naked! Unfortunately, Mom didn't find it as funny as I thought she would, but I sure enjoyed it! Until next time, Peace out!

Adam

Christmas Time Part 2

Blogger is being fussy, so I had to do these separate. Anyhoo: Christmas Day started early, as it does for most families all over the world. We spent the early morning with the Walkers and then went to my family's house afterward. Adam was spoiled ROTTEN in both locations :D It was fun to see him react this year to Christmas. Last year he was just barely crawling and didn't really understand the concept of opening presents. This year he ripped into the paper and was actually excited! He was easily distracted by other things of course, but he mostly got it this year. Again, basically NO pictures, but here we go anyway:

Good Morning Sunshine! His jammies say "What Santa doesn't get me Grandma will!" My mom got them for him this year. SO cute!

Sitting with Grandma Jenny reading his Rainbow Trucks book that she got him

This was so nifty! His little jacket has buttons, Velcro, and a zipper and his shoes have ties, so Adam can practice doing up buttons and zippers! I loved this one

When Adam opened this one, Jenny says "The box says 6 years or older, but he had to have it!" It's a little drawing board that's all light activated. Adam thinks it's the coolest thing! He loves that the pen has a light at the end of it.

Sitting on Uncle Trevor's present, the new dirt bike! Grandpa Steve had to make sure he didn't take off on it!

At my parents' house, Adam got probably his most favorite present of all: A VACUUM!! He opened the paper, and before it was even out of the box he was doing his little exclamations and ooo's and aaahhh's and making the vacuum noise. My mom says "Do you want me to open it?" And he vigorously shook his head yes! It was the funniest thing! It's this little red dirt devil that actually makes the noise and picks up dirt! So it really works just like Mommy's vacuum. It was definitely the biggest hit this year. Now whenever he sees me pull out our vacuum he goes into his room and gets his, turns it on, and vacuums with me. Darling!

Christmas is definitely one of my most favorite times of year. I really wish that everyone could keep this feeling and attitude all year round. I honestly think the world would be a better, more peaceful place. It's wonderful to have a holiday dedicated to the birth of our Savior. We are so blessed to have the gospel in our lives and to not get all caught up in the corporate definition of the Holidays. We hope that you all had a safe, wonderful Christmas. Love to you all!

Christmas time Part 1

We had a most wonderful Christmas Holiday this year! I'm a very sad and ashamed to report that I have very few pictures of the events, but the few I have will have to do.

Christmas Eve was spent in Provo with my Great Grandma Hazel. We went to her favorite place, Village Inn, for dinner and had fun enjoying each other's company and watching our hilarious waiter interact with Adam. Afterwards we drove around to look at lights. I think it is so cool that Adam is able to spend time with his Great GREAT Grandma! I hope she stays with us long enough for him to really remember her. I'm sure she's got years to go yet! Here are a few pictures from the evening. Again, sorry there aren't very many!

Great Grandma Hazel!

Hazel and my Mommy

Jesse and Dominique being dorks

The whole crew: Kyrsten, Dad, Marina, Dominique, Jesse, Hazel, Mom, Me, Adam. He refused to look at the camera. He was extremely restless the whole night.

Here we are in front of the Christmas Tree. Again, no Adam's face...

Pictures!

He was the most handsome Superman on the entire planet for Halloween!
It took a few times, but he finally understood he was hunting for SUCKERS!

My two handsome boys!

Not the best picture of me or my fingerwaves for the party later that night, but it's an awesome picture of my boy!

This is from our snow play today. He's such a ham!

He's eating snow here, just couldn't get enough of it. New experience :D

Help! I've fallen and I can't get up!

More snow eating

I can't get enough of that beautiful smile

Em