"Iron Chef" Family Night

Every third Sunday of the month, my family gets together to have dinner. Last year, we had the traditional Sunday dinner. Roast, lasagna, turkey or ham (or both) for the holidays. This year we decided to do something different every month. This month my mom decided we would have an "Iron Chef" competition, loosely based on the Food Network TV show. The idea was that everyone (each couple, really) would create 2 two dishes that incorporate a "secret ingredient." The only rule is to be creative. The "secret ingredient" for this occasion was cheese. Here are our creations.

Team Schmidt (Mom and Charles)

Cream cheese flan

Chorizo quesodillas

Mozerella w/ tomatoes

Team Tucker (Mel and Tim)

Pecan tassies

Turkish Borek

Team Armitstead (Kevin and Me)

Sun dried tomatoe and goat cheese profiteroles

Italian cucumber salad

Team Fellows (Dorthy and Rory)

Ham, cheese and apple melts


Canoli cups

Team Schmidt/Peterson (Sarah and Jordan)

Broccoli and cheese souffle

Fruit sushi w/ cream cheese

Everything looked and tasted great and everyone tried something they've never had before. After we tasted and voted on each others' dishes, the judges (Dad and Justin) tallied up the scores and handed out the awards.

The judges handing out awards

"Best Taste" went to Team Fellows

"Most Original" went to Team Tucker

"Best Presentation" went to Team Schmidt/Peterson

The rest of us got "Honorable Mentions"

We all had a great time and are excited to do it again. Next month: fondue.

First Tooth

Abi cut her first tooth today. It's about time. She has two teeth on the bottom that have been going up and down under the surface of her gums for the last two months. Finally today one popped through. The past few days she's been really miserable with a stuffy nose and a cough because she's been teething, so she's also been really cranky. That means her naps have been short and few. Today she crashed. Here's some pictures Kevin took of her with our fancy new camera.

Catching Up

Well, since the beginning of the year I have been a real slacker at getting this blog updated, which is a bad thing seeing as that was one of my resolutions this year. So, I'm not off to a very good start. Some other resolutions I made are:

1. Lose weight & excercise (but honestly, who doesn't make this one?)
2. Scrapbook (I haven't even begun this one yet)
3. Read more often (scriptures, books, everything)
4. Stick to a budget
5. Be a better person- all around improvement.

So far, I've been pretty good about a few things. I have been going to a water aerobics class at least 3 times a week. I'm trying to watch what I eat, but in all these weeks that I have been doing it (about 5 weeks) I've only lost 2 pounds. Sad right? Oh, well. I'm going to keep it up and see if it gets any better. The budget thing has been pretty good. Kevin and I set one up and decided to keep track of every penny we spend. We've been good so far, but just received our tax return and are trying to resist the temptation to spend it all in one month.

Last month we celebrated Kevin's 25th birthday. Happy Birthday! I tried my hand at cake decorating for the 2nd time. It turned out okay for an amateur, I guess. Much better than my first cake. You don't want to see it, trust me. You do? Are you sure? It's hysterical.

Yikes, I know. I had many fatal flaws in this monstrosity, but it was so hilarious that I had to take a picture.

See this one's much better.

I used melted chocolate chips to pipe words and designs to stick on the cake after they had set up again. (Thanks for the idea Dorthy) Though the cake was still a little lopsided.


The next week was Jon's birthday.

(Maybe the month of cake didn't help my weight loss plan very much)

The biggest event was also the biggest surprise. My brother, Charles, who had been serving a mission in eastern Europe came home from his mission last Thursday. The reason it was a surprise was the we weren't expecting him to come home in April. He's been sick and was almost done anyway, so it was decided that he would be released early so he could get some good medical attention. Here's a video of us meeting him at the airport. I hugged him with the camera on so, sorry if it make you sea-sick.


So that's whats going on so far this year and I'll try to be better at keeping this thing updated. Here's some pictures of Abi being cute.

The Holidays

So it's official. Abi is crawling. It happened just a week or so before Christmas. She was trying and sort of getting it for a little while. One day I just decided to show her what to do and it was like the light bulb went on. She's been crawling ever since. That was a fun early Christmas present Kevin and I got.

Christmas was a lot of fun. When I was a kid I never understood why my parents didn't care about getting presents. I knew what Christmas was really about, but still under all of my pretending that I didn't care about presents, I really did. Now that I am married and have a child of my own, it all really makes sense. Christmas morning is all really about the kids and, although Abi is still a little young to really know what's going on, she still had fun opening presents, and that really makes it all worth it.

This is us Christmas Eve. We had Christmas the night before at our house because of some family members' work schedules. It was still fun.

Here's Abi opening some of her presents...

and helping Grandpa open some of his.

Of course what's a holiday without the grub? This year we all made a dish to share. We all thought it was so much fun, we decided to make it a yearly tradition.

Abi's favorite was the chow mein.

The next day, Christmas, the three of us headed over to my parents' house to visit and open presents there. We had the opportunity to talk to my younger brother who is serving a mission in the "Baltic" mission, which consists of Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia. When we arrived, my grandparents were there and everyone was crowded around the newly-purchased phone fully equipped with speaker phone capabilities.

It was hard to talk one at a time (I expect that's from the excitement) and we spent most of the time repeating ourselves, but it was great to speak with him and it was kind of exciting to know that we would see him in person in just a few months when he arrives home this spring.

The best part was when my nephew, Rowan, understood what we were doing and started yelling into the phone. Abi saw Rowan and started to yell and bang on the table. So cute.

Archibald's

Yesterday Kevin and I had a night out with his brother Aaron, sister Lisa and friend Todd. We went out to dinner at Archibald's Restaurant. The restaurant is located at Gardener Village in West Jordan, Utah and, although I have been to Gardener Village in the past, I have never eaten at the restaurant. I have to say that the food was delicious and I had a great time. Anyone who has been there also knows that Archibald's also has a shop where they sell home decor and other household items. The style is sort of like antique and Americana and very cute... but way overpriced. Maybe I'm just cheap. The building used to be a flour mill over 150 years ago and was converted to a restaurant/shop in 1990. It's also on the National Register of Historic Places.

Today my younger brother Justin was ordained an Elder so my Grandparent's came up from good ole San Pete. We had lunch with them at my parents' house and was fun to visit with them. Afterward Kevin's sister Angela and her husband were at our house for dinner. Angela found some fun dollar finds at the store and gave them to Abi. She got a pair of sunglasses and some holiday tights. She looked really cute, so we took some pictures.

And, of course, Oakley had to get in on the action.