Lemon-Ginger Ice Box Cake

Just tried a recipe that I want to share! If you like GINGER you might like it too!!!

LEMON-GINGER ICE BOX CAKE

1 box ginger snap cookies

2- 8 oz. containers of mascarpone

1- 12 oz. lemon curd

2 C. heavy cream

zest of 2 lemons (separated)

5 Tb. sugar (separated)

2 Tb. candied ginger

Whip the cream and 3 Tb. sugar until heavy peak forms. Gently fold in the mascarpone. Then split the mascarpone/whip cream mixture into two separate bowls. To one add the lemon curd and to the other add the zest of one lemon. In a Spring form pan, layer the cookies and and alternate between the lemon curd mixture and the lemon zest mixture.

In a food processor, pulse the remaining sugar, candied ginger and lemon zest. Top the cake with the mixture and refrigerate for 6 hours and serve.

love my mini food processor for things like this!

In to the fridge to "bake" :)

all done! We all quite liked it-- One of my four kids did NOT but the rest of us did-- This would be a great one for a ladies lunch!

YW Dance camp

2 of the YW in the ward asked if they could use our little gym for a 3 week dance camp for them to earn $ for YW camp-- How can I say no to anything for YW -- (I will ALWAYS have a huge peice of my heart in YW) And even more fun, my girls got to be apart of it! So fun!

Gracie loved it and Aubs did too!

St. George -

Went down to St. George for a break from the cold and for Ry to work at RAND'S installing their new data base! Out friends the Stewarts were going to come too and then due to some illnes and injury weren't able too :( But we got to take Kel's buddy Kenz still! We had so much fun!

While Ry worked I took the kids on a tour of the St. George tabernacle! It was so amazing!

I love missionary couples!

She told the kids every Prophet but 2 have spoken from this pulpit! So neat!

Then we toured the Brigham Young home and farm -- Amazing!

The next day we went to the Dinosaur museum

Just chillin at the place!

I love these fun phone booths!

Always have to pay a visit to our FAV yougurt place -KRAVE!

pretty cute buddies (most of the time) :)

Rollerblading!

and a little time by the Pool!

She is way to fun!

and this is where Ry spent most of his time while we played-- Bless his heart! But it was a great time to get away still!

Simple Machines

This is Aubrey and Emma displaying their Simple Machine they worked so hard on --

2 weeks earlier...they were figuring out what they wanted and came up with this all on their own!

Aubs and her friend Emma starting to build their Smiple machine!

Thank heaven for Daddy!

And for Emama's family too- They got it all painted and ready to go!

Sweet and Salty Chocolate Chip cookies!

SWEET AND SALTY CHOCOLATE CHIP COOKIES

3/4 C. butter

3/4 C. brown sugar

1/4 C. sugar

1 egg

2 tsp. vanilla extract

2 C. flour

2 tsp. cornstarch

1 tsp. baking soda

1/2 tsp. salt

1 C. milk chocolate chips

1 C. caramel bits (found bagged by choc chips)

1/2 C. crushed pretzels

Preheat oven to 350. Cream together the butter and sugars til fluffy then add egg and vanilla.

Mix in the dry ingredients and then the choc. chips, caramel bits, and pretzels.

place spoonfulls of dough onto cookie sheet and sprinkle with kosher salt. Bake for 8-10 minutes

YUMMY!!!

Valentines!

My cute little Valentine! He went on a Daddy date a few days before Valentines and saw these roses and said, "those are for Mom- from ME!" He brought them in and said just that, "these are from ME!" Love him!!!

Our homemade Valentine Shirts!

Valentine breakfast!

Ry took me to our fav- Outback for dinner that weekend!

A fun dessert we made for our V-Day dinner with the kids!

They loved em!

Harmon's PTA day

This was our first outing post surgery- Harmon's PTA day where a portion of all proceeds went to our Farmington Schools. This is Mikelle's cute teacher - Debbie Pead dressed as the Eagle! Love her!

Surgery #2

Boy, February is still kind of a blur -It was a crazy few weeks for our family-- Gracie had her tonsils out which is what got the other ball rolling. She had been sick a lot with sore throats and also had sleep apneia (even at 2!) We had her in to see our ENT for her consultation. At that time he recalled that he had not checked on my nodule found years previous. Right before we movied to AZ he byopsied it and did an ultrasound to measure and said I was fine unless it started growing. He ordered another ultrasound and I went in for that. The results came back the day before Grace's surgery- The nodule had grown a lot and he reccommended surgery as soon as possible. We got her through her surgery and she did pretty well for a few days and then really spiraled downhill fast- She was on an RX for infection 3x a day and we had to literally pin her down to get it down her (I felt so bad) :( And then also tried to keep pain meds down her- Well, she started to refuse ANYTHING going in her mouth no matter how hard we tried. Which the end result was back to the hospital and rehydration. (Pic above) It was so hard to see our little one in that much pain and also have my surgery looming around the corner. Thank heavens she recovered quickly after that and then I went in. Both Grandmas were a ton of help as well as dear friends and ward family. My surgery went well. Dr. Stock removed my entire right thyroid and the nodule tested benign- :) I recovered pretty well but had an infection pop up as well as an allergic reaction to the solution they put the steri strips on with. I got my drain out 2 days later and by the 2nd week I was feeling a little more normal. I took a 3 week break from running which was hard but needed and was so happy just to know I was ok and cancer free!

The first two days the kids had been with family so that I could recover and rest. This was Sunday night when they all came home- It was so good to be a little family again and have my cuties back! I was wearing a scarf (made by my cute friend Trish) so that it covered my drain. It was not a very pretty site under there :-/ I think I had really taken my health for granted and am so grateful to feel good and was so grateful for so many sweet people that served our family!