Britt's Update

OK - here's goes. Counting down 10 things Britt's been up to lately.

10) Fairy Cakes. Ok - really they're just cupcakes, but I think I've told you guys this before, in the UK they call 'em Fairy Cakes, and I think that is just too cute. So that's what I call 'em too.


(no I didn't make these - just a pic I found online)

I've been really into making Fairy Cakes lately. I even got a sweet Fairy Cake stand for my birthday and a 101 Gourmet Cupcakes in 10 Minutes cookbook for Christmas!



Tomorrow I'm making "Cookies & Cream Dream" Fairy Cakes from the cookbook for my family for Sunday dinner. I can't wait. Its my first try at one of the fun new recipes. I'll be sure to take pictures.

I especially like Bakerella. I started with the basic cake balls, and then moved up to trying the cupcake bites. They are SOOOO dang good. And so easy. A bit time consuming, but not difficult. They are a MAJOR crowd pleaser. Here are some pics of my cupcake bites. I took 'em to my parent's for a family Christmas party. And they tasted as good as they looked!!

9) Trip to Phoenix. The first week of December my cousin, Morgan, flew me out to Phoenix to take her family pictures. It was cheaper to fly me out there than to hire a photographer!! haha We got a KILLER deal on a flight. $100 round trip! I had a great time. I LOVE those girls and I miss them like crazy. So it was a lot of fun. I was there for about 4 days. And the photos turned out quite good, thank you very much. I was so relieved. I was totally scared they'd turn out not-so-hot and she'd regret flying me out. Here's a few of my favorites. You can see all of 'em HERE if you want (along with a bunch of other photos of mine).















8) Scotty came home! Yep, Dec. 11 Scotty came home from his mission in Chile.







It's been SOOOO great having him home. He's SO normal. He didn't have any of that return missionary weirdness at all. Surprising! He is totally fun and awesome and we love him so much. So happy he's come. He's got a girlfriend already too. She wrote to him his whole mission. They've been friends forever, they were on swim team together. They went to a dance together in High School, but I think that's the extent of their pre-mission dating. Just friends before the mission. Now they are totally in love and serious. I don't think it will be long before they're engaged. We love her, so while that would be WAYYYY too quick for me personally, I'm just happy for him.

7) Book Club. You probably know I've been in a book club with the women on my mom's side of the family (aunts, cousins, grandma) forever. We went on a summer hiatus, but this fall we started up again and its been awesome. I got to host in November, which means I got to pick the book and have the get-together at my house. We read "Austenland" by Shannon Hale. If you want a good read, go to the store/library and get this book TODAY. It's my favorite book I've read in years. I REALLY LOVED IT!!!!!



As you can see, the turn out for November, wasn't the best (one aunt is actually missing from the picture. She left early before we could take the photo). But it was still tons of fun. We shared Christmas children's stories for the December book club, and the January book is called "A Great and Terrible Beauty" by Libba Bray. Marci is hosting, so it was her pick. Its in a couple weeks, and I'm still waiting for my book to arrive. I ordered it online a couple weeks ago, and its still not here. I hope it comes soon so I have time to read it!! It looks really good. I can't wait to start it. I might have to email the place I ordered it from and find out what the heck is going on.

6) Our house. We love our house. We want to buy it. Our landlord is interested in selling it to us. But that's about as far as our talks have progressed. We are dumb and haven't saved any money for a down payment though. :( I REALLY REALLY hope we get to buy it and can stay here. We really like our ward and our calling and this neighborhood and location.



And c'mon - our house is so cute!! And thanks to our awesome landlord, its in great shape. Sure, it needs some updating. But mostly, its a fabulous little place. I really would love to buy it. Say your prayers we get the chance!

5) Dante. Josh's dog, Dante passed away last month. He got the dog when he was in high school, and that dog really saved his life. Turned him around and really helped him through some tough times. We were never able to have Dante live with us, he always lived with Josh's parents. But I learned to really love Dante too. His passing was quite sudden. Although he was old, and we knew the time was short at hand, it all just happened so quickly. Poor Josh was so heartbroken. I really hated seeing him have to go through such pain. But we know Dante is so much happier now. Running through the icy snow in heaven, singing and howling with all the other Malemutes! And we know we'll all be together again someday.







He was an amazing dog and we miss him. It's still a very tender, sensitive subject. It's sad for us, but happy for Dante.

4) Work. Work, work, work. It's all I do sometimes. The digi-scrap business is booming. I've been very blessed to have such a fun, successful job, despite the bad economy. My business continues to thrive! :) It's been a lot of fun. December has been and off month for me. Tons of personal stuff, holiday stuff, etc etc going on so I haven't made many new products at all. But I have tons of plans for the next few weeks and plan to jump back in and get going. My poor creative team is just sitting around twiddling their thumbs waiting for me to get crackin!

But the good part of my work is I get to scrapbook my own pages as part of the job! I'm so lucky. I can't believe its been almost 3 years now and I'm still obsessed with digi-scrap. My style is continually changing and I feel like I just keep improving all the time. So that's fun. I've been hosting a series of challenges over at ScrapMatters called "My Story Matters". Basically its just a personal history album and every other week I give a prompt on what to scrap for your album. They used to be more popular, but they are really dying out. I think I'll only do a couple more months and then wrap it up. But I have had a lot of fun doing the challenge and I can't WAIT to put together my "My Story" book when its all over with. Here's a page I did for my most recent challenge:



Kind of a simple page, but I like it!!

3) Christmas. Our Christmas is always a little hectic. Since both Josh's family and my family are nearby, we go back and forth the whole day. But this year we worked it out so that we were at my parents house in the morning 'til about 2, and Josh's parent's house after than until about 8! We had a wonderful day!! I haven't had a moment of downtime to edit my photos from Christmas! I'll go in a edit a few just for this post!!

Traditional Rodee Family Christmas Jammies. My mom made all our pants. Cute huh??



I gave my mom a vintage Mickey Phone like we used to have when we were little. I think you can tell she loved it!



This is my beautiful niece Ava. I stole her away for a photo shoot in front of the tree over at Josh's parent's house. It was fun!!



And this is our gorgeous Christmas dinner table at Josh's mom's house. Tami and I set the table and prepared most of the dinner ourselves. Doesn't it look purrty!?



We had a VERY merry Christmas!! Josh spoiled me with WAY too many presents. I felt very special!! :) It was a great day. I just love Christmas.

2) Spool Dolls. Ok this is my newest craft and I'm obsessed!!! I made my mom a set for Christmas of our whole family in Mickey ears - 11 dolls in all.



Can you tell who's who?? From left to right it goes: Cameron, Scotty, Chad, Dad, Mom, Britt, Josh, Christian, Marci, Eden & Ella.

I also made my niece, Ali, who is in love with Tinker Bell, a Tink spool doll for Christmas too. I seriously wanted to keep her!!!



I made my ScrapMatters Secret Santa a Christmas themed doll, and I made a set for our friends Jordan and Sydney that were made to look like them. So yes, in the past 4 weeks I've made 15 spools dolls!! And I'm lovin' it! I can't wait to make more! :)

Ok . . . we're finally to #1!!

1) Disneyland!! We just got back from Disneyland this past Thursday. Josh's parent's gave us all a trip for our Christmas gift this year so the whole Leavitt clan went together. They paid for the hotel, plus gave us a heafty gift card to use in the park! It was a lot of fun. The bigger the group, the more hectic it gets, but all in all it was such a fun trip.



We caught the tail end of the holiday celebration. Seeing the park all gussied up for Christmas was so awesome!!







Got to meet Tink for the first time ever. She was SO SASSY!!!



I think seeing these character moments with my nieces and nephews was the cutest and most magical part of the trip. Their little faces just lit up. It was so awesome. I loved being there with the kids!!

I'm still as obsessed with Disneyland as ever. Maybe more so!! HAHA I can't get enough. We're going back at the end of February for our yearly DPOTD trip! I can't wait!!!!

And that's my 10 things. Now you officially know everything that's been going on with me! Ok - maybe not EVERYTHING but you know a lot!! EEEEEK! I just realized this post took me exactly 2 hours to draft. Holy smokes that's a long time!!!!!

Ok Shan - you're turn!!