Many, many pictures.

And to top it off, my dog peed on my brother-in-law.

The end! Hope you had a fabulous Easter weekend.

Although I tried to take more trendy, artsy fartsy photos because most of our rooms are weird shaped – i.e. the front room is square and has twenty foot ceilings so my only options are to either show you a wedge of my couch or take a birds-eye-view from our weird peephole on the stairs. Seriously. There is a half a foot gap in the drywall that they obviously meant to leave like that so you can see down into the front room. Kevin and I have been using it to throw Nerf balls at each other when the other person least expects it, so I thought that yesterday it would be kind of funny to throw a panda down to Aspen. You know, stuffed animals falling from the sky? Only, it was so unexpected that it wound up hitting her in the face.

I’m not the best Aunt.

I mainly just took a few pictures of my favorite things – like the bowl in yesterday’s post.

(Here’s where I kind of pimp out Ikea products. I figure it’s payback for stealing the other day. Ikea bowl via.)

(Ikea desk lamp via.)

I couldn’t decide which photo to use for the lamp so the conversation went like this:

Kevin, which one do you like better?

The one on the right.

Okay so that one?

Sure, the one on the left. It looks great.

But you just said right!

So choose that one!

No, I want an honest opinion. I want you to choose.

Seriously!?

Yes. Now which one.

Left.

In the end I chose one that wasn’t the left or the right one. I’m so glad I could give you that glimpse into our perfect, agreeing, interesting marital conversations. I’m sure you’ve always wondered what they sound like.

These are in a vase that’s not pictured. (Ikea vase via, Ikea sticks via, Ikea white sticks via.)

Also, don’t judge our spending habits. It was excessive and obscene how much Ikea made off of us. WE KNOW.

These were not from Ikea. I just wanted to show them to you because they came with our couch and I kind of really hate them.

This dodo bird loves to lay on them though.

And he’s pooped in my new house three times. So there’s that. Just in case you were wondering.

But I kind of love him lots so I guess he will stay.

(Ikea coffee table via. Ikea picture of sweet awesomeness via.)

I was not lying when I said that picture was huge. You should have seen us fools trying to hang it. Kevin had to stand on a pile of books on a kitchen chair and hold the drill over his head, with me behind him holding him up and praying to sweet baby Jesus that he wouldn’t fart on my head.

It’s things like this that make me scared for our future children.

So. Back to food. Here are yesterday’s pretties:

There’s not much of a recipe to share – I bought the mold, pretzel bags and the green Wilton candy melts at the party supply store. The “snow” was just a little bit of white almond bark that I painted in with a paintbrush beforehand. I tried to color some almond bark to decorate the ornaments but alas, I bought the wrong type of food coloring (water-based, which seizes up the whole thing).

Oh well, life goes on.

In other related news we went to Kevin’s parents house to decorate their tree and I’m pretty sure my mother in law’s scale is broken.

I’d like to consider it less of “gaining weight” and more of “taking one for the team”. And what I mean by that is I took one candy for each of you and ate it, enjoyed it, and it sank straight to my hips.

You’re welcome.

I’ve been ho humming lately because although I’m in the Christmas spirit and I have SIX ROLLS OF WRAPPING PAPER, DEAR LORD HOW MUCH DOES A GIRL NEED, it seems like Utah is just not feeling it. Yesterday it was fair and even enjoyable weather, so either it’s never going to snow or it’s just going to happen on a morning when I wake up late which is always when I won’t have time to scrape my car.

I’m also having a hard time thinking of gifts for people other than my homemade creations, and this troubles me. I like to think of myself as a pretty rad gifter so to have to stoop so low as to buying gift cards (the horror!) would be depressing.

Ho hum indeed.

POST-NOTE: I just recounted and I was wrong. I don’t have six rolls of wrapping paper.

I have seven.

I have always pronounced them, “carmels”. It’s like “camels” but with an “r” and the correlation makes sense to me because they are both brown and I dislike them. Caramels are sticky and they remind me too much of butterscotch – which I hate thanks to Dum Dum suckers and a particularly nasty tube of butterscotch chapstick I had as a kid.

Camels? They spit. Do we really need another reason?

But I found this blog post and decided that I should probably give them (the caramels, not the camels) another chance. (Okay, to be honest I’d give camels another chance too. Especially if I had the opportunity to ride one).

These caramels are pretty easy to make. I bought a candy thermometer but if you don’t have one, don’t fret. You can use cold water to test and see if it’s done. If you want to see the original recipe, it’s here. For convenience (and to secretly keep you on this blog forever) I’ll post it here too.

Sweet, Salty, Savory Caramels

• 4 tablespoons unsalted butter, more for greasing pan
• 1½ cups heavy cream, preferably not ultrapasteurized
• 2 cups sugar
• ½ cup light corn syrup
• Pinch salt
• 1½ teaspoons vanilla extract, optional.

1. Lightly grease a 9-inch-square baking pan. Combine all ingredients except vanilla in a broad saucepan or deep skillet and turn heat to medium-low. Cook, stirring occasionally, until sugar dissolves.

2. Mixture will bubble and darken; when color is dark beige and mixture measures 235 degrees on a candy thermometer, it is butterscotch sauce. (Use immediately or refrigerate for up to several weeks; warm in a microwave oven or over hot water to soften.) To make caramels, keep cooking and stirring until mixture is even darker, nearly brown, and measures 245 degrees (This is the “hard ball” stage. It’s reached this stage when a piece of it forms a firm ball when dropped into a glass of cold water).

3. Stir in the vanilla and pour into prepared pan. Cool, then remove from pan in a block and refrigerate, but not for too long – what you want is a mixture cool enough so that it’s not too sticky, but not so cold that it’s solid; this is the easiest state in which to cut and wrap.

4. Use a sharp knife to cut caramel into pieces, then wrap each square in waxed paper or plastic wrap. These keep for weeks, especially if refrigerated, but are best eaten fresh and at room temperature.

Yield: At least 50 caramels.

I made a few changes just as Cupcakes and Cashmere did – I sprinkled margarita salt over the top after I poured it into the pan. You could use sea salt, as I honestly don’t see the difference between the two. All I know is it’s what gives it that extra kick. First bite it’s salty, then it’s sweet – just like a sour patch kid.

Or a lemon.

Do you eat lemons plain?

Oh nevermind.

I’m strange.

I used some high quality vanilla that we got in Mexico and it gives it a rich, darker flavor but I’m sure any vanilla would do. Just don’t skip it, it tasted pretty important.

Also cutting it is a beast. Prepare for your hands to hurt.

I wrapped mine in little squares of parchment paper.

You’ll have to adjust the measurements depending on how big you cut your caramel pieces. (As you can see, the ones that are more clear have less of a wrapper, about a 3″ x 4″, and the more white wrappers were 5″ by 5″.)

You’d be surprised to hear that this made even MORE than is shown. I dropped some on the floor, gave a bag full to Grams and Kevin and I snarfed some in-between.

Related: My pants are starting to fit tighter.

I’m going to start working out.

Some day.

But right now I’ve got to go sneak more caramels out of my stash.

Over and out.