Cupcakes!

Last night Casey and I, along with Dearie, went out to the Nielson family's house for dinner. Casey and I were in charge of dessert, and, not having planned ahead, started looking for a recipe with ingredients that we already had. We finally decided to bake some vanilla cupcakes. This is significant because the last two times I have tried to make cupcakes from scratch they have failed miserably. I mean miserably. I don't have pictures, but believe me, they were sunken and exploded and horrendous. Failed baking is not a usual occurrence for me, but after the last two incidents I was starting to lose faith in my baking skills. However, seeing as we had a limited repertoire of ingredients, we decided to make these. I don't know what it was (probably Casey helping me, it seems like anything he touches is a spectacular success), but these cupcakes were wonderful! We didn't have any form of chocolate to make chocolate frosting, so Casey used his resourcefulness and used hot chocolate mix. It worked just great, but I think traditional frosting would probably be best. Here's the recipe (they're really good), and some pictures.

Vanilla Cupcakes from Martha Stewart
24 regular cupcakes / 350 degree oven

3 cups all-purpose flour
1-1/2 teaspoon baking powder
3/4 teaspoon salt
16 tablespoons (2 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature
2 cups sugar
6 large eggs
3 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
1-1/2 cups milk

1. Preheat the oven to 350°.
2. In a medium bowl, sift together flour, baking powder, and salt. In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add eggs, one at a time; scrape down bowl, and beat in vanilla.
3. Add flour mixture and milk alternatively, beginning and ending with flour mixture.
4. Divide batter evenly among cupcake liners, about three-quarters full each. Bake until golden and tops spring back to touch, about 20 minutes, rotating pan once if needed. Transfer pans to wire rack; cool completely.

I was very proud. (Casey said that failed baking isn't even an option for him, so I guess it wasn't that exciting for him.) Moral of the story: Never give up, but if what you're doing isn't working, maybe ask for help.

A Ball of a Time

Last night at 8 pm mountain standard time, we officially attended our very first ball. The BYU Traditions Ball is an event that the Student Alumni Association sponsors every year and after seeing all of the advertisements on campus for the last few weeks, we decided to go. It was pretty fun. There was a live orchestra, and we danced for quite a while. Unfortunately for Katalyn, my dance 180 skills have all but disappeared, but they did have a little dance instruction thing which helped me to remember at least a few basic waltz steps. I think Katalyn got tired of waiting for them to play a sing that I could dance to without looking stupid, so she went and requested a waltz.

Our friends the Jones' were also in attendance, and it was very fun to see them.

Basically, we had a great time getting all dressed up and dancing the night away, so we feel that it was a pretty successful first ball.

Hair today, gone tomorrow

Okay, so this actually happened on Saturday, so the title isn't exactly accurate, but I couldn't resist a cheesy title for this post. (Especially since the pictures we took are equally cheesy.)

It all started about two weeks ago when we realized that Casey's hair was getting quite long, and that he should probably get it cut SOON! Well, it didn't happen soon because none of Casey's friends who know how to cut hair had much time to do it. I'd never cut hair before, so both of us were a little reluctant to have me give it a go, but after a few weeks, with Casey's hair growing all the while, we decided that I was pretty much our only hope. We got some clippers, had Andrea Taylor (a friend of ours) give me some tips, and off we went on my learning to cut hair, "baptism by fire", adventure! (We also only had a half hour because we had the adult session of Stake Conference at 4:30. Yikes!) I must admit, after I finished Casey had to do a little bit of fixing on one side, but other than that I feel it went well. Here are the results:


Here's the pile of his hair that we swept up. As you can see, the haircut was much-needed.

Modeling the new 'do. Yep.

The proud stylist with her first client. Pretty exciting.

So there you have it. The moral of the story is that, when faced with challenges, we are all much more capable of facing them than we may have known. And good news, we were only five minutes late to Stake Conference! Woo!

3. 14159265358979323846...

Many of you may not know that, in the world of math nerds, today is pi day. Pi, the ratio between the circumference of a circle and its diameter, is an irrational number which means that it cannot be expressed as a fraction of two integers. I just found the proof of this online, but it was a little complicated to include here, so if you're interested, you can look it up. Anyway, since pi is almost 3.14 and today is 3/14, that makes it pi day. Excellent pi day activities include baking and eating pie, or having a count-down to 1:59 (the next three digits). We were in sacrament meeting during countdown time, so we omitted that from this year's festivities, but we did have some pie with our good friends the Taylors!

And it was delicious!

Our Home!

"As we recall the commandment to stand in holy places, we should remember that beyond the temple, the most sacred and holy places in all the world should be our own dwelling places. Our homes should be committed and dedicated only to holy purposes. In our homes all of the security, the strengthening love, and the sympathetic understanding that we all so desperately need should be found."

"Who Shall Ascend into the Hill of the Lord?" Pres. James E. Faust

I found this quote about a year ago while taking a family history class, and when I read it I decided that I wanted my home to be like the temple when I had a family of my own. I sure am grateful that Casey feels the same way. As we've turned our little apartment into a home we've tried to keep this goal in mind, not only in the way we decorate, but also in the feeling that's here. It's been a fun adventure, finding all the things to decorate with...a little here and a little there, and we really feel like it's coming along nicely, we'll see what you think!

Here's our lovely bedroom, with our sweet Ikea lamps, and bedside tables. We got the bedding and pillows as a wedding present from my mom and sister. You'll notice Bolt the love puppy has a prominent place on our bed...mostly because he just matches so well!

Here's our little "Ikea corner" as Casey calls it. He thinks this part of our kitchen looks like a kitchen from Ikea, and I do agree. We especially love the cart and shelves, given to us by Casey's parents. The table was given to us by my sister and brother-in-law. We are really grateful for it. It definitely completes this corner, and it's very nice to have four chairs. (We only had two with the little table that came with the apartment.)

Here's the counter/sink/oven area. We're glad that many of the things we used to decorate we already had or got from our wedding. The sign over the oven says, "Good Cooks never lack friends", hopefully I'll acquire the famous Hickman women cooking skills, if not, I'm sure our children will.

This is our cute little microwave cart that Becca and Jake so kindly gave us. We wouldn't have any counter space without it, because the microwave used to reside on and take up 3/4 of the countertop, so we love it. The heart on the fridge is a spectacular valentine from Casey's mom.

Lastly, we come to the living room. Casey made this mobile out of chinese lanterns that I got for my birthday. We're still deciding how we feel about it, but it's pretty fun, and my visiting teachers think it looks very "modern".

This is the one wall we have decorated. Mostly it's pictures of us from our wedding. Casey feels that we need more variety, hopefully we can find some cool pictures to mix things up.

As I've been typing all of this Casey said that he thinks all of my commentary sounds like we're on a tv show where I'm trying to sell a house. I just love our little home, and want to help point out the things that we especially love! There are still many empty walls and things we'd like to fix up, but it's coming along, one day at a time.

Hope you've enjoyed the tour of our home!

Valentines Day (one week later)

We had a wonderful very first Valentines Day together. Katalyn made the most delicious heart-shaped pancakes ever!
And I stayed true to Pickett family Valentines tradition by staying up until 1 in the morning making this cookie.
It may not be the most beautifully frosted cookie, but I feel that what it lacked in aesthetics was more than compensated for with size as it was by far the biggest cookie I have ever made. We just finished eating the left-overs a few days ago.
Being Newlyweds has been wonderful thus far. We are growing closer together and learning how to be better companions. We have also been doing some serious home decorating, and thanks to a few very productive Ikea trips and a lot of Target gift cards, our little apartment is really starting to feel like home. We'll have to include some pictures in our next post. Also, I will probably make Katalyn write next time so that it will be longer and more interesting.