Pumpkin chocolate chip cake w/ cinnamon sugar, cream cheese frosting

Long title I know, but it had to sound interesting/appetizing in order to catch your attention. Now, For those of you who have been to P Town have probably heard of a little bakery place known as Kneaders. Well, they have the most AMAZING Pumpkin Spice cake there that is to die for. I tried it once and fell in love. And so after tasting this delicious slice of heaven, I decided that I needed to make this for myself at home. So I hoped onto Google and I searched around on a few different sites to find the perfect cake recipe. Well, that was a fail. I couldn't find just one recipe that sounded right, so I pulled one and then adjusted it to my liking. And I must say, I did a pretty good job. It may need a few tweaks, but hopefully within the next few tries I should have it down perfectly. I made a cream cheese frosting to go along with it, but it tasted a bit off, so I thought to myself..."What is this missing?!" And then it hit me. It needed cinnamon sugar! So a little, well a BIG, dash of C.S. and BAM! It was complete. And smart me, I didn't take a picture of it so I've stolen the artwork of somebody else...again.

Yum right?! If any of you are interested in making this for, oh say, your Thanksgiving dinner let me know and I'll hook you up with the recipe :)
And good news, I finally got an updated picture of the hubby and I. We went to the temple last week and I forced him to take a picture with me because I was so sad that I didn't get any of us over the summer.

Happy Halloween!

This Halloween season has been very..."Halloweeny" for me. But to be honest, I'm not really a huge fan of this holiday. I could actually probably skip it and be okay. But these past 2 weeks I was given the opportunity to go do make-up at a haunted house in SLC called Castle Of Chaos. It was so much fun and so interesting to see how things worked and happened behind the scenes! They weren't so scary backstage, but as soon as they stepped foot into that haunted house, they completely flipped into these creepy, scary things. I finally got the courage to walk through it tonight and it was pretty cool to see how everything was set up and how they pulled everything together. Super creative and a lot of hard work goes into preparing for this.
I learned a lot about airbrush make-up and all of these different techniques that I'd probably never learn if it weren't for this. Their characters consisted of vampires, zombies, "crazies," clowns, and a voodoo witch doctor. I didn't get to do much hands on airbrushing but the first one I did turned out okay...

This girl was so cute! She was only 16 but looked about 12. She was so quiet and innocent, but tonight when I saw her in action, she creeped me out way bad. She was really my first and only girl I got to airbrush but I thought I did a decent job.
Besides the haunted house stuff, our school threw a Halloween party (that I helped plan because I'm on the school's student council). My friends and I dressed up as lady bugs and we were THEE cutest ones there. We made our costumes the day before for super cheap.


My mom was also here for a few days, and I got to see her pretty much every day that she was here. It was so nice to see her and hang out with her. It just made me really look forward to Thanksgiving, when our whole family can be together.
In husband news, well, he's been done with work for 3 weeks now! Hooray!! He got an A on his chemistry mid-term...Bigger HOORAY!! And well, that's about it :) He's doing great, just studying super hard and keeping busy with school. Oh and he really enjoys eating at Kneaders now, which is a plus. And well that's about all that's been going on in our lives. Happy Halloween!

My first photo shoot.

Our school held another opportunity for us to do a photo shoot to help build our portfolio's. My friend Catelin and I decided to go in on it together to create a rad master piece. The theme for this photo shoot was "Horror-lesque." We played around with the ideas of "Modern" ballerina meets Coraline (It's a movie in case you didn't know). We did a modern twist to a basic bun and incorporated red thread throughout the hair. We paled out her face and "zombie-fied" her lips and Then the finishing touch to her face was big black buttons that we stuck over her eyes. We ended up using Catelin's younger sister as our model and she did an amazing job! She was blind throughout her whole photo shoot and took directions so well. I was really impressed with the photos. They looked amazing! And well, I don't have the professional proofs yet, but here's a few pictures that I took outside of our school after the photo shoot was over.






I'm excited to see how my future photo shoots turn out and then compare them to my first. It was so much fun doing this but really exhausting!
Speaking of exhausting...I think I'm going to head to bed early tonight. Hope you enjoyed looking at some of my art work :)
And I hope to blog about this next...

It's a creamy chicken, wild rice, veggie soup! I'm really excited to try to make this...well something similar at least. Good night.

Chop chop chop!

Okay, I know I'm really bad at updating my blog, especially updating it with pictures. But TADA! I have pictures for you! Like I mentioned in my last post, I colored my hair black, and now I've chopped all of my hair! I ended up cutting about 8 inches off the back and 6 1/2 inches from the front. It's a slight "A-line" with lots and lots of layers and texture (in Paul Mitchell terms, I did a triangular one length with triangular and square layers). And I LOVE it! I'm not sure if I'll keep this cut forever, but I really enjoy having it. I also convinced my friend Rachel to chop off her hair as well, so we ended up booking appointments together, for moral support :)I'm sorry I don't have many pictures of the final result, but you can kind of get the gist of it.
Here is the before...

And the after...

And a side view...

Hope you can kind of see what it looks like. But like I said, I love it! It's so nice to be able to take 2 mintues to blow dry it and like 5 minutes to style it. I feel bald actually. But a cute kind of bald, if that exists.
And Happy Autumn by the way. This is my most favorite time of the year. I wish it could last forever, but I guess if it lasted forever, it wouldn't be very special.
Lastly, I'd like to share a little clip that Conryd found, that we both found quite hilarious. I hope I don't offend anyone, it's all fun in...laughs?

Black as night....

So being in hair school and all, you'd probably guess that I'd do some "CRAZY" stuff to my hair. Well, after six grueling months, I've caved in. I died my hair black! And I bet you're all thinking..."Well Aly already has black hair." FALSE! In the hair world there are 10 levels of hair "lightness and darkness." Level 1 is being jet black, and level 10 is pale yellow, almost like the inside of a banana. Here's a chart to give you a visual...

Well on this chart my natural hair color falls at a level 3. So, technically, I've gone down 2 levels! It's pretty black! Like black black! I'm not quite sure how I feel about it yet, but Conryd loves it and so do my friends. I'll play it out for a few weeks and possibly change it? I added some blue color shots into too so it kind of has this blue hue to it. But in those ugly fluorescent lights, it almost looks greenish...ick! Anyways, I don't have any pictures yet, but as soon as I decide to take some pictures I'll post.
Other than my "drastic" hair color change, nothing else is new. We're still doing the same old things. Conryd's working hard at school and at work, and well I'm just going to school. I'm at about 750 hours...only 1250 more to go. GAH!!!!
And a big congratulations to my sister who is having baby #2! I'm so excited! If you need to send baby #1 away for a while, you can send her to me :)

School photo shoot

A few weeks ago our school gave us an opprotunity to do a photo shoot to help us build our profile. Well, I opted out of doing it, but my friend Lori decided to fork out the "big bucks" and do it. She used me as her model and she did a great job on my hair and make-up. I was kind of hesitant at the make-up part because I've had other people "attempt" to do my make-up and it just looked beyond horrible. But she did an awesome job! I was able to steal some of the pictures from her and post them on here. Here's a few pictures from our photo shoot day.



In other updated news, I only have about 10 more months of school, that is as long as I don't miss that much more school...The hubby just started school again, so that means late night study sessions for the next FOREVER months!
There's been a huge fire down in Southern Utah, which is making me feel right at home in CA. Huge smoke covers have covered the valley so that brings back some fond memories of summer fires back home.
Labor Day weekend is coming up which will be awesome because that means 3 day weekend! But for me, it'll actually end up being a 4 day weekend b/c we're closed for the 8th of Sept. b/c we're having a special guest come into to Paul Mitchell, and only those who have sold 15 of our bag deals get to go. And well, I have sold none, so I get to stay home and sleep in instead :)
Nothing else is really going on. Just the same old same old. Sorry I don't have much to write about, but I hope you enjoy the few pictures that I have.
Peace, love and happiness

My trip to Texas

Okay, so I was FINALLY able to upload my pictures from my trip out to Texas to visit my sister. It was such a blast to hang out with her and spend time with my cute little niece Elle. It's not very often that I get to spend time with them because they live so flippin far away. So it was a real treat to go out and see her (yes I really did just use that phrase.) Anyways, we spent our days shopping, eating, and preparing for the biggest princess party ever! We stayed up until 2am decorating for my niece's 1st birthday. It was probably the cutest birthday party ever. And of course, the theme was Pink! And Elle looked so adorable in her little outfit that her momma picked out for her.
Elle is such a little character! I had so much fun getting to know her and play with her. If I could, I would have stolen her and taken her home with me. She has great parents too! Lance...props to you! You are so patient being the only man of the house and taking such great care of my sister and niece. Bree, you're an amazing mom. I don't know how you still have energy at the end of the day. I can't wait until we meet again...(church hymn just popped into my head)
So here's a few pictures from my weekend spent in the big state of Texas.














And well, as much fun as I did have with my family, I was quite happy to get back home to my man.

(one day after work)