Sugar Cookies

Today I made my first 75 sugar cookies. Well, I've made some before but they aren't considered real after you've tasted these. I got the recipe from the Lion House cookbook, and they are amazing! They are soft and fluffy, and they kept their cookie cutter shape. I thought everyone might try and made them because they are so amazing so I'm including the recipe. I did take pictures of the wonderful things, but as you know our internet won't let us upload pictures so you'll have to wait until I can borrow someone's internet.









Cutout Sugar Cookies

2 cups granulated sugar
1 cup shortening
3 eggs
1 cup milk
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 teaspoon lemon extract
6 1/2 cups flour
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking soda
3 1/2 teaspoons baking powder

Line cookie sheet with waxed paper; set aside. In large mixer bowl, cream sugar, shortening, and eggs. Add milk, vanilla, and lemon extract, mix at low speed. In separate bowl, mix flour, salt, baking soda, and baking powder. Add to sugar mixture until well blended. Roll out 1/8 inch thick; cut into desired shapes. Bake at 400 degrees for 6 minutes, being careful not to overbake. Cookies should be light golden brown around the edges. Frost with icing. Makes 5 to 6 dozen cookies.

Butter Cream Icing
3/4 cup butter
3/4 cup shortening
4 2/3 cups powdered sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons lemon juice
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla
1/3 cup water

In large mixer bowl, combine butter, shortening, and powdered sugar; beat until very creamy. Add lemon juice and vanilla; mix until well blended. Add water and mix until very light.

Gordon B. Hinckley 1910-2008

I want to briefly share my appreciation for President Hinckley today, the day of his death. We are very sad that he has passed away, and shocked. He was old, so we half expected it would come soon but never actually thought it would happen. He has done so much for this church. He has brought so many new temples to the world and we are especially grateful for the Newport Beach temple. He has traveled to so many countries and meet so many people who will never forget his love and appreciation for him.

He was surrounded by his family while he passed away which is the best way to leave this world. We are very grateful that he is able to now be with his wife, who he has talked about so much since her death. After she died he said that the love of his life once again became the woman of his dreams. Even though we will miss him, we know he is happier now and with those he loves.

He was the only prophet I really remember in my life. I can't imagine what General Conference and the church will be like without him. We will miss him at BYU Devotionals waving his cane and waving to the students. He loved every member of the church, all 13 million members of us.

We will miss you President Hinckely and will never forget you. God be with you till we meet again.

This was our first time!

Once when Holly and Greg were visiting Utah, we met them in the Cougar Eat for some lunch. Jacob, Brigham and Caleb were there eating with us too. Out of the blue, Brigham stands up on his chair and puts his fist in the air and yells, "This is my first time!" Apparently, he thought it was his first time eating at the Cougar Eat, when it really wasn't. We thought that was hilarious (as did the other students in the packed Cougar Eat) and every time we do something for the first time we think of Brigham and say, "This is our first time!" The reason for this story is because Ja and I made ginger bread houses for the first time this Christmas. Our friends had us over to make them and we had fun. So of course, I had to stand on a chair with my fist in the air and have Ja take a picture.



The house was getting old so we wanted to get rid of it, but who can just through a ginger bread house away? Ja wanted to have a picture sequence of him eating our house. These are a few of the pictures. Isn't he funny? He makes me laugh all the time.

The Productive Christmas Break

We were very excited to go home for Christmas break, because I was done with school and Ja was done with the hardest semester of his life. We were welcomed in California with nice warm weather. It seems like almost instantly we started with one of our many projects of the break. Greg was going to visit Grandma DeVore Christmas Eve so Dorothy wanted the pictures of Jeff and Tiffany's wedding (and ours) to be put on a DVD so Grandma can see them. Well, Ja took it upon himself to make an actual wedding video using imovie. It took quite a long time to get everything figured out, an there were a few late nights trying to get it finished in time for Grandma. The sad thing is Greg never went to Grandma's so those late nights were for nothing. But, we loved the video so we were very happy we did it. Tiffany and Jeff were very grateful as well. Ja then worked on our wedding video next, even though it's be 2 1/2 years since we got married. He did a very good job with ours too, and it didn't take as long because he knew what he was doing now. While Ja was busy making the movies, I was busy doing little projects for Dorothy. Let's say I was never bored this trip. We also got to see Nathan, Kiersten and Henry a lot while we were down. We think Henry is the cutest little boy. We miss him. We also missed having the whole family over for Christmas, but that's what happens when two families decide to move across the country.





We got to spend a little time with my family too. Since my dad's birthday is Christmas Eve we went do to Yorba Linda to have breakfast with my family and both sets of grandparents. It was fun to visit, and open presents. Then the day before we left for Utah we went down to Yorba Linda again to hang out. We might have talked Stacie into going to BYU for nursing. We hope she comes up here. It would be fun to have a sister here.

On New Year's Day we watched a little bit of the parade while Ja and Kenny made us breakfast. My mom and Stacie were brave enough to go to the parade. Stacie had never been, you have to go once in your life while it's so close. Later on that day, Jeff, Devin, Nathan, Kiersten, Ja and I went to the Rose Bowl Game. While the game wasn't that exciting to watch, it was still fun to be at the Rose Bowl. The most exciting part was watching the air force guys jump out of a plane, the jet planes flying overhead, and watching the Illinois band.


We were very grateful to be at home for Christmas. Everyone was so generous to us and we had such a great time.

First Semester of the Junior Core: Check

Studying for the hardest finals of your life: 50 hours
Practicing for group presentations: 10 hours
Spending all day everyday studying accounting: 100's of hours
Attending the #2 Accounting school in the nation: Priceless...

Ja finished his first semester of the Accounting Junior Core this morning! He was very excited and danced around and couldn't stop smiling, for awhile. After a little while the lack of sleep caught up to him, and he took a nap. He had so much work to do this semester, sometimes he would be doing 12+ hours a day of accounting, but he never complained. He really enjoyed his class, even if they worked him. He also loved his accounting group. They spent so much time together, which apparently isn't common because when he told people they did everything together the other students looked at him like the was weird. They even made a little movie at the end of the semester for a presentation. It was very clever and fun, for an accounting video. I wonder if there is a way I can put it on the blog. Even the wives were involved in the accounting activities, and we kinda did two group dates. I'm so proud of Ja and for all the hard work he puts into his education that will bless our family for years to come.

p.s. Ja is an officer for Beta Alpha Psi (BAP) which is a fraternity for Accounting students. He is the reporter which means he reports on all the activities of BAP to the committee. His whole group was elected officers so they will continue to be together.

BYU Graduate

Last night I took the last final of my life! I was so excited, that when I got home I danced around and couldn't stop smiling. I finished school! I graduated college! I didn't give up, even though many times I wanted to. Luckily, Ja was always there reassuring me that I can finish, and I that I need to push through and get everything done. I'm so glad I have him around to make me do things I don't want to do. We went to Leatherby's with the Jones to celebrate me finishing college. I still don't really feel like I'm done, but I've bee told I will, as soon as Ja has to go to school in a few weeks and I don't. I can't wait. I will be walking April 24th, so you should come:)

All in all, I enjoyed college. Only a few times did I really not like it, most of them were this semester when I had a million things to do. I learned so much more than I would have if I hadn't gone to college. Now I understand why the Brethern tell the women of the church to get an education. I am better prepared to teach my children how to learn, and I learned about things that I didn't know existed. Now when my child doesn't want to go to college I can reassure them it will be worth it, I did it and so can they. I learned so many great things about teaching children (I got my Associates in Elementary Education) and about our amazing bodies ( my Bachelor's is in Exercise Science: Emphasis in Fitness and Wellness). I had some great teachers I learned a lot from. I even enjoyed the hardest class I ever had to take because I had a great teacher who really wanted us to learn and have fun.

BYU was a great place to go to school. The campus is always clean and beautiful. It's nice to be able to talk religion in a class and have prayers before starting class. My life goal was to graduate from BYU, I'm so glad I could do it. Thank you to all of you who helped me and supported me through school. Now I can join the ranks of BYU grads! Go Cougars!

Even though college was great, I couldn't be happier that I'm done! Now, about those jobs...

I finished!

On Friday November 30th I officially finished my internship! That was one of the best days of my life. At the beginning of the semester when I was calculating my hours, I thought I would have to miss either work or school for a few days to finish my hours on time. I was really worried I would finish and then I wouldn't be able to graduate on time. Somehow things always work out though. My english teacher actually helped out a lot because every time we had a paper due she would give us one day off to write and one day was spent doing teacher conferences. That was about 8 days where I could go in for a few extra hours, which made up the time I would have taken off work. She helped me out and didn't even know it. There were also a project I did every month of finding a health topic and displaying things about it on the bulletin board. That gave me an extra five hours every month, without that I would not have been able to finish on time. I was really blessed this semester to be able to get every thing I needed to get done.
On friday when I got home, I was welcomed by the sign "Congratulations! You did it!" that Ja wrote for me. Since it was such an accomplishment for me I had to take a picture with it.

Racing at Pole Position

We are thankful for Thanksgiving

Right about the time we are all tired of school and don't think we can take it any longer a great holiday comes around that every student is very thankful for, Thanksgiving. We have been going to school with no breaks since Augusts so we really look forward to the few days we get to spend at home. Now we know we can make it the 3 weeks left in the semester. We left for California on Tuesday morning because on Tuesday it was Friday classes and we didn't have those. That was the first good decision we made that trip because the airports were empty. There wasn't any traffic getting to the airport either. If you can believe it LAX was empty too. We looked outside and didn't see anyone, we thought we were at the wrong airport. We spent tuesday playing on Dorothy's new iMac and showed her a few new tricks she can do. We went down to Yorba Linda that night after driving through a lot of traffic. We had a lot of fun at home; we watched Narnia, went to Pole Position (I'll post pictures later), had two great Thanksgiving dinners, and spent time with family. We even got to talk with Greg, Caleb, Brigham, and Holly over in Virginia on the video chat. We went to the Punderson's on Thanksgiving and had a great turkey and tons of mashed potatoes, and great apple pie. The next day we went to Grandma Seymour's for our second Thanksgiving dinner. We had ham, sweet potatoes, baked beans, and pumpkin cheesecake to name a few. It was very, very good. We also celebrated my birthday by singing and blowing out candles. The next day it was time to go back to Utah, we didn't want to go because we knew it would be freezing; we were really spoiled in the 70 degree CA weather. I made sure and got some good ol' fashioned donuts because they don't have those ma and pa donut places here. Another great thing about the trip was Ja and I exercised everyday, we did Pilates and Air Alert. We are trying to strengthen our abs and increase our vertical by 8-14 inches. We had fun doing it and Jill did it with us as well. Saturday we watched the BYU vs. Utah football game. I couldn't believe no one could score a touchdown. Of course Utah finally did when there was only a few minutes left. But not to worry, BYU prevailed by scoring a touchdown and getting two extra points. Finally BYU proved to be the better team when they blocked Utah from catching the ball in the endzone when time was out, which would have won the game for them. (hmmm, doesn't that sound familiar, except we actually caught the ball and won?) All in all, it was a great vacation and we can't wait until we can do it again. This a pretty long blog without any pictures so I'll make sure and post pictures as soon as I can.

California Slide Show!

Mt Timponogos Cave

Seymour Family Vacation

My family was driving up to Bear Lake for their vacation this summer and they were nice enough to stop by in Provo for a few days to visit Ja and I. We tried to fit in as many activities as we could. We went to the BYU Creamery to get lunch and ice cream and walked around BYU bookstore. Kenny bought a big blue wig because our high school colors are also blue.
The next day we went to Timponogos Cave. The cave was really fun.
There was a wait to get to the cave so we decided to walk around the camp grounds around the cave. Ja loved looking at his map as you can see, and Kenny and Jill were just having a great time.


To get to the cave you have to hike up a steep hill about 1 1/4 miles. I took some pictures along the way. Luckily, it wasn't too hot because of the high elevation. My dad, Kenny, Jill, and Ja flew up the hill and me and my mom took our time walking up. The cave isn't going anywhere right? The inside of the cave was amazing, it takes millions and millions of years to form all of the cool stalagmites. One employee worked at the cave for 50 years and never saw any difference in one stalagmite what was really close to touching the floor. The whole cave is covered in these deposits that are formed from dripping water and millions of years.


The walk down the hill was a lot easier and more fun to do. Once again the kids ran down the hill because they could go really fast. After the cave we went to one of our favorite places to eat, Costa Vida.
That night we went to Salt Lake to visit Temple Square because Jill hadn't walked around the temple before. We also went to a wedding reception of my mom's cousin's daughter. We had never meet anyone there before but we went to make my mom happy, and they had a chocolate fountain so we were pretty happy too.
On Sunday my family went to church with us and ate a good Sunday roast beef. After dinner they drove off to Bear Lake.

Wicked Fun California Trip

At the end of our weeks stay our friends Andrew and Chelsey Jones came to visit. We lured them in with promises of a fun beach and Wicked trip. How can anyone resist? We went out to breakfast at Hill Street, the favorite DeVore restaurant, drove to Hollywood and of course, went to Newport Beach. Chelsey grew up going to Newport every summer when she was younger so it was a walk down memory lane for her. She remembered more about it than I did and I went once a week for 3 summers! The boys had a great time in the water, Chelsey and I know better than to get in freezing cold water. Plus, we had to prove we went to sunny California and come back with a tan.


Fortunately for us, my Seymour side of the family had a bonfire that night at the next beach over, Huntington Beach. Andrew and Chelsey had never had a bonfire at the beach so we were excited we could do that for them. My Uncle Eric took some great pictures of us with the beautiful sunset in the background. We had a great time roasting hot dogs and s'mores over the fire on Grandpa Seymour's great skewers. The great thing was, it wasn't even that cold after the sun went down.
Then another highlight of the trip was Wicked. We had seen Wicked before but we love the music and would never pass up the chance to watch it again. Andrew and Chelsey have been listening to the music for awhile and were very excited to actually see what happens. The show was great, it's so fun to sing along. Glenda was very funny in this show especially during the "Popular" song.





We were very sad to leave home, we love it here. Plus, it was a bittersweet goodbye because we started school the next day. Ja was really excited to start his accounting program and I was really excited to begin my final semester at school, but then again it was school. We had a great trip visiting with parents, siblings, grandparents, and friends.

Henry's Birthday

On August 30th we went to Valencia to celebrate Henry's 1st birthday. We don't have any pictures of Henry with his great birthday cake, or opening presents but I do have a cute picture of Henry in his new birthday coat riding Uncle Ja's shoulders. Ja must have something weird in his hair.

Summer California Trip

I finally have free time to update our blog from some summer activities.
We took a trip home to California in August to visit our families and to see Wicked. We had a great time helping my parents paint their living room. Mom my decided that white walls aren't for her anymore. Unfortunately we only had time to primer, the hardest part. It was my first time painting a wall so I had fun. We also had to paint the ceiling which was quite a chore.



Ja and I also took a trip to Disneyland with Jill and her friend MacKenzie. We also met up with Devin and a friend. We had a great time and went on all the rides we wanted to. Except for the new Nemo ride because the line was 2 hours long. We were hoping to go on a day that wasn't crowded and we sure did. It was wonderful.