Shayleigh's 16th Birthday party

The theme of the party was decided with a contest. She sent out a mass text to all the people she was planning on inviting asking what theme would be a fun party. The winner would be chosen after a few hours and would receive that night a delicious prize. The theme that won was a Barbie Ice princess party, winner being her friend Rachel. Such a fun way to get people excited and involved in the upcoming party.

This was Shay's 16th Birthday cake. She requested a Barbie cake and this was the very first cake that I have ever bought from a Bakery. It was white cake with yummy layers of pudding and a most delicious frosting. It was well liked by party goers and brothers alike.
Savannah and Rachel doing their ice cream sculptures. Before this we went ice blocking and ate some delicious soups that David made.
Taylee and Kylee, are so funny they ended up making a forest with theirs and stole broccoli to add for the trees.
Tatty, Jordan and Melanie working on their creation
Shayleigh and Maddy ended up making the most perfect fort---big surprise....over achievers!
Kristin and Jenna working on their masterpiece
Jayson and Josie made a little car---looks like Jayson is testing out to see if it tastes as good as it looks!
Shay was kind enough to allow her siblings at her big bash and invited them to do all of the activities. Xan was sure excited to be there!
I think this one was a swan
Here is the forest by Kylee and Taylee--they were so funny!
Banana split or sundae I think??
The fort of perfection
The rest of the evening was spent playing music and David heading up so impromtu games they really brought everyones personalities out. All in all a successful party!!

Bruno Mars: Just the Way You Are

Bruno Mars: Just the Way You Are

I LOVE this song and the video is so sweet!

Family Pictures--Fall 2010

A good friend of mine asked me a few weeks ago if I had a family picture she could use for her lesson. I really couldn't remember the last one we had, possibly Brights blessing and maybe summer of 2008 but that seems too long right? I asked my Bro in law to take some shots on a early morning over UEA weekend just before their big camping trip. I know I am loved by him!
Here is some samples of what we got in a quick 20 minute session.
Look at these kids of ours! We are so very blessed!

Had to throw this one in....classic Bright. When he's done he is Done. With a little luck and understanding we got a few more shots in.
I think this is the one above that I am going to get enlargements of . It was the best of everyone.
Although I did love the one below...but Dave looks like he is uncomfortable, I wonder why?

A Breakthrough Invention-(invented by none other than....MOI!)

Dear fellow friends and family members, Have you ever felt like this: "OH NO! My sconces (yes, sconces) on the front porch are filthy! Cobwebs, dirt, and worse, bugs!! My life will end as i know it!" Boy, do I have a neat tool that just might change your perspective on sconce cleaning FOREVER! (It may even change your life.) I call it.....the Sconce-to-the-Cleaner 3000!This nifty tool cleans and gets rid of gross bugs with just a swift motion of your wrist and forearm! All of your sconce cleaning worries will just disappear! So call now!So there's my infomercial for my new product. It still needs a little work. But of course it doesn't sound as good just written down. There are many cheesy surprised face inserts that I hope to put in there, so you won't have the same jaw-dropping feeling until you see it on T.V.There is a backstory to this amazing creation of mine. Today, for one of my chores, Dad asked me to clean off the front porch, and to do a special job that he didn't want to do. Clean off the sconces. This was a job I was not looking forward to. I did not, I repeat, did not want to get near whatever was nested in that small place right next to the door. (But, I mean who would, really?) I was extremely frightened that I would get bitten a million times by some creepy crawly infesting our beloved sconce. So I decided to make my own tool to clean it off without even touching it. So, I took and old sponge, and I used a knife to cut a whole in the middle of the sponge. Then, I took a regular stick and I put the sponge on the stick through the whole. I then took a "Shamwow!" rag and covered the sponge completely and sealed it under the sponge with three rubber bands...and BOOM! My masterpiece was created! I am not going to say that it was a work of genius, but truly, IT WAS! I am very proud of my invention.Now, You all must be asking yourself: Did it work? Has Shayleigh done the impossible by making such a brilliant tool? The answer is.....Yes! I knew it would! The outside of our sconce is spiffy clean and very beautiful hanging so elegantly next to the front door. Don't believe it? Well, you should! Here are some awesome pictures Xander and I took with my new toy.

This is Xander posing with The Sconce-to-the-Cleaner 3000. Bright is crying in the background because he wants this brand new product so bad. (and not because it looks like a sword.)

Xander is so happy that he closed his eyes because he thinks he is dreaming.

It turned his world upside-down!

Xander told me to give him tiger-angry when taking this pic. RAWR.

This is my proud, heroic pose. Because I am a hero for inventing such a masterpiece.

Boom. Boom. FIREPOWER! That's how this product rolls.

So that is my creation. IF you want one for your own sconce problems, call my parents. I will try to get one made as soon as you call. (JK, unless you are really willing to pay me to make one, then you have some serious sconce issues to work out.)

Short--croppy SASSY hair, I LOVE IT!!!

Not a professional picture (as you can see my baby in the glass door) but this is my new hair do! I love it! I finally feel like myself, I am literally glowing!!

Vegas Baby - 40th Birthday Trip

Hey All,
David here again, my wonderful wife threw me a birthday party in Vegas, she invited my two favorite people, her and myself. hehe

I thought I would throw some of the pics up here.

We planned the trip, not being big gamblers as a food trip. We watch Food Network, Top Chef and many other shows incessantly and wanted to eat at a few restaurants we love to see and chefs we have watched cook.

Our first night we ate at Bobby Flay's Mesa Grill.



It was fabulous. Mesa Grill is in the middle of Caesar's Palace. We made reservations and were glad we did. We met a nice couple sitting next to us that probably like food like we do.

Carrie ordered a Tiger Shrimp Corn Tamale for an appetizer. I am not a shrimp fan but the shrimp were the best I ever tasted. The sauce was incredible.



Here is a bigger picture of the resaurant, cool fire images throughout the whole place.



I had a pork tenderloin that was delicious and a sweet potato tamale with a pecan butter melted on top. Carrie had a crispy squash blossom also, squash blossoms are good if you get a chance, we should have just ordered a side of these. They were filled with a creamy cheese filling and lightly breaded. Soooooo nice.

The Sweet Potato Tamale was the big hit for me and I came home and found the recipe online for the one I think is it. Here's the link if you want to check it out.

Pork Tenderloin with Sweet Potato Tamale

and here is a link to look at a video of Bobby Flay making the Tiger Shrimp Appetizer Carrie had.

This is a great video on how to make tamales if you ever wondered.

The next day we ate at 'Wichcraft which is a sandwich place that is ran by Tom Colicchio that is the host and showrunner for Top Chef. He has a nice restaurant called Craft Steakhouse that we didn't go to because it was out of our budget to do both Bobby Flay's place and his place, so next time for sure! Wichcraft is delicious and he has many restaurants...link here

We ate there twice and had great food, from a blt (with like a 1/2 pound of apple smoked bacon) to roasted turkey (with an onion balsamic marmalade), and a grilled cheese sandwich made with Gruyere and caramelized onions. Such great food. The real find here was the cream'wich cookies. I would love to describe them but I would fail. They had three flavors, chocolate wafer cookies with a chocolate ganache inside, oatmeal wafers with an apple cinnamon cream and peanut butter with a peanut butter cream filling. They were so good. This link takes you to Tom Colicchio's book on sale at Amazon but if you scroll down he has been nice enough to put the recipe. I will make them, one day I swear. The roasted turkey sandwich recipe is there too.

Just a couple of other pics for fun...

MGM Grand has the best restaurants but they also have lions there...but what is wrong with this pic?



Shouldn't those guys be lion food! The lions meanwhile look like they are some drugged out movie star.

For those of you that read the glitter toes blog, here it is....



Here is one of two regrets from the trip, a trip to Vegas with only two regrets can't be all that bad.



I love mysteries and puzzles and would have loved this if it was a puzzle but literally you went from station to station and answered a multiple choice question. If I was a fan of the show maybe I would have liked it better but I doubt it.

Other regret was a restaurant called Fiamma that doesn't deserve reporting. Just pass on the place. Scallops were okay but they were in a risotto that was cooked in fish broth that smelled fishy in the bad way.

It was a fun trip just hangout with the love of my life. Eighteen of my forty years I have spent with her and if I could change time it would only be to make the other twenty-two years be with her as well. She is the reason I love life as much as I do.

Glitter toes, Twinkle toes, RockStar toes....What ever you call them, they ROCK!

Since last summer I have wanted Glitter toes, so when my Fabulous sister suggested a sweet cousin of hers that does Glitter Toes parties I jumped at the chance. I invited 15 of my closest friends and we beautified, ate, laughed, chatted and ate some more. Can you really ask for more than that?

Above is just a picture of about half of the people who came. We did about 13 pairs of feet and what was fun was that not only was our feet glittered but faces, hands, arms ect...we were so Shiny!

Some of us played games while others were getting glitterfied. Abby, Chalyce, Mary and Lindsay playing a serious game of Rummikub. Chalyce is a total Rock Star at this game. Meanwhile another group of us are in the kitchen playing Spicy Farkle!

Josie's cute glitter toes--of course she picked orange, but this color was custom made by my niece Jesika...so therefore called JESIKA.

Shayleigh chose one we called mermaid. It was kinda fun looking at all of her 40 colors and coming up with interesting names.

My toes.....just looking at them makes me feel sparkly and purrty!
What a fun Girls night! I will absolutely do another!!!