Camille's Wedding

Well, they are a married couple now...It's hard to believe, yet Josh fits so perfectly with Camille, its like he's been apart of the family all along! Here are some of my favorite pics...more to come in the next few days!!

funny of the week

I was out finding shoes for Bryanna's flower girl dress when she said the funniest thing to me on our way home. Our conversation went like this when we climbed into the car:

Bryanna: Mom, that girl was wearing a bad dress (referring to the girl, wearing a tube-top dress, who was standing behind us at the register).
Me: You're right Bryanna, we shouldn't show our chest. (I hesitated on using the word chest in case she would question me more about it, but then she said this...)
Bryanna: Jesus doesn't like it when we show our boobie crack!!
Me: You got it!! (Laughing hysterically inside, and calling Mark to tell him this funny thing!)

the loft

Before

During

Maddox was our little helper...following daddy around with his tools. It was a little boy's dream!

This is the loft, uncarpeted. We are getting carpet next week (hurray!!!)

Dry wall...its coming together!

After

We love the addition. Because of the new baby coming, it was a great excuse to actually get this project done and out of the way. We moved all the toys upstairs on the plywood for now. And the guest room that was upstairs (soon to be the nursery) was moved to the downstairs bedroom that was the old toy room. I have to say that I am enjoying it WAY more than I even anticipated. When guests come, they have their privacy downstairs and we have ours upstairs. I like it a lot, especially since we seem to have guests a lot!

Hallow's Eve

I made a very yummy recipe of sugar cookies. Thought I'd share it with you, my kids LOVED it!

Cream the butter and sugar...this is why I love my Cuisinart mixer, it does all the hard work, but makes the batter so fluffy and light.

Aren't those the cutest little helping hands? She's such a good egg cracker!

Anyone who has been to Mexico or plans on going, should get some of their vanilla. It smells just as good as it tastes....delicious!

And there you go.....thank you Cuisinart, you mixed fabulously!

After I chilled the dough, (for a few days actually), it makes rolling it out easy peesy

This is a batch of cookies I baked without any sprinkles. Putting the sprinkles on before was easy and less messy, believe it or not, because I didn't have to ice them with the mess of making icing, etc. I prefer the sprinkles pre-baking.


The Best Rolled Sugar Cookies

• 1 1/2 cups Butter, softened
• 2 cups sugar
• 4 eggs
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 5 cups flour
• 2 tsp baking powder
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 tsp almond extract (optional)

In large bowl, cream butter and sugar til fluffy. Beat in eggs, vanilla extract and almond extract til creamy and smooth. Stir in baking powder, salt and flour, a cup at a time. Cover and chill dough for at least one hour, overnight is best.

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Roll out dough on floured surface 1/4" o 1/2" thick. Cut into shapes using cookie cutters. Sprinkle decorator sugar or leave plain for icing later. Place cookies 1" apart on ungreased cookie sheets.

Bake 6-8 minutes in preheated oven. Cool completely on rack.

We had a very lovely visitor this past week! Uncle Andrew came in from Switzerland for a week and stayed with us. It was wonderful to have him stay and catch up on the last year. One day we will make it over to Europe to visit, we promise!!!

Uncle Andrew with Snow White and Spider man at our Trunk-or-Treat.

Cousins (DD's kids) came to the trunk-or-treat also, it was so good to see them!

Isn't he the cutest Spider man ever?

Saying goodbye to Andrew. Next time we hope Nicki comes along!

We headed to the Conservatory at Bellagio to check the ginormous pumpkins on display.

The kids also loved the dancing waters show. We love Bellagio just for these two attractions...they're both beautiful and free!

Halloween night, trick-or-treating with the cousins at my mom's neighborhood.

Bryanna was shaking her thang and dancing to the music, it was so cute..check it out!

Long time....No blog!

yes, yes, yes...its been a while. Please forgive me. I've been in a funk, with lots to blog about, but no time, or just plain lack of motivation. We finished our loft...pictures to come. I have been loving having my house back to normal privacy, without workers coming and going, banging away, tracking dirt all over. Its heaven to wake up with an extra room in the house. I'm very proud of Mark for getting it done in a timely fashion...just about two weeks and that's all folks!!

On to other news....we are having a boy...or a girl. I've had two ultrasounds, one telling us its a boy, and the other a girl! I'm 18 weeks now and so hopefully next ultrasound will give us the final verdict and the baby will cooperate!!! I'm anxious as ever to get the nursery set up, now that we have an empty room upstairs just waiting for a newborn to fill it up. I've been sleeping like a rock lately, and I'm grateful for all the wonderful and fabulous sleep I'm getting. It really makes a huge difference in how my day goes.

And on to more good news, I've gotten the green light to play tennis and do whatever!! So I've played twice already and its been SO FUN to pick my racquet back up. Oh how I've missed hitting the tennis ball. It's such a tension reliever too. I'm a much happier mommy and wife when I can do my little hobbies. And speaking of hobbies, I even got ALL my scrapbooking stuff out again and went to a girls night out and scrapped the entire time. I forgot how much I really enjoyed scrapbooking was reminded why I even got into it.

homecoming

So, my baby sister had homecoming on Saturday. My mom was a saint and fed all 24 teenie boppers at her house for part of their date before heading off to the dance in 2 stretch limos and to go to some fun places on the strip for more pictures. I guess you can never get enough pictures on such a fun, big night!

There were three round tables set up with majestic candles as the center piece.

Table 1

Table 2

Table 3

Cousins playing on the trampoline on the other side of the house while dinner was being served!

The buffet line

Bryanna with her Aunt Jamie

Jamie was asked by Nelson to homecoming this year. They had tons of fun!

Now everyone was looking at the camera!

Brooke & Jamie with their dates. These girls have been BFF's for 11 years now!

All packed into the limo!

Today while we were over for Sunday dinner, I was wanting to get the scoop on how the night went with such a fun, big group, but Jamie was sacked out on the couch! After the night was over, some girlfriends stayed over and chatted past 2am! So from what I heard, they all had a clean, wholesome fun time, with a jolly load of pictures to remember every moment!