Marisa YW Medallion

Marisa earned her Young Women's Medallion today! She completed all her Personal Progress goals and 8 different projects of 10+ hours each. We're so proud of her and all her accomplishments and talents she had cultivated. For those not familiar with this award for the young women in our church, it is equivalent to a scout receiving his Eagle award. She received a cute collection of Value books, a beautiful flower bouquet from her YW President, Sis. Morton, and her silver medallion.

 I wanted to make a special dessert to celebrate with all the girls at church. So I made two six-layer rainbow cakes that had all the Value colors represented.  The frosting is made from a white chocolate ganache and decorated with roses on the top. It was really cute and pretty easy too :)

BYU in Dallas

Yesterday we drove to Dallas for the BYU vs. TCU football game. It was played in the new Dallas Cowboys Stadium in Arlington. Jose got tickets for us all in one of the suite boxes - yummy food galore! Marisa couldn't attend since it was her homecoming game at school so Ryan brought his good buddy, Keith.  We had so much fun being there even though our team lost :(  That stadium is amazing and it was like visiting the Mother Land for Jose since he's a hardcore - lifelong Cowboys fan! We stayed overnight and drove back today since Marisa had her Homecoming dance/date tonight - luckily her school team won even though BYU didn't :)

Ryan, Keith, Tess and Jose outside "Jerry's World" (Stadium)

American Girl Glamour witch

I taught a couple of American Girl Doll classes this month. The girls made "Glamour Witch" costumes for their dolls. They turned out so super cute. They made a dress with two glitter tulle overskirts, a bat necklace, a trick-or-treating bag, and the cutest hat with feathers, flowers, ribbons and more! I also bought all the dolls some silver shoes to finish of the Glam :)

 All the girls showing off their models (Tess in the middle)

I loved having all these pretty little witches lined up for a picture!

Pumpkin Contest

Both Ryan and Tess are in orthodontics right now. We love their orthodontist and her office staff - not to mention all the fun stuff at the office (arcade, etc.). Anyhow - they have a pumpkin decorating contest each year and the winner gets an iPod - 2nd & 3rd place gets cash!  The kids got into decorating their pumpkins. 

Tess made this spiderweb one with glitter glue, glitter spray, and glitter spiders - sparkly!

 Ryan made his into a mummy - kind of cute, huh? This also shows the cute individual S'mores treat bags we made to give to friends.  I'll keep you posted on if the kids won any of the prizes :)
(UPDATE - Ryan's mummy pumpkin won 3rd place!)

Pinterest addiction

My peppermint cake got on the main page of Pinterest this weekend - now I have over 900 repins and links onto my blog - wow! I know this isn't anything exciting for most of you but it kind of tickled me :)

I've been spending a lot of time on Pinterest. The first time I went to the site, I just saw a lot of images posted and thought "what's the big deal?".  I didn't understand that when you "pin" images to your "boards" (just like pinning a picture to a cork board - you get the drift), you can click on those images and it takes you to the original website or blog from which it came.  So instead of adding dozens of bookmarks to your favorites - this keeps them all for you with images!!  

When you browse through Pinterest, you'll end up seeing all the best of the blogs and sites. There are tons of ideas and inspiration to be found. I really LOVE it - go and see for yourself :) 

Here are a couple examples of how it looks

My Fab Bday (Michelle style!)

I had a birthday recently and just wanted to post about what my dearest friend, Michelle, did for me. On that day, I received a box from her in Utah that stated Marisa knew what to do with everything. So I waited until Marisa got home that evening to open it.  I actually had taken a very late nap and got up around 7:00 pm to this super fun "Birthday Party in a Box" that Michelle had made.  What a cute surprise everything was!

 Look at this garland she sewed for me - she ruffled yards and yards of three colors of streamers together - she's amazingly crazy with all her projects - I love it!

 Then she made me a fancy birthday hat of zebra fabric, plumes of feathers and flowers! I'm having Ryan model for me since I had just woken up and being a year older - it wasn't a pretty sight ;)

Michelle had packed in zebra balloons, cute plates, napkins, "J" cupcake pics, confetti shred, and all sorts of goodies.  She also made me the cutest apron from a tea towel with owls on it and added ruffles and rustic lace - so cute!  Marisa went and bought my favorite cake at Cheesecake Factory and had that there too - yum!

It started as a not so fun day but ended great - thanks Michelle - Love you! (and my cute family too :)

Triple YUM!!

These are so dang blasted delicious!!

Made some last night - bites of heaven - enjoy :)