Well ... she didn't make it. Well ... she made it to the garbage disposal.

I tried to save the afore mentioned cake ... but it went from bad to worse when I tried to super glue it together with frosting.

Who knew?!

The OTHER cake however DID make it to the table! My uncle was the guest of honor and I wanted to make him something special. His favorite cake is German Chocolate. HIS cake (the one on the left in the pic - as if you couldn't tell ;-) survived and was iced and set out for all to partake in.

I think I have about 93% left. But really I can't say much, I didn't have any either. Coconut just AIN'T my thing.

The party was fun though. WAY better than I anticipated. My whole family hadn't been together in ... well ... none of us could remeber how long ... so ... a pretty long time. There are reasons for that mind you.

A snippet of the many convos heard in midst of the chaos:

• childhood tramas that have 40 years worth of embelishments on them
• religion, ranging from the side of devout Mormons to Atheists
• stories told for the 9-HUNDREDTH time
• OH and of course, politics - most heatedly, gay marriage

But regardless of our differences and issues that most families have, we all got along and had a pretty fun time.

I am having 14 people in my house tonight. My fav aunt and uncle are up from So. Cal and many of our guests tonight have never seen the house. I volunteered to make cakes because we are celebrating two birthdays tonight and I have NO extra money to buy cakes.

So as I am upstairs cleaning EVERYTHING with mass amount of bleach *did I mention that my aunt is an admitted germ-a-phob?* I find that I needed something from downstairs ...

I come down to find Lil Miss in the kitchen ...

Quiet ...

And with a VERY GUILTY LOOK on her face ...

Then I see this ...


Those are tiny Lil Miss pick marks. And as I ran down the stairs shreaking OHMYHOLYCRAPWHATDIDYOUDOTOMY*CAAAAKE*?! everyone with in ear shot ran for cover.

Well ... I don't really know what I'm doing or what I WILL do, but here's what we have so far ...

What's left of my cake. Pray ... not for me ... or for my cakes ... but for the quick healing of my child behind should my attempts to "super glue" the cakes into form with frosting, fail.

Egh ... tune in tomorrow for the thrilling conclusion! LOL

I have to laugh ... or else I'd CRY ... and drink ... but that's later ;-)

BOY do I love fall! I love that 'fall' smell in the air, I love the temps, I love the colors outside, and most of all I love the events!

I really enjoy taking the kids to pumpkin patches and harvest festivals and letting them experience fall too.

So Saturday I was bored, had all 3 girls & DH was working so we hoped in the car and headed to a pumpkin patch *I* used to go to with my mom when *I* was little *every says "WOW that was a long time ago!"*

With your entrance fee you get 'pumpkin bucks' to spend in the farm. So of course we got ice cream :)

played in the jumpy house ...

caught some air ...

played on farm equipment ...

posed on farm equipment ...

played on MORE equipment ...

and went through the pumpkin patch looking at puppets and reading stories that have been around since *I* was a kid :)

played in the pictures ...

played in MORE pictures ...

climbed hay bale mountains ...

harrassed farm animals ...

and took a moment or two to sit a spell on the lovely porch swing ...

And then I did my best at capturing the 'fall'ness of the lovely day with my girls LOL ...

and THIS was the best I got LOL buuuut I guess it's not BAD ... MOST of us are smiling or have our heads in shot, so what more can you ask for!

THE TWEEN INVASION OF '08!!!! LOL

For Tween's 11th birthday I told her she could have a sleep over. And after the squealing and general freaking out I realized that I would make it through.

So she invited her 3 closest friends over and despite an EXTREMELY low budget as we had NO money ... the event went pretty well and a good time was had by all.


They ate pizza and talked ...

drank soda and talked ...

spied on the neighborhood boys and talked ...

had cake and talked ...

sang Happy Birthday ... and talked ...

played dress up and talked ....

tortured the cat* and talked ...

And talked until about 5 o'clock in the morning ... I kid you not. They seemed to have a pretty great time, had about 3 gigantic bowl fulls of snacks AFTER the cake and pizza, sang and danced, played untold amounts of games, and watched movies. I think *I* lost about 80% of my hearing. But the look on Tween's face made it all worth it :)

Course I don't think DH felt the same way ... ;)

*No cat was harmed in the making of this blog entry. lol

So at some point I forgot September ... and October ... so I'm going back now and relieving the memories :)

My oldest daughter turned 11 this year. I can't believe how old she is! We had just a small family get together with us, my mom, and a friend of mine. Basically because she was going to have a Tween Invasion Party (aka sleepover) a few weeks later.

We had pizza & cake and then got down to BUSINESS

LOL I guess they DO end up enjoying the cards and clothes they get for their birthdays ;-)

They also enjoy getting gift cards a lot more than they used to ;-)

Earrings make quite and impression as well LOL

No matter how many you get I guess! A girl can never have too many earrings ... or shoes ... but she's not QUITE there yet

And MORE earrings LOL - she had just gotten her ears pierced recently so this was a BIG thing

Clothes are pretty exciting once you get into the double digits too! My gift to her was a nice sized gift card and taking her out shopping, just she & I :) And since I can't imagine her wanting me around for that much longer, I really savored it.

She's growing into such a sweet young lady and I'm so lucky to have her.

She'll always be my baby girl ... no matter how much she says she's not a baby anymore ;-)

I can't believe she's 11! Or she WAS at the taking of this picture ;)

Srsly ... BEST.RECIPE.EVAH!

Mediterranean Chicken with Rosemary (Basil) Orzo

1 lb chicken breasts cubed or chicken tenders (not breaded)
2 cloves garlic, finely chopped
1 1/3 cups uncooked orzo pasta (looks like rice ;-)
1 can (14oz) chicken broth
1/2 cup water
1 teas. dried rosemary (I used basil = LOVED IT!)
1/2 teas. salt
2 med zucchini (I used cucumber = LOVED IT!) cut into quarters
1 can chopped tomatoes, drained
1 med. bell pepper, chopped

1. In a skillet stir fry chicken about 5 min or until brown

2. Stir in garlic, orzo, and broth. Heat to boiling; reduce heat. Cover and simmer about 8 minutes or until most of the liquid is absorbed.

3. Stir in water, rosemary (basil), salt, cucumber, tomatoes, bell pepper and heat to boiling; reduce heat. Cover and simmer about 5-7 minutes stirring once, until bell pepper is crisp-tender and pasta is tender.

This recipe is both low fat and fast! And so soooo good! Only 335 calories and 5g of fat!!! I KNOW! If any one tries it let me know I'd LOVE to hear how it turns out and if you tried anything different!!

HEY Sunday Scrappers! Well it's been awhile since I scrapped/posted so I thought I would share a little photo essay on WHY.

A few weeks back a friend of mine decided that since she is now pregnant with her second child and already has no time to scrap traditionaly, that she wanted to move into digital scrapping. She still had quite a few pictures printed out and was feeling pretty overwhelmed thinking about scrapping them all.

I tried to help her feel better about it, but she ended up deciding to give it up.

Then she made me an offer I couldn't refuse.

Scrap her remaining pictures in exchange for ALL HER SCRAPPY STUFF.

Needless to say, I was a little excited ;-) I figured it would be a bunch of stuff, having scrapped with her before, but I really had NO IDEA.

I got a gigantic tub, TWO rolling totes FULL, and TWO paper seperaters FULL

Included in the tub were THREE seperaters FULL of brads/flowers/buttons/eyelets

TONS of fibers and ribbons

and a HUGE tub full of albums, tools, a handheld sewing machine and

A LOT of stickers & embelishments! An assortment of ribbon, flowers, jolees, stickers, frames and just STUFF that filled up the end of my table about 3 layers high. You name it, she had it.

I had NO IDEA how much until I started trying to organize it. It became quite the task over the last 3 weeks but I got it under control, and while my husband was working out of town last week, I FINALLY started using it!

I SO wish I could share the EIGHT pages I got done with you all, but since it's *her* family I'm just not sure I should put it out on the internetz for all to see, you know what I mean.

My TO-DOs for the week are to scrap more while the hubs is gone Tuesday and Wednesday. I really want to get her stuff DONE so I can stop feeling like I owe her. I made a good dent in it with my EIGHT pages :-D but there is still so MUCH to do!

Click HERE for more chicks Sunday Scrappin!

LOL I think I've noticed a theme to my picture-y posts lately. With the amount of time & gas we spend on the beach ... really, we should just pitch a tent and call it done.

Seems like every chance we get we're outta this house and on our way to the coast. Mind you, it's not like the next town over or anything. It takes about 2 1/2 - 3 hours to get to a good spot. It's funny though, I wouldn't have it any other way.

Some people might read this and think "WHY, my God WHY would you travel so much or so far?" I guess they are just not beach bums. And honestly, I thank God everyday that my husband is as much of one as I am!

So last weekend we decided that we should do ... something. Tossed out ideas like fishing, lake-ing, gold panning (yeaaaaaah, not MY suggestion) ... but none of those ideas really made ya feel like jumpin outta your jammies, dumpin the coffee on the floor and sayin "OH YEAH BABY LET'S HIT THE ROAD!!!!"

So a few HOURS later, at like 11 (!) we gave in to the itch we love to scratch and headed out.

We decided to try and see a few spots in San Fran that we hadn't yet gotten to ... I know! You're saying "ARE there any? and HOW BIG is this San Fran?!" Well, it's big. We got out the maps, and by that I mean mapQUEST, and found a spot we had yet to see.

We packed a lunch and headed out. It took awhile to actually FIND this beach since appearently just because we have mapQUEST that in no way means we should actually PRINT OUT it's useful information and take it with us ;-) So we were winging it.

Which according to DH is half the fun. Yeaaaaah I think that's what my grampa said when he told us "We're not LOST! This is the scenic route!"

Eventually we got to a VERY cute, slightly cold & windy, beach on the outter side of the Golden Gate Bridge. It was pretty cool though, the kids had a GREAT time.

Right behind our table was a little area of trees and the kids decided it would a CRIME if they did not climb every single one. Lil Miss would not be out done, she was on that Boy like white on rice.

As it started to get cooler on the beach we decided to head inward a bit to Golden Gate Park which is one of my favorite parts of the city. There is just so much to do there! Everytime we go I see something else and say "NEXT TIME we are SO doing that!" There will be many next times.
We decided to go ahead and walk around the lake and get in a little exercise (read: wear the kids the hell out). DH and I took a row boat around this lake once, it's so pretty.
So the kids ran amok, chased ducks, did their best to fall in the lake and run people down with the stroller and we walked happily behind them.
The kids LOVED the waterfall, the Boy, Lil Miss and I climbed to the top and DH almost fell in the lake taking this lovely shot.
We continued walking around the hill in the middle until we came full circle decided to find a spot to sit and let the kids run the hell around since appearently they had a side crack with their lunch and were just plum FULL of energy!
We found a perfect spot on the side of the lake that was away from the wind. The children acted like caged monkies while we took the few moments of quiet we had to have a tiny bit of couple time.


Lil Miss and Boy played hide and seek, football with pine cones, ram each other with the stroller, and all manner of other crack-induced fun.

Then I foolishly said "Come here beloved and wonderful family and we will take a beautiful picture because the is the BEST DAY EVER!"
And proceeded to curse the rule of 3 (no more than 3 people in a picture will look right/good at any given time), and my self-picture taking abilities
until we got to picture eleventy-hundred and it came out ... ok ... ish ;-)

It started to get chilly-er, so it was time to head home. At first we were just going to stop at a little place closer to home for dinner ... until the BOY requested that we "go to that one place with the music and people and that awesome food!"
Weeeeeell, whadya know! he was talking about none other than the Rogue Brewery! And really, who were WE to say no to his ONLY request of the day?! ;-)
So we ended our 'BEST DAY EVER!' at our fav little place ever with most of our best family ever! And it was worth all the wind and lostness and gas and time in the world :D