My Two Year Old Tweenager

Yesterday-
Me: Brooke, I need you to go get your shoes on so we can go.
Brooke: In a minute mom, I'm texing Grandma!

You can't see from the photo, but she's holding a CD player remote control. She uses it like an iphone/blackberry. She texts on it, sends emails, checks facebook...you name it! Something tells me we're in trouble...

Do's and Don't of Cake Making

Matt's sister Marcie got married last week and asked me if I would do her wedding cake. A risky move on her part, considering I've never done a wedding cake before! She had confidence I guess and I had reckless abandon and together, it worked out okay. However, in case you are thinking of making your sister-in-laws' wedding cake in the near future, here are some pearls of wisdom from me to you. Consider it my Christmas gift to you.

Do: Have an awesome aunt with a huge kitchen and double ovens to bake all 9 layers of cake in.
Don't: Fail to grease the pan thoroughly enough.Don't: Start to cry when things start getting a little...frustrating.
Do: Have an awesome sister who is willing to be your cake assistant and do whatever you tell her with amazing skill and speed (and who also happens to be fantastic at going through the McDonald's drive for you).
Don't: Threaten said assistant with wayward greenery when things start to get a little...frustrating.Do: Purchase a heating pad for the aching pain you will have in your back after piping hundreds of royal icing triple dot clusters.Do: Stand by your cake the entire night to beat little children who might approach to quickly or closely.Do: Leave before they actually cut the cake, because it feels a little like watching your child being eaten, which is never good.

The final product: This cake probably took a combined effort of about 30 hours of (wo)man labor between myself and my sister. The top and bottom layer was white cake with butter cream icing and a raspberry reduction sauce (made by Matt's culinarily gifted brother, Jon). The middle layer was chocolate cake with butter cream icing and Carmel and Heath bar filling.

New Moon Midnight Premier

Keri, me and Kristen: Sporting our One-of-a-kind, specialty shirts that we had made just for this. I'd like to give myself credit for having come up with the "conflicted" concept.

One sleeve says "Team Edward," for Edward Cullen from the books whom we are in love with. (This is Edwards actual writing from the books...Kristen downloaded it).

The other side said "Team Taylor," for Taylor Lautner who is the actor who plays Jacob Black in the movies, whom we love also. Most people can only be Team Edward or Team Jacob (boo!), but with Taylor playing Jacob, we're conflicted, get it? It's totally awesome. (Also Jacob's actual handwriting from the books).

Waiting (for 3 hours!) in line at the theater.

But, being 3 hours early does have its perks....FIRST IN LINE baby! (Matt was so embarrassed when I told him that fun fact). According to the theater worker guy (who became our good friend after 3 hours of chatting), they sold 875 tickets to the show that night. My guess is that about 300 of us were lucky enough to be inside and the rest of those poor suckers had to stand outside! Yuck.

Now on to the movie. I'll give a brief review, so as not to ruin anyone's fun or taint their opinion. It was much better than Twilight, no doubt about it. There were still a few painful parts when the writing seemed to struggle a little bit, but the acting was FAR improved from the first movie. Especially Edward (Robert Pattinson) and Bella (Kristen Stewart), they were both so bad in the first movie that I was pleasantly surprised the I didn't want to kill them in this one. Is it going to win any Oscars, of course not, but it was a lot of fun and the story seemed to be more action packed than the first movie (which is funny b/c the book seems to drag for me). And don't worry Edward fans, he's only gone for 36 minutes in the middle of the movie. ;) (unlike the book, where he seems to be gone FOREVER!)

Pretty as a Princess (and a fairy)

So here's Halloween...2 weeks late. Ummm, sorry 'bout that.

Florida Fun...Abridged

We've been home from Florida for about 4 days now, but to give you a glimpse of what life's been like, let's just say: I haven't even unpacked all our stuff yet. And for me, that is VERY rare and really saying something. Things have been busy getting ready for Halloween and at the gym for me, so this post has been a long time coming and will be brief considering I still have like 3 other posts in the works right now! Suffice it to say that Florida was awesome and we had a great time spending the week with my family. My parents rented a house near Disney World that had a pool and pretty much spent all of our time either at the parks, or in the pool.

Jenna's FAVORITE part of the trip (even better than the princesses) was taking this picture with Shamu. She has since informed me of a couple things: 1. She is going to be a Shamu trainer. 2. This is the coolest picture I could ever take and that the princess pictures are cool, but not quite as cool as this one. 3. Shamu is her best friend and she cries daily about missing him dearly.

The whole crew (minus Matt and Brooke) on Splash Mountain. Jenna's favorite rides at Disney World were Thunder Mountain and Splash Mountain. She's an adrenaline junkie just like me! Yeah! Matt hates those kind of rides.

This would be the "second rate" photography session with Jenna and the princesses. She was actually the only little kid there when we went to see them, so she got to pretty much just hang around and talk with them for about 10 minutes.

Getting ready for Mickey's 3D show, which was really awesome by the way.

The Barf Maker. I did NOT participate.

Brooke: Not in the mood!

Matt and I loved taking the girls to Disney World and Sea World. The rest of my family is obviously beyond the age when they really care to go to those places (until they have kids of their own), but they were good sports and went along with us to help with the girls and see them have a good time. I love getting away and having fun on vacation. I come from a family where, even when money was tight, I can still remember us taking family vacations and trips to this place or that. Matt's family was similar. They all have these hysterical and vivid memories of family vacations they took and how much fun (or sometimes not so much fun!) that they had. I guess it all depends on what you choose to spend your money on, but for me, I'd much rather go places and do things, than have things. (Actually, I'd really prefer both, but if I had to choose just one...)

Jenna at the Pumpkin Patch

So I'd like to pretend like I took the kids to the Pumpkin Patch and picked pumpkins and had a great day, but in actuality, Jenna went with her preschool and a friend of mine took these pictures for me! I actually would have gone, but it just so happened to be today...the same day we are leaving for Disney World and I just had too many things to do to spend the morning at the pumpkin patch. Anyway, Jenna had a great time and it was actually really nice weather too.

That being said, we are leaving for Disney in T minus 3 hours and counting...so I better go do those million things I was talking about.

STEP launch Breast Cancer Fundraiser

North Launch Team: Cindy, Kelie, Cori and Lisa

Saturday was the launch of the newest BODYSTEP release and since it's also Breast Cancer Awareness month, we did a fundraiser/launch and it was really awesome! I'd like to give myself a few props and mention that the pink ribbon shoe laces were my idea! :)

Also, in case you were wondering....Yes I do have children and Okay, sure, I'll post something about them one of these days. ;)