A Beary Good Time!

Luke with his friends and green cake pops!

Wilson with his friends and orange cake pops.


Starting our party at Build*A*Bear

Luke ended up with a bear wearing roller skates and a hat!

Wilson made a police dog.

Washing the bears before getting them dressed.

Wilson and Luke agreed to have their birthday party at Build*A*Bear. They each invited 2 friends. We started at our house for cake pops (green for Luke, orange for Wilson), ice cream, and presents. You can't bring any of that into the store. Then we drove over to the mall for the rest of the party. It was so much fun! The store did a great job with the party. The kids had a blast making their animal and choosing clothes or accessories.

The party group with finished bears/dogs! Notice all of the boys chose accessories instead of clothes (except Wilson - he wanted a police dog!). I thought that was so funny - girls of course would choose an outfit as Luke's friend Eva did on the left! Boys surprise me all the time!

Happy 7th Birthday Wilson!

Happy Birthday! His 7 candles were in the shape of a 7!

Wilson turned 7 last Friday (January 7th)! He had a great day. He woke up to a brand new bike which he is very excited about! He'd outgrown his other bike. He got to have poptarts for breakfast and bring cupcakes to school. Friday night Poppy came over for dinner. Wilson chose pancakes, sausage, and eggs for dinner. His dessert was Mountain Mama Mudslide. Uncle Bill, Danny, Steph, and the kids came over for dessert. He got to open 3 presents from them and then we played Creationary while the kids built a fort. He had a great birthday! Uncle Bill brought over wax lips and wax mustaches he bought at Cracker*Barrel. The boy cousins got the mustaches on and the girls got the lips on. Then the adults got in on the fun. We were all cracking up and laughing so hard. It was too funny!

Saturday afternoon was the friend birthday party - super fun and then Saturday night my family came over to celebrate Wilson, Caroline, and Luke's birthdays. Wilson's is January 7th, Caroline's is on the 10th, and Luke's is on the 13th. They'll be 7, 6, and 5 this year! We ordered pizza, had salad, and dessert. The kids all had a good time together. It was a birthday weekend extravaganza.

P.S. I CAN'T believe I have a 7 year old!

French Silk Chocolate Pie

1 sheet refrigerated pie crust
2/3 cup sugar
2 eggs
2 squares (1 oz each) unsweetened chocolate, melted
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/3 cup butter, softened
2/3 cup heavy whipping cream
2 teaspoons confectioners' sugar

whipped cream, chocolate curls, optional

1. Line a 7 in pie plate with pie crust. Prick bottom, trim and flute edges. Line shell with a double thickness of foil and bake at 450 for 4 minutes. Remove foil, bake 2-4 minutes longer until crust is golden brown. Cool on wire rack.

2. In a small saucepan, combine sugar and eggs until well blended. Cook over low heat, stirring constantly, until mixture reaches 160 degrees. Remove from heat. Stir in melted chocolate and vanilla until smooth. Let cool to luke warm (90 degrees), stirring occasionally.

3. In a small bowl cream butter until light and fluffy. Add cooled chocolate mixture; beat on high speed for 5 minutes or until light and fluffy.

4. In another large bowl beat cream until it begins to thicken. Add confectioners' sugar; beat until stiff peaks form. Fold into chocolate mixture.

5. Pour into crust. Chill for at least 6 hours before serving. Garnish with whipped cream and chocolate curls if desired. Refrigerate leftovers.

This pie was good! Took forever to get the egg mixture to 160 and then a long wait for it to cool down to 90 degrees...but well worth it! Andy loved it and didn't want to share it last night at our New Year's Eve party! But he did :) . I used my stand mixer for steps 3 and 4.

Taken from Taste of Home Comfort Food magazine that my mother in law gave me over Thanksgiving.

Good Reads

Here is what I've been reading the past 2-3 months. I've liked them all!

This was good- dark, slow to start, but good. Don't recommend the movie out with subtitles. I know they are remaking the movie so maybe that will be better. Haven't read book 2 or 3 yet but plan to read them!

A really good book that took me forever to get through but I really did enjoy it! It is set in Charleston, SC.

Love, love, love this book. I flew through it over break in a couple days. I'm reading book 2 right now and really enjoying it as well! This is super easy reading becuase it is juvenile literature but still really good!

Andy and I received a Kindle for Christmas from his parents. We were super surprised and very excited! I told Andy it might turn him into a reader! The Kindle is so neat! The technology is amazing. I have 10 books on my wish list from Amazon for the kindle. I'm just used to borrowing books or checking them out from the library so I'll have to fork over some money to read now...but the kindle will be fun to read on! It is so thin and light weight. Andy is reading Treasure Island right now because it was one of the free books you can download. I already have 4-5 books on my nightstand that I need to read before I let myself buy a kindle book!

Happy New Year!

Happy 2011!!

Last night we rang in the new year with Danny, Steph, Lily, Trey, Uncle Bill, and Poppy. We had an appetizer dinner which was yummy. The kids had fun playing the Wii and the adults had fun playing Buzz Word. Everyone left around 10pm because the kids all needed to get to bed! On our last day of doing whatever we want from this glorious holiday break I slept in until 10:30!! I didn't even stay up until midnight! I was tired I guess. Tyler slept in until then too! The rest of the day has been lazy. Haven't done much of anything really. Back to the real world starting tomorrow so we can have a smooth week back to work and school (laundry, menu planning, school work, etc) . It will hit us hard too! We've got two birthdays right around the corner, 2 birthday parties, report cards for me to finish, and karate starting back up this week. Unfortunately, winter break is offically over.

Nanny's House

(Picture from Thanksgiving 2008 - aka pre-Tyler!)

Andy's Nanny has lived in West Virginia most of her life. She has spent the past 65+ years in Richwood, WV. Andy has travelled to Richwood every year for holidays and visits in the summer as a boy. As the boys got older the winter months often included snow skiing at Snowshoe. Andy loves WV, skiing, and he loved going to his Nanny's house. When they would go stay at Nanny's she would wake them up to go snow skiing in the morning playing "Country Roads." The house didn't really change much over the years - some new paint colors or decorations, nothing major. But it was his Nanny's house. A house they all loved and cherished going back to visit and stay overnight.

Right after Thanksgiving 2010 Nanny moved from WV to Florida to live in an apartment near her daughters (Andy's mom and aunt). She is so happy in her new home. She has 3 meals provided for her each day and someone comes in weekly to clean. It is really the right move for her and she is happy to be closer to her daughters. But it was hard on the family to lose their tie to WV. Andy went with his parents, Danny, and Katie to help pack the moving truck. He came home with a few treasures from Nanny's house. Things that will always help us to remember that home and all the great memories we have there. I remember going with him and his family for Thanksgiving before we were married. So I'd been going to that house for a long time too. We are happy for Nanny B. and glad she is getting the assistance she needs to make life a little easier! She is 90 years old and going strong! Here are the treasures Andy found when they were packing Nanny up this past November.

This was the thing I asked for - Nanny's candy dish. It was always out in her living room and always had candy in it. This dish for some reason, really reminds me of Nanny's house!

This stool was something Andy grabbed as they were leaving. He came home and said "there's one more thing I brought home...don't be mad." Prefacing it like that I was a little worried. Then he pulled out the stool and I was so excited! I am so glad he thought of this. The boys love it and it is now in our kitchen just like it had been in Nanny's kitchen for years!

Here is the coal bucket, mentioned in a previous post. From when Nanny's house used coal to heat it up. Still has coal inside!

Ten Year Anniversary!

Wow. 10 years can go so fast! Andy and I celebrated our 10th wedding anniversary on December 30, 2010. We had a wonderful date! My mom and dad took the boys around 4pm. Andy and I went to see a movie "Life as We Know It" and then walked around the mall for a few minutes until our dinner reservations at PF*Chang's! We enjoyed the movie and I even let myself get popcorn. We never get popcorn at the movies. But we were at the dollar movies so I splurged! I say never like we go to more than 2-3 movies a year!! Ha!

Anyway, our dinner reservations were at 7pm. We had a delicious dinner - Lettuce wraps, Cashew Almond Chicken, and Kung Pao Shrimp. We had way too much food but with only eating there about 1 time a year we had to get our 3 favorites! We ate the leftovers for lunch yesterday. After dinner we ran to Office*Depot and bought a large calendar to hang in our kitchen to help us with planning. Then we walked in Bed, Bath*, & Beyond to get towels for the downstairs bathroom (found the exact match to the blue in the shower curtain!), and then walked into Best*Buy to look at 22" tv's for the bedroom.

We had planned to pick Tyler up from my parents since he still needs his crib but ended up coming home with Wilson and Tyler. Wilson just couldn't get himself to stay - that was his and Luke's first time to spend the night at my parents house. Luke stayed and had a great time! Wilson regretted his choice the next morning. We told him to remember that the next time and maybe try and stay!

Anyway, we came home, watched Friends, ate some delicious pie that I made for Andy (recipe to come) and gave each other cards. We had agreed on NO PRESENTS because our plan for our 10th anniversary is to buy new matching bedroom furniture. I've wanted a bedroom suite since we got married. So we're waiting on our tax return and then we'll go shopping! But, as I was reading my card from Andy a jewelry box appeared on his knee. I was soo surprised and started crying. I opened the box and found something beautiful and sparkly inside. I couldn't believe it...we had a wonderful 10th anniversary!