Joe's BBQ/flashlight cake...

Last week was Jadon's birthday and he was going to have his birthday dinner at Joe's BBQ. Mike heard about this and made a big booey face (don't have a picture of THAT... but it was sad!) so we tagged along!

Here we are!

Awww.... Mike is so happy now!

My favorite thing at Joe's... a stuffed baker... it was HUGE!!! and NO I did not eat the whole thing!

The birthday boy!

Jadon wanted a flashlight cake for his birthday... so here is my first atrempt at a flashlight cake!

He had a few friends over to have cake and ice cream! When Kristin cut the cake the boys wanted to eat the "BEAM" part .. wow... I did better on that cake than I thought I did!

Happy Birthday... thanks for letting us join in!!

Cupcakes...

Well... I have recently started watching Cupcake Wars and DC Cupcakes on TV. Pretty entertaining. AND... pretty amazing that these people have made a living at selling cupcakes! AND... pretty amazing that they can make a thousand cupcakes in just a couple hours! Whoa.... I AM impressed!

A couple weeks ago I was asked to bring dessert to a party.... SOOOOO.... with my brain filled with visions of cupcakes... I decided I would bring cupcakes for dessert... Afterall ... EVERYONE likes cupcakes!

I wanted to make candy bar cupcakes (I read an article on this in a magazine) so I did a little research and gathered a bunch of ingredients and recipes...

(ummm.... does it look like these cupcakes are on the floor of the truck?... yep... I ALMOST forgot to take a picture of the finished cupcakes... I made Peanut Butter Cup, Oreo, Mint and Mounds... Mmmmmm!)

Well... I only made 4 dozen cupcakes... but that was enough for me to decide that just maybe they don't REALLY make a thousand cupcakes in a couple hours on TV... AND... it made me decide that there is NO WAY that I will ever sell cupcakes for a living!!! 

But the good news is that the cupcakes I made were VERY yummy and kinda fun to make but next time I need a cleaning crew to follow after me!

Picture frames...

Mike thinks I have a picture frame addiction.... I DON'T!!!

BUT.... I absolutely DON'T pay full price for picture frames when I can get great frames at thrift stores for anywhere from 25 cents to a couple dollars. Some of them I spray paint and others are just like new! So because I buy them so cheap I might just have a FEW extra stashed away... but they WILL be used!

Here's a little pile of some frames that Mike painted black for me. He does a great job... he primes, paints and attaches the little hanger thingys on the back. AND ... he even hangs them for me! Hey.. thanks sweetie for helping me with my addiction projects!

I've posted about this before... this is the wall in the boys/guest bathroom.... It started out as a little funny thing and I HAD NO IDEA HOW POPULAR THIS WALL WOULD BECOME!!! I have had to add more pictures to it! AND... I have a waiting list! I actually have people volunteering and posing for pictures so they can be included on "the wall of shame"!

This is one of my favorite walls... That is one of my favorite quotes. BUT... you can see there are several picture frames that still need family photos!

SO.... who wants to volunteer and pose to be on mom's favorite meaningful family wall of honor?!?!?

crickets chirping.....

Hmmmmm.... I may have a problem!

Baby Shower...

While Aimee was here we decided to have a little baby shower for her. Since this is her third child but first boy... Dustin had some requests so his son would only be around MANLY things.... NO baby blue stuff and NO Winnie the Pooh, cuz Winnie the Pooh doesn't wear pants!!! (Oooooookaaaaay.... BUT.... I remember that Dustin wore feetie jamies till he was nine... he was surrounded by sisters til the boys came along and HE turned out quite manly!!!) So we honored his wishes and put said request on the invitation!

Yummy food with DARK blue paper plates!

Aimee

Opening presents

Boy stuff is fun... even the light blue stuff.... but of course it was all VERY manly!!!

Thanks to everyone who came... Aimee had a whole suitcase stuffed full of fun (and manly) baby boy stuff to take back home!

Lunch...

It's always fun to go out to lunch with the fam! So we met at Serrano's on Kristin's birthday!

There's no better way to spend my lunch hour!! Thanks for having a birthday Kristin!!!

4th of July

I know.... my blog is WAY behind and I'm sure you are wondering just WHAT has this family been up to?!?!? Well wonder no more...

We had a 4th of July/July birthday gathering

Oh so patriotic! I got us matching shirts, but I spared Trent the embarrassment of matching us and got him a different one!

Some of the grandkids

We played another one of my silly family games. This time everyone had to vote on family members that looked the most like someone or something patriotic... like George Washington, fireworks, Statue of Liberty, etc... After the votes were tallied by our accounting firm of K Jarvis... the winners received their very own George Washingtons.... one dollar bills!

Of course we had food!... GOOD food... she's NOT gagging but pointing to her mouth (or maybe about to bite her finger... I'm really not quite sure what she's doing!)

4 July birthdays!!! July 5, 6, 7 and 19! Happy Birthday everyone!!

Presents!!!! WooHoo... they are old enough to enjoy getting gift cards now!!

after the party...

just chillin!

After our fun family time and everyone left did Mike and I go watch fireworks?!?!?!?

Golly no!!!.... we were being official OLD people and we watched the fireworks on TV (another thing in life that I said I would NEVER do!!) on a comfy couch in our sloppy clothes and in the AIR CONDITIONING!!!!!

I hope everyone had a great 4th!!!

Bye bye background...

Hmmmm.... I have a little note in the corner of my blog that says my background is gonna disappear this Friday.... Way sad about that.... I loved this background... it went perfect with summer and the Beauty and the Bees music!...I guess the search is on for new graphics! 

from Brazil...

WOW... Am I ever behind..... here is two weeks of stuff from our missionary in Brazil!

Here are some pics. Brasil won again and everyone is happy. A pic of a family and us, my comp is the one in the back without glasses. His name is elder nunes da silva. His name is really big. On the trip here i found out where all the rice comes from. We drove for over two hours with never ending rice on both sides of the highway. We also had 70 investigators at church this week!! It filled up the chapel. What you see in the pic is the whole chapel. Behand the pulpit is the baptism font, bathrooms, and the branch president´s office.

The rice fields

The chapel

If any one has wathced family guy, the chubby guy on the left is an exact replica of peter griffen with the same voice and everything. This is the little girl who got baptized on sunday with her mom and dad you can cut out the two guys on the right they are leaders of the district. They are why we had 70 investigators, they invited everyone to their daughter´s baptism and a bunch of people came. There was lunch afterwards too.The last pic is us with the branch mission leader with the star of the day and her dad.

I don´t think i sent you these pics. President tobias´ coffin, our zone in aparecida de goiania, our zone with president and sister, and we recieved our `envelope´ that we can´t open until we are on the airplane.

A cool bridge in aparecida de goiania, and me and the ward mission leader in aparecida de goiania.

hey everyone

This week we worked alot to try to baptize the people who went to church last week. It was good, the only bad part is that everyone is going on vacation this week. But today me and my comp went to get to know the city today we went to the statue of christ and also a fishing pond. We fished for a while but we didn´t get anything. The fish there were huge but the water was still a bit cold and they weren´t hungry. The statue of christ is just like the one in barra do garças but i think it is a little bit bigger. This week we´ll have are first zone conference with president prieto, it will be interesting to see how he is like. It feels wierd the president tobias left. But it will be fun to get to know another mission president. But everything is going good here in jataí and i am still healthy. I even gained 1 kilo since i´ve been here. I need to gain more. See you all later. Elder Lewis.

Nashville in a day...

I've done this before and I did it again... Nashville in a day! Last week (yeah.... my blog is a bit behind!) I flew on an early morning flight to Nashville....

I had a while to wait... so I sat in the food court, plugged in the laptop... AND... played on the computer! Actually it was kinda fun! But the scenery wasn't the best!

Then Aimee and the girls got to the airport. they were on their way to AZ so I flew out to help them make the trip back here! AND there was a play area right by our gate!!!

So I'm back on the plane home but this time with some cute company! and THAT was my Nashville in a day trip!