DEATH BY CHOCOLATE

Em and I went to Chili's on Saturday to have dinner and ordered the Molten Chocolate Cake for dessert. It wasn't the first time we have had it, in fact it was the whole reason why we went to Chili's in the first place.

After eating dinner we gobbled the thing down in record time and giggled the whole time.

Then we sat back and groaned from the pain of "Death by Chocolate". But ya know, What a way to go.

There is the guy on YouTube that shows you how to replicate the cake. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hz4jSM8D5o4

I haven't tried it yet, but it looks promising. However, the cake we had last night also had caramel on it and his didn't. Hmmmm We will have to try it someday, but for now I know where to go to get my chocolate fix.

BIRTHDAYS AND MORE!

It has sure been a busy month.

My little girl turned 8 years old on the 2nd.
Can you believe it?
I sure can't.

We had a friend party full of lots and LOTS of screaming second grade girls (shudder).
Then came the family party which we combined with her baptism on Saturday the 3rd.
It was such a beautiful day and many friends I had not seen in a long time came.

Then the rest of the month started passing so fast that I feel a bit shocked that in 5 days my daughter will be out of school for the summer. WHAT????

We have spent almost every weekend in the yard planting bushes, flowers and killing weeds. The garden is finally in and hopefully will grow. (keep your fingers crossed)

The weather is finally warm. This spring so far has been very cold. So the past week of warm weather is very very nice.

It has been a good month.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY EMMI

I NEVER THOUGHT

I grew up in the age of electronics and consider myself pretty savvy. I'm the one my co-workers look for when they can't get the system in the auditorium working, or their computer isn't doing what they want it to.

So I never thought the day would come when I would think of myself as electronically challenged. Well, that day came last week when I bought my daughter an ipod and wanted to give it to her with songs already loaded onto the thing.

The ipod itself didn't stump me, although the instruction manual was the shortest thing I have ever seen come with an electronic item before. It was the stupid itunes website that got me. Downloading the software was a complete and total joke. I'd download it only to try and purchase a song and have it tell me I needed to download 5.2 or higher, since I had just downloaded 5.6 it seemed kind of pointless, but I did it again anyway, just to please the big-wigs at Apple. But I kept getting the same error.

I figured that all out and then purchased the songs I wanted. The site said they had been downloaded and the little (you ipod has been sync-ed) came up. So I'm thinking. "WOW, and it only took me two hours to get this done" *said sarcastically* Only I spoke too soon. Nothing had been downloaded to the ipod, so I plugged it back in and low and behold a new screen appeared that allowed you to sync the ipod.

It works great now, and I understand how to do it again. But geez, I sure hope the 7-10 year olds struggle with this one too, or I feel really really old.

PICTURES, PICTURES AND MORE...

It's time for an update on some pictures from the past few months. These pictures are from my "film" camera. It sometimes takes me a while before I get them developed. I do have a digital, but I like the pictures from my real camera better.

Here you go!




Emmi participated in her schools "Reflections" contest this year. The theme was "I can make a difference by..." Emmi titled her picture "By planting Apple Trees". I like the cute squirrel climbing the tree. She took 1st place in her school but didn't place in the next division. Way to go Emmi.




These are of our snow this past January. WAY too much snow. I'm so glad it has melted. We did get snowed on two nights ago and are expecting snow this weekend, but the good thing about spring snow is that is melts in a few hours.




Our Bunny, Pokey, is just too cute.



Don't I wish it was always this easy. LOL! By the way, I didn't encourage this, she did it herself. It was one of the few times she was quiet that day.

EASTER

Easter weekend was a lot of fun. Emmi and I worked out in the yard on Friday night. We bought some pansies to plant and some soil for the garden. We have a bunch of tulip and daffodils bulbs that have come up but only one has bloomed. I can't wait for them all to be in bloom.

On Saturday we had the annual great-grandma Easter egg hunt. We had about 50 people there and the kids all had a blast hunting for candy.

After the candy hunt my dad always hides money for the kids...and bigger kids...*snicker* to find. He gets more and more creative each year. He has even been known to shrink wrap the money inside of an item. So you think the herbal tea container is new because it has plastic around it, but NOOOO it has five dollar hidden inside.

This year I got involved and my dad and I hid some money inside of a sewn baby burp cloth. LOL, it was the last money found.

We took the bunny with us to great-grandmas, after all, what is Easter without a fluffy bunny? The kids enjoyed getting to pet and hold the rabbit.

Sunday was pretty quiet. Emmi hunted eggs around the house, then we ate biscuits and gravy with eggs (one of my friends had this tradition with his family, and I've done it ever since). Emmi doesn't' like the eggs in the gravy, but she eats the rest. Then it was off to Church.

We spent the evening outside playing and then inside watching TV and playing with the Light bright. Overall, it was a good Easter and a relaxing one too.

Happy Easter Everyone and Welcome Spring.

IN A NUT SHELL

It's been a few weeks, so here is an update on the month of February.

Emmi was sick twice this month. The second time just happened to come the day before Valentines Day so she missed her school party, which was very sad. Then because she was just getting over her flu bug we had to cancel the cousin Valentine sleepover too.

Every year for the past four or five years I have held a party on the weekend around Valentines so that my siblings can go out with their sweethearts. It has become a tradition of sorts. For the last few years we have had all of the kids bring a white shirt and then we tie-dye them. Such a fun activity, and now days that have these cool kits you can buy that have everything you need.
The only issue we have had was that two years ago the boys somehow ended up making pink-ish shirts, so we now have to designate certain colors off limits to the boys LOL

Anyway, back to this month. With Emmi being sick we rescheduled the party for the 22, a week later. We had 8 of her cousins come and stay the night. It was a blast! I'm still finding popcorn in odd places around the house, but it was worth it.

Then this past Saturday we went car shopping. Do you know what is worse that clothing shopping????? Car shopping! Dealing with pushy salespeople, driving cars that the salesperson says are great cars in great condition and realizing that the POS car you are driving is in better condition. Sales people are the worst. I had one guy who thought that when I said, "I'm paying with cash" that it meant "she wants to finance a new car." *bash head*

Before we went out shopping I researched cars and decided on eight or so models that I wanted. My ideal car, ya know the one you have always wanted to own and drive, is a red VW Beetle, but they are too expensive for us right now. Emmi also wants a "Herbie" so at every car lot we went to she would run to the Beetles and hug them. "Please, please, please mom." *snort* My reply would be. "Sure Emmi, as long as you can go without food for the next 5 years."

So the big story of our car shopping experience is that after test driving something like a billion cars and getting stood up by some idiot in Bountiful who obviously wasn't serious about selling his car, I headed home. I'm on the freeway and hear a "wack wack wack" sound and then it felt like something came off my car. I pull over thinking I had a flat tire and see nothing wrong. I get back on the freeway only to notice that I have lost my power steering. grrrrrr

Turns out my serpentine belt broke and shredded. My brother in law replaced it, but by then I was so frustrated I just wanted to go home and go to bed. BUT, there was one more car to look at. This one was for sale by owner and not a car model I had really looked at too much. It was a little white Chevrolet Cavalier. Turns out I loved the car and it had really low mileage, so I bought it.

Yesterday I licensed and registered the car...Oh and I put a little ladybug sticker in the window. *snicker* So now I have a new-er car with a cute bug on it.