Sweet 16

Kyra turned the big 16 on Friday and I decided to throw her a little party. My mom and I had been planning the party for a month with a little input from Kyra! We had a whole outside theme going on. We had a volleyball net, a fire pit, swimming, music, and a dessert bar. My mom and I made rice krispy treats, brownies, vanilla rich chip cake, frosted sugar cookies, ice cream sundaes, smores, angel food cake with fresh strawberries and whipped cream and we bought a key lime pie, cheesecake and candy at Costco. Let's just say we had a lot left over haha!

Kyra had about 30 kids attend and everyone was having a great time outside when all of a sudden a torrential downpour appeared out of nowhere! So now all the kids are inside and we had nothing to do! The kids still had fun talking, playing spoons, playing some drinking game (with water of course!), and watching a movie. More importantly Kyra had a blast and made a pretty penny from her gifts! I thought she should give me 50% gratuity!

The birthday girl and friends.

The delicious treats.

The decorations that were destroyed:(

Treats again.

One Year Later

Yay we have made it! We arrived here exactly one year ago. Left our little home in Provo, UT and drove the 2100 miles to PA. I cannot believe a year has gone by already! So much has happened......we lived in Queens, experienced a flood, moved to Greenwich and have been here ever since! We really like CT and have made lots of great friends.
Maybe we will even experience another year here............;)

How I Spend My Spare Time

I love reality shows....currently I am enjoying The Bachelorette and Farmer Wants a Wife (hey it's summer.....what else is on?) So if you haven't seen Farmer Wants A Wife, you are missing out. The show is about a farmer and 10 city girls who have to prove their worthiness by riding tractors, shucking corn, doing needle point and so on.....Well the elimination is the best part of the show....The first elimination consisted of 10 chickens and 10 girls. Each girl was assigned to a chicken and if their chicken had no egg then they went home. Another time a lady came in and needle pointed the name of the girl going home and last week fireworks announced the departure of the next. Now I realize this show is ridiculous.....it's really a stupid show....but it is hilarious because it is so fake! This week the farmer decided to 'announce' the elimination by making the four remaining girls stick their arm up a cows rear end and feel if it was pregnant. Whichever cow was not pregnant...that girl went home.......I mean come on that is true love!

I wish Matt would have chosen me by testing my skills like that!

"FORE!"

Date night this week was a trip to the driving range (mainly to appease Matt but I did have fun...unexpectedly!)

How Much Are Those Purses?

Traveled all the way to farmer country this weekend to go to the infamous Rice's Market. There you will find knock-off sun glasses, children's toys, clothes in bins, fresh produce, and what I went for....knock 0ff leather purses! There were about 10 different booths with the leather purses and yes I had to go to each and every one of them and find the best deal......I soon realized they all were the same price........oh well what are you gonna do? I did get my leather purse, some shirts for Matt, some shorts for $6 and some headbands! Mom and Jenna with their new sunglasses

Me and Mom with our goods

Hollah! Lauren at work....she's gonna kill me.....

Cat looking out the window.....a masterpiece!

Good Reads

So one of my guilty pleasures is reading....I love to read. Give me a good book and I won't put it down until its done. The past two books I have read really deserve a shout out!

As many other women in this world, I am obsessed with the Twilight series. The author Stephenie Meyer, recently wrote another book, The Host. I had to read it.......of course, come on! I'm not gonna lie, the first 100 pages were really hard for me to get into. I was so sad, I kept telling Matt that I just couldn't get into this book and how devastated I was. But finally I managed to really dive in and in the end this book definitely met my expectations! Read it! I am so not a sci-fi fan but I really really liked this book.


For Christmas Matt gave me The Kite Runner. I really never had a chance to pick it up and honestly, I knew that there was a part of the book that would really make me sad. My mom recently read it and told me I HAD to read it. So I decided to turn off the TV, be brave and read it. This book is intense......it is so well written. It takes place in Afghanistan and it just breaks your heart to read about the things that went on over there. This book has a lot of sorrow but also teaches a lot about love and sacrifice. It was made into a movie and just came out onto DVD. I plan to watch it with my Mom this weekend.

Delicious Beef Stroganoff

For my mother's b-day my dad made this delicious beef stroganoff and I decided to try it myself. It was so easy and so delicious. Here is the recipe for anyone who wants to give it a go!

1 lb. pot roast beef cubed
1 packet of french onion soup mix
1 8 oz. can of mushrooms undrained
1 can cream of mushroom soup
12 oz. sour cream
1/2 bag of egg noodles

Brown meat (it is good if it is a little pink inside)
add meat, french onion mix, mushrooms(undrained) and cream of mushroom soup to baking dish.
Pre-heat oven to 300 degrees. Cook mixture for 2 hours.
Add sour cream to cooked mixture.
Boil egg noodles. Serve finished mixture over noodles.
It is delish and easy!!