Tri-Fecta Birthday Bash

My birthday was January 5th and it was a memorable birthday filled with birthday wishes that made me feel very loved. My birthday was on a Wednesday so in celebration of my Birthday, Courtney and Isaac invited us over to their house and cooked dinner for Eddie and I. It was a really nice night and we had amazing food, as always! I can't believe next year I will have been on this earth for 25 years... kinda scary!

My friend Francesca's birthday is January 8th; which fell on a Saturday this year so we decided to celebrate her 23rd, my 24th, and Kasie's 25th - a tri-fecta birthday bash!! We all met up at YardHouse and I bought us each 'Happy Birthday' party headbands so that we could stand out.

The Birthday Girls:



My Amazing Hubby:

Throughout the night people kept asking, Frannie and I, if we were sisters so we obviously went with it and claimed to be twins!  We're only separated by a year and 3 days... ;)

My other birthday girl:

Court  may be  born in March,

but she's still my lover from another mother:

And of course, it's not a party without mustaches:

Then we got our dance on (even Marcy joined)!

My birthday was amazing this year and I'm so glad I got to share it with such amazing people. Cheers to getting older wiser! ;)

Over The Hills and Through The Woods

Eddie and I were invited to spend the New Year with The Grubers and The Espejos at the Gruber's Cabin in Utah. We've been to their cabin before so we knew it'd be lots of fun. Eddie and I were a little weary about the drive there because neither of us have 4-wheel drive. We decided head to Utah when I got off work on Thursday night in hopes that the streets would be plowed by the time we drove on them. We made it all the way there until we got to the cabin... we got stuck going up the drive way! We arrived at the cabin a little after 10pm so we felt horrible about the timing, but we just couldn't help but laugh! My poor little Jeep... We parked my Jeep at the bottom of their gate and Rick came to our rescue. After four hours of driving, over the hills and through the woods to grandmother Gruber's cabin we arrived:

And this was our AMAZING view:

Since it was pretty late when we arrived we retired to the "Bear Room" pretty quickly. The next day we towed my car up the drive way and it was really a group project!

We started at the bottom of the gate:

And with everyones help... we made it!

Next time I will be sure to invest in 4-wheel drive! After we were done with the labor intensive work we got to have some fun in the snow.

Court and I had an icicle fight:

Ed and I posed for a nice picture:

(then he threw me into the snow!)

Then Gracie put on her snowsuit and joined us:

 

We thought it would be a lot of fun to jump of the balcony into the snow since the snow was almost as tall as us and well... yeah, it was a ton of fun!! Eddie and Isaac were the first to go and if you know Ed you know he's bound to get hurt doing just about ANYTHING! I mean this kid could break a bone in a padded room, but this was actually the first time he didn't get hurt goofin' off with Isaac (must have been all the snow padding).

The boys before the big jump:

Ed's graceful landing:

Then Isaac decided to face-plant in the snow:

(bahahahahahahahaha!!!!!!)

Then us girls decided to join in on the fun. It doesn't look that high in the pictures, but once you climb over the balcony it's actually pretty scary looking!

The girls before the big jump:

I went first:

Then Courtney and Allison followed:

Then we got ready to celebrate the New Year:

We even found our 'Happy New Year!' hats from 3 years ago:

The boys played poker, while us girls played pool and board games until midnight. When midnight rolled around we all gathered together upstairs and counted down to 2011 and I put a big smooch on my hubby! After that we hit up the Jacuzzi where we had a few drinks... the whole day was a blast! The rest of the weekend...

We had lots of fun relaxing with Grace:

And working out in this gym:

Unfortunately, we had to leave at some point... On Sunday, we all woke up early and helped clean up the cabin before we headed back to Vegas. Before we left we took a group picture in the snow:

We took a different/quicker route home,

but the streets were full of snow:

I was so scared!

Who wouldn’t be scared seeing this out their window:

From the pictures you can tell that the streets are narrow due to the amount of snow piled on the side of the street. We had to drive in the middle of the street since the snow was packed down there, but when a car was coming up the mountain we would have to veer off to the shoulder (towards the mountainous snow piles) to avoid the other car. As you read before, my car is NOT very good in the snow and as we were veering my car naturally got stuck… AGAIN! ::whomp, whomp, whomp:: Luckily, The Espejos were right behind us and the Grubers were not too far behind either. Everyone made sure we got out safely and we were on our way back down the mountain! We made it all the way to the end without getting stuck again, but I was nervous the whole time.



This was a very memorable trip… full of fun, laughter, snow, and LOTS of food! (I left feeling like I gained 10lbs.) Basically, our New Years weekend was awesome. The Espejo’s go to the cabin with their family a lot and I’m so grateful that we got to share this trip with their family because it was such a great weekend. We’re very grateful to the Gruber’s for allowing us to join them; their definitely the hostess with the MOSTEST. So a big thanks to both of those families for making our New Years truly special this year!

Hope everyone had an amazing new year! :)

Staying Young is Expensive...

The day after Christmas Eddie and I went to Isaac and Courtney's to exchange gifts. Eddie is what you would call a hot sauce connoisseur and they bought him a little suitcase full of all different types of hot sauces, so cute right?! Perfect for Ed.

Gracie seemed to like her gifts too:

 

We also bought Grace a dog, Violet, who is programmed to know her name, favorite food, color and animal - pretty impressive. Grace's grandma bought her a wagon and she likes to go for rides with Violet:

After we were done exchanging gifts we started to make a pot of chili and cupcakes in celebration of Kasie's birthday. Once the cupcakes were done, we frosted them and threw on a 25:

When Kasie and Jeremy arrived we ate chili and sang to Kasie:

Happy Birthday Kasie - You are such an awesome friend and I am truly blessed to have you in my life. I don't know what I would do without you or your family in Vegas. You make me feel at home. I love you!!

December 27th is also my Moms birthday so Happy Birthday Mom!! I wish you could have been here for the birthday celebrations too. You're truly the strongest woman I know and I love you so much!!

While I'm on the subject of birthdays, my birthday is just around the corner and I'm starting to feel VERY old, 24 years old to be exact. I've been taking very good care of myself (eating healthy and working out), but apparently I can't stop my internal aging clock because I've recently gotten my first gray hair AND I've noticed wrinkles under my eyes. I know... embarrassing, right?! So this year for my 24th birthday I'm making a birthday wishlist and here it is:

1.) Fresh: Creme Ancienne Skin Creme - $135

2.) Fresh: Creme Ancienne Eye Creme - $95

 3.) Anything Nike to keep me in shape (Nike is my favorite).

The Fresh Creme Ancienne skincare products are expensive; however it's hand-made and if you read about the product it's pretty remarkable. We also sold it at the boutique I worked at and it sold out like crazy. Staying young is expensive; if only I could just be a vampire...

SURPRISE: Breakfast in Bed!

 

 

We spent Christmas Eve with The Cantor's at their annual Christmas Eve party where we ate lots of food, drank and horribly sang karaoke. If you know Jeremy you know he's not one to sing karaoke, but we got him to sing all right... he sang the "Humpty Dance". Miraculously he knew ever word and therefore it was one of the highlights of my night. I believe Kasie even has it on video so now she has blackmail on him so it was an even bigger score for her.

I just love this family to pieces...

they sure know how to make a holiday special!

This year was our eighth Christmas together, but it was our first Christmas as husband and wife so I wanted to do something really special for Eddie. I went grocery shopping earlier in the week and got orange juice (his favorite), stuff to make egg soufflé and cinnamon rolls. I also bought a heart shaped cookie cutter so that I could shape everything like hearts. I put everything in brown bags and hid it in the back of the refrigerator the day before Christmas Eve so that he wouldn’t see it. It was hard to keep the secrets from him, but I managed. Since the egg soufflé had to sit in the refrigerator over night, I told Eddie he had to go in the bedroom and shut the door when we got home from the Cantor’s on Christmas Eve because I needed to make something that was a surprise for him. By the time I was done in the kitchen it was after 12:30pm! When I got into bed Eddie said, “It smells like bacon in here… can I have some bacon?” I just convinced him that he was crazy and that it was NOT bacon and he went to sleep...

I woke up around 8am to put the egg soufflé in the oven and started making the cinnamon rolls. When everything was finished I put it on a tray and carried it into our bedroom and served him breakfast in bed. This is how it turned out:

Close Up:

It turned out sooo yummy (extremely filling) and he was even surprised too! I know it's not a new car or a new game for him to play, but I could really tell that he appreciated all of my effort and that he really loved the thought I put into this. The meaning of Christmas really changed for us this year and we are just happy to have each other and appreciative that we are both healthy. This was my way of reminding him that it's the simple things in life that keep me happy... even on Christmas day! :)

When we were done eating I cleaned up and we went on Skype with my niece and nephew, Christopher and Jayla, while they opened our Christmas presents. Seeing them on Christmas was a gift all on its own. Once they opened their gifts we finally got to open the gifts under our tree from Eddie's parents and from each other.

Pearl was first, of course:

Then we got some good gifts as well:

 

Eddie and I decided not to splurge on each other this year so I bought him a new pair of tennis shoes (his old ones were gross and his new ones are Steelers colors... muahaha!!) and he got me two nike dri fit shirts, the movie Despicable Me and the Black Eyed Peas CD. Not to mention his parents sent us a cookbook, food processor, ornaments, etc. It was thee PERFECT Christmas!

Christmas Cook-a-thon

This year we decided to bake cookies to pass out at my work and bring to The Cantor's as treats for everyone. Let me just say... it was A LOT more work then we thought it would be. What we thought would be a one day thing turned out to be a three day cook-a-thon, but it was fun and they turned out so cute!

On Tuesday we started to make the cookies. Ed did the manly things like rolling out the dough for the sugar cookies and checking the basketball scores in between, while I balled up all the chocolate chip cookies and peanut butter blossoms and prepared them for the oven. Then, on Wednesday I frosted and decorated all the snowmen cookies with Ed's help on the regular sugar cookies.

Pearl helped out, too:

These are ALL the cookies we made:

Snowmen With Earmuffs:

(idea from Courtney)

Chocolate Chip Cookies With Walnuts:

Peanut Butter Blossoms:

The baking/cooking continued well into Thursday as well... now that the frosting was dried, I packaged the cookies onto Christmas plates and made everyone name tags. Once that was done we were on to the P's - Pumpkin Pies and Pierogies!

Once again, Ed stuck to the manly chore of rolling out the homemade pie crust:

I was in charge making the pie filling and filling:

The Finished Products:

After we were done with the homemade pumpkin pies we started making my Grandma Sophie's homemade pierogies because Christmas Eve just wouldn't be the same without them. Homemade pierogies are tradition in my family and I've been making them ever since I've moved to Las Vegas. Each year they seem to get easier, but it sure is nice to have Eddie there to help me roll out the dough while I stuff the pierogie with the mashed potatoes and cheese.

We ended up getting 45 pierogies:

We finally finished after 11 pm and needless to say we were EXHAUSTED.

(Pearl too!)

Hope everyone enjoyed the goodies! :)