Joining the Cool Kids, my first link party

Have you ever seen that movie, The Story of Us? If you have, you either love it or hate it. Basically, Ben (Bruce Willis) and Katie (Michelle Pfeiffer) are married and trying to decide if they should end it or not. But kids, and their past together makes it a harder decision than just yes or no.

One part of the movie that I love is the dinner scene. No, not the tense, awkwardness of it, but the game that they play. They play a game called "Highs and Lows". Basically, you share the highs and lows of your day. We play it around our dinner table when we remember  most nights.

I thought it'd be a fun link party. Not daily, but a weekly thing. I'm going to do it on Saturdays, but wanted to give this one an extra day since it's new. I'll close it out on Sunday nights. I even made hubby put his freelance on hold so he could make me a shiny new button. Wives take priority over paying clients, right?

So your week is Sunday thru Saturday, think back and share your highs and lows. I know there are similar parties out there, but this one doesn't have to be what's awesome or not to you personally. Your hubby got a new job? Share it. Your kid made a home run? Share that too! Lost your favorite irreplaceable lipstick? Vent it, sista.

I hope you'll play along! It'll make me cry if you don't. Seriously. I hope I set up the link thing right, eek. I even made the button easy to grab fer ya.

<center><a href="http://lifecraftsandwhatever.blogspot.com/"><img src="http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v298/Jenfur427/LinkParty-2.png" /></a></center>

Highs

• We celebrated our three year anniversary on Tuesday. Hubby surprised me with a horse drawn carriage and dinner at my favorite restaurant. 
• Hubby bought us a Wii. Awesomeness.
• My momma's birthday was yesterday. Today I'm taking her to lunch at Joe's Crab Shack and going shopping. I heart my mom and love that she lives so close.
• Except for attaching the permanent crowns in two weeks, my teeth are finished! 9 crowns total.
• Hubby got the call that his car is almost finished. We've been a single car family for 8 or 9 months. His car's computer went out, and since we're getting the work done at a discount thanks to the church, it's the lowest priority. 
• I've had a great time going shopping. We're doing family photos in a few weeks, which means new clothes! Got Ava's dress, Arielle's shirt, my dress... Jake already has a shirt to wear, and I'm picking up Jasmin's shirt today. Just need to make the hair accessories.
• My mom came over on Wednesday to watch the girls during my dental torture appointment, and brought me a huge box of vintage buttons. Any crafter knows how awesome that is. It's pretty cool to see the price of ten cents on a pack of buttons. Some of the packaging is so pretty. 

Lows

• Dental work made my TMJ hurt pretty bad. Trying to avoid taking vicodin.
• I'm dealing with a cold right now. Coughing, stuffy head, sore throat. Booooooo.
• I cannot find the jumbo pack of glue sticks I have, anywhere in the house. Which means all of my crafting has been put on hold for the past couple of days. And being a one car family means that I haven't been able to make it to the store, until today. I might buy three bags and place them in different places around the house, just so this doesn't happen again.

I hope you'll play along! Seriously, do it. Doooo iiittttttt. Please?

Drilling and buttons and Wii's, Oh My.

Today is DDDRRRAAAAGGGGIIINNNNNGGGGG. I was held hostage in the dentists chair yesterday. Again. It was for my top teeth this time, four crowns. Ugh. I know, you think I brush my teeth with sugar right? Nope, I actually brush my teeth a lot, just are prone to cavities. Lamesauce. But that means in two weeks after my permanent crowns are on, I'll be ALL DONE with dental appts (besides regular cleanings). But with my stupid teeth, I'm sure they'll throw a kink in those plans. 

I did the conscious sedation again. Two pills a half hour before the appt, hubby drives me to the appt, I take another pill under my tongue, and bing bang boom, I don't remember anything except waking up at home. My appt was at 8, I was done at 11, and came home and slept until 4. My teeth and jaw are pretty sore (I have a pretty decent case of TMJ, ya know, where your jaw pops, clicks, locks open, etc). So dental appts always leave me pretty sore. I have vicodin, but I'm not a fan of taking meds unless I have to. But I cannot complain. I'm thankful that we can afford to fix my teeth. 

But with that extra long nap yesterday, I didn't go to bed until 2am. And then woke up at 6am. I fully expect to crash here at any moment. 

On top of that, I'm fighting a cold or something. It started on Sunday night, (thank goodness) after our anniversary celebration. Hubby told me he was setting it all up, and I was to know nothing. He arranged for my mom to watch the girls, and we drove to downtown Dallas. He parks, hops out of the car, and walks off down the street. Ten minutes later, still no hubby. I finally see this coming down the street. 

Yuppers! Hubby set up a horse and carriage ride for us. An hour long ride, around Dallas, showing up all the historic sights. I've lived in Dallas off and on since '89 and I've never done the carriage ride. Nor did I know we had so much historic stuff down there. 

Then we went to Three Forks for dinner, one of my favorite restaurants. Dinner for two will run ya about $130, before tip. Which is why we eat there only on special occasions. We had agreed on no presents, but yesterday, this shows up on my front porch. 

I've wanted one for forever! When I asked hubby about our no presents deal, he tells me it's a "I love you, you're cool" present. Nerd. I heart my hubby. 

I should be working on some crafts. Making some headbands for one of my favorite photographers. She's doing our family pictures in May, and I'm SO excited.  But currently ALL of the glue sticks in my house are in hiding. This is why I tell my husband that I don't clean/organize. Used to be that I could find at LEAST two glue sticks in every junk drawer/craft box/random dark corner. But then I had to get all "I'm going to be super duper organized!" and put them all in a zip lock bag, and then I hid said zip lock bag, and now I can't find it anywhere. Spent half an hour looking for it, and nada. It would probably help if my craft cabinet didn't look like this. 

Yeah, I know, don't judge me. I've attempted to organize this. Even bought a bunch of little boxes and such. But those boxes sit empty and mocking me, and I can't still can't find those damn glue sticks. Oh, and see that sparkly bag in the white basket on the right. A bag of 10,000 iron on rhinestones. And I have two bags, one silver, one iridescent. My aunt in Korea sent me those. Awesomeness. I've used them here and there, I love having those on hand and not having to spend $5 on a small pouch of them at a craft store. They're perfect for jazzing up those cheap blah boring shirts I get on clearance. 

So, with me being sick, I had to put my workout on hold. I wanted to try that Couch to 5K program. You know, the program to help non-runners be able to run 5k in 9 weeks. I SUCK at running. I have this big ugly knee brace for my wonky left knee. And I used to get stress fractures back in tech school when I had to run, and the places on my shins where they were at start to throb after a bit. But I'm determined to be able to run more than 45 seconds without feeling like I'm going to puke or die. But again, thankful that I have the ability to run. Always a bright side, right? 

Waiting on hubby to finish up my button, I'm going to join the cool kids and do a link party. Not the kind where you link up crafts, but a different kind. I've told a few of my bloggy besties about it, swearing them to participate. I hope you will too! 

Fingers and toes crossed that I feel better tomorrow. Unless those cancel each other out. Then just one of them.

Happy Anniversary to.... me!

Three years ago today, I married the man of my dreams.

The man I've loved for the past four and a half years. The man who put me before his family, his job, everything. Packed up and moved 700 miles, leaving everyone and everything he knew, just to be with me.

The man who loves my children, never calling them his "step-daughters". Always accepting them as his own.

The man who's been the type of daddy that my girls deserve.

The man who's always been my shoulder to lean on.

The man who always makes me laugh, no matter what life throws my way.

The man who helped me through the hardest time in my life, those long months in the NICU. He showed me that I could be stronger than I ever imagined.

The man who makes me fall in love with him all over again, every time I see him with our baby.

The man who makes my life complete.

Happy Anniversary, bebe! Don't know what I would do without you. Looking forward to so many more years!

Art Majors: The Hidden Treasure

You know what's the best part about being married to an art major (besides the uber sexiness)? He usually has awesome craft supplies. And for me, being a crafter, that totally rocks.

So the father in law (Hiya Steve) came down last weekend. And he decided to bring along most of hubby's crap memories that had accumulated from his childhood thru college years. Old medals, comic books, more baseball cards than you can imagine. 

So we were digging thru the boxes tonight, and guess what I came across? Take a guess. Think of something that is epically....

Yes, you guessed right. He had a TON of metal stamp sets. All sorts of different fonts. And yes, I totally shrieked like a little girl when I found the bag. And the best part? Hubby got them all for FREE. One of his graphic designer college professors brought in a huge box of them and told the students that they could take what they wanted. And hubby, being physic and somehow knowing that his future wife would love these, went and took a bunch of them. He was the only one to take any home. These kids are crazy, they didn't know what they were missing. Hell, I would have been throwing some elbows to get to these bad boys.

So today I'll be going through the bag, separating all of these by letter. That totally takes priority over cleaning, right? 

He's not sure if he has complete sets of fonts, but I don't care. I tend to like random things anyway. Now I just need to find something to stamp. 

Oversized food rocks my socks

So, I attempted made a cake for hubby's birthday on Tuesday. The Dr Pepper can is stuck there for reference.

I didn't plan on doing a tutorial. Hell, I was more than mildly surprised when it actually resembled a hamburger. But a nice reader decided to humor me and ask me for a tutorial. 

I don't pretend to be the Grand Poobah of cake making/decorating. I did a ton of research online, seeing what worked (and what didn't). So here is my mock tutorial and tips. 

I used an 8 inch pan for both the patty and the bun. Some people online used an oven safe domed bowl for the top bun, but I didn't like how round it looked. 

The bun is made of yellow box cake mix. Some people use two boxes, one for the top bun, one for the bottom. I used one, and sliced it in half. Just scored a line around the edges, and then started cutting through. 

The patty is made of chocolate box cake mix. When it was finished in the oven and it had cooled, there was a slight dome on the top. I chose not to shave that off, so more of the "toppings" would be shown. I read about some people using brownie mix to make the middle, but there were a lot of complaints about it not being moist enough. 

One lady used red velvet cake mix, so when the cake was sliced, it looked more like "meat". But, as much as I love my steaks medium rare, undercooked hamburger meat is the last thing I want to think of before I eat a cake.

The "ketchup" and "mustard" are just white frosting tinted with food coloring, and the "shredded lettuce" is just flaked coconut tinted with green food coloring. I just threw it in a ziplock bag and kneaded the bag to mix it up. Same with the ketchup and mustard. Frosting in a bag + food coloring + kneading. Then on those two, I just snipped the corner off of the bag and drizzled it on. 

The cheese? Just orange airhead candy, cut into triangles. I didn't put it all the way across, just stuck the triangles around the edges. Looked like melted cheddar. 

Frosting the patty was pretty easy, just chocolate frosting. Slather it on. Done. Some ladies online added crushed up dark cookies (like oreos without the frosting) to the edge that shows, for more of a char broiled look.

For the bun, I would have loved for it to be more "bun" colored, but hey, what can you do. I got a can of cream colored frosting, and added drops of red, yellow and green until it was close to what I want. Remember it's always easier to add more. I probably should have added another drop of red and yellow, but hey, what can you do. A lot of women said that if you can get the Wilton "Dora the Explorer" cake coloring kit, that the "skin tone" is a perfect color for a bun. After it was frosted, I added some chopped up nuts to the top for a "sesame seed" look.

Now, if you're a cake pro, and you like the look of fondant, you can use that of course. The cakes that you see online that are totally smooth and gorgeous and fabulous are done with fondant. However, we don't care much for the taste of it. Plus, I didn't want to spring for the supplies. No sense in paying for a bunch of supplies I'll never use again. I'm cheap smart like that.

Oh, and did you notice the paper it's on? Hubby's favorite fast food joint is Penn Station, but we don't have those in Texas. So I had my father in law swing by there and ask for some wrappers. Then just taped those around a thick piece of cardboard. Technically Penn Station is a sub shop, but hey, it's the thought that counts. And I totally scored "My wife ROCKS!" points.

Breaking News: World's Sexiest Man turns 28

So my super amazing hubby turned the big 2-8 yesterday. We kept it pretty low key. My father in law came into town from St Louis to help us celebrate.

You all know we love UFC in this household. He's even wearing a Lyoto Machida shirt in this pic. He got three new MMA figures. Wanderlei Silva (the Pride and the Limited Edition) and Lyoto Machida (the Limited Edition). And some new shirts.

This is the cake I made. And surprisingly it even ended up looking somewhat like a hamburger. And it was yummy and so far no one has gotten food poisoning.

Happy Birthday to my Bebe!

Our weekend jaunt to San Antonio

My father in law came down to visit for hubby's birthday (Mr. Life Crafts and Whatever is the big 2-8 today). We packed up the heathens and drove down to San Antonio for the weekend. 

Miss Avers did pretty good on the 5 hour drive. Not bad for an 8 month old. Here she is, just chillaxing.

Here is a pic of hubby and myself in front of the Alamo. Not too shabby for a self portrait, huh?

And a pic of my older girls.

I didn't notice it until I got home and was looking at the pic, but hubby and his dad matched their clothes unintentionally. Just flip flopped.

We did a LOT of walking around. Sucks that my pedometer wasn't working right so I wasn't able to see how many steps I took. Lamesauce.

We took the girls to the RainForest Cafe. Pretty cool. Food was whatever, but you definitely pay for the atmosphere.

We hit up Ripley's Believe it or Not and the wax museum....

where I totally tried to make out with Johnny Depp....

and I tried to avoid getting run over by the Beverly Hillbillies.