A Little Retro and Rainbows

Armed with a little bit of free time and a mini-me who is learning to be a great chef, we tackled a creative project that has been on the back burner for a while. Ladies and gentlemen....I give you....the rainbow cake. I first saw this cake on a blog a few years ago. A certain young lady in the family will be celebrating her 7th birthday soon and we are thinking of tackling this cake for the big celebration. There were definitely some things that went very wrong, but hopefully the future creations will be a little more (ahem) stable. I have to admit though, it's pretty impressive to display such beautiful colors!

And, since we are talking about rainbows, want to know one of my all time favorite songs?

Love, love the Muppets and I love Kermit singing that song. Anyone remember watching those Muppets shows that came one during prime time t.v.? I loved watching that show. Kids nowadays just don't know good t.v. They can watch 5 episodes of Spongbob without moving an eye muscle. But that Muppet show? It was ROFL kind of t.v. You had to get involved and actually listen. No zoning out and drooling when the Muppets were on. I'm not sure how a cake can get somebody thinking about the good ole days in 1982, but dang, that's just what happened. Tomorrow I'm going on an airplane. Maybe we'll have a post about Top Gun? Oh, why wait. Here's the best scene of the 80's anyway:

I always felt sorry for poor Goose who was obviously the only one not following the latest insane fitness regimen and wasn't allowed to take his shirt off. And who on earth is the guy doing all the yelling? I've seen this movie about 100 times and yet I still do not remember his name. Maverick, Iceman, Goose, and ..... somebody help me out. Who remembers this guy's name? Do your IMDB research and I'll be waiting patiently over here helping myself to one more slice of rainbow, I mean, cake.

East Coast Girls are Hip

I am as excited as a kid 2 weeks before Christmas. Waiting. Anticipating. It's the best thing sometimes. My husband and I are finally taking a little getaway with no kids. To the best we can remember, it's been 5 years since this has happened. 5 YEARS people! It will probably be 5 years before it happens again. It takes so much coordination to leave 3 kids behind. So many things to plan and prepare. So much guilt in taking off without them. So much worry about being so far away. But then there is my wonderful husband. My husband who so patiently (most of the time) waits while they tell me very important things like every person in their class that got in trouble with the teacher that day and which new silly bands were acquired. He deserves much more than 5 days of my undivided attention, but such is the state of life right now. Thanks to my wonderful mother-in-law and the WBBE (world's best baby sitter EVER), it looks like this trip is actually going to happen.

So where are we going, you ask? We're headed to the East Coast! California girls can keep all their daisy dukes and bikinis on top. And their popsicles too. I've been to L.A., and frankly, just wasn't impressed at all. New York? It's my 2nd love, just right under Disney World. I fell in love with the East Coast when my parents took my cousin and I when we were 12 and 9. One of my most fun trips. Do you remember collecting all those shopping bags as souvenirs, Ashley? Great memories. Made a trip there again for New Year's Eve with a college roomie and then ♥ THE MOST ROMANTIC WEEKEND EVER ♥ there with my husband several years ago. It took one carriage ride through Central Park, snuggled under blankets and drinking hot chocolate on a beautiful fall October Saturday morning for me to be a forever NYC girl. A few years ago, I took a last minute girls shopping trip there with my mother, my second mothers two aunts, and my cousin. Just lots of shopping and eating great food and so much fun. This time we're going to branch away from NYC but staying true to my east coast love, we're going here:

and here:

and hopefully eat lots of this:

On the agenda: a beautiful hotel room on the Boston harbor waterfront, a dinner cruise on Boston Harbor, a day trip to Kennebunkport, a quick trip to Newport, RI, and lots of great food and conversation. We truly cannot wait. Christmas is almost here!

Technical Issues

About a month ago, we made a splurge purchase. My laptop had been soooo slow and the hard drive on it was almost full to the point that I had to keep deleting things to make room for new stuff. My husband gave me the ok to upgrade, and on a tax-free, back-to-school shopping event, I finally made the jump to a Mac. Oh my. This machine is beautiful. Everything is lightning fast speed. It's hard to explain, but everything is just easier. And easier + faster =more time in my day! My setup is exactly like the pic above with the wireless keyboard and mouse. Also, notice the almost hidden optical drive on the side of the monitor and the port for an SD card. Awesome, right? Wrong. Yesterday, after taking a few pics, I was going to upload to the computer and reached up to insert my SD card into the port. Instead I put the card into the optical drive. Whoops. Dang. Now I have a brand new computer with an optical drive that doesn't work because my card is floating around somewhere on the inside of lala computer land. AND I have lost my all time favorite, 4g camera card. AND we are getting thisclose to taking a trip in which I NEED that card. DANG. I lost an hour of my life yesterday to trying to shake it out, tweezer it out, paper clip it out, and nothing. Grrr. Apple, your iMac machines can do so much, can't you make one that is 100% human error proof?

Speaking of Apple, I have a serious complaint. I get that they are always changing their products to move things forward and all, but sometimes things that work well don't need to be changed. Last Christmas, my oldest daughter received this ipod Nano.

It's been a great gift for her. It has a radio, takes pictures AND video, and has large enough storage to meet her needs for a long time. And it's durable. It's survived many cheeto stained hands, a 2 year old's mistreatment and a night spent outside in a torrential downpour. She loves it so much, that it has caught the eye of her little sister. Now guess who wants a Nano for Christmas? She want one exactly the same (different color, of course). And guess who just changed their Nano lineup? Stinkin' Apple. Always trying to move forward. This is the new Nano Do you see how small that thing is in relation to the ear buds? My girl would lose that thing in a heartbeat. Also, same price as earlier model, but no camera, no video camera. Boo. So yesterday I hightailed it over to my local big box store and purchased my first Christmas gift of the season before they are off the shelves for good. A purple 5th generation Nano. No touch screen for us. It's old school click wheel all the way for this family. We're cool like that. And we put SD cards into optical drives. Now where's that tech support phone number....

Circumstances and Joy

Ok, so I've been gone from blogging for a while. It mostly had to do with some circumstances in our family that got me a little down. For me, blogging is something to do for fun, as a creative outlet, and a way to share some pics and thoughts with family. When the circumstances of your life are not as fun, the desire to blog kind of goes out the window. However. The past few months, and especially the last 6 weeks have taught me that God truly wants our joy in life to not be derived from our circumstances, but rather from the love that He give us. The circumstances have not been pretty. My father-in-law has a cancer diagnosis that is slowly taking its toll. The circumstances are terrible, but we find joy in the fact that there are more good days than bad days for him. We find joy in a family united by prayer and petition. We find joy for each day and opportunity God gives us to share with him. My sister-in-law (his daughter) was expecting a baby girl in July and we looked forward to the joy she would bring our family. Then the circumstances of life took a turn that no one expected. Baby Lily was born with Zellweger's disease. A truly devastating diagnosis for such a sweet innocent baby. I won't go into all of the details of the disease other than to say that she has a life expectancy of 6 months. Circumstances stink. But joy still abounds. We are joyful that she was able to be released from NICU after 1 month and come home to live her life with her family. We are joyful for a sweet niece to love. We are joyful for the awesome testimony of her parents as they walk this journey. We are joyful for girly bows and dresses and for sweet baby cries. It is always Satan's plan to rob us of the joy of our salvation. When we are in difficult circumstances such as these, it has to be a conscious effort to allow your joy to abound. So we carry on and celebrate each moment and day that God has given to each of us.

"We have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us. We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed." 2 Cor. 2:7-9

Ok, now something unbelievably funny. Well, maybe not that funny, but we can't help but laugh. Last Sunday morning, we got up to go to church and this was the sight in our driveway.

Seriously. Someone, (or some-bodys) stole my husband's tires and wheels and left his truck on blocks. While we are so thankful that more damage was not done and that no attempt into our house was made (can you imagine!), we have laughed so hard at this all week. We can't help but chuckle every time we pull in and out of our driveway. It's just so ghetto. I hope that you are familiar with this hilarious YouTube post.

For real. Well, have you heard the remix version someone took the time to craft?

Even more hilarious. It's been the theme of the week around here. Even the smallest member of the family is singing....we gonna find you, homeboy.