Greatest Cookies EVER!

Tequila Cookies
I know it's a little early, but it is time to start baking for the holidays.
Christmas Cookies
1 cup of water
1 tsp baking soda
1 cup of sugar
1 tsp salt
1 cup of brown sugar
Lemon juice
4 large eggs
1 cup nuts
2 cups of dried fruit
1 bottle Patron Silver Tequila
Sample the Patron to check quality. Take a large bowl, check the Patron again to be sure it is of the highest quality, pour one level cup and drink. Better if chilled first.
Turn on the electric mixer. Beat one cup of butter in a large fluffy bowl. Add one teaspoon of sugar. Beat again.
At this point it's best to make sure the Patron is still OK, try another chilled cup just in case.Turn off the mixerer thingy.
Break 2 leggs and add to the bowl and chuckin the cup of dried fruit.
Pick the frigging fruit off floor. Mix on the turn er. If the fried druit gets stuck in the beaterers just pry it loose with a drewscriver.
Sample the Patron to check for tonsisticity. Next, sift two cups of salt, or something.
Check the Patron. Now shift the lemon juice and strain your nuts.
Add one table. Add a spoon of sugar, or somefink. Whatever you can find. Greash the oven. Turn the cake tin 360 degrees and try not to fall over. Don't forget to bean off the turner.
Finally, throw the bowl through the window, finish the Patron and make sure to put the stove in the dishwasher.
CHERRY MISTMAS

Tooth Fairy

Alison lost her first tooth!  She has been a little impatient to lose her teeth because one of her best friends has lost six or seven teeth already!  

This happened while I was at the church for Enrichment night.  Alison was already in bed asleep when I got home (I know, a total shocker!).  She must have been ready for the tooth fairy to come.  Luckily, the tooth fairy made it to our house and left a shiny.... more like wrinkled old dollar bill.

At four o'clock in the morning Alison came into my room with her wonderful tooth fairy dollar.  She is just so exited.  I asked her what she wanted to buy with her dollar and she said that she just wants to save it.  Smart kid! 

Thanksgiving Weekend

We spent lots of time in the desert this weekend.  After stuffing ourselves on Thanksgiving day, we spent the rest of the weekend getting some fresh air.

Of course this involved jeeping and Steven and his family brought their four-wheeler.  I actually did some driving and it was scary and fun all at the same time. 

Alison and Briana playing in one of the holes.  These holes were all over the place and the kids had tons of fun playing in them.

Jasmine played in these little holes with her cousin Anne.

Lizzie and Carissa found this rock that looked like a chair.  The kids had so much fun playing with their cousins.  I went on a little hiking expedition with my girls and their cousin Briana.  We climbed up the rocks and ended up on top WAY above our little picnic site.  My girls are quite the little hikers! 

Joys of a Jeep

Yes, I am the only person alive that blogs about my car.  But my car is more than just a car, it is my Husband's favorite toy!!!!  Here is Craig taking it to the extreme.  By the way, I was not with him for this little outing,  I probably would have had a heart attack.  He was with his Friend Devon.  What a great toy!  The girls and I do get to go out with him on less dramatic trails and it is a lot of fun.  

Halloween

Tinker bell came to our house!  Oh wait, that is Jasmine.  She is my cute little fairy.

Lizzie is Hanna Montana.  I got her a great wig which she wore to all the parties this week but on Halloween night she didn't want to wear it.  By the way, Lizzie is our little poser.  I didn't tell her how to stand or anything.

Alison is a White Fairy.  After we watched Disney's "Fairies"  she decided that she was Queen Clarion.  Alison had a white wig but she didn't wear it for trick-or-treating either.  That was fine with me.  The wigs kind of hung in their faces and I would rather have them able to see and be a bit safer running around the streets at night.

Aren't they cute?!

Ta Da!

Hey all! I FINALLY figured out how to get these cute backgrounds on my blog. I don't know why it was so hard for me to get! Well, now I can have a cute blog like the rest of you!

When in Rome...

September 1st.

Surprise, we went to do some business with a CNG company in Italy and got to do a little sightseeing in Rome and Venice while we were there. We were in Regio Amelia for most of the week. This is a little church in the old town area. As far as the old and also more touristy places go, we liked Regio Amelia the best. It was the cleanest and more real and quaint than Rome and Venice, probably because it isn't over run with tourists but is more for the locals instead. We went out on Wednesday night, which in Italy is like an extra Friday night, and got to hang out with some locals. The best meal I had was also here in Regio Amelia, Salmon pasta, Yum!

This is part of the ancient city of Rome.

Here we are at a little cafe sitting at a table on the sidewalk. Most if not all of the places to eat had tables out on the sidewalk or even in the street. We paid 4 euro for the Cokes that we had here, that's 6 US Dollars for two teeny tiny, itty bitty, Cokes!

San Pietro (St. Peter in English) in the Vatican City. Designed and partially built by Michelangelo (he died before it was finished) it is the largest dome in Rome. I'm telling you, it is big! This is where the Pope goes to speak to the people.
The inside of St. Peter. OK, this place is massive. In modern terms it probably isn't that big but considering that it was built in the 1600s just blew our minds. The thing in the middle is St. Peter's Basilica. Supposedly the body of Peter (the apostle Peter from the bible) is under that.

The Plaza in front of St. Peter.

This is a real live castle!

The Colosseum at sunset (that is why it is so orange). This place is amazing just because it is so very, VERY old.

The inside of the Colosseum. On the bottom there are passageways and tunnels. So the ground of the Colosseum actually had tunnels underneath for moving that gladiators and animals. It was covered with a wooden "floor" and that was covered in sand.

A might tiger! Actually just a kitty but I bet that kitty didn't have to pay 11 euro to get in like we did!

Here is a pic of the outside again but if you look real close you can see how it is crumbling were they have reinforced the structure with brick. There is only about 40% of the structure remaining today.

The Vatican Museum was big and full of naked art! well, not all of the art was naked but there sure was a lot of it.

Not naked art but a real live mummy!

Venice

On our trip to Italy we went to Venice via train. We were in Venice Friday September 5th and Saturday the 6th then went back to Rome on Sunday.

This is one of my favorite pictures of the rivers in Venice (above). I don't really know if you would call them rivers or canals. It was actually sea water that smelled like dead fish.

Craig and I over the big river in Venice.

St. Mark's in Venice. I love this picture with the crowds and the girl in the black dress running. St. Mark's was beautiful with a gold mosaic ceiling and a Tile floor that Craig couldn't take his eyes off of. OK, so the floors were pretty great too. They are tiles that create different patterns and illusions. Unfortunately they don't allow people to take pictures inside.

Here are two gondolas in the big river. The actually move around with an oar, not a long pole like everyone thinks. The cool thing is that they only use the oar on one side of the boat but they manage to keep the boat going straight. We were going to take a gondola ride but it was WAY overpriced. $120 for a 20 minute ride! And it was even more after sunset.

This is a smaller canal and also more typical.

The "streets" of Venice. The doors of these buildings came right to the water and they were rotting away at the bottom. It made me wonder how people got inside.