My baby's first solo!

Well I guess she is not a baby any longer...she is growing up SO fast! :( So this last spring my daughter decided to try her hand at a solo for dance competitions! I was SO proud of her! She did SO good and kicked some major butt at all 3 competitions we went to!

She ended up taking First Place Queen at each competition and also was 1st runner up overall in one of the competitions!

Congratulations, Katie-baby!

Wilton Cake Decorating Course 1 - PASSED!!

So a couple of work friends and I have been taking the Wilton cake decorating classes at our local Michaels store! As of last night, we have all passed course #1!! Yeah! I think that we all did a good job - although there are a few things that I definitely feel I need to work on! :)

First, we had to make our cake at home. We started by baking the cakes 2 days before our class! Give them time to cool and set up and they will be easier to frost!

Mmmmm....carrot cake with a whipped cream cheese filling!

Now to ice the cake! Thank goodness for the turn table and the cake icer tip!!

Since I made carrot cake, I did not want to use the buttercream icing - I wanted to use the cream cheese icing - but it was not as firm and it made it harder to work with!

Emily and I decided to make our cakes for a bridal shower we were giving a co-worker! Her wedding colors are turquoise, hot pink, black and silver - so I tried my hand at the turquoise!

Not too shabby for frosting that is not firm - AT ALL!!
OK, we are now at class - let's make some roses! Melissa's turned out SO PRETTY! She combined some yellow icing and pink icing into one bag so the roses had a striping effect! Gorgeous!!!

Yeah, I got one on! Now I need to make at least 2 more on my cake to pass the class!

Emily is making her first rose and making it look SO easy!

My three necessary roses...now what else does it need???
Aga is looking very professional as she squeezes that icing onto her lovely blue cake!

Oh crap...once I got the wording on there, I hated it immediately! The V and the E don't look so bad, but there is hesitation on the L and the O! Maybe a bunch more roses will mask the ugliness of my writing! After three mis-steps with the border (one time I tried stars and wiped them off - then I tried dots and wiped those off) I settled for a rope border. Not too bad...but then I realized I started my border in the FRONT of my cake! So when I ended, I had a jumble of rope and it did not look too great!

So I added some sporadic roses along the border...hmmm, maybe a little too much!

Melissa - hard at work perfecting her beautiful cake!

Emily wrote "celebrate" on her cake. I think she regretted her writing as much as I did - but hers looks a LOT better than mine! That is for sure!

I love how Melissa's turned out!
YEAH! Here is my certificate! It is even signed by a Michael's employee - it MUST be special! :)
Emily with her final cake and certificate! Good job!!
Melissa with her cake and certificate! :) Now when does course #2 start....

One another note...or foot!

For those of you that know me, I am somewhat of a clutz! If there is something to trip over I will most likely find it and in high school I was voted biggest flirt...well that and most likely to spend the majority of my life in the ER! Well a few years ago, we went roller skating with the kids...hoping to have a good time! Well of course while I was only out there about 5 minutes, 10 at the MOST, I decided to do some turns...which was fine until my skate stopped turning, but my body did not stop! I remember falling to the ground and feeling this terrible, emense pain! I knew something was wrong! I could hardly breath and just layed there, writhing on the ground, while all of the kids in the skating rink started to flock all around me wondering what was going on! Well needless to say, I broke my ankle! Not only did I break my ankle, I broke 2 of the 3 major bones in the ankle and dislocated my ankle bone as well! So after I let the kids skate around for about 20 more minutes while I was dying from the pain, we were off to the ER. Sadly enough, they could not schedule me into surgery until the following Friday...7 whole days of sitting around with my ankle not attached to my leg! That was joyful! But I did eventually get into the OR and they put my ankle back together! Here are some awesome pics!!

Here it is nice and swollen and bruised!!

They made us write on my leg to let them know which one...isn't it obvious? Hmmm. my faith in the surgeon is going down!

The x-rays after...a leg full of metal! I hope I don't set off the metal detector at the airport!

He did a pretty good job. Thank goodness he did the right foot!!

He said my calf muscle was a little loose, so he cut me open there too to take a piece out! The charly horses were the WORST!!!!

At least since all of this happened about 3 weeks before out planned and paid for Disneyland trip, I ended up getting to go to the first of the line on most of the rides since I was in a wheelchair!

After all that and here I am 3 years later, the swelling never fully went down, I have had to undergo another surgery to have the hardwear taken out because the screws were coming loose and I will forever and always be known as "franken-foot" by my family!

OK, now the bathroom

So here are a few pics of the lovely downstairs bathroom we remodeled as well!!

The tile was so bad that it started bulging out in the center! Luckily it was on the outside wall and there was no interior mold damage!!! :) Get it out of here!

Just replace a few boards and we are good to go! Oh, and replace that shower base! Gross!!!

Well, the sink is out...what next?

jason starting to tear out the base boards and God awful flooring!

Floor before..... (above) And Floor after (below)!!!


TA DA!!! MUCH BETTER!!

Nice, new marble shower!

And a nice new window with marble surround! So much better!

My new Kitchen....putting it all back together!

OK, let's start with the paint on the walls! That looks good!

Next, the floors go in! Lovely tile!

Now let's start putting the cabinets in! Ooooh, I cannot wait! This is looking good!

Now the countertops start going on!

It is getting there!


The backsplash is looking good!
Now the cabinets are in, the countertops are on and the backsplash is all grouted! Yeah!
VIOLA here is my new lovely updated kitchen!!

I love this new pantry - holds a lot more than a cereal box!! All of our food fits in here! Now we just need to buy a side by side fridge since we had them build the cabinetry to fit one!

I made this clock to match with the black accents in the kitchen!
I love these little star glass candle holders my mom bought me! They match perfectly with the red and yellow accents in the room!

My new Kitchen...DEMO!!!

OK, let's start the fun part...ripping out all of the ugly stuff!!!

Use those muscles, honey!

Kaitlyn wants in on the action!

We're getting there!

Put your back into it!


Ahhhh....so much better already!