Aliyah's birthday isn't until the 27th of this month, but we had her party a little early so that family and friends could be there. I honestly think that the only person who had more fun with the party than Aliyah was me. I LOVE birthday parties! My sister Sarah helped me make the cutest little butterfly cupcakes, mini ham and cheese calzones, and mini pbj's for the kiddos. (BTW, I used the 1 hour recipe previously mentioned to make the bread items) We danced to princess music, went on an adventure and slew a dragon (pinata). I think we'll do this again next week, uhhh, year!
The last few weeks, Aliyah's personality has been on the rise (if that's even possible) and every time I turn around she is doing something to make me laugh. The other day she found the old Mermaid halloween costume I made for her when she was a baby, and insisted I cut a hole in it for her legs so she could be Ariel. After I gave in, she put on her new/old costume and BECAME Ariel. Not only would she only answer to Ariel, but she called "herself" on the cellphone and had this conversation:
Hi Ariel, this is Ariel Whatcha doin? Oh, you sitting down? Where’s your crown? Oh, On ya head?
Are you playing with prince eric ? Oh you’re tired? It’s your nap time? Go tell your dad it’s nap time. He’s tired too? It’s everybody’s nap time. Oh, your dad is mad? My mom will talk to him. “mom, you talk to Ariel’s dad he’s so mad” ( I convince triton not to be mad) Ariel where are you? At your house? There’s water in there? Oh. Wait, Ariel, I can’t hear you. Hold on, let me come over here (walks across room to get better cell phone reception) Can you hear me now? Ok......
As you can tell, she has perfected the art of immitation. While I was away in New York she and Troy had a blast being silly all day every day. They made this video for me to watch when i got back and I laughed so hard when I saw it. I especially love Aliyah's inside-out pajamas, the breakfast on her shirt, and the way she copies everything Troy does. They are quite the pair, don't you think?
This week after getting back from New York has been crazy, so I am just getting back to posting after a couple weeks forced break. So much to tell! In a nutshell, I have the most wonderful, amazing, fantastic brothers on the planet. Between them and my mom, I have never been so completely spoiled in my entire life. We ate at unbelievable restaraunts every day, saw the sights and loved the time to spend together. Needless to say, NY blew my socks off, I never knew that such a place actually existed and that my brothers would be shmoozing in the middle of it all! They work and live in downtown Manhattan, right in the middle of everything exciting. I could seriously write 10 posts about all the amazing stuff we did, but I'll be brief.
Here's me and my bros outside Stout, me and Joe on top of his work building with a great view of the empire state building, the four of us at a street fair downtown, and me and Joe's girlfriend Maria.
The main event was my birthday last saturday. We went to eat at a great italian restaraunt called Spigolo, a 4-star restaraunt on the upper-eastside owned by my brother's good friend Scott Fratangelo. He pulled out all the stops to make me feel like a celebrity for my birthday and sent out complimentary wine (admired, but not tasted), 5 complimentary appetizers not available from the menu, a full second course, and my own special dessert. You should have seen the parade of waiters to and from our table!
To top the big day off, my brothers surprised me with an iPhone!!!!! Not only did they buy it for me, but will be making the monthly payments as well! In case you're wondering, my brothers are not for sale. So sorry. All in all it was a great trip, and I loved, loved, loved every second!
(Here's me opening my new phone, then hyperventilating into the bag out of shock. Joe had a friend who's a chef come to his house and cook us an amazing Peruvian dinner called Ceviche)
So I went to an Enrichment tonight taught by the ladies who started Pantry Secrets. These ladies have developed a recipe for making bread with only 5 ingredients in ONE HOUR from start to finish. Not only is it dang good bread, but they have developed over 50 ways to use this same basic recipe to make different meals and desserts. Tonight alone we made pizza, cinnamon twists, calzones, focaccia bread, soup bowls, kaiser rolls, and a beautiful cream cheese braid, all in one hour! You can do whole wheat or white, and the possibilities are endless for what you can create. These women are seriously inspirational to watch. You have to book them 3 months in advance for parties or enrichments but it is worth it. Check out this opening clip for their instructional DVD.
This morning, unable to attend church and quarantined to my room (guess who caught the swine flu on our cruise? Yep you guessed it.) I took to perusing religious videos online to make up for missed sunday school lessons. I found these short video clips on the church website and Youtube and just had to post them here. They really touched my heart and I think they will be a great reminder of the spirit of the messages felt at conference. Here are a few of my favorites:
Ok so this cruise was amazing! Troy's mom treated us to 8 days of incredible fun in honor of Grandpa Moss and to celebrate what a fantastic family he and Grandma Moss have created! We had so much fun and were blown away in more ways than one. I'll spare you the details to avoid incurring unnecessary jealousy :) and say that the ship was awesome, the islands were beautiful, and the food waaay waaay too delicious.
Our most memorable adventure was on St Maarten, where we rented scooters with Angie and James and rode around the island. We stopped at the famous Airport Beach to watch the planes fly in ridiculously close to the shore and have a dip in the ocean. We enjoyed ourselves immensly......until we got caught in the jet stream of a 747 taking off a stone's throw from where we were sitting on the beach. Angie literally lost some of the skin off her back from the sand pelting us at a few hundred miles per hour. Aparently we missed the 10 foot signs warning of injury or death from the jetstream. Now we know. I found some videos on youtube that are not us, but gives a good demonstration of our predicament. It was also on St. Maarten that we ran into a highschool friend we havent seen in about 10 years! What a small world!
Landing:
Takeoff:
Puerto Rico was historic and gorgeous, Haiti was breathtaking and we had more fun than we could have imagined. What a trip!
Well, this will be my last post before our CRUISE, so enjoy. I am in love with photoshop as a photo toy, and I love that I have a graphic designer sis-in-law who will share her secrets with me (sometimes). she has an awesome art blog that has photoshop tips on it. Here are some of my photos I've messed with, enhanced colors on, darkened edges on, and one that i created to tease my sister because she's in love with Twilight's Taylor Lautner (Jacob Black).
Aliyah's birthday isn't until the 27th of this month, but we had her party a little early so that family and friends could be there. I honestly think that the only person who had more fun with the party than Aliyah was me. I LOVE birthday parties! My sister Sarah helped me make the cutest little butterfly cupcakes, mini ham and cheese calzones, and mini pbj's for the kiddos. (BTW, I used the 1 hour recipe previously mentioned to make the bread items) We danced to princess music, went on an adventure and slew a dragon (pinata). I think we'll do this again next week, uhhh, year!
