Someone has a Tooth!

Bennett's tooth is finally visible! We could feel a little bit of it yesterday, but it made it's debut today! Taking a picture of it was really hard! He wasn't a fan of the 100 pictures I took trying to get a shot of it!

You can sort of see it in this picture. If not, use your imagination because it is there on the bottom right.

Cake Decorating Graduates

At our last class, we learned the Wilton Rose. It was so hard! I think I will leave cake decorating up to the professionals!

Mom dropped her cake in the parking lot because she slipped in the rain. We all just sampled her cake throughout the night.

Laurie was really good that the rose.

Here is my cake! This is not how it is supposed to look. It was supposed to have a bouquet of roses with a bow. Oh well. Dad took this one to his meeting so I had to hurry! I made 1 rose and some leaves. My rose sort of looked like a blob.

To kick it up a notch, I dyed my cake batter pink!

Here are the graduates after class.

Me: "Why am I getting a certificate? I couldn't make the Wilton Rose."

Teacher: "Well you get one because you came to every class."

Me: "No, actually I missed last week's class."

Teacher: "Well you just get one for signing up for the class."

So, I guess I will take my certificate. I may even hang it up like Michael Scott hung up his certificate of purchase for the watch that he bought.

Ghetto Shreveport

***Update to Post!...Neil was checking the mail this afternoon and my wallet was in the mailbox! Hooray for Good Samaritans!***

This morning I woke up to Neil telling me that my car had been broken in to. My purse was on the front seat and they stole it. It is easy to be mad at myself for leaving it there, but some criminal SHOULDN'T STEAL! Neil has been telling me to bring my purse in at night too. I had been bringing it in for while. I guess I thought it was OK sitting in my locked car in my carport. I was wrong. I am just so thankful that my camera and rings weren't in there! I had just gotten a new wallet last week and it had my $2 bills in it from Christmas, my credit card, debit card, SS card, and ID cards. I am just worried about identity theft. I cancelled all of the cards and will be getting a new license today in Ruston. I go to Ruston because it takes about 5 minutes compared to the 2 hours you wait in Shreveport!

Here is all the glass all over my car! Neil went and vacuumed it out for me.

Officer Garber was so nice this morning. He came over and took fingerprints. He said that we should start taking everything out of the car and leave it unlocked from now on.

This is a little foggy, but you can see the shards of glass on my passenger window. It is being fixed right now at Nall's glass. They are the only ones who could fix it this morning. I had to have it done fast because I have to be in Ruston at 12:30 today for class!

It was hard to stay mad when you have this cutie smiling at you! He is wearing Neil's hat.

Travis Cottrell Jesus Saves Concert!

When I heard that Travis Cottrell and the praise team were coming to West Monroe I just knew I had to go! Travis usually travels with Beth Moore to all of her Living Proof Live events. Sarah, Leslie's roomie grew up going to the church where they were going to be singing. Her mom has been the pianist there for the last 25 years. She reserved seats for us on the front row! It was such an uplifting concert. I was so glad I got to go. We even got to go to the choir room for their private dinner. Sarah's parents made an awesome meal for them and we had a couple photo ops!

Here we are right after the concert. Me, Sarah, and Leslie.

Me, Travis, and Leslie. This was such an awesome moment for us! We like to say that we are in the Travis Cottrell fan club!

Leesi was the sweetest and most friendly person out of the group! She came up and talked to us and thanked us for being there.

Show Us Your Life-Wedding Dress

This week Kelly is featuring wedding dresses! I don't have very many pictures of my dress on this computer, but here is what I have!

I knew I didn't want something too "Cinderella" because we were going to Hawaii to be married! After searching everywhere in Shreveport and Houston...we found my dress in a huge bridal shop in a tiny town called Brinkley, AR! It was the neatest place!

These pictures are ones that my cousin took at our reception when we got home from Hawaii in October of 2007.
It was ivory satin with beaded cap sleeves. The same beading is around the chest area and my back!
I really loved my dress! I wish I had a better picture on my computer to do it justice!

Here is the dress that I wore to our "official" wedding! We got married in May at the JOP. We were tired of waiting to be married! I thought Neil looked so cute in his seer-sucker suit! The tie he is wearing was his grandfathers. We even had a mini wedding cake.

I got this dress from Lewis' Boutique in Ruston. I had a little tropical bouquet made too! I wore Janine's diamond earrings for "something borrowed." The dress was my "something new." My ring was "something old." And "something blue" was the garter that Mom got for me!

All in all...they were both great days!!!

Girls Night Out

Last night, we had a really fun girls night that Erinn planned. We discussed the new Bunco group that we are going to start! I am really excited to be in a group with all of these fun girls. We still need 1 more person to make 12...so if you are interested...Let me know!

Blog Hop!-A Favorite Recipe!

I think the Blog Hop is a lot of fun! My favorite recipe is Italian Casserole. I make it and we eat on it until it is gone! I love it and it never gets old. It is always a hit!

Here is the recipe for Italian Casserole. This is a Connie Aclin original. It is YUM-tastic!

1 lb. ground chuck

1 medium onion, chopped

1 jar spaghetti sauce

1 pkge. vermicelli noodles

8 oz. cream cheese

8 oz. sour cream

8 oz. cottage cheese

Brown the ground beef with the chopped onion (I buy the pre-chopped frozen onions b/c I don't like to chop onions!) After it is cooked, add spaghetti sauce.

I would have the noodles boiling while I am browning the meat b/c they take a while. In a separate bowl, mix the cream cheese, sour cream, and cottage cheese.

After everything is mixed and cooked....Pour the noodles in a 9x13 pan

Next layer is the "white mixture." Top it off with the spaghetti sauce. Bake in a 350 degree oven until hot.

It is a winner every time! I love it...it was a college favorite (and still is)!

Before Pics of My Classroom!

Here's my classroom! I am really excited to get in there and whip it into shape! I am unable to start working in there because they have been waking the floors for the past 2 weeks!

I have 2 little windows like the one you see in the right side of the picture. I bought some lime green and white zebra print fabric to make a little window treatment. Erinn showed me a cute and easy way to do it.

Here is the bulletin board on the left wall of the room. It is really dirty and needs some TLC! I bought some yellow and white gingham fabric for the background of it. Merideth gave me some green border too.

Here is the white board in the front of the room. It is very stained, so we bought new white boards to screw in on top of the old chalk board.

I can't wait to get in there and "make it my own!" I will post pictures as soon as I get the room into shape!

Giveaway

Hey Friends!

My friend and sorority sister, Stacy is having a giveaway over at her blog. She has the cutest stuff on her Etsy shop. Go on over there to enter!!

Cake Decorating 101

Oh Goodness. Mom and I are taking a cake decorating class at Michaels this month on Mondays. There is A TON of work to do to prepare for the class. I was 30 minuted late for class tonight because my class in Ruston did not get out until late. So, I sped home dropped off Bennett and got my supplies. Got to class and they had barely started! Anyway, long story short...we made the "Over the Rainbow" cake. Here are the pictures of mine, Mom's, and her co-worker Laurie's cakes!

Here we are working very hard on our curvy lines and perfect star procedures.

Mom was working very hard. Her cake will probably look the best.

Laurie's cake turned out great!

I wanted Dad to take the cake to his meeting, but we didn't get out of class until late. So, I wrote "Twin Cities" on it so Neil could take it to work. He didn't want to take the rainbow cake to work though. I don't know why!

And for the best cake of the night...Mom's cake! I'm just glad she let her creativity take charge!

Shore Presents, Mini-Golf, & Don Juanz

Andrew (Neil's baby brother) and his girlfriend Beth went to Beth's home of New Jersey for a couple weeks. They drove the entire way! They got home from their trip and brought us all some "shore presents!" They brought us lots of goodies! We each got key chains and I got a magnet and bracelet. Neil got a pull over and Bennett got a rash guard. They came over to Shreveport to see us and give us our presents on Thursday. We also went out for a little mini-golf and Mexican. We went to the new indoor glow-in-the-dark putt putt place in Bossier. I was super excited about this because I have always told Neil that there needs to be an indoor putt putt place. I hope "Glo-Puttz" stays in business. It looks like they put a lot of hard work into the place. We had to set the camera on self-timer to get these photos.

Here is the same picture in the dark without the flash.

After losing at putt-putt to Andy and Beth, we went to Don Juanz-my favorite Mexican restaurant. Anytime we are in Bossier, I always want to go to Don Juanz. It is so fresh and they make their own tortillas! Here are the winners with their score card.

Apparently the owner thinks Don Juanz is pretty awesome too. Here is Don's car: