Twilight Cookies

So, it was Adrienne's birthday yesterday, so I brought dessert for C3. Adrienne happens to love Twilight, so how could I make anything but Twilight sugar cookies? Okay, I had thought about Twilight cupcakes, Twilight cupcakes, and Twilight brownies too, but I haven't made too many cookies, so I decided to go with those.


I'm not into Twilight myself, so I did a lot of research to figure out what to put on the cookies. Like I said, I haven't done much cookie decorating, so I was trying different decorating stuff. The gel stuff does not make me happy. It's messy, looks ugly, and never dries.


This is one of Adrienne's favorite quotes from the movie. It's on her Facebook wall. I cheat when I research. :)


Happy birthday, Adrienne!


I thought this was quite clever. Apparently, Edward's a vampire and Jacob is a werewolf and it seems that everyone takes one side or the other. I choose neither. Go humans!


See? Team Jacob. Rawr.


Edward, the vampire, fell in love with Bella, a human. It's quite dramatic.


And apples are big. The cover of the Twilight shows two hands holding an apple. Everything I searched with Twilight showed lots and lots of apples. They were the most fun to make.


I've made sugar cookies a few times before, but they always turn out hard and floury and gross. I found a new recipe and tweaked it a little bit. I was ecstatic! These tasted perfect to me! And hearts? I mean, really. How can you not be happy cutting out hearts?


Mmm....mountains of cookies. I may have had to taste test one. Or two. Maybe 5.



The cookie icing took awhile, because you're supposed to make the borders, then when they're dry to fill in the color. The apples weren't bad, but the circles took foooreeeeeeever. It said you were supposed to be able to stack the cookies after 4 hours. Apparently it takes much longer for you to be able to write on them with food coloring pens.

I may have ruined a couple of cookies that way...and had to eat them. Daniel took one for the team (and not just by eating cookies). I ran out of icing, so he went to Micheal's the other night. They didn't have the kind I needed, so he went to Fry's where they did have what I needed. He's such a good husband. He also did the rest of the cookie dishes for me. He just loves it when I go on these baking sprees. :)


Have I mentioned that I'm a messy baker? I blame the flour.

Happy Superbowl Sunday!

Are you ready for some football? We're not. Football is boring. In our house, it is referred to as "throw-ball," because it is nothing like the real football that is soccer. Yup. We may be slightly snobbish when it comes to sports. :) So, because of our snobbery, we are spending the Superbowl at home where we can catch a commercial or two, but can then change the channel to much more interesting things. Like Law & Order: SVU. That's how we roll. But, if you are going to a Superbowl party, I hope you have fun....and lots and lots of good food.


On a side note, Marcia is a sickie. She went to the hospital the other night, because she has kidney stones. Still. And she's quite pregnant. Blech. They thought it was only one kidney stone at first and because Stephen loves me, he named the stone Gertrude the Intruder. Then they found out she has multiple stones. Apparently Gertrude they a party in Marcia's kidney. That was a mean thing to do. Anyways...I'm way too far away to do much of anything for her, so I decided to make her a cookie. I thought about sending it to her, but I've found that cookies don't tend to travel well. So, Masha, feel better!

Do Everything Without Complaining or Arguing...

"Do everything without complaining or arguing, so that you may become blameless and pure, children of God without fault in a crooked and depraved generation, in which you shine like stars in the universe" -Philippians 2:14-15

Daniel taught on this verse last night at youth group and it was amazing (though I may be slightly bias). He's really great at teaching the history and background of the verse and then talking about how you can apply it to your life. So, he described that Philippi was a place that Roman soldiers would go to retire. When Paul first visited, there was not one Christian to be found. The book of Philippians is Paul writing a letter back to the church he planted there. For Paul to tell the Christians in Philippi, surrounded by Roman soldiers, not to complain or argue was a big deal. If they could do it through their trials and persecution, how much more so should we be practicing this?

Complaining is essentially taking God out of that aspect of your life. If I were to say, "Oh, my job is horrible and it doesn't pay enough and it doesn't make me happy," it is completely self-focused. Our job is to shine the light of Jesus to the world and if all I'm doing is complaining then I'm not showing people what God has done for me, just that I feel like I deserve more. The main way to take our eyes off of ourselves is prayer. If I took the exact same situation, but focused on how undeserving I am and how good God is, I'll be praising Him for provision and asking Him for His joy and guidance on how to use my money wisely. Bad things happen to good people. It's just a fact of life. This verse is not saying you can never tell anyone when something negative is happening in your life, but it's all about how you say it. Try asking for prayer. Prayer works. That's the very, very, very shortened version. :)

I love worshiping with the youth group. Their faith can be so raw and so real. I absolutely love that. Ben (pictured below) is a really talented guy that leads the songs.



This is Misha. Her smile is contagious. She is the most upbeat, bubbly, kind person I know.



Usually, before and after the main discussion, there is a lot of four square going on. Last night, they skipped the four square and decided to play Let's-Throw/Kick-All-The-Balls-at-Daniel-As-Fast-As-We-Can. This is Nicole. She rocks.

It's really hard to get non-blurry pictures when there's so much movement! And believe me, there was movement.


Daniel loved the game. He thought of himself as more of a goalie than a target. He's a beast.


Can I just say that watching my husband lead the youth group was one of the most amazing things I have ever seen? He was so comfortable with them and it all just comes naturally to him. He has amazing insights into Scripture and I love learning from him (okay, so sometimes the history gets boring, but everything else I love!). Seeing him leading the youth and our family spiritually makes me feel so proud of him, so safe and honestly, absolutely giddy. I can't believe God gave me him. I absolutely cherish him.

Women's Retreat

This pretty much sums up the weekend. :)


The theme of the retreat was "Simply Trusting."



Katie, the leader of our women's ministry, added so many little touches! We had these bags waiting for us on our tables with little notepads inside.



They had these little candles on every table. Incredibly cute and a wonderful source of warmth for our chilly-selves.


They gave us candy. The Riesens disappeared quite quickly. The Reese's were not far behind. Chocolate is not safe around us.


They also put flowers on each table! These were sitting just inches in front of me all weekend and I thought they were fake. They were giving them away at the end of the weekend and I thought it was quite strange to be giving out fake flowers that they could just use again next year. They weren't. They were giving away real flowers. As soon as I touched their petals, I confirmed they were the real thing and picked one out to take home. It's living happily in our living room at the moment.



We each made name tags. This is a picture of Beth's name in a heart. Coincidentally, I *heart* Beth.


Katie is an absolutely wonderful and hilarious Christian woman. I'm pretty sure she was showing off her shoes here. She had a black and a brown pair of that exact shoe. I loved her shoes. I'd like a pair of black ones.

If you've never played Fishbowl before, you really should. Everybody playing writes down a few names of famous people/cartoons, puts them into a bowl, and breaks into two teams. Then in the first round, one person at a time gets up, alternating back and forth between teams, and can speak and act to get their team to guess what they're describing. In the second round, you can only say one word. In the third round, you can only act. The papers are recycled every round, so if you're paying attention, you can just say all of the names you remember to guess what they're trying to describe.

This is our lovely pastor's wife, Jessica, acting out Larry the Cucumber. Larry the Cucumber was in the bowl twice. So was Bob the Tomato. Every time anyone hinted at anything vegetable, I'd blurt out, "LarrytheCucumberBobtheTomato!" as fast as I could. I love this game.


This is Aubrey as Chuck Norris. You don't want to mess with her. She's one fierce New Yorker.


I have no clue what Adrienne is acting out, but it's probably either Michael Jackson or Snoopy. They're more similar than you'd think.


Janice led a LOT of worship this weekend! What's even more impressive is that she wrote a lot of the songs that she sang! It was a pretty awesome experience.


I really wish I had a camera that could take pictures really fast, because there was so much action this weekend that my camera would just miss, because of the shutter speed! This is Katie dancing to "Getting to Know You" from the King and I. She's very graceful.


What's better than one person dancing to a song from one of your favorite musicals? Two people dancing to a song from one of your favorite musicals...while singing along.



"Getting to Know You" was part of our girlfriend time, which involved getting more cute knick knacks and taking a learning styles/multiple intelligences test. Apparently, I am mostly musical, then intrapersonal, logical/math, interpersonal, visual/spatial, linguistic, and finally kinesthetic. Kinesthetic was my lowest score! That really surprised me.


Janice got Beth up there to sing, too! Bethers has a beautiful voice.


This would be a shot that my mother would describe as "artsy fartsy." I like playing with perspectives.


Another look at our table. You know what's funny? I didn't know that our church's women's ministry was called "Women of Grace" until I went on the retreat. It's actually more sad than funny.


Aubrey, Beth, and I! Those are two wonderfully outspoken women right there. I pretty much love them to pieces.



See? Women of Grace. It's a wonderful name now that I know about it! Isn't it a beautiful quilt, too?


We had communion while we were up there. Katie and Janice were also anointing and praying over those that wanted to partake. It was a pretty amazing time with God.


See the snow on the mountains? It made me miss Colorado. That's not saying much, because most things make me miss Colorado.



It was definitely nice to have trees around, though. They're much nicer to look at than cacti. I think they're less intimidating.



I wish I would have taken a picture of our room. The rooms weren't bad at all. They were heated and they had their own bathrooms, but the beds were awful! Unless we were medicated, none of us got good rest, but it was still an awesome weekend of worship and fellowship. It was really nice to get to know some of the women at church better. :)

Raindrops on Roses...

Sadly enough, there are no roses in Tucson. Okay, so there probably roses somewhere in Tucson, but none that I can see! Anyways, the point is, I was so happy when I saw the rain outside this morning! It practically never rains here and when it does, it usually ends in just a few minutes, but this one lasted most of the day at a slow drizzle. A slow drizzle is more than enough for me. So is Jesus. Just thought I'd throw that out there.

The rainy view from my car...



See all those clouds? There are mountains back there somewhere.


I wish this picture had come out better. It was pretty awesome how much water was sloshing down from the roof all along this walkway.

It would have been an amazing picture with much more depth and perspective, but a high schooler was walking towards me. I may not be in high school anymore, but still...I didn't want to be the nerd standing out in the cold rain taking pictures. Well, actually I love being the nerd risking her warmth by braving inclement weather for the sake of a good picture, but I think it's become a reflex. Maybe I'll work on that.


See all the raindrops across the pavement? Amazing.


I love how the light bounces off wet pavement. This picture does it no justice, but even with complete cloud cover, the light that was there was beautiful. And I saw my face's reflection. That's always cool. Gotta love nature's very own mirror!



Have I mentioned that I love water? I could watch moving water all day long. I would love to have a huge fountain in the middle of my house... but alas, we live in an apartment and I don't think they would like that. So, I try to find water everywhere I go. See the droplets?



More water reflections!

In Arizona, water is not absorbed into the ground. Water pools on top of the ground and floods the area. This is tiny, contained flood compared to most other places!


The water droplets are harder to see in this one, but they're there! I promise!



My favorite quote of the day. "Why does the dirt get muddy every time it rains? EW!"



The sky was dark and dreary, which usually I don't like, but because the rain came with the clouds, I'll forgive it just this once.



See? I told you it flooded. This still really isn't bad at all.




And then I got home. I'm going on our church's women's retreat this weekend and the packing list said to bring some snacks and drinks. Daniel was going to the store and asked what I wanted. I said, "Just pick up a couple Propels, some dried apricots, and a box of Ritz sandwiches." This is what he came back with. He said he wanted me to have a good selection. I love my husband.

Ice Cream and An Update

We finally ate Daniel's birthday ice cream sundaes! We had been eating so much food lately that we just kept putting it off, but we figured it wouldn't stay a "birthday" sundae much longer.

Daniel got mocha almond fudge ice cream. Blech, mocha. Blech, almond. Fudge? Okay. :)



Mine was Tagalong ice cream. As much as I've tried to avoid it at times, I'm still a Girl Scout, through and through! What you can't see is the Reese's Shell Topping. It's the liquid chocolate stuff that hardens when it touches the ice cream. Peanut butter chocolate cookies in peanut butter ice cream with chocolate-peanut butter topping? Yes, please!

P.S. Neither of us could finish our ice cream. Sugar overload.


Taco tried sniffing Daniel's ice cream and got whipped cream on his nose. It king of blends in with his random white patches of fur, but you can see it if you look hard enough.

In other news, Daniel is a sick, sick boy. He's been in bed most of the day with a fever, sore throat, aches, and other nasty symptoms. Poor guy.

My parents are leaving for Central America in the morning!

Karen had to harvest lab mice today. Blech, but I guess someone's got to do it! And as she said, "It's better than harvesting humans!" Yes. Yes, it is.

Apparently Marcia is looking quite pregnant now, but she has neglected to post any pictures. Get on that, sis!

Squirt is due in May and I'm getting more and more ecstatic by the day! I can't wait to see my first little niece! She is going to be soooo spoiled...

All Creatures of Our God and King

"My mouth will speak in praise of the LORD.
Let every creature praise his holy name
for ever and ever."
-Psalm 145:21-

All creatures of our God and King
Lift up your voice and with us sing
Oh, praise Him
Alleluia
Thou burning sun with golden beam
Thou silver moon with softer gleam
Oh, praise Him
Oh, praise Him
Alleluia Alleluia Alleluia Thou rushing wind that art so strong
Ye clouds that sail in heav’n along
Oh, praise Him
Alleluia
Thou rising moon in praise rejoice
Ye lights of evening find a voice
Oh, praise Him
Oh, praise Him
Alleluia Alleluia Alleluia

Let all things their creator bless And worship Him in humbleness Oh, praise Him Alleluia Praise, praise the Father praise the Son And praise the Spirit three in one Oh, praise Him Oh, praise Him Alleluia Alleluia Alleluia Praise, praise the Father praise the Son And praise the Spirit three in one Oh, praise Him Oh, praise Him Alleluia Alleluia Alleluia

"All Creatures of Our God and King"
-David Crowder Band-

Birthday+Friends+Italian Food+Crayons=Best Night Ever!

As mentioned in my last post, we went to the Macaroni Grill the other night with some friends for Daniel's birthday dinner. Little did we know, it was going to be the best night ever. I really did not capture the essence of the night well with my pictures, but it will give you a glimpse.

This is Steve. This is Steve's war face. You do not want to go to war with Steve. He's fierce. He's also the only person who willingly poses for my pictures. We love Steve.


The Macaroni Grill puts paper on their tables. The waiters and waitresses write their name of this paper. There was still waaaay too much white for our tastes, so Aubrey broke out the crayons and drew a lorax! Because, really, what table is complete without a lorax? Especially a birthday lorax.


We laughed sooo much that night. It's really hard to take pictures of other people laughing when you are laughing so hard that you can't stop bouncing the camera. Steve and Aubrey crack me up. Steve may have a fierce war face, but Aubrey is incredibly feisty.


The art on the table expanded throughout the evening. I'm pretty sure Chris is the only person who didn't draw on the table. He should have. He is such a good artist. He rocks the socks off of Pictionary.


Hmm...I actually don't remember who wrote this. It is most certainly not Daniel's handwriting. I think it was Beth. Yup. It was definitely Beth, but then Daniel drew an arrow underneath the writing, but the arrow pointed to Chris, so Chris put his napkin over the arrow for the picture. This was a very complicated process.


Birthday cake!


The guy on the right sang Daniel the birthday song in Italian. We tried to get our waiter (the guy right behind Daniel) to sing, but he refused. Party pooper. To make up for it, Beth sang to Daniel about death in Italian. People around us were chuckling at us. We're all about spreading joy and Beth has a freaking awesome voice.


Mmm...birthday cake. Daniel tried wishing for no birthday festivities next year when he blew out his candle, but he told us his wish, so we're all going to make sure that it doesn't come true. Sucker.

This is Chris and Daniel. Daniel looks weird, because I had to copy and paste another picture of his face on top of his original face. He didn't like the way the original face looked and he wouldn't let me post it, so I had to remedy that. It's a really good picture of Chris!


Bethers! We love Beth. When we got to the restaurant, we were all there except for Beth, so Aubrey told the hostess to look for a short, blonde, perky woman and send her to our table. That's our Bethers!


I'm sad this picture came out fuzzy. Steve drew himself and Aubrey. Later on in the night, he added a purple beard to himself in true Louisiana style. Aubrey was not always fully shaded in. It's a long story that I can't fully remember. It started out with a smile, but the shading got out of hand.


And because our friends are absolutely amazing, they made the picture come to life! Aubrey darkened herself with her turtleneck and napkin, while cowering in fear of Steve's war face.


Tee hee. Beth loves us all. That makes my heart smile.


I love our generation. Please note the red, wavy lines underneath the misspelled words. That's right. Steve has a built in spell-check. Have I mentioned our friends have skill?


The men hanging out outside of the restaurant. In true Steve fashion, he's posing as a manly strong man. Daniel's there looking all handsome, while trying to avoid being in my pictures. I don't think Chris knew I was taking the picture. And Aubrey's face is there! Cool! I didn't see that before!


The girls. We rock. These women are amazing.


And the whole gang! Modeled after the Brady Bunch, of course. :)

Birthday Week: Days 4-7

Day 4: Soccer Day! Seeing as Daniel is obsessed with soccer, I thought it was necessary to create soccer day.


And I may have reused some of last year's soccer decorations, but I thought it turned out quite well.


Did I mention that 90% of the soccer balls I give to Daniel become Taco's play toys? He was trying to steal one before Daniel even saw the table! The nerve...


We had C3 that night. Deanna made an incredible burrito bar just for Daniel, so I made brownies for dessert. It took a looooong time and I will most likely never make them this way again, but I thought it turned out quite well! And I got to use my new silicone bakeware and spatula. I love baking in silicone! I know the letters are crooked, but every time I moved a letter, the powdered sugar messed up.


Day 5: Game Day! I forgot to take pictures of them, but I bought him a PS3 game and a card game called Killer Bunnies. The table didn't look very impressive that day, but he still seemed to enjoy the games. :)


Day 6: Pirate Day! He happens to really like pirates. I should have dressed Taco up in his pirate costume, but I completely forgot about it. He still had plenty of booty.



I love balloons, which tends to be quite convenient, because Daniel loves kicking all spherical things and I also love our stuff un-broken. Balloons are the perfect solution for everybody except Taco. Apparently he's scared of them.


Day 7: Ice Cream Day! Ahh...Ice cream - one of Daniel's passions in life...more specifically, chocolate chip ice cream. We were going to make brownie ice cream sundaes, but we ended up going to Macaroni Grill with a bunch of friends for dinner and we were stuffed! We have yet to make them. Oops. I think he still enjoyed the idea.


Next post : Birthday+Friends+Italian Food+Crayons=Best Night Ever!