Preparing for Valentine's Day

Today, We (Joey, Gracie, and I) went shopping to for Gracie's Valentine's Day Party at school. I was on the hunt for special little treats to put in gift bags for the kiddos in Gracie's class. This is always a task since I want to fill their bags with healthy goodies that anyone under the age of 2 won't choke on. I also must keep in mind the endless allergies that plague a few of the littles at MDO (Mother's Day Out). I also had to find special gifts for the lovely ladies that teach Gracie's class. I know it isn't necessary to bring a gift on every holiday, but I want Gracie's teachers to know that I love them and appreciate everything they do for the children in MDO. So, I always try to get them something special.
After returning home with our Valentine's Day loot, Mommy (that's me) made pooch pops! I was very nervous to make them, but I think they are cute!! For all of you who don't know, I am awful when it comes to baking! But, If I don't say so myself, I think I found a treat that even I can bake.

I found the recipe in Parent's Magazine. Here it is for those of you who would like to bake your little Valentine something special:

Ingredients
2/3 cup all-purpose flour
1 roll (16 ounces) refrigerated sugar-cookie dough
2 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder
8 lollipop sticks (about 6 inches)
2 tablespoons mini chocolate chips
1 tube vanilla decorating frosting
24 brown and/or red M&M's
Directions
1. Preheat oven to 350°F. Line 2 cookie sheets with parchment paper. Knead flour into cookie dough until smooth. Divide dough in half. Knead cocoa powder into one half until smooth.
2. Roll out vanilla and chocolate cookie doughs until they're barely 1/4-inch thick. Cut out 8 hearts from each using a 3-inch cookie cutter. Place the vanilla hearts about 3 inches apart on cookie sheet. Insert a lollipop stick into each heart shape. Slice the chocolate hearts in half lengthwise. Place on either side of vanilla hearts as the ears. Press 6 mini chocolate chips, pointed side down, on each of the vanilla hearts as shown. Bake until just golden, 10 to 12 minutes. Transfer the cookies to a wire rack and let cool completely
3. Pipe 3 dots of frosting on the cookie, as shown, and attach M&M's for nose and eyes. Tie a ribbon on the lollipop stick, if desired.

Tagged!

I love these games!! Jessica Cameron, an old friend of mine, tagged me. The way to play this game is to go to your picture folder, pick the fourth file , open it up and pick the fourth picture. Then post the picture in your blog and write a little bit about it. Well, here is my picture...

Of course it is a picture of my little Gracie. Awww, she was so little back then. This picture was taken when she was 5 months old. She was very exited after her bath and started to shriek. She had just figured out that she could make that kind of noise.

I never realized how fast time goes by until I had Gracie. I wasn't much of a picture taker until Gracie came along, now I have my camera with me all the time. I am so grateful for all the pictures and video I took of her.

Thanks so much ,Jess, for tagging me. I don't go back and look at older pictures very often, but this little game made me do just that. It was fun and sad in a sentimental way. I forget how blessed I am!
So now I am tagging: Holly Bartlett, city girl in cowboy boots, Have A Lovely, Beth Spradlin & Natalie LaScola... Can't wait to see your pictures, girls!!

P.S. I found my camera, so updated photos of my Gracie will posted soon!

25 things about me

I am sure you all have seen this, but I was tagged on facebook by a few of my friends and since I rarely am on facebook, I decided to post mine in my blog. Plus, I thought this would be fun to post while I search for my camera. (sorry to all of you who only read my blog to look at pictures of Gracie!)
Rules: Once you've been tagged, you are supposed to write a blog with 25 random things, facts, habits, or goals about you. At the end, choose 5 people to be tagged. You have to tag the person who tagged you. If I tagged you, it's because I want to know more about you.
Here we go....
1. legally, my name is Sarah without the "H". On all of my legal documents the "h" was dropped due to an error on my birth certificate. It wasn't until I was in high school that I found out that someone mispelled my name a long time ago.
2. I named Gracie after a character in a book I read in 6th grade.
3. I read all magazines from back to front, not front to back like normal people.
4. I knew I would marry Joey on the first night I met him.
5. I have had the same cell phone number for 10 years.
6. I would much rather have a pap smear than have to give blood. I hate needles.
7. I am very particular about how clean my toilet is. I clean every two days or eveyday depending on how busy I am. (You never know wneh someone will be sick and need to throw up in you toilet. It would be awful if it weren't clean!)
8. I still watch Days of Our Lives everyday. I started watching when I was 12 and rarely miss a day. Thank God for DVR and the internet.
9. I am extremely clausterphobic and when I see a bunch of people crammed in a small vehicle, I have a small anxiety attack for them.
10. I hate donuts!
11. If I could be anything in the world, I would want to be a Pussycat Doll. I said this even before the tv show came out!!
12. Our refrigerator broke over the weekend and I am secretly thrilled because it gives us an excuse to eat out until it is fixed!
13. I love the shows One Tree Hill, Gossip Girl, Army wives, Greys Anatomy, Pirivate Practice, Secret life of an American Teenager, & etc. and am mildly depressed when a season is over.
14. I hate unloading the dishwasher!!
15. I miss playing softball! It gave me a reason to work out.
16. I suck at keeping up with friends! I wish I were better at it!
17. I best friends are my sisters and my mom!
18. I wish my best friend from elementary school were still my best friend! I think of her everyday!
19. I am one of those girls who thinks she can be friends with guys and it never be anything more than friends. ( My husband thinks that this is niave) is that how you spell it?
20. I love to paint but haven't been inspired in quite a while.
21. I get homesick alot! I have to get home every two weeks or so or I start to go crazy.
22. I hated living in Cleveland, but can't wait to go back to visit!
23. I often wish I had stayed in public school instead of moving to a private school when i was in 9th grade.
24. I can't wait to have another child! ( No I am not pregnant, but wish I was!)
25. I wish i could afford a cleaning lady!

Ok Ladies... Those are my 25 random facts! I am tagging Jessica Clarke, Holly Bartlett, Roxanne Spradlin, Beth Spradlin, & Natalie LaScola!!
Can't wait to read your 25 facts!!

It's Been A Long time

So, It has been quite a while since I have posted anything on here. I apologize to those of you who have looked for new posts and were disapointed. Things have been quite crazy in my world lately. I know, there are no excuses... but I really have been extremely busy and I can't find my camera. BOOO! I am going to go ahead and blame Joey for my lost camera. LOL!

Well, I guess now is as good a time as any to tell you what has kept me so busy lately.

Drum Roll Please.......

I am opening my own little baby boutique!! Yea!!!!

Between being a fabulous momma and doting wife, I have been working like a crazy women in my store to get the walls painted and the floors done.

The floors are a pain in my side right now. The people who were in my space before me put those sticky square vinyl tiles down. This wouldn't be such a problem if they had covered the entire floor, but ofcourse, they didn't. They decided it would be too much trouble to pick up their desks and put the floor underneath them. They only put the tiles where people could see them, thus leaving a mess of a floor once all the desks were removed. So, now all the tiles are gone, but the sticky adhesive isn't! I can't seem to get the glue off of the floor!

There have been some fun things about the store though. Like going to market, recieving all of my precious merchandise, and decorating my store exactly how I want it. I will post more about those fun things later.

So, hopefully, I will begin to find more time to post, but please forgive me when I don't. I haven't quite figured out how to juggle all the things I need to do.

Ski Bunnies??

Every year, the week after Christmas, my family takes a trip to Colorado. Normally, we spend the week in Pagosa Springs and ski at Wolf Creek, but this year we traveled to Durango. I love Durango! It is such a cute little town with great little shops, but we didn't shop this year. No, we didn't shop, we SKIED!
We stayed in a three story cabin propped up on the side of the mountain at Durango Ski resort ( it used to be called Purgatory). It was fabulous! We had to walk a very short distance (maybe 30 yards) to hop onto a ski run and ski all our hearts desired.
The weather was great! A few of you know that I do not blend well with cold weather, I hate to be cold, but the weather was gorgeous! It even got hot enought to ski without coats! A few of the snowboarder chicks wore only spaghetti strapped shirts! Needless to say, I didn't get cold.
The resort offers daycare for the little ones, so the entire family (minus Gracie & Jake) got to ski together. We had a great time and no one was hurt, atleast no one was hurt skiing.

Me & Holly on the ski lift

Katy & Dustin on the ski lift

Mom & Dad on the lift

While on our trip; Katy, Dustin, and I traveled over to the dark side! We attempted snowboarding. I was not fun! It was borderline torture! We took a private lesson and thought we had it figured out, so we set out on our own to conquer a green run. Much to our disappointment, we learned that we hadn't retained anything from our lesson when we all collided as we tried to exit the lift on our own as first time snowboarders. We were such a mess that the lift operator suggested that we take a lesson before we attempted to snowboard on our own. While still on the ground from our lift collision, trying helplessly to get up, we informed him that we had just finished a private lesson. He then suggested that we try skiing. So we went back to skiing. So, Snowboarding is tough and I am impressed with anyone who can do it!

Katy on her board

Note: There are no pictures of me on my snowboard since I couldn't seem to stay upright while on it.

P.S. Gracie was a cute little snow bunny!

Christmas Morning!

My little family had a very blessed Christmas this year even though we didn't get to spend it with my parents and sisters. As I previously posted, This was the first year for me to ever spend away from my family and it was tough! But not only did we survive it, we had a great day!

Gracie got a tricycle (amoung other things) from santa!

I hope all my readers had just as happy a Christmas as my family did!

I Need a Vacation!!

I just got back from my vacation. We went to Durango, Co for a week and it was fabulous (i wil post about it later), but upon my return I realized that I need another vacation. You see, my dear husband was home alone for the week since he couldn't take of work, and my house is a disaster.
I cleaned until the wee hours of the morning before I left, and I remember joey saying,"Sarah, you don't have to clean! I won't be home enought to make a mess! I can clean up after myself!" Then we actually had a small arguement about how I obviously think he is domestically retarded. (I don't, I just know that he never thinks about taking the trash out on pick up days or unloading the dishwasher before putting dirty stuff in it.)
Well, as soon as I stepped throught the door, I wanted to turn around and go get a hotel until he cleaned up his mess! It is an art form to him! How can anyone be so unorganized and make such a mess! Even my furniture had been move to different places. He says he needed to be more comfortable while watching football. UGH!!!
Back to life!!! So, I am ready for another vacation!