I hope you all had a Merry Christmas! Neal and I had a great Christmas, full of food and family. We got a lot of good loot, and hopefully gave some good loot, too.

Most of you have probably seen this, but here’s the picture for the Christmas card we sent out this year:

Isn’t she the cutest?!?!

I’m starting to think we should put Simone in some sort of modeling. How do you get involved with something like that? Any suggestions?

I cannot BELIEVE it’s going to be 2010 soon. Seriously, cannot believe it. Where has the year gone? We have New Year’s Eve plans with some friends and I’m really looking forward to spending time with friends, the love of my life and some champagne.

I’m going to be an AUNT!! Whoop Whoop! It’s pretty much the most exciting thing going on in my life right now, so excuse my enthusiasm!

Hopefully by February, we’ll have a little, screaming bundle of joy to baby-sit. But the main reason I’m telling you is because my mom and I made a bangin’ diaper cake for my sister-in-law’s shower. I have to show it to you!

Here’s the deal – a diaper cake is not actually cake you can eat. No fake poop made of chocolate icing, OK? A diaper cake is made up of diapers, bundled to look like cake tiers. Usually assorted baby stuff is put on it, like lotion, rattles, onsies, washcloths, etc. I knew I wanted to make one for Amanda’s shower, and I was very excited with how it turned out!

Isn’t it the cutest?!?!

Anyway, I attached a rattle and a onesie, and wrapped some lotions and things in tissue paper.

I think Amanda really liked it, and it was a pretty centerpiece at the shower!

I have a feeling that with all my married friends, I’ll have a lot more opportunities to make these. Think my mom and I should go into the diaper cake business?

I was at dinner tonight with my friend, Laura, at a local sports bar and our waitress came up to our table. “I just heard Michael Jackson died. Did you guys hear that? Do you think it’s true?” Laura, the entertainment editor at our local newspaper, called into work, and another editor said there were reports he was taken to hospital. We didn’t think it was anything serious.

We kept eating and chatting, and then the TVs in the sportsbar flashed photos of Michael Jackson. We turned the channel on the TV at our table to a news station and turned up the volume. And then I watched with incredible sadness as they announced his passing.

I’m not gonna lie, I know he was a weird guy. But I think he was a guy that never grew up, and tried to surround himself with youth so he could relive the childhood he missed. Could I be wrong and could he really have exploited children? Sure, but that’s not what I believe.

I had a disk cassette player when I was little, and I had this purple case to hold all my cassette tapes. It was full of Michael Jackson albums. I LOVED the “Dangerous” album (released in 1991). I’m sort of obsessive when it comes to music. When I find an artist I like, I try to get my hands on everything they’ve ever done and read everything I can about them (example: my Avenged Sevenfold obsession right now). Anyway, I used my allowance money or cried to my parents until they bought me “Bad,” “Thriller” and others.

We took a lot of trips when I was little, because my brother played for a traveling soccer team. Most weekends involved car rides to some tournament. Michael Jackson came with me on all those trips (along with animated Disney movie soundtracks, haha). On American Idol this year, Allison Iraheta sang “Give in to Me” from the “Dangerous” album, and she was sort of criticized for picking an obscure song. What?!?! I didn’t consider it obscure; I loved that song!

Anyway, Michael Jackson opened me up to music that wasn’t Disney movie theme songs. He told me it doesn’t matter if you’re black or white. He influenced countless musicians whose music we can enjoy today. And he gave the world “Thriller.” ‘Nuff said.

Thanks MJ. RIP.

I kid. Well, sort of. He did cook for us, but my dad LOVES to cook in his kitchen and entertain, so I know he loved it. My mom is  a perfectly fine cook, but it’s really not her favorite thing to do. I got the cooking bug from my dad (and my grandmother).

Sunday morning, we had blueberry pancakes, eggs, home fries, bacon, and more. It was all delicious and wonderful.

It was Neal and I, my parents, Tad and Amanda and my mom’s parents.

Here are my too-cute Nanny and Papa.

And this is the part where Tad hijacks my camera because he likes to make fun of me and snap pictures of unsuspecting family members.

Mom did such a nice job setting the table.

My mom had a dish in the center of table with lemons and limes for decoration. Did any of you ever see “The Breakup” with Jennifer Aniston and Vince Vaughn? At the beginning of the movie, they fight over her “lemon centerpiece” because Vince’s character only got like three lemons and Jennifer’s characer needed 12, for her “twelve lemon centerpiece.”

“No, I need 12. Baby wanted 12.”

HAHA, great scene.

Tad, Neal and Amanda and I cracked jokes about my mom’s lemon and lime centerpiece all morning. We like to be annoying like that.

Anyway, it was a nice morning. I’m bummed I didn’t break out the camera at Neal’s parents’ house. Neal and I took two London broils and some side salads for dinner and hung out with his parents and brother.

All in all, a great day. Glad we were able to spend it with our Dads.

I have often thought how I wish I knew then what I know now, although then I wouldn’t have made the mistakes and steps that took me where I am today, but oh well. And I realize I’m only 26, but high school seems REALLY far away to me.

If you ran into your former high school self, what would she/he think of what you have become?

Neal somehow managed to snag some pretty neat “action” shots of a bee out on our deck. Take a gander:

He did a good shot, didn’t he?! I hope you can spot the bee in the pictures. I think they are pretty cool.

I really need to take some more pictures of the cats. They’ve been enjoying the nice weather. Here’s Ferris being lazy and sleey.

LOL. I was folding laundry, so that’s why there is a stack of clothes next to him.

All right, well I’m going to try to get updated pics of our attic to show you. And our veggies are really coming up. I’ll post pics soon!

But I do have some pics of the weekend that I’d like to share with you.  Saturday, I went to a baby shower for a college friend of ours, Katie. Neal roomed with her husband in college, so he went along with me to hang out with “the boys.” I watched in awe as she opened up gift after gift of various baby things, half of which I even knew existed. I mean, seriously, a little human apparently needs a lot of stuff.

Katie is the cutest pregnant girl ever. I loved her belly. Oh, and she’s having a boy!

I love Katie. Her and her husband moved to California for two years after college. They got married in Las Vegas and did the cool, L.A. thing. She got head shots taken,  and had a part in a music video for pop singer Avril Lavigne. And then they moved back to PA. I’m happy because they’ll be close so we can visit their baby! And I don’t think she even knows I have a blog, so I’m not just kissing up to her, haha.

Sunday, I had a brunch for mom. I like to cook and a Mother’s Day tea party at any local tea room is sort of pricey, so I figured I’d just do it all myself! It took a while to make all the food and I had to make it all in steps starting the Thursday before Mother’s Day, but I got it all done!

I  made a bacon and spinach quiche, because my mom loves quiche.

It was the first time I ever made quiche, and it actually set perfectly! I was so happy! I also made my own crust, because I learned from my Nanny that there is truly nothing better than homemade crust.

I cut up some fruit and made little cream cheese and cucumber tea sandwiches. I also made some whole wheat apple cinnamon muffins.

Here’s my mom getting ready to dig in for her brunch. Isn’t she the cutest?

And here’s my pretty plate.

For dessert, I made mini lemon layer cakes with homemade lemon curd and buttercream icing. I really suck at decorating cakes, haha, so please ignore my pathetic attempt at icing flowers. Neal made fun of me. He’s mean.

And before Neal left to visit HIS mommy for Mother’s Day, I got him to take  snapshot of Mom and I. Of course he’s like a foot taller than us, so him holding the camera at eye level and looking down at us made for a slightly amusing picture.

I don’t get to spend a lot of time with just my mom, so it was a really nice day. We took a walk around the neighborhood and had a really great day. Happy Mother’s Day, Mom!

Anyway, moving on.

Let me give you preface so you understand our crazy dinner situation. Saturday morning, we tried to make dinner reservations for this Japanese place. Andi called and they said the only times they had available were 5:30 or 11 p.m. Ugh. We tried to make reservations at another place, and they require a credit card and will charge you $25 per person if you don’t show up. Jeez!

So we really didn’t have a great dinner plan. After the pool, we got dressed up and decided to head down to the Japanese restaurant just to see if any tables would be available. But first, we took some pictures.

Oh, and my dress is hot, right? That’s thanks to my cousin. I wasn’t too keen on spending money on clothes before this trip and I knew my cousin had TONS of clothes. So I asked if I could borrow a dress or two, and she didn’t hesitate one bit to say yes. She even made me dinner when I came over to try on the dresses! How sweet!

As an aside, it was pretty funny, because Tara takes me upstairs to her “dress closet” in her house. She opens up the doors and it’s like a movie where a light shines and a chorus says “Aaaaaaaah.” I mean, she had tons of dresses. And she’s a nerd and has them organized in categories, hahaha. Anyway, she let me borrow this dress and I totally loved it and it was really sweet of her. When girls in the bathroom at the club commented on my dress, I’m sure I rambled about how I love my cousin. So, I am in debt to Tara.

OK, so back to dinner. I walked into Izakaya to ask if they had any tables available. The hostess points to this table near the door and said that once those people were finished, we could have their table. They looked to be finished soon. No problem. Great. Grand.

Well, about two hours later, they were still ordering food, taking pictures, and acting completely drunk. I think they had too much sake. We had our hearts set on this place and we wanted sushi really badly, so we waited it out. The hostesses took pity on us and actually gave us another table. Looks like we should have just taken that 11 p.m. reservation!

Anyway, the place was very cool. Unlike any restaurant I’ve eaten in. Chic.

And the food? Oh good Lord. It was well worth the wait. Doesn’t Jess’s face tell you how good it was?

HAHA! That picture cracks me up.

Anyway, pictures were hard to take with my camera in this place, but I ordered edamame dumplings and king crab California rolls. I seriously almost fainted when I ate the California rolls. They were THAT good.

Oh boy. My mouth is watering just thinking of that dinner.

After dinner, we headed to this club inside the Borgata. It was really cool, and they even had DJ Jazzy Jeff, you know, from the “Fresh Prince of Bel-Air!” It was awesome. We left when our feet hurt so bad we could barely walk anymore. As we were walking back to our rooms, we walked past some girl who had thrown up ALL over the floor right outside the club. Sucks to be her!

The rest of the girls went to bed, but Andi and I decided we weren’t tired yet. We went back down to the Borgata, I hit up the ATM and played a little craps! I love craps! Before I left my mom had told me to bet a three for her if I bet at all. So when I rolled my die, I would set each dice with the three side up. And I rolled two sevens in a row! For those of you who don’t know how to play craps, that was really good! I didn’t hit the jackpot, but I had a great time.

Andi and I then wandered around the Borgata and got some drunk girl to take our picture. I’m shocked this picture came out, because it didn’t look like she had the camera even remotely pointed at us, HAHA.

Awww, me and my BFF.

So it was a truly awesome trip. I’m so glad to have these memories with my girls. I’ll never forget this trip. And now, we better get start planning 2010’s trip………

Anyway, Friday night, we got dolled up in our rooms.

And we headed out to a restaurant that was off the lobby of The Water Club. It was called the Sunroom, and it was really cool, because we sat on couches/ottomans and ate at a large coffee-table like thing. I kind of felt like I was in the Sex and the City movie, hehe.

The drinks were really unique. I think my drink was called Opals and Pearls, or something like that. All I remember is that it had some pear in it and was really good. Andi and Jess got some Red Dragon drink that had lychee in it.

And I ordered a burger and fries. I know that sounds lame, but it was some fancy sirloin burger with a red pepper sauce and some really, really amazing french fries. It was awesome.

Jodie and Jess ordered lobster bisque, and the waitress brought out the bowls with lobster in the bottom, and then poured the bisque over the top out of a teapot. I had a taste of Jess’s, and it was oh so good creamy buttery lobster goodness.

After that, we walked around the casino and lost some money playing slots, haha. You really can’t take pictures in the casino, so I don’t have any pictures of that. We actually turned in kind of early. We knew Saturday was going to be a long day.

When we woke up Saturday, we all agreed we’d like to go shopping. Before we left for the trip, my cousin had suggested heading out to Caesar’s Pier downtown, and the girls seemed to like that idea, so we took a cab to the boardwalk. Here’s a shot of the outside of Caesar’s Pier.

First, we walked about onto the beach.

And then we walked into Caesar’s Pier. It was a really cool set of shops. Most of them were over my budget, haha. I mean, seriously, some of these shoes were half of my mortgage. Ugh. But it was really cool to walk around.

Then, we all decided that THE place to eat was the Rainforest Cafe. I realize it’s geared to children, but where else can you go to see robotic animals move and talk every 15 minutes in a simulated jungle? I mean, come on. It’s the coolest restaurant ever.

Oh, and I got a burger again. The girls started to make fun of me.

And then we ordered “The Volcano,” which is apparently their fancy desert. It wasn’t particularly pretty, but the servers all yelled and made noise when you ordered one and we needed a reason to yell with them, so we ordered one.

Here I am waiting for the desert. I was pretty excited about it.

And here’s the volcano!

We all immediately dug in to this brownie-ice cream concoction. Another waiter walked by and said “You girls are killing that thing!” No lie. We were like vultures. This was the plate after 10 seconds.

HAHA!

I love the Rainforest Cafe.

So then we headed back to the hotel, and agreed we all really wanted to head to the pool. The Water Club has two indoor pools, and the one was free admission to guests. It was an AWESOME pool. Very pretty, clean, relaxing. I loved it. I was in complete peace when we were there.

There two hot tubs. I could have slept in them.

We hung out, had some drinks, and then headed up to the room for our night out!

I’ll post about our night in a separate post. Sorry I’m keeping you all in suspense, haha! There are just too many pictures to go over! Sorry!

Well, this year, we girls decided we think we were entitled to have a little fun, too. We went to Atlantic City, NJ, and had a complete BLAST. Seriously. I needed a vacation so bad, and this was just too much fun.

One of the girls knew someone who works at The Water Club, which is a hotel owned and attached to the Borgata casino. It just opened in June of last year. Well, we were able to get an incredible deal on the rooms, and let me tell you, we really felt like we were living the high life!

The Water Club seemed to have a healthy/relaxation theme. And it was a truly gorgeous hotel.

Parking was valet, and this was the first thing we saw entering the hotel.

This was in the hotel lobby.

And here we are checking in.

The rooms were incredible.

A phone in the bathroom? HAHA.

The view from our room was awesome.

I’m going to have to break this trip into a couple of posts. I have loads and loads of pictures!

Later this week, I’ll post pics of all my food (it was incredible) and lots of other fun things we did. Stay tuned!

So, I’m really sorry I’ve been MIA. I was still sick most of all last week, and then Easter weekend was busy, and I just didn’t get around to posting. I feel badly about it. I haven’t cooked in like two weeks because I’ve had no appetite from being sick. Ugh!

But I do have some pictures that I need to post, particularly some really cool photos Neal took over the weekend with our zoom lens.

So anyway, I wanted to let you know I’m alive, and stay tuned for some new photos coming this week!

It was my first appointment at my new doctor’s office, and I was really impressed. The facility was nice, clean and organized. The nurse was friendly, and the doctor was quick, yet helpful, knowledgeable, caring, etc. Very efficient. I was very happy. She hooked me up with a different medicine than I usually get for sinus infections. She gave something she referred to as a Z-pack. To be honest, I don’t really care what she gave me, just as long as it worked. Do you remember last fall when I got a sinus infection and I wrote about my pink pills? Well these pills are pink, too! HAHA!

I was going to try to go into work in the afternoon, but I just couldn’t muster up the energy once I got home from getting my prescription. Plus, it’s probably better to take today off and be close to 100% the rest of the week than to just go in for a half day today and be about 50% all week.

I started to finally come out of my sinus pain fog around 3 p.m., and I’m feeling all right now, so I’m looking forward to getting back to my life after an awful weekend. I never thought I’d say this, but I’m actually tired of being cooped up in the house. Mmm… maybe I should check my temperature again?

For now, I have some photos from Sunday. It was a late night Saturday, so we enjoyed sleeping in. Neal had to leave late morning for some soccer games. Once he got home, we hung around the house and played with our cats. The weather was really nice in the afternoon and the cats enjoyed the bird activity. They also enjoyed their toys, which Neal dug out from under various pieces of furniture.

And then, in about five minutes, the sky turned dark and our TV flashed with severe storm and tornado warnings. Neal and I scrambled to try to secure some our outside furniture and then watched as hail pelted down.

And do you remember I posted about how I was so excited by my tulips coming up? Well, I practically cried as I saw the hail coming down on the new frail leaves. Grrrrrr…

The storm passed very quickly and we didn’t see any tornado. However, the news reported a tornado touched down VERY close to our house, so I’ll be curious to read more about that.

The cats didn’t know what to make of the hail. They kept running to the windows, and then back upstairs under the bed. It was pretty funny.

But it also means that spring will finally be coming. I forget about much I miss the warm weather, sun, etc., until we get a little tease at the end of winter. We had a couple of days in the 60s and 70s, and it really got me excited for spring.

Plus, I came from work on Friday and took a quick peak around our yard. And I saw this.

My lovely tulips are beginning to sense the changing season. I hope we don’t get another frost.

My daylilies are also forming buds.

My irises are also starting to sprout.

And these bushes we have around our deck  (not sure what they are called) are showing their red leaves.

I love spring. And my camera.

And the love of kitties.

Yes, that’s Ferris sitting on our W-2s. He was helping Neal figure out some deductions. How helpful!

P.S. – Please excuse the mess.

And I woke up to this:

And anyone that knows me AT ALL knows I absolutely hate cold, wet and most of all, SNOWY weather. Grrrrrrr…

So I was in a funk pretty much all morning. Neal was a sweetheart and drove me to work so I didn’t have to drive myself in the muck. The roads were pretty horrible. I share a birthday with my boss, so that’s kind of fun. I got flowers, a pizza lunch, and apple pie (my pick). I also was able to go home after lunch. YAY! My brother was nice and drove me home, which was very sweet of him.

So of course, I changed into sweatpants immediately and played some Fable:

(Yes, I’m a loser. I loved Fable II so much that I bought the first.)

Then I took a cat nap with Simone. I was still sort of in a funk. I do want to thank everyone for their e-mails, phone calls, texts and Facebook messages. It cheered me up despite the weather.

I was all excited to cook chicken piccata, but I just didn’t feel like it. So Neal volunteered to make it. I helped a little, but he did most of the work, which was really nice. I’m a pretty lucky girl. And dinner was very, very good.

He also cleaned up the kitchen so I didn’t have to.  Oh, and for future reference, the best time to confess to your husband that you spent over $100 at a Pampered Chef party is on your birthday. He can’t really yell at you on your birthday, you know?

For desert, I got a nice card from Neal, a card from Ferris and Simone (the envelope said “Mommy,” haha) and Girl Scout cookies. So the day started out a little blah, but ended well, thanks to the well-wishes of my friends and family, two furry felines and because of a special guy who said “I do” to me two years ago.

We had a good weekend. Neal and I went to visit the in-laws since it was his mother’s birthday last week. We went out to dinner, and it was very, very good. I got an amaretto creme brulee for desert. Hello! Amazing!

Recently, I had a fun girls’ day with my friends. Among some other things, we played Guitar Hero and Jess brought a microphone so we could sing, too! It was awesome and so much fun.

Well, for my birthday, my in-laws gave me this:

A microphone for Guitar Hero! Whoo hoo! Isn’t Simone a good model? Neal and I tested it out and it’s pretty cool.

I also got my first glance at the in-laws remodeled kitchen and it’s really super cool. I’m impressed because they did it pretty much all themselves.

Sunday, Mom took me shopping for my birthday. We had a great time shopping and had a great dinner. It was a really nice way to celebrate my birthday. After we got home, I celebrated with some peanut butter chocolate chip cookies.

They were super good. Yum!

Tomorrow, I get a half-day at work because of the occasion. I’m excited to come home and hang out with Ferris and Simone in the afternoon. I also have a fun dinner planned, so check back to see what I cook up!

My liles that Neal bought me for Valentine’s Day continued to open up. They were really, really beautiful.

We had to toss them at the end of the weekend. Bummer!

So, you know how I said I wasn’t feeling well this weekend? Well, Neal and I think this was the problem. I went out to dinner with the girls on Saturday night and had some chicken enchiladas. I brought my leftovers home and forgot to put them in the refrigerator. So they sat out all night until Neal noticed them in the morning and stuck them in the fridge. I completely ignored the fact that they sat out all night and ate them for lunch anyway. I think that was a bad idea. Ba-a-a-a-a-d idea.

Well, apparently, today, I didn’t learn my lesson and still had my head up my ass. I had some leftover macaroni and cheese at lunch. I brought a large container of it and just took out a small portion to heat up. My brother came back from the lunch room later in the afternoon and said “Heg, Meg. What are you doing with the rest of that macaroni? You left it sitting out on the counter.”

What the heck is wrong with me? Can I not understand basic refrigeration techniques? Ugh. Sometimes I drive myself crazy. I’m so wrapped up in my own head with incredibly useless and stupid crap that I simply cannot remember anything. Grrrrrr…

On a positive note, I was successful yesterday in switching doctor’s offices to one that is much more conveniently located to where we now live. I was very happy about that!

My BFF Andi had a Pampered Chef Party. I completely love this stuff. I’m addicted and it’s beyond ridiculous. I was too excited that I neglected to take pictures of any of the products or the food. We did make an awesome chocolate peanut butter torte (yours truly helped chop the peanut butter cups). I did, however, get updated pics of our favorite German shepherd puppy, Cole. He is getting so big! According to Andi, he’s 40 pounds. He seems to be in that awkward teenage stage where his paws/legs are too big for him. It’s freakin’ adorable.

Ready for some cute pictures?

HAHA! I love that last picture. For more, visit my Cole flickr page. He’s so adorable and sweet and I was really happy with how the pictures came out.

On a downer note, I feel really sick today and I’m super bummed. I had such a great time yesterday with my friends. I’m not sure what’s going on, but I’ve been a little nauseous. Neal made me take some Pepto, and I feel a little better.

Well, I’m off to do laundry (exciting! I know! LOL) and watch the Academy Awards. I’m hoping for big wins for Mickey Rourke and Slumdog Millionaire.

So this year, I decided to send out a couple of Valentine’s Day cards to immediate family. I got the cards two weeks ago and put them in the mail on Wednesday. I was so proud of myself. I don’t have the magical touch like my Nanny, who manages to make her cards arrive on the EXACT day. But I knew they’d arrive a little earlier than the 14th.

So, Neal and I got home from helping friends move Saturday and I went to the mailbox to get the mail. The stack was pretty big and I thought, “Oh wow, maybe we got a lot of Valentine’s Day cards!”

Ummmm…. no. My Valentine’s Day cards were returned to sender. Stamped in big block letters were the words “Return No Postage.”

Yeah…. my dumbass forgot to PUT STAMPS ON THE FREAKIN’ CARDS.  ARGH!!!!! I was soooo angry! For once, FOR ONCE, I remembered a date. And my plan was FOILED! Ridiculous!

So, I put stamps on the cards and put them back into the mail. And of course, there was no mail on Monday, so they didn’t go out until today.

I’m hoping people will know that I meant the best. My mother-in-law once told me she was the queen of good intentions. Well, then I’m the princess.

Ferris can be the joker.

P.S. – Does he have a boogie in his nose? I think he does….