Cousin Get Together

When my cousins get together we like to talk and have fun and talk and be loud and oh yeah, did I mention talk. We see each other when there is a bridal or baby shower, but that just wasn't enough, so my sister-in-law had a great idea and decided to put together a scrapbooking/card making party where we could get together and of course talk, but also make something cute. We get together once a month and have a great time making really cute scrapbooking pages and cards. Here are a few of samples:

Sally's Card: Happy Father's Day

Angie's Pages: Happy Birthday

Heather's Pages: You Are My Sunshine

Fashion Show

If you would like to watch the fashion show, here it is. The first minute or so is a description of my sister's design style. Then the fashion show starts.

Seven Nights in Paris

This was the title of my sister's Fashion Show that took place last Friday night (I was in it, my first model debut and it was totally awesome.) My sister is in a fashion design class at school and for the final assignment she had to assemble a portfolio of all the clothing she had made throughout the year and put on a Fashion Show Extravaganza. Her line of clothing is called Maran (which is also her middle name.) There were 16 girls that participated in the fashion show and out of all those girls, my sister won the category for Most Original and Marketable. I am really proud of her. She did a great job and the clothing she makes is really cute.

My sister, Miss Fashion Diva. She is the designer and seamstress of all the clothing.

Doesn't the look on her face just say, "I'm a model and I don't care."

I saw Paris Hilton wearing this exact outfit last week.

It is going to be very popular this summer.

The Models

From casual to party these outfits can be worn for all occasions.

I'm not claiming to be a model

(pretty obvious from the picture)

just that I had a lot of fun doing it.

Never Fly Southwest

This should be self explanatory but for those of you who have never flown Southwest or who have blocked the horrible experience out of your mind and forgotten, let me remind you so that you don’t make the same mistake I did. I recently took a business trip and was booked on Southwest (unfortunately I didn’t make my own travel arrangement or this never would have happened.) My brother, who was also on the same Southwest flight, but who knew better, changed his ticket to Delta. He tried to warn me, but did I listen, no, I didn’t want to pay the change fee. In hindsight it TOTALLY would have been worth it. The reasons being: 1. The no assigned seating policy. If I am going to get stuck with a middle seat, it should be because I didn’t book my flight early enough and all the good seats were taken, not because I didn’t show up to the airport two hours early to stand in line. 2. The sarcastic yet not so funny flight attendants. 3. All the crying and screaming children. Because Southwest is usually cheaper than other airlines it seems that more families fly with them. Good for them for saving money, but bad for me. If one more kid would have started crying or kicked the back of my seat again, I would have snapped. 4. The Southwest flight had a layover, where as the Delta flight my brother took was non-stop. So let my suffering be a valuable lesson to you all, Never Fly Southwest.

Mad Gab

A couple of months ago we had game night at our house and one of the couples brought the game Mad Gab. We had a blast playing it, so yesterday while I was in the toy/game section at Target I saw it and bought it. We played it last night and it was as fun as I remember. Some of my favorite phrases: “Tubby Horn Hot Tubby,” “Abe Hat Chill Harp Add” and “ Abe Hole Hutch Hip Sand Hip.” (See comments for the answers.)

Dinner Group

Dinner Group is by far one of the best things I have ever joined! Basically what it is, is you swap dinner each week. A friend of mine started it with me. She chose Tuesday nights and I took Thursdays. What happens is on your night you are in charge of making a main dish and one side dish and delivering it to the family. I love coming home on Tuesdays and not worrying about rushing around and getting dinner ready, because around 6:00pm it is delivered to my house. Each person makes a serving of four. My husband and I usually have left overs which we love, because we get to eat it for lunch the next day and it has cut back on our eating out budget. Besides those, there are other great benefits too. 1. Instead of running to the grocery store every other day like I used to do, I now go once a week on Wednesdays to pick up the items I need to make my dinners. 2. I have actually started to enjoy cooking. What I do is I set aside time on Wednesday nights (while I'm watching America's Next Top Model of course) to make my dinner. That way when I get home from work on Thursday, all I have to do is put it in the oven or heat it up on the stove. 3. And this is the best part, I get a home cooked meal or have left-overs almost every day of the week and I only have to cook once. I tell everyone I know about it, because I think it is such a great idea and now my cousin and another friend do it too.

3 Yummy Dinners!

Reality TV

I LOVE reality TV. I just can’t get enough of it. Those are always the shows I watch first on the DVR. My favorites in no particular order are; Survivor, Amazing Race, America’s Next Top Model, The Bachelor and The Apprentice. I mean who honestly can say that they don’t like “The Donald.” The other great thing I love about reality TV is that they play all the shows until the season is over. They don’t take spring break or Christmas hiatus or whatever the networks are calling it where they play 4 episodes and then it is 6 weeks of reruns, play 4 more episodes and then sorry its fall interlude so here are some more reruns again. I will miss all my favorites during the normal summer break; Tyra Banks, Phil and Jeff (hosts for Amazing Race and Survivor) but when they return in the fall I will have my DVR set to record.