Reflections Program

Every year our school has a program called "Reflections", it's an arts type of program where they give you a theme and have several different categories that you can submit your work.  Some of the categories are visual arts, photography, lyrical, literature and film.

The theme this year was "Believe, Dream, Inspire".  Since our Emma is such a writer, she of course wrote a book!  Her book is called "One Dream" and it is the story of Caroline who lives back in the 1800's and has a dream that she ends slavery.  Because of that dream, she is inspired to write President Lincoln encouraging him to end slavery.

This kid has an imagination, I tell ya!  And they thought so too, because her story won first place and now gets sent down to the state level!

She was pretty stoked about this...Her dream, of course, is to be a writer.  This kid has written a bazillion stories, or should I say, started a bazillion stories.  Not kidding, if you were to clean her room right now, you'd find about 6 different types of notebooks with stories in them.  She writes anything from a fairytale to mysteries.  Last Halloween she wrote a mystery that had me so enthralled, I begged her to finish it because I had to know what happened to the kids in the castle.  I'm still waiting...

Way to go Emma, we're so proud of you!

Hang On to Your Hats!

It's Thursday here in Minnesota (as if it's like Tuesday in Iowa and Monday in Boston...) which should actually be renamed "snowstormday".  I swear we only get snowstorms on Thursdays or Sundays.  Seriously, Fridays plans are always ruined because of the storms and Mondays are even suckier.

So, what else do you do during a blizzard, but make lava molten cakes, right?!  As if I need more chocolate in my life, I decided to whip up these scrumptious morsels of pure dense, sweet chocolate heaven.  

This delicious recipe hails from Mels Kitchen Cafe.  Love her.  Love her recipes.  I probably make a couple of her recipes a week, serious yumminess.  I didn't get a pic of the center, because silly me baked it a wee bit too long and it wasn't gooey like it should be.  This does not take away from how freakin good these are.

I feel like this could be us tomorrow with as much snow we have right now.  For now, I will try to imagine this...

Presidents Day Volleyball Tournament

This past weekend we spent a total of 17 hours watching volleyball.  17 hours of nerve-wracking, high intensity volleyball.  We (the parents) commented on how maybe we should have had a beer IV placed to keep us calm.

Saturday the girls played ok, came in 3rd out of 4 teams.  They just weren't "on" like they usually are.  We got back to our hotel and decided to make a break for the Mall of America.  And those of you who know me, know how much I love to shop...said no Cara EVER.  Oh well, this was for the kids.  We left Alayna back home to stay with Grandma for the weekend, she would never had survived sitting that long.  Emma got to bring her BFF Abby with and they did so well, very patient ladies!

Our first stop was the Barbie Dreamhouse Experience.  I was bummed as it wasn't exactly what I was thinking it would be for the amount of money we had to shell out.  However the girls loved it!

Emma is not a diva.  At all.

After spending 2.5 hours and only making it to 2 stores, we headed back.  After the traffic and enormous amount of people, I needed a beer.  Stat.

We hung out by the pool and relaxed, exactly what we needed.

Sunday volleyball started at 8 am.  The girls were in the Silver division with 31 other teams.  These ladies played like I've never seen before, it was truly incredible to watch!  And my baby girl who has always struggled with overhand serving, served out of this world!  Seriously, I don't know what happened, but she served like she's always gotten it.  The best was when she was up to serve, and we were ahead 24-23, and needed one point to win and make it into the championship game.  You could tell she was nervous, and I prayed hard!  She got up, and served an ace to win...I cried.  It was an amazing moment for her and one that I hope she never forgets.  The thing I loved so much about this was that she knows the things she has to work on, but doesn't let it get her down.  She works her tail off to make it better.  Love that kid.

And yes, these awesome ladies came back and won first place in their division!  12-0.  WOW!

So proud to see how much they have improved since their first tournament in January!

Happy Valentines Day!

Had ya worried for a minute there didn't I?  No, it's not Valentines Day yet, but I did make the fam a special dinner last night as we will be gone on the actual big heart day.  Rachel has a volleyball tournament Saturday and Sunday so we are heading up on Friday.

I'm pretty dang lucky to call these peeps family.  As crazy as they can make me (including you, Mr. Zimmer), I am so blessed by them everyday.

I made our favorite meal, chicken marsala with creamy mushroom risotto.

And for dessert, layered strawberry/raspberry cheesecake.

This dessert is Rachel's new fave.  I got it from Mels Kitchen Cafe.  You seriously would have thought the kid had never eaten before!

Let The Games Commence!

We love, love, love the Olympics around here.  When I was growing up, my mom was craaaazy for the Olympics!  The TV was on all day long and I now enjoy being that mom with my girls.  My winter faves are figure skating and hockey.  I thought it would be fun to get the girls involved this year.

I found a blog that had a list of all the most winning countries for the winter Olympics, so I printed that out and cut those up.  I made a score sheet in Microsoft Word that we can keep track of our countries and what medals they won, gold, silver or bronze.  I had Rachel fold up the pieces of paper and throw them in a bowl and we each choose 2 pieces of paper.  Those are our teams to watch for the next 2 weeks.  Who ever wins the most medals wins.  I think I'll just do cash or something simple.  I did not put USA in, as we usually go away with the most medals, so it wouldn't be fair.

Pssst, I got Canada and Switzerland....woot woot!

The youngins wanted to make a craft, so I cut out the bowl part of some styrofoam bowls I had on hand and they painted them the Olympic ring colors.  It really didn't turn out so well, I guess paint doesn't stick on styrofoam.  Who knew?

Oh well, it was fun anyway.  I took some cookie dough out of the freezer that I had left over from Christmas so that Alayna and I can make Olympic ring cookies tomorrow.  She's been begging to make cookies. 

Go USA!  And Canada and Switzerland...

Volleyball Season has Commenced

Volleyball season has begun and I could not be happier!  I absolutely love watching Rachel play and it's especially sweeter this year as Rachel made the team she was hoping for.  

                                 

The girls had their first tournament a few weeks ago and played awesome!  Especially considering they had only practiced twice.  They came in first in their pool and third overall.  Way to go girls!

                                 

As much as I hate sitting for hours on end and getting the "look" from the hubs to calm down, I wouldn't want to be anywhere else.

GO GREEN!

Bumps in the Road

Ok, so I might have a small addiction to these E-cards, but dang, there are so hilarious!  And as of right now, I need lots of laughs.  And this one is so very true of me.  Hate that stuff.

Somehow I threw my back out.  It's a sign of old age I guess, when you're not exactly sure how it happened.  I'll never forget when I was around 7 or 8 and my dad was chasing me up the stairs as it was bedtime.  I beat him to my room and was laughing and so proud that I beat him.  I think I waited 10 minutes before he came crawling in my room in pain.  I get it.  Holy cheese does this hurt.  It's that kind of pain that you randomly scream out when you move wrong.  At the chiropractor this morning I actually yelled out "oh dear God!".  I think I scared the shit out of her, poor lady.

                                       

So hopefully this will clear up by soon.  Preferably by tomorrow night.  I haven't gotten a run in since Friday and the thought of not doing anything is making me mad.  Also, I don't really like others to wait on me hand and foot, I prefer to do that.  So for now I will try my best to not do anything and make sure to keep up on my pain meds.  Shortly I will be hearing Pink Floyd's The Wall in psychedelic form.  Good times.