Candy Anyone?

My friend Coot came for a visit from Chicago after Christmas & we went to see a "life size" gingerbread house at a hotel in Rochester.

The Perfect Cup of Coffee

Me, Darren, Kelly, Anthony and Jon were at my mother-in-laws playing cards after Christmas and enjoying some coffee when disaster struck. We ran out of Coffeemate creamer. Now, if you know me, I mean REALLY know me, you know I'm a bit of a coffee snob. I mean, I don't need $6 lattes from Starbucks or anything. In fact, I prefer to brew my own. But I HAVE to have a tasty creamer to go in it. Well, Donna normally has a steady supply of Coffeemate creamer both in regular flavors and sugar free, but I don't like sugar free. And that's all there was. So I had to figure out a way to doctor up my coffee so I could drink it. I found a bunch of random ingredients hiding in my mother-in-law's fridge & cupboards and ended up having the tastiest cup of coffee ever. Here's what I used, should you decide to recreate my masterpiece.

any kind of coffee will probably work because all the other ingredients will surely mask the taste anyway.

coffee
1 shot of Baileys
splash of chocolate milk
splash of sugar free Original Coffeemate
1 packet each of splenda mocha & french vanilla coffee flavoring
dash of sugar

topping:
whipped cream
chocolate syrup
Cookies n' Cream sprinkles

Xmas Fun!

Darren and I went bowling with some friends December 23rd. One of our friends had a pair of fake sideburns that she got out of a "bubble gum" machine at the grocery store. I know! What kind of weird stuff are they giving away for prizes these days. Oh by the way, I've seen all kinds of odd stuff in there like "mini homies" which are little African American figurines dressed in pimp outfits, gold chains & all kinds of get ups. There was even a physically impaired homie in a wheelchair, very "pc" of the homie manufactures. Anyway, so they wanted to put these chops on someone and Darren's always up to making a fool of himself so voila! And a match made in heaven I might add, the color matched his hair almost perfectly! They actually looked quite good on him & the moment I saw them I told him he had to grow in his own. Unfortunately genetics disagreed, he just can't seem to get that hair to grow in. Darn. Darren liked them too, so much so that he wore them around for a couple days for shits & giggles until the glue wore out.



Oh! And I had to show this picture of my brother-in-law Mr. Clean, oh I mean Scott!

Catchin Up

Of course, after Thanksgiving came Christmas! And let me tell you, I was spoiled this Christmas. Among a ton of other awesome gifts, my honey got me a bomb diggity new digital camera AND a white gold chain that I love! This year was a perfect set up, I think. We did Christmas Eve at Darren's mom's, Christmas Morning with my family at home, Christmas Day with Darren's family & the day after Christmas with the Costantini side in Kzoo. I thought It was perfect because we didn't have to leave town Christmas day like we do sometimes and we got to see both of our immediate families with no rushing.

I didn't get many Christmas pictures but I did get a few of Hiro kitty in a cute little t-shirt I bought him from Target. Unfortunately, without him there to compare, I grossly underestimated the size of my cat and got him a too small t-shirt. The first thing I thought of was Tiger from An American Tail with Feivel the mouse, I know gram & gramps will appreciate this one. Remember? Fat cat in a little shirt? If you don't remember, just google "an american tale tiger". I was laughing so hard my belly ached! I put it on him, with a little difficulty, and he gave me the most evil look. It's as if he was so angry at me for causing him such humiliation that he was trying to stare me to death! Then I put him on the floor & he WOULD NOT MOVE! He wouldn't walk, he wouldn't run, he wouldn't even breathe...I'm guessing it was lack of mobility. Eventually he got used to it and I might even venture to say he was strutting it proudly. But I took it off before the rest of the guests arrived so as not to scar him for life. Isn't he a cutie!

gobble gobble

So it looks like I'm falling behind again, I'm now about 2 months late posting for Thanksgiving. Sowwy, I try. Anyway, I absolutely L O V E thanksgiving. It's definitely my favorite holiday after Christmas. I just love spending time with the family, cooking together, I love the smells, and everyone's just...happy. Here's some pictures of our happiness this year. We hit my aunt Carol's first then went to Darren's moms.

That's the bird!

my mom, aunts & I cooking

me & my cuz

I think these boys ate too much turkey!

Epic Fail

On Attack of the Show, Darren's video game/tech program, they have a segment called "Epic Fail" which shows U-Tube videos of people attempting (and failing) lots of things. This is my homage to the segment.

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Baby Party

I threw a very casual baby shower for two of my girlfriends in early December. They are both pregnant and we have a pretty close group of friends so we invited all the girls over to celebrate. We played games, ate some food and had some drinks. Oh yeah, and had some jello shots! The night before, my girlfriend Chrissy and I got together to make cookies, jello shots and I even did henna on her belly. We had a lot of fun. Here are some pics of the party & the henna.

Chrissy is due January 12th, 2 days after Darren's birthday. So far I haven't heard any news about a baby and she said she'd call, but I'm expecting a call any day.

Malena isn't due until April but she's as big as a house already!

Hollow Weenie

So for halloween this year we were invited to a costume party so for the firs time in several years we went all out. After just having seen and loved The Dark Knight, Darren was hell bent on dressing as the Joker. But fearing that there would be lots of people dressed as the Joker this year, plus the fact that the Joker costumes at the store were cheap and chintzy, we decided we'd put a twist on the costume. Darren decided to go as the Joker dressed as a nurse as in the scene where the Joker dresses as a nurse to get to Harvey Dent in the hospital. I found a nurse costume (meant for a woman), a red wig and bought a pair of white boxer briefs to keep Darren's jewels safely hidden and we were in business! Then I did his makeup, complete with raised scars made of hot glue and, WOW! It turned out great! We were quite proud of ourselves...until we got to the party and realized that no one there had even seen the Dark Knight yet! Do you believe it? Most people got the Joker part but wondered why Darren was wearing a nurses outfit! LOL! But we had a good night, we drank and played rock band and laughed at everyone's costumes. On our way to the party we stopped at my mother-in-laws to take pictures and see my sister-in-law's costume. Here are the pics. You know Darren's costume, I'm a vampiress, Kelly is a blue angel (a little play on words) and our friend Alex is Harry Potter. Oh, and our mom, even came up with a costume for Hiro. He was a wizard! The hat stayed on all of 3 seconds and we gave up but he didn't seem to mind the collar part. There's a shot of us at the party playing Rock Band, from left to right you have Peter Griffen, Darren, Jesus and a firefighter. Our friends Brian & Emily were Mario & Luigi.I also threw in a pic of my cool punkin.