{cooking party}

We celebrated Leah's 5th birthday this week. To start the day she requested Princess waffles with sprinkles.

Then it was off to her "Cooking Party"

Favors were measuring cups full of treats

Personalized hats and aprons

As guests arrived, they decorated their own chef hats.

Ashley was quite the assistant. I asked her to be my helper and she did a great job!

Ready to cook!

Getting ready to cook.

Making the dough

A very reverent girl folding her arms.

Can you see Lou?

Grandpa Steve came and made his own pizza.

Enjoying her hard work.

Then we frosted cupcakes.

These two were so funny together. As usual, they had me laughing so hard.

Especially Ellie in her hat that she didn't want to take off.

Pick a winner.

Best Buds!

Anna and Leah

Opening presents.....

For Christmas Leah asked for a Belle dress, Santa brought her a yellow one. Leah didn't ask Santa for the RED Belle dress, so Santa assumed that she wanted a yellow one. So, for her birthday she asked for the RED Belle dress. She finally got it!

Happy Birthday to my Looney Girl Leah! You add so much life to our family. We love you with all our hearts!

{bobby flay for a day}

We got Chris a Bobby Flay Cookbook for Father's Day. I figured since our favorite meal in NYC was at Mesa Grill that maybe Chris could learn to cook too, if I got him this book. Well it worked. Last week he went to the store and bought everything for a Bobby Flay Day of meals.

It started with blueberry pancakes. They were delicious!  The girls didn't like the blueberries too much, but the pancakes were so good. I guess it is not too hard to be impressed when you are use to box mixes. We got the recipe from a Throwdown episode. Which has become one of our favorite shows as well.

 

Then for dinner we had Blue Bacon Burgers, onion rings and mint milkshakes.

The sauce on these burgers was heaven. It was a blue cheese sauce. For the milkshakes (I forgot to get a picture) He started the night before by infusing milk with mint leaves. Then when he making them, melted chocolate and added that to the ice cream to give it the speckles. Again soooo good.  I love this new Chris who is quite the cook.  I could get use to this really quickly!

{half dome}

When Chris was 14, he hiked half dome. He has a famous video from the trip. Well, famous in our world. So he decided to do the same trip with his Quorum. He did it! The only injury was the loss of his 2 big toe nails. Ouch! We were very happy to get them all home safe. The next day some slipped coming down and died. It is a tough hike and we are so proud of Chris. Some of his guys had to stop on the way up, and Chris continued all alone. It was a great accomplishment, again 20 years later.

Chris is pointing at Half Dome.