3rd Annual Cookie Decorating Party

This was year 3 of the cookie party that our good friends, Crystal and Keenan hold every year in December. Basically we eat a great, Mexican feast, we each get about 10 cookies to decorate (Crystal spent 3 hours baking them!) and we a have a contest. Our favorite cookies to decorate are always the "Decorate Your Spouse" cookie. We also decided to add the "Unique Christmas Sweater" contest to the mix.

Every year, it's a toss up to see who decorated the best spouse cookie. Unfortunately, I was a little more eager to eat my cookies, rather than decorate, so my spouse cookie of Mark ended up looking a bit like "Cartman" from South Park. Mark really redeemed himself this year, though. He stepped up his "cookie decorating game" a lot.

I guess I redeemed my lack of cookie decor. skills by wearing a sweater that looked like a blanket. I won for the ugliest sweater. :) The best part was that it only cost me $3. What a bargain! Mark won for most creative Christmas sweater. He had to improvise since he didn't have a Christmas sweater to wear. :)

We look forward to this party every year, and we can't wait until we get to show off our cookie skills again next year!

Girls Trip to NYC

I was blessed to spend the weekend in the Big Apple with my good friends, Kimberly and Meaghan. No boys allowed! We had a great time shopping, eating, seeing Wicked (awesome!), and more shopping. My favorite parts were going to the top of the Empire State Building, seeing the wonderfully lit tree in Rockefeller Center, eating pizza in Times Square, and seeing Wicked. It was definitely NOT relaxing, as I came home with sore arms (from lifting all of those shopping bags), and sore legs (I bet we walked about 20 miles!). 

Our flight was delayed on Sunday b/c of the weather. We were supposed to be home around 2pm on Sunday, but we made it in around 11pm.... grrr!!! But, we were just thankful to be home. :)

I missed my sweet hubby, and I hope to get a chance to go back with him one day. I would love to go to the 24 hour Apple Store with him (his dream) and take a carriage ride in Central Park. I loved NYC--- go there! 

My New Computer

It has been a couple of months since we got it, but isn't my new computer beautiful? Mark had fun helping me decide which one to get, and I think he's had more fun playing on it, than I have! We are really excited to have a desktop for a change. I have officially converted to the Mac World. Long live my IMac!

My Wonderful Husband

Well, it's been awhile since I've made a post on here, and Mark did such a great job keeping everyone updated, so now it's my turn to share a little about the happenings around the McSpadden household.

Anniversary #2 was awesome! I won't mention that I bought the wrong kind of cherries for the cheesecake (they were very tart- not the actual filling, but rather they were tart cherries-- I used Splenda to make them sweeter!) and I used 2 tspns of celery salt for the fettucine alfredo in the cookbook his mom gave me, when I probably should have used just a 1/2.... it did taste more like fettucine Celeria :) His mom assured me that she wasn't trying sabotage the meal! :) I believe her, but I changed the recipe to a 1/2 tsp. of celery salt and I warned my sisters in law so that they didn't make the same catastropic celery mistake I made.... but here's the best part!!!! My sweet husband ate all of it and said that the meal was perfect. He even ate the left overs for 3 days! How sweet is that???? We conversed later that week, and he finally admitted that there may have been a tad bit too much celery. :) He's so sweet!

We even wrote the intro to our book, "You Stink," last night. It is really funny, and I can't wait to keep on writing. It is so much fun being married to a man that makes me laugh everyday. The best part of marriage for me right now is being able to reflect on our lives and just laugh about the things that have grown us so much! Woohoo! I am excited about year 3!

Anniversary #2: We are starting to get the hang of this!

Yesterday we celebrated our 2nd anniversary with a local day of fun and food. Shevawn woke me up to an amazing waffle breakfast which we ate out on our patio thanks to the new bistro set she bought and put together for us!

We spent the rest of the day out and about, shopping, eating, just hanging around. Then last night, Shevawn made my favorite meal, Chicken Fettuccine Alfredo with a homemade Cheesecake for dessert. Yummy!

Even though Year #2 wasn't perfect, I can say there is no one I would rather have an imperfect year with than my wife. Marriage isn't easy, but it's worth every ounce of effort we've put into it thus far. Here's to many more to come...

Greece

Ok so we've been back for a week and are just now getting this last video posted. What can I say...we've been busy.

We hope you enjoy this short message from Greece....

When in Rome...

That's right...Rome...center of the world for centuries. We shot this yesterday in front of the Colosseum.

We are all caught up on videos and now it's off to Greece!