My Empire

My latest Lego creation. Yes, dinner was late again tonight :)

The Bosphorus with Mom and Pal

This was such a treat and so much fun! The food was amazing...AGAIN! The people there are so friendly and great with the girls. And now I want to learn how to make zucchini pancakes! They were so yummy!

Elena's Third B'day

She wasn't very comfortable with all the attention, but enjoyed her chocolate cake...although, calling it that is a stretch, it was awful!!! Her favorite people in the whole world were there, "the kids" from next door, but that photo of all of them somehow got destroyed, and it was a good one, too!

Breakfast: Savory Cheddar Bacon Biscuits - yum!

1 3/4 cups of all-purpose flour

1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder

1 teaspoon salt

1/4 cup butter, melted

1 egg, lightly beaten

1 cup milk

1 1/2 sharp cheddar cheese

1 clove garlic, minced

1/2 cup Parmesan cheese

4 slices turkey bacon, cooked crisp and crumbled

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Spray 12 muffin cups with cooking spray. Mix the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt in a bowl. In another bowl, stir together the butter, egg, milk, and garlic until well blended. Mix the flour mixture into the milk mixture, about 1/2 cup at a time, stirring between additions, until the flour mixture is incorporated. Fold in the Cheddar cheese, Parmesan cheese, and crumbled bacon, and pour the batter into the prepared muffin cups. Bake in the preheated oven until a toothpick inserted into the center of a muffin comes out clean, 30 to 35 minutes. Allow muffins to cool slightly before removing from muffin cups; serve warm. Refrigerate leftovers.

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Dan and Kate's Super bowl Party!

We all had a great time teasing one another all night. We had Colts fans as well as Saints fans...and even one seriously depressed Vikings fan...despite our differences, though, we thoroughly enjoyed our evening. The women gabbed, the men... didn't (we joked at how glued they were to the game, it was a good game), and the kids played. Oh and there was even a chocolate fondue set. Does life seriously get any better than that?!

Skyping with Our World Traveler

Lyssa has been in Maui for 2 weeks and our favorite way to talk with her is using the webcam and Skype. Below is a video of Lyssa talking with us from Maui.

Mrs Fix It

In the UK they used to have this chain of home improvement stores called Jimmy Fix It. Today I felt like Mrs Fix It. I couldn't face a couple hundred in repair bills for both my vacuum and dryer and so, decided to take a look and see if I couldn't fix what was wrong. Well, never in a million years did I think I would succeed, but I did! And I even MADE money. $3.72 to be exact! Above are the photos my husband took to distract himself from the fact that our dryer was in pieces and he wasn't too sure how to convey his lack of confidence in my dryer fixing skills (don't blame him, I was nervous, too!). I didn't take photos of the vacuum, but needless to say, it was also in pieces.