Look what I can do!

I momentarily lost my mind last Friday and went black Friday shopping with Lisa and Melissa. At 3:30 in the morning. Before a full day of work. BUT! I got exactly what I went for - a Cricut. It's the awesomest scrapbooking/crafting tool ever!

I finally got to take it out of it's box today and see what it can do. Here are some things I made just playing around with it, and then I got to business and made some Christmas tags!

I love this thing! I may never need to leave the house again ;) Even Cory was thoroughly impressed! What can I cut for you??

My First Wedding Cake

My good friend Beth's brother is getting married tomorrow. They're having a small wedding at home, and dessert for the guests was covered, but they wanted a small wedding cake for the two of them. And Beth asked if I would like to make it! Of course I would!!

They wanted a simple white cake, so I tried out a recipe last weekend. It tasted delicious, but being the perfectionist that I am, I was not happy with the way it was looking. I was having a hard time getting the buttercream smooth. I found a neat trick online, and I have to say, the final cake turned out pretty darn good. I am proud! I hope Brian and his new wife like it!! Congratulations to them!

Here are a few shots I took before Beth whisked it away (I hope it survives the hour car ride to their house tomorrow!). Please ignore the disaster that is my kitchen counter.

Thanks to Beth for thinking I'm a good enough baker to make her brother's wedding cake, and thanks to Jaime for letting me borrow your oven! (Mine broke two days ago, just in time for me to have to bake Thanksgiving pies and someones wedding cake!).

Anyone else need a cake?? :)

Happy Turkey Day!

Happy Thanksgiving everyone! Cory and I are currently at work in the MCC, keeping the astronauts onboard the ISS safe. It sucks, but somebody has to do it, and at least we're together.
After work we're going to Alicia and the dude's house for turkey dinner, with some of our other Houston friends. Living far away from our families is really hard sometimes, especially at holidays, so I'm thankful to have such close friends here. We really are like a little family here, since almost all of us are far away from our biological families. We love you H-town family!
We love our families in PA, too, and we miss you and can't wait to see you at Christmas!
T-8 hours until turkey and stuffing and mashed potatoes and green bean casserole and pies (made by me) and whatever else people are bringing. YUM!
Please feel free to leave your best turkey impression in the comments ;) Gobble gobble!

Concert Obsession

Cory and I have been going to a lot of concerts lately, which I'm really enjoying! Houston has a lot of neat music venues! Here's who we saw lately:

Our Lady Peace at the House of Blues. Awesome venue, and the band put on a great live show. I can't wait to go back there.

Shinedown, with Cavo and Sick Puppies opening, at the Verizon Wireless Theater. Another awesome venue, and all three bands were great. I'd never heard of Cavo, and didn't know much of Sick Puppies either, but they were both great. I got a little sick of Shinedown's stories that he told, and the mosh pit was a little scary (Beth took an elbow to the chin - yikes!) but the live show was great!

Jett, Our Lady Peace, Puddle of Mudd, Saving Abel, Chevelle, Alice in Chains, all at Buzzfest at the Woodlands Pavillion. Puddle of Mudd was my favorite of the day, and I love the Woodlands for these all day outdoor concerts. You just can't beat the people-watching there.

Papa Roach at Warehouse Live. Another great venue, another great live show. I was surprised Papa Roach played at such a small venue, but I really enjoyed it. His energy is contagious and it was really fun!

Cory and friends also went to the spring BuzzFest, which I ended up missing because I was in France (I know, poor me). And last year we went to BuzzFest and I can't remember who all played, but Three Doors Down was the headliner and they were awesome. Another really great live performance!

I really enjoy going to concerts, and went to so many throughout college, but hadn't really gone to anything the first few years I lived here. So I'm glad to be doing it again, and can't wait to see what we go to next!

Cory's Birthday

Cory's birthday was last Saturday, and to celebrate, we had a party at our house with some close friends! Cory chose a sports theme, so we went with stadium food - hot dogs with ample topping options, soft pretzels (thanks A&B!), popcorn, Frito pies, french fries, cotton candy (which the humidity was not kind to) - YUM! I got cracker jacks for favors, with an awesome collector's Cory Sholl football card attached ;) I made Cory's birthday cake, a 14-layer beauty that was delicious as well!

We also asked people to dress up in their favorite sports team attire, or anything creative involving sports. Cory was a wakeboarder, which later earned him the name DJ Wakeboard as he played us some tunes. I was Maria Sharapova, or just a tennis player ;) We really had to put our thinking caps on to come up with something more creative than our Penn State jerseys! I was impressed with our friends' creativity! Charlie won the prize for most creative with Alicia and Jaime as runners up. You can see their awesome costumes in the pictures below.

In keeping with the sports theme, Cory and I also made a cornhole board, a popular tailgating game, which turned out to be pretty fun, although a bit loud in the house!

Another new thing for this party was.... babies! Two couples of our friends are new parents, and little Charlie and Zara were champs at the party, being all adorable and sweet and mostly sleeping to allow their parents to hang out for a pretty long time! Even little Charlie showed his Texas and LSU pride!

All in all, it was a great party, and a great birthday for Cory! I'm pretty sure he loved my present to him, the new Call of Duty video game, which he got a few days early on the day it came out so he could have his online date with his friends ;)

Enjoy the pictures!

Happy Birthday Irv!

Today was Cory's dad's birthday - Happy Birthday Irv! Hope you had a great day!

Merry Christmas to us!

A little early, but Cory and I got our Christmas present last week. A shiny new iMac! Cory has had his desktop since college, and my laptop is 4 or 5 years old already, so we got a new family computer. Cory did some research and we decided to go the Mac route and we are very happy so far. Plus, it's really purdy ;)

One of my favorite features so far, besides the ginormous screen, is the video chat. My parents got an iMac a year or so ago, so we tried it out with them and it was so cool! I think they really enjoyed it too, especially getting to see their granddog! I think this will be very nice to have down the road when we have kids, since we live so far away from our families. So everyone else, go get an iMac so we can video chat with you!