Happy Birthday Joshy!

I hope your day is awesome. Love you!

Operation Baking Gals

Operation Baking Gals is a group of bakers who team up and send homemade treats to our courageous deployed military men and women. I found out about it through one of my favorite baking blogs, Beantown Baker. She was my team leader this month (my first baking round). Each leader tries to find 20 bakers to bake on the team and send to their soldier. The idea is all 20 bakers send their box of goodies within the same week to 10 days, so the soldier is bombarded with thoughts of home, support, love, and appreciation. They can then share with their fellow soldiers... or not! :) I just returned from the post office where I sent the following to my solider, Richard, in Iraq.

Oreo Brownies

Regular Ole' Brownies

Double-Delight Peanut Butter Cookies

Here is a picture of the peanut butter cookie process. I didn't think I liked peanut butter cookies until I tried this recipe! It won the Pillsbury Bake-Off in 2008. (next time I am going to try these with a Nutella center instead of peanut butter :0 )

Here is everything that shipped in my box.

Some of my soldier's likes are peanut butter and Star Wars, so that's why he is getting peanut butter cookies and all of the Star Wars plates and napkins! Hope he enjoys the box as much as I did putting it together. Operation Baking Gals sends their packages once a month and has been for the past 19 months! I am so happy to finally be involved. If you are interested in participating, check it out or comment/email/call me.

Love you Moms!

Thank you for being the two most amazing women in our lives...

We love you!

3rd Annual Crawfish Boil

We invited all our family and friends over Saturday for mudbug eatin' and fun. The weather held out and was more beautiful than any of us could have hoped for! I didn't get many shots from the day, so I borrowed some pictures from my friend Maria. Thanks girl!

Who's the man? Thanks Sammy for cooking up some delicious bugs :)

Thanks everyone for hanging out with us again this year! We can't wait to do it again:)

What is red and woke up 8 times last night ...

The poor babe has a tummy ache.

Viva Las Vegas

Last weekend was a fun one spent in Las Vegas. Aunt Debbie invited some of her employees and Robby's family to spend the weekend in Sin City. We stayed at the Wynn, which is unbelievable, and gambled our savings away. Not really, but it sounds like something you should say when you get home from Vegas! We actually came home with a few dollars in our pockets. No thanks to me. I stuck my $20 in my Grandma's favorite machine, $.25 Wild Cherry, and didn't end up lucky. Robby, Sammy, and Sara did pretty well on Black Jack, or Jack Black depending on who you talk to :)

We arrived in Vegas Friday afternoon and played around in the casino until dinner.

Game planning

"Just cash out!"

Triple 7! Big winner ($6.25)

Dinner Friday night was at this place:

We had quite the spread and all left stuffed. Check out one of the desserts they brought. A giant fortune cookie!

The next day we walked up and down the strip and checked out a few of the other massive hotels and casinos, but ended up back at the Wynn in a cabana by the pool. Does it get any better than this?

Dad and Cindy love this guy!

We had a late lunch at Mario Batali's Enoteca San Marco in the Venetian. We were not super impressed with the menu or tiny package of breadsticks they gave us once seated, but the margarita pizza we split was out of this world. 4 thumbs up from us! It made me miss my Grandma and Naples :)

Hanging out at the cabana.

McD rents at the cabana

Robby and Aunt Debbie cracking each other up. Love this picture.

Robby relaxing in the room overlooking his favorite view (golf course)

Being goofy with my sis

Saturday night we went across the street to Treasure Island and saw a Cirque du Soleil show, Mystere. It was amazing, but I made the mistake of booking the 9:30PM show. As entertaining as it was, we were all about to nod off. Lesson learned!

On the way home from the airport we stopped by Sara's new APT to pick up her KEYS (and a jolly rancher)!!! WAHOO!

What an awesome trip! We have been so lucky this year with all of the great vacations we have been able to go on.

Pumpkin Apple Cinnamon Muffins

I know... How disgusting does that sound? Not sure if you read my post about the Chocolate Chip Pumpkin Spice muffins, but this recipe was a trial from that.
I used the Fiber One Apple Cinnamon muffin mix instead of the spice cake mix (because fiber is a good thing!) and left out the chocolate chips. I was trying to think of another way to use up the 1 can of pumpkin I still had hanging out in my pantry. I know pumpkin and apple don't seem like they would go together, but if you think about the types of pie served at Thanksgiving you always have pumpkin and apple - so, maybe they would work!? :)
Try them out if you feel like mixing up your breakfast routine and be sure to let me know what you think. I give them 2 thumbs up!

I used the same oven temperature and bake time as the Chocolate Chip Spice muffins. Just mix the Fiber One muffin mix, pumpkin, and WALLLLAAHHHH! Hope you like them as much as I do.