Happy 14th Birthday, Hailey!

On Wednesday, my little sister turned the big 1-4! 

I can't believe how fast she is growing up!

The best birthday spread!

She had a fun birthday party with friends last Saturday, so Wednesday it was just family time. Her friend gave her beautiful flowers at school, how sweet is that! 

Our mom also made her a second lemon poppy-seed cake since the other cake for her party was long gone! She is amazing and very thoughtful!

Mmm...

Ashley and Erin picked up Hailey from school that day with the balloons shown above. As they pulled up to the pick-up area, they had the balloons hanging out of the window for all to see their birthday chariot. Lola joined, too. Hailey may have been embarrassed, but they wanted to make her feel special right off the bat.

Next, they made the usual, delicious birthday rounds! This includes Joe's Farm Grill, Joe's BBQ, and Liberty Market. Hailey chose up to $10's worth of all her favorites (at each place!)...and Ashley and I got ideas on what we would get when our birthdays come in a month, haha!

Yes...

Keep 'em coming...

Some of Liberty Market's options - Chocolate Death Ray and éclairs! 

Ultimately, here were her picks:

 Bread pudding bowl topped with whipped cream and chocolate ~ Liberty Market

Macaroni and cheese ~ Joe's BBQ 

Fried zucchini and a chocolate milkshake (random, we know...) ~ Joe's Farm Grill 

We mostly got the food to-go in order to share it with everyone! And, if you can believe it, we still had dinner to eat! "Dinner" was more like breakfast...but really, honestly, more like dessert, since we had crêpes! 

Mom made the batter and Erin made the crepes. Of course we had strawberries, whipped cream, cinnamon, Nutella, etc., to make them utterly superb.

After this mind-boggling feast, she opened her presents. 

Volleyball/Badminton set to enjoy the nicer weather before it's 100°+! 

Two of her favorite movies!

We watched Princess Mononoke and will be watching Kiki's Delivery Service tonight!

We love Studio Ghibli/Hayao Miyazaki films. 

It was a day full of fun!

Thanks for reading! 

I'll update again with our next adventure! 

Southwestern Spaghetti Squash

Hi everyone, 

First post of 2016!! Here we go!

 The other night we tried this new recipe - Southwestern Stuffed Spaghetti Squash - and I wanted to share it! 

The recipe is from: http://www.thecomfortofcooking.com/2013/10/southwestern-stuffed-spaghetti-squash.html

We begin! The squash bakes in the oven while we get to work on the filling...

Prepping our ingredients!

We didn't have bell pepper, but it was still colorful and delicious!

Sauteing the ingredients, waiting for the squash to finish cooking in the oven...

I'm helping out by providing some kitchen jams with my boom box... :) 

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The squash is finally done, so we fork out the spaghetti squash, combine the strands with the other ingredients in the pan, then stuff it back into the squash and broil the entire thing, making sure to throw on extra cheese and cilantro on top. Mmmm!

We accidentally forgot to put on a timer, which ended up slightly burning the top of our creation. Despite this, it was very yummy! We added a garnish of cilantro and dug in! 

Next blog post will be about my little sister's 14th birthday!! Can't believe how old she is! 

Also, I am always looking for new email buddies, so please email or Facebook message me! I love talking with you all.

Thanks for reading! Stay tuned!