ZooLights

Last Wednesday night, I took my family (minus Kurtis because he is a party pooper!) to ZooLights. ZooLights is an annual event at Hogle Zoo that runs through the month of December. The zoo gets decked out in holiday lights and animated light displays. It is awesome! This year was Jeremy's first time going, and we let him take his best friend along too. Jeremy's favorite part was the super rich, chocolatey deep-fried s'mores. I think that was his friend's favorite part too, but I didn't get a chance to ask him. For me, it is a tough decision, but there is one light display that I like best. It shows two frogs and a fly. One of the frogs sticks his tongue out to get the fly and ends up hitting the other frog in the face!


It was really hard to take steady pictures of the light displays, but sometimes the ones that don't turn out are the coolest.


Me, Jeremy, and his friend stood in line to see Santa.


Jeremy and his friend got to write a quick letter to Santa while they were waiting. Then Santa read them while they were sitting with him. Afterwards, they got to mail their letters in a special mailbox. For each letter that goes into that mailbox, Macy's donates $1 to the Make-A-Wish Foundation, one of my favorite charities. I think there is a mailbox at Macy's too.


Comet and Vixen were there too.


We had a really great time! If you want to check it out, click on the next picture for the ZooLights information page.

Festival of Trees 2011

Mom, Kurtis, Jeremy, and I went to the Festival of Trees on Wednesday. I like going to the Festival of Trees because it is so much fun. I'm not even sure I could pick one favorite part, but the Small Fry shop is pretty awesome. It is like a gift shop for kids to shop at. Everything there is under five dollars, and most of it is cute things made out of felt and stuffed with candy. Here is a picture of a few things we bought. Jeremy has already taken the candy out of his Christmas light, but it was too cute to leave out.


Jeremy's favorite part is the bubble machine. You get to stand inside of a bubble! He also likes to watch the dancers that perform there. Here is a picture of Jeremy in the bubble machine.


Kurtis really likes to look at the gingerbread houses. There is always some really cool ones. This year the fanciest one was a replica of the U.S. Capitol Building, but I wasn't able to get a good picture of it because of the crowd. Kurtis liked the semi-truck best, and I liked the Tangled tower. Here are a couple gingerbread pictures.



Santa was awesome, too. He was extra jolly and a lot of fun. I took several pictures of Jeremy on his lap, but only one turned out decent because I'm still getting used to my new camera. Here is the best one.


We all had a really good time. If you'd like to go to the Festival of Trees, you better go now. It ends at 10PM this Saturday. Visit their website for more information: Click Here. All the proceeds from the Festival of Trees benefit Primary Children's Medical Center.

What will make Melissa stay up later?

"Walmart has confirmed that they will be releasing their entire Black Friday ad tonight."

Yep! That'll do it!

LOL! I was dead tired, and on my way to bed until I checked BFAds.net and saw that! I can't wait!!!

Halloween Etsy Style

I love Halloween and I love handmade goodies so I decided to find some Halloween items on Etsy and share them with you! These are my top three favorites. Click on the pictures to go to them on Etsy.

I love this ACEO because the witch is gorgeous!

The thing I love most about this wreath
is the skeleton hung in the center.

I love the little details in this shadow box.

I also made a Treasury of more great Halloween items. You can check it out by clicking the link below...

Halloween Etsy Style Treasury

Blessed with Love

I've been reading and hearing about some sad stories lately. In many of the stories kids truly hate their parents (some with good reason), siblings hate each other, or even parents despise their kids! I'm fortunate enough that this confounds me. I can't imagine families that don't love each other because I've never experienced it. Everyone one in my family loves and cares for each other. Even in my extended family, there is very, very little hate and resentment. I know God has truly blessed me to live in an environment of love and support. It is a luxury not everyone has.

Mudd Pie At Last!

Those of you who know me well probably know that I've been craving a Mudd Pie from Red Robin for years. I think the last time I had a Mudd Pie was in 2008 when Dad was taking his college finals! Mom, Jeremy, and I went shopping and to a movie so Dad could have the peace and quiet to study. We stopped at Red Robin for dinner, and shared one of their absolutely delicious Mudd Pies.

It's not that I haven't been to Red Robin. We've been there a bunch of times over the years, but for one reason or another (usually because I'm too full), I haven't had a Mudd Pie. I usually order their Whiskey River BBQ Burger, and that will fill you up, especially if you are eating their wonderful fries!

When Kurtis took me and Mom to Red Robin yesterday, I was determined to have my Mudd Pie. Instead of ordering a burger, I just ordered a bowl of their Chicken Tortilla soup which is usually really good, but this time it wasn't great. I only ate a little more than half of it so I had plenty of room for dessert.

The Mudd Pie was just as fabulous as I remember. Pure deliciousness! For those of you who don't know what a Mudd Pie is there is a picture and description on this page. Mudd Pies vary slightly by location, but this one is the best.

Fighting with Carrots

I talked to my dad about my carrots. He thinks I didn't thin them out enough so they didn't have room to grow. He's right, of course. He told me that I should take the ones that are crowded together and pick some of them so the others have more room.

So, I pulled a couple more carrots today. These ones decided to fight with me. It took me over ten minutes to get two carrots out of the ground. How sad is that!? I won the fight by a long shot. My worst injury is pain from bending down so long, but the carrots are black and blue! LOL! My purple carrots are just starting to turn purple so they look like they got in a bad fight...and lost. I wish I had been able to get a better picture, but my camera is being crappy lately so this is the best I could get.

Well That Just Ticks Me Off!

Okay so I know it is a day early, but I decided to pull my biggest carrot today. Well, my "biggest carrot" is tiny and ORANGE! If you read a couple posts back, you'll know why the orange part ticks me off. I was expecting pretty purple carrots. Now, I have to wait even longer to pick my carrots, and I'm not even sure they are going to be purple when I do. :*(

On the plus side, the rest of the garden is doing great! Nothing is quite ripe yet, but there are tons of tomatoes, a lot of peppers, and even a few cucumbers. Even though we only have a few cucumbers now, I have a feeling we will soon have more cucumbers than we can handle.

A couple pictures of the abomination...

When did I become obsessed with black?

Okay. Maybe 'obsessed' is the wrong word. I don't wear all black or anything like that, but a lot of my fashion decisions are ruled by black! When I get new glasses, they have to have black frames so they will go with anything I wear. I've been wearing boring black frames for years! What happened to wearing purple frames? When I was in junior high, I wore purple frames, and it didn't bother me at all. When I buy a new swimsuit, it has to be black because it is slimming. When I buy a skirt or something similar, it has to be black so I can wear different tops with it and still match. Even my purses are black, except for the denim one because denim goes with almost everything too. As I sit here, I can list more things I own that are black. For example: my hair claw and other hair accessories are all black! So, when did black creep in and take over? When did I start caring that things match? If I really think about it, I could tell you that it probably started in junior high, but didn't really take root until high school, and now it is so ingrained in my life, I'll probably never get rid of it!

Is it time yet?

These are my miracle carrots. The first miracle is they grew. Usually when I try to grow anything from seed, it dies before it becomes more than a sprout! Of course, I have had my dad's help with them.

The second miracle is they are still in the ground. Growing carrots requires patience. I don't have patience. The taller they get the harder it is to leave them in the ground. According to the seed package, they should be ready to pick on August 12th, but that isn't soon enough. I want them now!

These aren't ordinary orange carrots either. They're purple which is my favorite color. I'm dying to see how they turn out. Here is the seed package so you can see what they are supposed to look like...

Ring Pictures!

The rings Jeremy gave me kept falling off and breaking away from the ring part. While I was at the bead store earlier this month, I bought a few bigger ring blanks so they would fit properly, and I could wear them more often. These are pictures of the hot pink heart ring. I wear this one almost as often as I wear my black ring which is every day!

SIDE NOTE: E6000 is some pretty strong stuff! It is what I used to glue the heart ring together, and despite getting caught on a lot of things, it hasn't come apart again.

Three rings and a smile!

My little brother can be a real sweetie. He spent the morning with his maternal grandma. They stopped at Smith's where she let him get some rings from the quarter machines by the door. He got four of them. One he is saving to give his school friend when school starts again. He gave the other three to me. They are super cute! There is a lime green kitty face, a light pink mickey mouse face, and my favorite: a hot pink heart! Even though they barely go past the first knuckle on my pinky and ring fingers, I still wear them because Jeremy was so excited to give them to me.

I was wearing the kitty and the heart while I was folding some sheets in the laundry room. I had just finished folding my purple sheet when I noticed that the heart ring was missing! The heart ring was my favorite so I immediately started searching for it. I found the heart folded in my purple sheet, but I still couldn't find the ring part. Jeremy came downstairs to talk to me, and asked if I was okay. I said, "Sort of. My heart ring broke, and I can't find the ring part." So he helped me look for it. He found it under the washing machine.

We were both excited when he found it. It is really cool when the little things make you happy. If you wait for the big things to make you happy, you miss out on a lot of the little thrills in life.

Welcome to my new blog!

Hello! My name is Melissa, and this is my newest blog. I have a few other blogs that are topic-specific, but I rarely keep up on them. I wanted a blog that didn't have a topic, a place where I could post whatever I want. Hopefully, that will help me post more regularly. I plan to post anything and everything. For example: book reviews, tales from my life, handmade seller features, advice, poems, funny stories, etc. I hope you'll stick around to watch my blog grow! Have a fantastic day!