Braised Beef Tortellini

I LOVE OLIVE GARDEN! It always sounds good, the food is always amazing, I just can't get enough of it. The Braised Beef Tortellini is our favorite dish there, and was the inspiration for this dish, for when we are snowed in or kidded in (that's when your kids are sick or fussy and you can't leave the house)

CLICK HERE FOR RECIPE

My Magic Recipe is a great website, where you can collect recipes and make cook books. All my recipes are on this website. (It's also cool because they calculate all the nutritional facts for my recipe so I can look at that and better estimate how much I should eat)

Apple Party

My Husband just got a job with Apple! and anyone who knows us knows what a big deal this is for our family!

 We just had to celebrate!

And what better theme then an APPLE THEME!

First I have to give a huge thanks to the Balls Family, not only did they feed us a wonderful dinner that night, but they also provided all the dishes for the Carmel Apple Bar. They are SO CUTE!

For the Candied Apple Bar, I bought a variety of apples, carmel and fudge, an a variety of toppings

Topping ideas…

• Cranberries
• Marshmallows
• Chocolate Chips
• Coconut (A MUST HAVE!!! so good!)
• Nuts (I chose pecans)
• Oreos (smashed)
• Pretzels (smashed)

After enjoying the candied apples, we played GAME “Apples to Apples”

You can play it the standard way or our way. Every one gets a stack of GREEN  cards, face down, with out looking at them. Then you give a fill in the blank statement, such as “my cooking is______” every one chooses a card to flip over, it is funny because some are true and some are so far from the truth it’s funny! At our party some ones cooking was “deadly” and we all laughed cause she was the one who fed us dinner! (which was amazing, not deadly) 

If you need some ideas to get your creative juices flowing, you can download this list I came up with

Another awesome thing about playing this way, is there are no winners or losers, just lots of laughs!

This party was way easy and still lots of fun, so go buy some apples!

Uncle Yakabo's Far Away Birthday Party

Elder Yakabo went to Ghana, Africa, on his mission, back in August and is away for his 20th birthday. 

We wanted to do something special for his birthday. So we threw him a BIRTHDAY PARTY!

Here is the CAKE WE BAKED, and decorated it in honor of him turning 20.

We all got together and sang happy birthday to him, blew out his candles and ate the cake!

Then we made BIRTHDAY CARDS for him! 

We took pictures of the whole thing, printed the pictures, and sent them to him along with our cards 

and treats and a gift (a texas tie of course!) So now he'll have his Birthday Party in an Envelope!

I hope he feels all of our love for him when he gets the package!

A Picture in Motion

Look what I made! It reminds me of a picture from the Daily Prophet off Harry Potter!

For more of my photography, and designs, go to www.pinkpearlphotography.com

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Announcements

I love designing announcements! Especially Wedding Announcements.

Here is some of my latest designs...

For more designs and information, visit my website www.pinkpearlphotography.com

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Napoleon Dynamite Party - LUCKY!

This party is a tribute to my home town, PRESTON, Idaho!

Not only did Napoleon Dynamite put us on the map,

It also brought me fame, 

AND is a great theme for a party!

First we had to have a great invitation. My awful handwriting finally came in handy and my talented husband used his great artistic skills and drew an awesome Liger! "a mix between a lion and tiger with mystical powers"

Here is a FREE PRINTABLE of the invite for you

We started out by throwing our STEAKS on the grill (chicken for the sissy's) and had some TATER TOTS as a side "Napoleon give me your tots!" Then washed that all down with 1% milk "I see you're drink 1% Milk, is that cause you think your fat? cause you're not, you could drink whole if you want"

Then we sat around and watched the Napoleon Dyamite Animated TV Show, the shows are so funny, and completely true! You can buy a show on Amazon for $1.99 or the whole season for $9.99 and stream instantly CLICK HERE 

While we were watching and laughing we were also keeping our hands busy with some Boon Doggle 

"Pedro offers you his protection"

And no one can leave one of my party's without pictures! Deb's Portraits was one of my favorite parts! 

"now imagine you're weightless, in the middle of the ocean, surrounded by tiny little sea horses"

Some other Napoleon Dynamite party ideas are...

   

Steak Throwing Contest

Play Football

Bike and RollerBlade Race

Play Tether Ball

Have a Dancing Contest

OR Make your own dang Quesadilla's instead of Steak

After everyone left mom and I sat down to practice our Napoleon Drawing Skills. Playing pictionary using a word list I compiled from the movie. Which you can grab HERE

So go have some fun and laughs, have your own 

flipping sweet napoleon dynamite party, LUCKY!

If you want MORE check out my 2nd Napoleon Dynamite Party!

Homemade Valentines

Valentines are really special when they are HOMEMADE, and even more special when they are personalized. I spend all year thinking of new ideas for my loved ones and spend the whole month making different ones for each person. Here are some from last year...

This was a homemade check I made last year, I tried to make it look as real as possible, (the background picture was an easter egg he had made the year before) We made it out for a Million Dollars, and he was in shock until he realized it was fake, then we all got a good laugh

FUN VALENTINE & GAME...

I made this for my sister, since she just married into this beautiful family!
THIS ONE would be a GOOD CHOICE for ANY VALENTINE. 

Have you ever played DON'T EAT PETE? Same rules I just changed the name to don't eat my valentine.

MAKE IT: I made a grid with pictures of her family and their dog and filled in the other spaces with other characters, I laminated it and gave it to her with a bag of candy. HOW YOU PLAY THE GAME: One person leaves the room, every one agrees on one picture, then they cover all the pictures with one candy, then the person comes back into the room and start picking pieces of candy, if it isn't the picture that was picked they can eat it, but if it was the candy on top of the picked picture, then everyone yells, DON'T EAT MY VALENTINE!

So my dad is always singing the song

NOBODY LIKES ME, EVERYBODY HATES ME, GONNA GO EAT WORMS

So I made a card with these picture of him and the words to the song on the front, then inside I put a picture of a worm that said...

AHHH!!!! SOMEONE GIVE THIS MAN SOME LOVE!

Hope this post inspired you to make your loved ones some personalized homemade valentines.