twenty three and change

Well ladies and gentlemen.... I am now Twenty Three years old. It is crazy to think about. I know its not that old but seriously that's a big chunk of time. I had a wonderful birthday this year. My sweet Stephen gave my mario kart for our wii (I used to be the master of this game our freshman year on the N64) Has anyone tried to play with that steering wheel thing on the wii?... it is difficult. Needless to say, I have a lot of practicing to do if I ever want to obtain my master status again. It has been so fun playing the wii with Steve. We got the old school Mario with our system for Christmas and Steve and I have been playing it trying to go through and beat all the levels. It is so funny how our personalities show through how we play the game. Interesting. Anyway... So for my birthday we had a bunch of family come up to our place in Logan and celebrate by making my favorite dinner. Gnocchi (ni-yokee) It is a delicious Italian dish that my great grandmother made. She taught us all how to make them. I have always loved the process. So you cook your potatoes. Mix with flower (this is the hardest part... there is a consistency that they are supposed to have that is just learned. You just have to know when there is just the right amount of flower.) it is still difficult to know. Then you roll it out in snake form and cut them into little inch squares. Now my favorite part. You use a fork and your thumb to roll out the gnocchi. there are fork tine marks on one side and a thumb indent on the other. Then you throw them into boiling water and when they float to the top they are done. You take them out and layer them with sauce (my dad made some delicious sauce this year. Oh man I don't know how he does it. He is an incredible cook.) and cheese. Then eat!!! It was so fun having so much family over. It got kinda crazy when all of the nephews got there but we had so much fun seeing everyone! I love getting together with family.

My parents gave me some beautiful books (they always give the best books of course, being the book lovers) One of the books is called The Exquisite Book. Some artists arranged over 100 artists to create exquisite corps. You remember when you were little and you used to take turns with friends drawing a part of a person, someone draws the head the next the body, the next the feet, you get the idea. The art in this book is so beautiful, The pages fold out to show the whole string. I LOVE It.

The other book they gave me also has beautiful artwork. Its called the secret lives of princesses. Its all about different princesses such as princess somnia. Its pretty great. The illustrations are beautiful and have so many intricate details. There is nothing like a beautiful book. I love books! Thank you mom and dad :) I got lots of great gifts from family! I love them all! 

On another note I have been making some new headbands... I love this one what do you think??