A Star is Born! Haha

Christmas and Birthdays

This month was always a big one for me. We have Christmas, my birthday, my mom's birthday and New Years this month. This will be the second year I have added the anniversary of my father's death from pancreatic cancer. He passed away December 27th, 2009. I miss my dad each and every day. He loved this time of year. There was nothing like Christmas and family and lots and lots of food for my dad. I can miss him now with a smile instead of all the tears. I do still get sad but I also remember the good times more than those awful sad times when he was so sick.

I also lost a dear friend on December 28th, 1992. I remember her as well. Her life was cut too short in a car accident at the tender age of 16. Miss you Rocky. Miss you dad. Always remembered! Never forgotten.

As for me, I will be another year older on the 29th. I am finally at the age where I no longer have the desire to TELL you how old I'll be. I don't lie but I do like to leave people guessing. haha Hope you all had a wonderful Christmas and Happy New Year!

Village Photos

If you are reading through my blog and pictures are missing they should be back eventually. Village Photos has been down now for about 4 months I think. I am so upset because I have been paying for a service that I am not receiving. I am assuming they will see some lawsuits at the end of this. You can't have people pay for a service that does not exist. First their site was just down. I only got information from other people complaining on an ebay message board. Now I see a notice when I go to their page. They have made up a lot of excuses but it's come down to them moving their facility to a new location. The problem is their site has said they hope to be up in a week for a month now. I am beginning to lose hope. I have linked my pictures to my blog through them for a very long time now. Hopefully there won't be too many dead links. Just know that they should be back up. I just do not know for sure when.

Dairy Free Chocolate Chip Cookies. Seriously!

Since Gabbi has had this allergy to milk I have had to be quite creative. I have made her wacky cake which is dairy free. If you don't know what that is, you need to google it or go to allrecipes.com. There are many variations but I have my favorite. I have always wished Gabbi could have a freshly made chocolate chip cookie. That seemed like an impossible thing to whip up since it requires butter and chocolate chips. I managed to find the way to do it today! Here is my "secret".

First look for this at your local grocery store:

 The above is milk free. It does contain soy. The chips are made from chocolate liquor and cocoa butter which is vegan. It DOES say to add butter, however I substituted 1 cup Crisco plus 2 tbsp of water for the butter. The back of the container of Crisco says that this is the substitution for 1 cup of butter which is what these cookies require.

This is my happy little camper tearing into her cookies :)

And this is the actual cookie. They turned out nice golden brown. The texture is a little more gritty than a regular chocolate chip but great regardless. I thought they were wonderful and a great substitution for the milky alternative. :)

I Did It!

It's been many years since I made the decision to go back to school. I was stopped in my tracks by cancer not to mention having another baby. It was a rough road but I made it. I beat cancer, I had my baby, I went back to school AGAIN and Saturday my dreams came true. I graduated with a Bachelor of Science in Nursing Degree. Thanks to all those that supported me and encouraged me! I am on cloud nine and still can't believe it.