Cinco De Mayo Celebraciones!

Cinco de Mayo is always a special day here at the Rigg Casa seeing as how Taber and I met in Mexico, and mi Guapo is 1/4 Mexican, making our children 1/8th Mexican, so yeah, we like to get our Fiesta on every 5th of May.

 This year we got invited to a big Cinco de Mayo bash for our friend's 40th b-day party. His wife is from Mexico and WOW can she cook! so many people, so much food. I was very very Feliz!

 El Guapo with Brinlycita eating una tortilla chip.

 Me and My little 1/8th Mexican babies. Thank you Mama Rigg for passing on such awesome genes!

 And here I am with La bonita Fabiola, hostess of the party and some say, my long lost sister : )

 Here's a little sampling of the food. yum yum yum..DELICIOSO!!

 And of course, it's not a fiesta without a pinata!! they had two of them and the kids went wild. Good times!

Birthday boy getting un beso from la bonita Fabiola. 

So glad we got to celebrate with our awesome friends. Until next year, ADIOS!!

Romney Rally April 25, 2012

So I'm kind of into politics now, especially because this year's Republican candidate is, in my humble opinion, the BOMB DIGGITY!! Love me some Mitt Romney and I find myself cheering his campaign on like a sports fanatic Super fan!

Luckily for me, I live in a battleground state, so Romney has and will make lots of stops in good old New Hampsha. Last month he was just 30 minutes away from us and Taber, the self sacrificing thoughtful husband he is, gave up his tickets to the Celtics game so we could go see the Mittness! That's true love right there people!

The house was packed, a live band was playing, and everyone was stoked to see our future prez.

"Somebody pinch me! EEEEEKKK!

bumped into my friend Jenn there and had to take a pic of our matching Romney Super Fan shirts.

A lot of my Romney friends on twitter were watching the rally on CNN and told me to try and get seats behind the podium so they could see me on TV. Those seats were reserved for people in the campaign but...

I worked a little magic and after a staffer recognized me from my twitter handle, he hooked us up with seats!!

Rockstar seats at the Romney Rally!! WOOOOOOT!!!

Soon Mitt took the stage and delivered his best speech to date. The crowd was SO pumped and the energy in the room was unreal! Taber even turned to me and said, "I feel so patriotic!" it was awesome!

As Mitt was leaving he turned to look at all the people in the stands and totally made eye contact with Taber and pointed to him! Snapped a pic for proof!

Later Taber was also able to squeeze in the crowd and shake Mitt's hand. He took this pic right before he did it. 

Meanwhile I was trying to get a chance to meet the lovely Ann Romney. I saw her coming and I shouted "ANN! ANN! Can I get a picture with you?"

She graciously obliged and I was star stuck with giddyness! Can I please be as gorgeous and lovely as Ann when I'm a grandma? Wow! She will make a phenomenal first lady

 After it was over Taber and I hung out for awhile soaking in the the vibes of patriotism : ) BEST. DATE. EVER!!!

Baking for the birthday boy...and other b-day celebrations

 Taber turned 34 last month and for his birthday he requested a homemade German Chocolate cake. I confess I am more of a Betty Crocker box kind of cake maker, so this was truly a labor of love.

 My super pro baking goddess friend Darby, gave me her recipe for German chocolate cake. It was, shall we say, rather involved...Way more ingredients than cake mix, eggs, and oil! It called for things like melting chocolate, separating eggs, whipping and folding in egg whites, (folding??!!) yeah, I was way out of my league with this one.

 Luckily I had my little helpers on hand to get through it all

 After making a ginormous mess, the batter was ready. We put it in the oven and started on the frosting which called for more involved stuff like chopping and toasting pecans, toasting coconut, separating more eggs and constantly stirring the pot for almost 30 minutes. 

When the cake came out of the oven I had serious issues getting the cakes out of their pans and one of the layers kind of got mutilated. I tried to salvage it as best I could but the end result was a 2 1/2ish layered cake instead of 3.

 I took this pic while the frosting was still warm and gooey. Wasn't the prettiest cake I've ever baked (thanks to mutilated top piece) but it was BY FAR the most insanely DELICIOUS cake I've ever made. Taber was a happy man : )

Here's another pic I took with my phone after the frosting cooled a little. Forgot to buy b-day candles so we improvised : )

 I did all the cake baking on Saturday (day before T's b-day) so once it was done we took the kids out for a nature walk.

 Taber loves the outdoors and so do the kids so this was perfect.

 We hiked around at Mine Falls and enjoyed the beautiful weather.

The next day as soon as they woke up, the girls wanted Daddy to open his presents. They couldn't even wait to eat breakfast first.

He got lots of fun things to play with outdoors from the kids, an apple gift card and a new BBQ cookbook from his parents, and I got him an iGrill device, which is a cooking thermometer that connects to your iPhone, iPod or iPad and notifies you via Bluetooth, when your meat has reached the right temp. It also tells you how long it will be till the meat is ready and I guess you can play some grilling games with it too. Anyway, I figured he loves grilling and he loves apple products, so perfect combo!

Later after church we had some friends over for Kalua pig and cake and ice cream.

 Some of the tasty b-day grub

 Great friends, the Ures, the Hoods, and the Silvestros. 

(random fun fact, Taber and Steve Silvestro served together in the same mission. Kind of cool to now be in the same ward, all the way across the country, 13 years later!)

 My two handsomes getting ready for cake and ice cream

And a happy family photo with the birthday and his labor of love cake.

Happy Birthday Tabes! Another year older and still hotter than eva! ; )

This is Living!

 When life presents moments of pure bliss, Taber likes to use a phrase he learned from his Dad: "This is Living!" i.e...Sipping pina coladas on the beach in Turks and Caicos = This is living. 

The other day when Taber came home from work we all went out to play on the trampoline. After a few minutes I had to run and grab my camera because it was that kind of moment. Here are some of the pics I took: This, my friends, is living : )

Sticks and Stones may break your bones, but the monkey bars will do it for sure!

Well we have our first broken bone. We made it 6 years into parenthood before it happened so you know, I feel pretty good about that : )

It happened on a Saturday. I was up in the mountains mapping out hiking trails in prep for girls camp, so Taber decided to take the kids to Teya's school to play on the playground there. Teya has been begging us all year to take her there so she can try out the monkey bars. You see, kindergartners aren't normally allowed on the monkey bars because the teacher says, they will break their arms.

Well apparently the teacher knows what she's talking about because sure enough, miss Teya lost her grip, fell and busted her poor little arm. The urgent care closes early on Saturdays (and I am a cheap wad that didn't want to pay thousands of dollars for the emergency room) so we had to wait until Sunday to get an X-ray.

X-ray confirmed our suspicions, broken arm, right by the elbow. They put her in a temporary cast and instructed us to see the ortho doc Monday morning.

Taber took her to the ortho doc and I guess everyone was pretty smitten with the cutie little kindergartner who broke her arm.

They were all out of pink casts so she went for her second choice, Red.

She'll have the cast on for 3 weeks, then they'll cut it off, take an X-ray, and decide if she needs one longer or if she can get by with a splint.

It has been an adjustment, but she has adapted surprisingly well and can dress herself, put on her shoes and socks, and buckle her seatbelt now with no problem. Best of all, she's been able to collect signatures from all her favorite people, including her beloved Kindergarten teacher Mrs. Plouffe, and the greatest superhero of all, Daddy : )