I can't even believe another year has gone by. I say that every New Year..time goes quickly.  I do not make New Year's resolutions, but a fresh start does have me thinking about some goals for the new year.
Some ideas for 2011: I would like to make this blog more of me.  Include more recipes and food-like stuff because I really love recipes, cooking and well..eating.  I also love taking pictures and home decor and design.  So maybe I will work on a new blog layout and start including things like that.  I also have some financial goals because you know how much I love that Dave Ramsey guy and I would love to start seeing even more progress in that area.  I would like to physically challenge myself to something like a strenuous hike during the summer, or increase my strength training a lot.  Sticking with P90x might do it. I would also love for Taylor to start playing the piano..I think he has agreed to a lesson with me soon.  I believe I can start him on it for about 6 months-1 year and then he might need a teacher to keep going. I only took it about 3 years and my memory is fading fast..anyway....
Those are just some ideas to get me started. 

One of my immediate goals is to make this cake for my Hannah Banana's 8th birthday party in two weeks.  Isn't it pretty? I think she'll love it's rainbow bright colors. But, how would you serve it?

 We rang in the New Year with a little family party. Everyone got to pick one "party" food and our menu was: pizza rolls (Taylor's choice), Mini corn dogs (Hannah's choice), taquitos (Mike's choice) and because I was doing all the cooking I added three choices (heehee): roasted shrimp, 7-layer dip and summer rolls.  The summer rolls were just like the ones you order in a Thai restaurant with rice paper wrappers and everything.  So delicious. 


We had brownies and ice cream, made by Hannah, then we played a nearly 3-HOUR game of Monopoly which Taylor won.  That boy was buying property, putting houses on them,  and causing us all to go bankrupt.  It was hilarious.  Do I see the makings of an investment banker? 

oh those boys and their mock fighting

nearing the end of the game, down to two and still standing (notice taylor's pile of money)

No this isn't a very flattering picture of me but Hannah took it on New Year's Eve and I have to say her composition is getting much better. I might have a budding photographer!

We put on our glow-in-the-dark jewelry, watched the ball drop from New York and went to bed finally.  I was about dead from an earlier round of P90X with Mike.  We slept in late the next day thank goodness.

I AM kicking the new year off with the launch of my new site for my business.  I wanted something really simple, like my business name, but for some reason it took a long time to get there.   I could drive myself crazy trying to get my portfolio pictures right (they have an annoying white background that doesn't want to come off for some reason), and re-writing every page and obsessing about how the blog part isn't exactly right.  When you are a small business on a budget paying thousands to have your website exactly how you want it just isn't in the cards. Anyway, if you are even interested now, go here. I am offering a give-away and sending out a million e-mails to everyone I know for a "sale" this month and to get traffic to the new website.  That is pretty exciting and will hopefully generate some new business.  I also put Simply Graphic up on Facebook and have to remember to go there and update it.


So happy 2011 to all of you, I hope your year had a fabulous start!