June Bride.

Now stop freaking out. I ain't the June Bride... at least not the June Bride of 2013. ;)  

I am so happy and proud to announce that my little sis will soon be Mrs. Skylar Steel! Woooeeee!

Look at how gorg they are. :) June 7th is the day and I can't wait to celebrate with them. We all love you, Skylar, and can't wait to have you in the fam! 

 Oh yeah, and good job with the proposal. Sounded like a very fun and well-thought-out surprise! Way to go, dude.

I love you, Manushk and guess what... they say when you marry in June... you're a bride... all your life. 

And P.S. to all you readers out there: the mysterious shopping that I alluded to in my last post was, indeed, wedding dress shoppin'. :)

A Picture Paints a Thousand Words... March!

Okay, so I'm thinkin this is gonna be my last monthly post. :) I'm hoping to make them a little more frequent. But we'll see. March was a lot of fun. LOTS of family time, which I love more than anything! And... here's the story, morning glory...

I'm a dork. And proud of it. And I was way excited to see my name on the soap dispensers at the movie theater a few weeks ago.

 I flew to Vegas at the beginning of March to perform with the Zion's Youth Chorus and Symphony again. SUCH an amazing experience. My sis, Laura, just so happened to be visiting my parents from Detroit all during the same weekend, so it worked out perfectly. Look at the little fishies! We took the girls swimming at the neighborhood rec center one morning and I tell ya, it was wonderful. Just ignore my white bod, will ya?

 We celebrated my mom's birthday while we were home! Laura made a yummy din din and I was put in charge of the dessert... whattaya think? New business idea? Desserts by Deb?

 The Birthday Girl with all of her guests at the dinner table. 

 And what's a trip home without a little Cafe Rio fix? It was delish. Just what the doctor ordered. Amanda and Skylar were also able to come down for the weekend and this is where we met them the night they got there. Cafe Rio = The new Zion/Gathering Place?

Laura's girls are both so gorgeous and so fun to be with. Amber and I had a dance partay in the kitchen one night. 

 And again... an amazing dressing room in the Las Vegas Smith Center. They sure know how to take care of their performers.

 Gittin' ready for the shoooooow! I sang two solos in the concert and one duet with Dallyn Bayles who was the other guest soloist. The kids in this group were SO talented and it was such an honor to rub shoulders with so many good people over the weekend. I am a lucky, lucky girl!

 And I was so lucky to have two of my sisters there! Laurooshkie and Manushki!

 And my two sisters from other misters came to see me too! It was SO fun to have Janae and Ashley there for the weekend. They brought their cute hubbies and we all just had one big party at my parent's house. Again... lucky, lucky.

 My wonderful ma and pa after the show. I fur rills don't know what I'd do without them. Definitely two of my best, best friendsies. And the star of bethlehem in the background is a nice touch too.

 I came home from my concert and what did I see? An edible arrangement lookin' at me! The sweet boyf in nyc had it delivered to my parent's house! Definitely made me happy. :)

And for your viewing (but mostly listening) pleasure, here is a little vid of one of the songs I sang in the concert if you are at all interested...

 Then... after Vegas... it was time for a Utah visit! The ma and pa and I took a little rode trip to see some friends and fam. This is cute Tyler and I pointing at the Flat Stanley poster that he put together with the pictures and souvenirs that I sent him. I got to have Flat Stanley with me for a couple weeks in New York and we had a lot of fun adventures togeths.

 We ate lunch with the kids at school... That's an adventure in and of itself.

 And I just HAD to take this pic. While Melissa was talking with Tyler's teacher, I noticed that these kids on the computers were using Imagine Learning!!! So... consider this a shout out to all my Imagine Learning peeps. (sigh) Makes me homesick.

The Slice 'o Heaven from Roman Gardens Apartment 107 had a little reuniondo! (We sure missed you, Liesel!) It's crazy how fast time flies. The 5 of us in this pic were once all roomies back in 2005 and 2006. Jeni, Ashley, Janae and Kristin. My all-time favorite BYU memories revolve around these lovely ladies.

And here is Darren and Melissa's crew: Tanner, Haley, Trent, Tyler and Jake. These kids are a hoot and a half and I'm so glad they let me be their roomie for a whole week! I love them to death. They are all lookers and oh, so entertaining. 

I was also able to see a few other friends while in town and I checked out the Hale shows and did some shopping with my mom and Amanda. Not just any kind of shopping, mind you. ;) But there might be more on that later... (oooo - cliff hanger!)

I returned to NYC and immediately got back into party mode. We threw Nicole a birfffday bash at my place and had a lot of fun with it. Don't worry... despite the pic on the wall, everything remained G-rated. 

I put my baking skills to the test and was able to whip out a pretty decent cake.

Desserts by Deb strikes again! ... but not rilly. 

This is only a small handful of the attendees we had at the party, but this little group here consists of all BYU theater grads! How fun is that? Jeff, Seth, Nikki (and Olive), Preston, Matthew, Dalton, Aurora and Nicole!

As part of the birthday fun, we told all the guests to bring some sort of tribute for Nicole. An interpretive dance, a plate of food, we had it all. My tribute to Nicole was a picture of her face... but with my hair. I just had to do it because my friends out here seem to think it's funny to make lots and lots of Deb hair jokes. Like seriously. My hair is like it's own person. They are talking about making a FB profile just for my hair. Cray cray peeps. But it is hilarious.

I flew to Canada for Easter!!! Did you know that my sister Darla lives in Toronto? Well, she does. And I got to go there and spend time with her adorbs family and to top it all off, Laura and Steve drove up for the weekend too!  It was such an incredible time. Here I am enjoying a lazy afternoon with Caroline and Kaylie. 

Darla had lots of fun things planned for us to do. We went to the Maple Farm! Never been to one? You've never lived! Here's Laura with Kaylie, Savannah and Caroline.

Eatin' maple suckers at the maple farm whilst standing by the cows. Luke and Savannah!

Egg dying action shot. Cute mommies hard at work. I love watching my sisters be moms. It makes me excited for what my future holds... well... except for the tantrums and the stinky diaper stuff... :) I'll just make the hubbie deal with that.

Darla with the kiddos... Kaylie, Caroline, Luke and Savannah.

Peace, yo. And Happy Easter!

Luke is hilarious and I couldn't help but take a pic of his Easter Bunny note. The boy knows what he wants! And in case you are wondering... he did not get one peep this year.

The Easter Bunny had a few helpers this year and they sure had a blast gettin' everything set up.

Our Easter celebration was not lacking in the sweets department this year. My joke with my sisters was that I wouldn't come to Canada for Easter unless I got a chocolate bunny for Easter. So... they got me one! And it weighs a whole pound... well... it used to. But no worries, they topped it all off with a Jillian Michael's Ripped in 30 DVD as well. 

Kaylie has a fun, fun personality and she has always loved making faces at herself in the mirror. So the reverse camera feature is a favorite pastime. 

Pretty, pretty Amber in church! And I'm SO glad I got the cuddly couple in the background. #itwasawkward #getaroom

Sweeeet Caroline... ba ba bah... 

She is a cute little thing and I loved all the bonding time we had together. Most of which was at 2 or 3 in the morn cuz we wuz room roommates... :) 

Darla is so good at making things fun for her kids. Savannah is showing off her dirt cake with bunny rabbit marshmallows. Clever, eh? I thought so.

And... surprise! We had a visitor join us for Easter dinner and then stay for the next two days! Brendoni joined the fun! Here we are in the middle of a rousing game night. It was a lot of fun to have Bren there. Too bad he got sick and spent his last day with us on the couch. :( Whoopsie... we're still pointing fingers and trying to figure out who the culprit was. :) But nevertheless, he was a champ. 

We also went bowling while we were there and ate poutine from Costco. Nothin' more I'd rather do, really. It was an awesome time and I'm SO glad it all worked out.

And as I bid farewell, I'll leave you with this Harlem gem. As Abby and I were walking to a party one night, we passed by this movie set. It's for a Jennifer Hudson movie coming out called Black Nativity. No big deal. Just another day in the NYC!