Britney's 24th Birthday

We had a fun party for Britney's 24th birthday last Sunday! Her birthday was Tuesday the 7th, but we had the party on the 5th. We had burgers on the grill, sang "Happy Birthday", and opened presents.

It was a good time!

(PS I didn't take a single picture of Tyson. I know, I'm awful. He may not be in any of the pictures, but he was there! Sorry, Tyson!)

Brycen hanging out

Amy, Aaron, Britney & Adam enjoying their dinner


Britney's birthday cookie
She's not a huge fan of desserts so I made some chocolate chip cookies and we put a candle in one. Last year it was a bowl of M&M's. Who knows what we'll do next year!

Amber and I

Happy birthday!

Adam & Amber

Mom & Amy

Present time!

Amber and Che' gave her this super cute headband from June (the one in her hand - The one she was wearing at the party was way cute too!) They are so fun! If you want to check out more as well as clothes and other fun things you can look here.

We were also celebrating my parents' 30th wedding anniversary. We sent them to see The Lion King on stage in Salt Lake a couple of weekends ago for their anniversary and they loved it! Happy anniversary, Mom and Dad! We love you!

A cute necklace from Amy

A Forever 21 giftcard from us

Brycen with his Aunt Britney

Happy birthday, Brit! We love you!

Look Who Turned 30!

My dear hubby of 1 year and 8 months turned 30 on August 27. For his birthday we had a party with our immediate family members. It was fun getting together! And we really appreciated those who came for their support. And thanks to Mom and Dad for letting us have the party at their house! It was great!

I made Tyson wear this awesome headband while he opened his presents. He was a great sport!

Amber & Britney

Visitning and having dinner


Tyson's parents, Dad, and Tyson's sister Angie (and Brycen, of course!)


I love Zurchers! It's a party store that just recently came to Idaho Falls and it is great for birthday parties. I found so much great stuff there! Including these yummy mints with birthday wrapping.

I also found this cute little centerpiece there.

And this yard sign! I tied some balloons to the top of it and put it in one of the flower pots at the front door.

Angie and Amy

Present time!

Amber and Che' gave him a couple of blu-ray discs to watch on his new blu-ray player and plasma tv. That's what Tyson wanted for his birthday, so that's what he got from me! He got great things from everyone. Thanks, everybody!

Tyson and his parents

The cake

Tyson isn't a huge fan of birthday cake, but he does like Texas sheet cake. So that's what he asked for! There were no decorations of any kind on this cake. But if that's what he wants, then great! It was a yummy cake. For the recipe, click here to go to my recipe blog.

Everybody getting ready to have ice cream and cake

Grandma and Grandpa O'Connor giving Brycen some ice cream

Tyson's dad brought Reed's Dairy pralines 'n cream, grasshopper, and vanilla ice cream. He also brought waffle bowls from the dairy. It was so good!

Dad and baby

Our happy family

Happy birthday, Tyson! We love you!

Buddies

First off, check out a yummy recipe for Olive Garden bruschetta bread on my new recipe blog!

cupcakediariesblog.blogspot.com

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My friend of 24 years, Ashlee, had her sweet little baby girl Kenadee in July. We recently went to lunch and introduced our babies. I love that my best friend and I had babies so close together! They are the same age apart as Ashlee and I. These two are destined to be friends forever. :)

The Best Part of Waking Up

Brycen is a good sleeper. Every now and then he wakes up at around 6 am, which would still make him a good sleeper to a lot of people.

When this happens we give him a bottle, and we end up putting him back to bed on our bed. We leave enough room between us for him to sleep with us for the last hour or so before getting up for the day. Tyson kisses us goodbye and leaves for work before we get up on these mornings. Not too much time later do I wake up

and find myself staring at this little sweety:

Brycen is definitely a morning person. Whether next to me on my bed or in his crib, he is always found with a big grin on his face when he wakes up every morning. This little guy brightens my day. And I find myself loving him more and more each day.

The One with the Owl Cupcakes

Amber and I made these cute little guys for the Murri family reunion a few weeks ago. They were so much fun! We learned a lot from making them. I think I learn something new about cake/cupcake decorating with every cupcake we make.

Here are the details:

eyes - half of an Oreo cookie (cream side)

with a junior mint for the pupil

ears - other half of the Oreo cookie but shaped into ears

nose - banana runt candy

After all was said and done, we learned how to pipe on the fur with the frosting in a plastic bag. It was a lot of fun!

Amber and Mom separating the Oreos

The owls before they had their fur put on or their noses.


The final look! We had so much fun making these.

Dear Dish Network & Star West Satellite,

I hope your companies are set up to receive Google Alerts or something similar so you can come across this blog post. Seeing as how there is nowhere to leave a customer review on your websites, I've chosen to leave my review on my blog so you can hopefully come across it.

We are loyal Dish Network customers and have been for years now. We recently purchased a new TV and had someone come out to install a new receiver box and dish for the HD upgrade we are now paying for. The tech was from Star West Satellite and he was great. He was friendly and informative, and he told us if we had any questions to call Dish Network or Star West.

The TV came on Tuesday and we had two members of the Geek Squad at Best Buy put it up for us. They got everything hooked up for us, including the receiver box. We purchased an HDMI cable for the high def on the dish. As the guys were testing everything out they noticed the TV show was skipping and also blacking out here and there. Eventually it stopped working all together and there was no connection. They thought it was the chord so they connected it to the Blu-ray player. We watched about 10 minutes of a DVD to realize that it was not the chord. They even opened up a few different chords and hooked them all to the HDMI port on the receiver and the same thing happened to the TV show. They said it was the port itself that wasn't working and to call Dish for a new box. So my husband called the tech we used and told him about the problem. He said he would be out to our house sometime in the afternoon and that he was in Rexburg at the moment. This was at 2 pm. I had other plans that day and had to change them to stay home and wait for the tech. 6:30 rolled around and no tech had come around or even called to say they weren't coming.

The next morning my husband called the tech again. His response was that it was his day off and my husband needed to call Dish Network or Star West. He also said to just plug in the colored plug-ins to the TV instead of using the HDMI port. Isn't the point of getting a new TV to have high def on it? That plug-in was not going to give us the quality we were paying for. My husband called Dish Network in Idaho Falls and told them what was going on. He explained how the port was bad and we needed a new box. They told us it was our TV that was messed up. My husband told the guy that it wasn't the TV and everything that happened when the Geek Squad was over. The Dish Network person still didn't believe what was going on and wouldn't help him. So my husband called Star West. He told the guy he needed someone to come out and look at the receiver and to possibly bring a new one because the other one seemed to be faulty. The guy said it wasn't the box that it was the TV. Same deal as Dish Network. The guy (who I will gladly give you a name for if you ask me for it) said they'd have someone out to look at it.

The day continued and nobody called. So Tyson called Star West again and asked if someone was going to be coming out to our house. The same guy he talked to before said yes. But Tyson hadn't even given him a name. The guy still said someone would come out. Obviously they weren't going to because they had no clue who they were talking to. They were blowing us off.

After multiple calls to both places (there were more to Dish Network that were not mentioned here but refusal to help us out was still the result), my husband had to take matters into his own hands and talk to someone outside of Idaho Falls. He got on the Dish Network website and got on the chat help and explained what was going on. After giving the details the representative agreed with what was going on. They are sending us a new receiver box that should be here the beginning of next week. My husband was very grateful and told the representative that she was the only person willing to help us.

Last night my husband received a phone call while we were at the grocery store. It was the Star West tech. He told my husband he was going to find out if someone would be out to our house this week sometime. My husband was irritated but gracious for the call, seeing as he had to go through a whole lot of nonsense to get somewhere with this. Then a little while later he received another phone call from the same tech. He said we needed to contact Dish Network for a new receiver box. Really? We hadn't thought of that. That was what we were trying to do all along! But had zero luck with the Idaho Falls Dish Network. And we had already gotten the help we needed after a lot of nonsense. Too late on the phone call there.

We came home last night to find that none of our TV shows had recorded. Would you say the box was faulty? I think so. Don't even get me started on what I missed.

The problem with your company, Dish Network, is that you have a great product but your customer service is pure crap. You tell us to call if we have questions, but when we do that we get refused. Are you too busy for us? Are you just putting on a front so all your customers will think they're working with a good company? This economy isn't the best for you to be messing around with crappy customer service. Word of mouth goes a long way, believe me. Star West, your customer service is also rediculous. I hope we never have to work with you guys again.

I'm not one who normally complains about customer service. But when we're given the run-around and treated poorly with something like this, I'm not going to keep my mouth shut. We are good customers who pay on time every month and just upped our payments because of an upgrade. If you want to keep your customers around, you better teach your employees how to be better at treating the customer. The customer isn't always right, but at least come out and prove me wrong if you think I am wrong. And live up to what your techs tell your customers. If you don't want to help me, don't tell me you will in the first place.

And thank your online support representatives. Give them a raise even. Because they're the reason we are staying with Dish Network right now. And the only people worthy to call themselves good at customer service.