Just so i don't leave this question out there not fully answered - I was able to get the desired effect by using your suggestion @Vector and adding a little bit to get the li's back to original look:
$('li').click(function() {
var $this = $(this);
$this.insertBefore($this.siblings(':eq(0)'));
$this.toggleClass('active');
$this.siblings().removeClass("active");
$('#blank').hide();
});
and adding the class "active" to my CSS:
.active a{
color: #FF4500;
font-size: 25px;
font-weight: bold;
margin: 0;
}
Since i have other jquery toggles going on with those menu options, I was able to insert that jquery right into my existing function and it work fine. For some reason it throws off my spacing on the rest of the list, but I'll have to figure that out in my css files.
fiddle: http://jsfiddle.net/CLTZs/2/