Baking Day

Today has been a very busy day for me in the kitchen. For a ward baby shower, I had planned on making those mini cupcake cake-balls I made previously for my brother Ben's mission homecoming. I also planned on making chocolate covered caramels for the shower to use up leftover caramel from the caramel popcorn I made on Sunday. My neighbor/carpool friend came over this morning and informed me it was her son's birthday today. She then asked if I would make his cake for his party today and he wanted a monster truck named "Grave Digger" on it. Uh....I had told him weeks ago that I would help with his b-day cake, but I didn't know when his birthday actually was. It would have been nice to have more than a few hours notice, that's for sure. So, because I had promised him that I would help, I agreed even though I probably should have said no because it is such short notice. So I baked. From pretty much 12:30 this afternoon till 6:30 this evening I baked with few brakes in-between.

Here are the cupcake cake balls. I didn't take a picture of the chocolates. They turned out cute..and tasty.
Here is the birthday cake. I had it finished by 4:45. Christian didn't want"Happy Birthday" or his name or even his age written on the cake. He just wanted it to say "Grave Digger" because that is the monster truck he likes. It isn't my favorite cake I have made, but considering the time restraints and the fact there really wasn't any time for me to even think about how I should do the design, it didn't turn too shabby. A little sloppy, but not too shabby.Side view. I wasn't sure how to do the sides, but they ended up being my favorite part.

I hope Christian had a great birthday party and I hope that it tasted good. And I hope I don't have to make a cake in 4 hours or less ever again.

P.S.In all fairness to my neighbor, she did buy all the ingredients and she did pay me for the cake. I ended up making just about $3.75 an hour.

Super Fun Saturday

My sister Ali invited us to visit her husband's family in Peoa Ut. She invited us to have lunch, ride horses and shoot some guns. My other sister Michelle and her family came as well as my Parents. We had a ton of fun with exciting things to do, good food, and good company. Ali's mother-in-law Kathy is pretty awesome too.

Tyler and his cousin Will on the horse together. They were pretty much inseparable the whole day.

Tyler and My Dad aka "Papa"

cute cowboy Tyler. He insisted he needed to wear Randy's hat.

Jake had fun too, but his face showed more trepidation then anything else.

Love this picture.

This scared me more than anything, I trust Tyler to help me with his sister, but to hold her on the horse? I was terrified.

She, of course, loved it as well.
Lily playing with Dad while we waited for the cows to be corralled.

We dropped the kids off at the Marchants house with my mom and Kathy and headed off to shoot. this is Ali's husband Ben and Randy is behind him.

The set up.

This was my very first time shooting a shotgun. before this I had only shot a 9mm. I missed the first clay pigeon, but I hit the next three in a row!! Very cool.

This is Randy showing me how to look cool. :)

I don't think I pull off the "cool" look very well. I did hit my target in this pic though.

This is the best picture, because if you click on it, you can zoom in and see the broken clay pigeon I hit falling from the sky. We also played "Annie Oakley" where you line up and if the person in front of you misses the target you shoot at it and if you hit their target, they are out. My sister Michelle got Ali out, which was surprising, and awesome. It was eventually just me and Rachel (Ben's little sister) and when she missed, I hit her disk and got her out to win the game! It was awesome. We had a great day.

Lily is 18 months old

Our little Lily had her 18 month checkup on Friday and she did wonderfully. she is in the 25Th percentile for weight at 22.8 lbs and she is in the 25Th percentile for height at 31.25 inches long. She's still little and I think that makes her even more adorable. These are pictures I took of her while we hung out and waited to see the doctor.

Love you Lily!

P.S. Lily has been going to nursery at church for the past 2 weeks and she absolutely loves it. She gets to play with toys, interact with other kids and eat snacks. What's not to love? I peeked in on her last Sunday and as I looked through the window in the door I saw that they were having singing time. One child was sitting cross legged watching attentively, while the others wandered around uninterested. What was lily doing? she was singing (in her own way) and dancing along to the music. My little sweetheart.

Onesie Dress

My friend Evelyn made me a bunch of these dresses when I had Lily and I have been nervous to try making my own because I really didn't' want to mess up a cute onesie. But I bit the bullet and made this for my friend Tammy who just had a baby girl. I hope she likes it and I hope that it doesn't fall apart on her.

I think it turned out pretty cute considering it was my first attempt.

BYU Hair

I was finally able to use the BYU bow I made for Lily a while ago. The Cougars had their first game this last week. I didn't get a picture of all of us in our BYU clothes, but you can bet we were all dressed for the occasion. I have yet to purchase Lily a BYU outfit, so I had to go with the closest thing we had...a denim dress. She rocked it as best she could.

Isn't that adorable?

When I finally released her from the "hair station" She ran away and this is where I found her. this is one of her favorite spots. I guess the DI rocking chair was worth the 3 bucks after all.

Jakey Says...

Jacob puts both hands on my face and turns my face to him..he says "I love you a lot mom!" I say I love you too and then he says "I will NEVER eat you!" That's....good to know.

Gateway Day

Lily, Jake and I went to the Gateway while Dan and Amber were still in town and we went to the Discovery Gateway children's museum as well as played in the fountains at the mall. the day didn't go as I had planned it would, but it was fun nonetheless. Here are pictures in random order cause I didn't feel like organizing them.

Lily the chick
Jake in an ill fitting turtle costume

Lily and Megan in a boat-Lily is dressed as a chick

Jake on horse

Dan with my kiddos

Jake

Isaac (Michelle's) and Jake

Michelle, Sarah and Me

Megan and Jake working hard building.

Brooke is helping too

Lily was being so cranky and tired I had to just strap her into the stroller. She screamed and was not happy about it.

I finally let her out to play but she was still overly cranky.

Jake lily and Megan-

she's got a look that says she's gonna destroy everything she sees using that hammer

stackin

After the museum, we headed to the fountains where the kids could play. Lily was still confined to the stroller.

Amber and I headed off to do some shopping while Michelle and Dan watched the kids for us

Jake and MeganAren't' they cute?

Isaac and Jake were playing on these rocks.

Jake climbed up to that highest rock you see. I had just gotten back and was showing Michelle my purchases.

He fell off that top rock, hit the third highest rock with his chest, then landed on his face on the cement steps hard. His nose was seriously like a faucet gushing with blood. He also had a big goose egg on his forehead.

Michelle took this picture after we stopped the bleeding-which took a long time. It was nice to have nurse Amber there to help out.

My poor baby Jakey.

For the most part he was upset because he wanted to play in the water still. I bribed him with ice-cram on the way home and he was just fine after that.

These two pictures I took at home later that day after we got him all cleaned up.

He seemed proud of his war wounds. Crazy boy.