Mini Baking Camp at Cravings

We love Cravings Alisha's Cupcakes!
We saw them on Cupcake Wars :)
The first time they were on they didn't win, but then they came back in Season 7 and won!
(We also LOVE Cravings Bistro and their delicious grilled cheese sandwiches
...but this post is about cupcakes)

I signed Grace and Anna up for a 2 day mini baking camp there and they loved it!

 End of the first day.

 End of the 2nd day (and last day.)

Grace and Anna with Alisha and Alisha's daughter, who wanted so badly to be in the picture too.

And also Alisha's assistant who helped with the classes.
The girls had a great time and came home with some tasty treats :)

School Valentines 2015

 Our cute, fun and easy valentines for this year. 

Thank you Pinterest for helping me again :)

Isaac and Anna (and Grace) enjoyed filling the partially stapled hearts with Skittles and m&ms.

Then I stapled them closed so their friends and teachers would have to tear them open.

Oh I had them write, from Isaac and from Anna on the back of each heart.

 Their Valentine boxes this year.

Anna wanted a piano one

and Isaac just wanted a picture of Infinity Blade on his...pretty easy!

I also helped with the Valentine party in 6th grade.

The kids all seemed to have a good time :)

Kind of strange to think that next year I'll only have one kid in elementary school,
one kid who will need valentines and a box...
yep, kind of strange, but also kind of nice too :)

Carving Pumpkins

We got together with my family and did some pumpkin carving.

My brother Greg is a legend in our family for his awesome carvings.

Here are some of his famous pumpkins :)

Bane, Snape, Joker, Wolverine and this year he did Gollum.

Greg was nice enough to help Isaac with his pumpkin this year
He might have helped others a little too, but I'm not sure...
his skills and know-how were in high demand!

Our pumpkins this year
Anna did Elsa
Isaac did the Avengers logo
Grace did a tiger
Dallin did two from anime shows that he likes
Noah did the Batman logo

All lit up on the porch

Oh and here's the one I did :)

Fun With Dough!

I watched a video that someone posted on Facebook about how to do 

different things with your roll dough...so I thought it would be fun to try some of them.

Grace, Isaac and Anna got in on the action too and we had some pretty fun looking rolls...some turned out better than others, but they all tasted good and that's the most important thing :)

High Jumping Kids and Comicon Boys!

While I was gone to visit my friend LeeAnn, Noah and Dallin went to Comicon and Mike took Isaac and Anna to Pleasant Grove Promenade. (Where was Grace...I don't know, probably hanging out with friends)

 They listened to a band called Bonne Nuit, most of the band members go to our church.

I think they had fun! 

Like I said, Noah and Dallin went to Comicon. They made their own costumes. They are characters from Magik the Gathering...don't ask me what their characters names are because I don't know.

 They had a great time! 

Noah even got me a sweet gift.

He met Cary Elwes and got me an autograph! I love it!

Sorry for the blurry picture of it, I'll have to try and get a better shot of it.

Noah Mows His Name

Noah was mowing my brother Greg's lawn and I got this picture sent to me from Greg.

Noah mowed his name into the side lawn, don't worry he didn't leave it like that :)

4th of July in Colorado

My sister Michelle invited us to come to her house for the 4th of July. We thought that was a good idea, so we went for it and even brought my Mom and Dad along for the fun :)

Shell and Zach and Katie had a surprise for us when we got there. They had been working on this all day and unveiled it for us when we got there. Pretty cool!

The kids went to town when Shell told them they could paint on the sidewalk.

I did a little something too :)

We had yummy food and did sparklers and then enjoyed quite the fireworks show put on in front of Shell's house, several of her neighbors contributed to that too.

We were able to facetime with Mike also. Hard to believe that he will be home soon and we will be able to be together again...very excited for that!

On Saturday Scott took us all to a cool place and we played laser tag. We decided to do kid vs. adults. I couldn't believe it when the guy read the results and I was the top point earner of both teams...believe me I was as shocked as everyone else there :)
After laser tag Scott gave each of the kids a token card for the arcade and they had so much fun with that.

Later we went swimming at their community pool, which was really nice because it was a hot day!

Had to get a picture with my mom and my sister

 Nice photobomb Zach :)

Saturday night we played Cards Against Humanity and had some good laughs.

On Sunday we got up and said our goodbyes and headed back home. Oh, and we left Dallin there, Shell had hired him to stay and help out with Zach and Katie for a couple of weeks.
The drive home started out ok...we even had our own church discussions and stuff.

About an hour into the drive I noticed that the air from the vents was not cool anymore. We drove with the windows down for a while, which didn't help much. No one was very comfortable and it looked like it was going to be a very very long drive home. I remember telling the kids to pray for the air to start working again or to pray for rain. Not too much later Dad and I saw some grey clouds up ahead. Dad said that with our luck we were probably going to miss them, but I thought we might catch them. As we got nearer to them it looked like we were going to get some rain, I jokingly said to the kids, "ok, who prayed for the rain?" Noah answered that he had just prayed for rain to cool us down. What a blessing. Our inside thermometer had been at 104 degrees and then the rain brought it down to 68 degrees in a matter of minutes. The relief we felt was amazing, and there was so much happiness in the car. The rain came down really hard for a little bit, so hard that visibility wasn't very good, but I didn't care. Soon the rain ended and we stopped at a rest stop for someone to use the bathroom. It was so nice to get out of the car and feel the cool breeze. We made it home, no more rain, but the temperature didn't get up that high again (I think it was in the 90s though). We said a prayer of gratitude for the rain, it was such a blessing!

The interesting thing is that this was the 3rd time in a year that our air compressor had gone out. If you read my post about our move out to Utah, you will remember that it died in Georgia. If you read my post about the Bush Family Reunion shortly after we arrived here in August, you will remember that it died on our way to that event. I actually think it was a blessing that it went out on our way home from Colorado instead of on our way TO Colorado! I also think it was a blessing that it went out at this time, because it was still covered under the 1 year warranty.

On Monday I took it in to get looked at. I took it to the same guys who replaced it last time. They were very nice and told me that it would be covered under the warranty, then Napa actually tried to tell us that they would only cover 60-70% of the repair because it was almost a year...the mechanic said that was ridiculous and that he would talk to them, but he told me that even if they only paid that much, he wasn't going to charge me anything...another blessing! It should be ready to pick up in a couple days.

Anyway, we had a nice 4th and hope yours was a happy one too :)

A Fun Treat

Since we have moved out to Utah we have had a lot of opportunities to get together with my family. We get together quite often actually and I love it!

Wednesday night we all met at my brother Joe's house for dinner and my sister Marcy and I decided to make some fun treats to take. Scoops of watermelon made to look like ice cream cones, topped with some yogurt fruit dip stuff and a cherry. (also, there are some grapes in the cone to help them not tip over)

I won't tell you how long it took us to get to this finished product after trying different variations, but we were pretty happy with how they turned out, and we had fun making them together.

I think everyone liked them. At least I know Joe did :)

Valentine's Day 2014

I saw this idea here and have wanted to try it for a couple of years, so this year I did!

True to form, I waited until the day before to make them, but what can I say...

I think they turned out super cute. My sister Marcy really liked them too and I told her they were pretty easy and offered to make some for my nephew Holden.

The Valentine's were a hit. Everyone seemed to like them. Marcy told me that Holden's teachers and peer tutors went crazy over them :)

Grace, Isaac and Anna each were supposed to make a box to collect their Valentines also.
Grace and Anna had fun decorating their boxes (it's a good thing I have a pretty good supply of shoe boxes)

I saw the idea for Isaac's box on my friend Frances's facebook page, she had made one for her daughter. Isaac loved the idea, so we did it. When I went in to his classroom later that day to help out, I found out that his teacher had made him turn his around because it kept freaking her out. She would look up at the kids and see Isaac's box staring at her, ha ha!

In the evening I went out to dinner at Tepanyaki with my parents, Greg and Blythe and Marcy and Norm. I was able to facetime Mike so we could have a Valentine's Day date :) Technology is pretty awesome!

I think my food was better than his though, he just had a protein shake since it was breakfast time for him.

I had delicious filet and scallops, yum!

Pretty Cupcake

Look at the pretty cupcake I made last Thursday :)

It was fun to decorate and fun to eat too!

Carving Pumpkins

This is not something I have been very good at doing with my kids. We have done it a few times, but it in no way has been a tradition, which is sad because the kids really enjoy it. I guess I'll try to do better in the future. I think it might help living near my family since they do seem to all do it :)

Dallin did a tri-force, Grace did the logo for a book she is writing called Survivors. Isaac worked hard on his own to make a nice jack-o-lantern. Anna made a face and on the back she did a lightning bolt. By the end of the night she carved more in the sides and painted the whole thing. Wish I would have taken a picture of them all when we put them on our front steps....Maybe next time!

Henry was so proud of his that he did with no help. Noah took quite a while trying to figure out what to do, so he didn't quite finish. He was working on a Captain America shield. I tried to do a spiderweb and spider and painted it with some glow in the dark paint...which didn't really work too well.

My brother Greg always does something amazing. This year he did Wolverine. So cool! Everyone had some nice carvings I wish I would've taken pictures of Blythe's minion, Holden's minion, Maren's minon, my mom's shark, Marcy's Jack Skelington, Julianne's Minnie Mouse, Shannon's Mexican death mask, Kenzie's Spongebob (at least I think that's what she did).
This was on October 25th

Chalk Treatment

Yesterday my Mom and Bob and Dresden and their kids, minus the teenagers, came for a visit.

(all of our teenagers are at scout camp or girls camp this week)

We had a good time hanging out together

playing games,

eating food,

watching old home videos,

playing outside,

stepping on rusty nails and getting tetanus shots...actually that was just Troy

and thankfully he's fine, and I couldn't believe how brave he was.

But one of the things we did that the kids absolutely loved

was giving their hair chalk treatment.

Dresden saw it on Pinterest or something I think

and showed us pictures of what she did with Leslie's hair before girls camp.

Naturally all the kids wanted to do it.

Before the chalk treatment though, Bob gave Isaac a much needed haircut.

I personally loved his curls,

but he was ready for something shorter and cooler for the summer.

The boys all wanted mohawks, or I guess I should say mochalks

and the girls had pony tails with colorful stripes

 Even Sasha got in on the fun :)