What more can you ask for

Aren't kids so wonderful?

So the other day I was working at my mother's house. We were doing more never ending business stuff that we work on every Monday. I am there every Monday because I don't have a lot to do and I need the interaction considering my hubby is gone 5 1/2 days of every week(just until March 15th).

Well, there I was on the computer, and Cameron pulls out a piece of paper to start writing. He keeps asking grandma how to spell some words but I really wasn't paying attention to what.

It started getting late and I was almost finished with my project when Cameron handed me this white piece of paper filled with words. He asked me to read it and then went off to watch TV.

This is what he wrote:

I luove my mom more than she luoves me.

I luove my mom with my heart.

I luove my mom with my hands

and I luove my mom with my arms.

My luove is my mom.

Love notes are the best! When I read that I was amazed. He is so sweet. I gave him a big hug and told him I'd keep it forever and ever.

You know, the sweetest moments with children, especially your own, make it all worth it.

Have you had moments like that with your children or family member?

Cakes and Cakes

It feels like it has been forever since I have done anything with my blog. I've gone through a ot of changes and some have not been too fun. My hubby is off to Post academy and has lived there for the last 5 weeks. He comes home on the weekend but it pretty much stinks because he is just tired and stressed out so much that we don't even get to enjoy him. It is really hard with all  of the pressure they put on them and of course on the weekend he is stressed because all of there weekly tests are on Monday(which you pass or your kicked out) because there is no time for them to study during the week. So for the last 5 weeks I get to live alone or with an upset husband which will continue for the next 5 weeks. So many darn emotions going on that I am really not liking things. 

Next we got new carpet. It would have been really great except they installed the wrong carpet and expected me to pay an additional $300 to get the kind that we actually wanted. Well that's not going to happen and now I get to hate Great Floors for forever because they stink at customer service.

Then Lilly turned five and she really enjoyed her 5th birthday.  And now we have our anniversary on the 15th and hubby doesn't even get to be here. We will celebrate  it on Saturday but lucky me, he has another big test on Monday and is not going to be in any kind of mood for fun. Well we don't have any money for anyways due to the fact that we took a paycut with his new job. Oh how life is fun. 

So one thing that I have enjoyed and that helps me to feel good is making cakes. I really enjoy decorating them, especially when my kids are in bed and I can do it without distractions.   

This is my first cake that I have made that was not for a family member. It was great fun and they really liked it. It was Karen's daughters 8th birthday and she was having it at the Roller skating Rink. The picture does not do it complete justice because that pink was a very bright looking princess pink. The Roller skate wheels were made out of rice krispy treats. Thanks Heidi for informing Karen that I make cakes.

My sister-in-law turned 30 Feb. 1st. They weren't going to do much because they just bought a new house and was calling that her birthday present, but a couple nights before my brother called and asked me to make her something. I looked and looked on the internet for ideas of how I wanted to decorate it without it looking too little girlish. I didn't find anything I really like so I took the curly swirl design and did that all over it. It is also kind of hard to see but I did really like this cake. I also wanted a part on the cake that they could use especially for her. So I decorated the chocolate one as best I could with nuts and a dash of powdered sugar on top.

I made this for a little boy in my ward who was turning three. His mother didn't ask for it but they were going to be coming over to my house the day of his birthday and I had extra supplies so I thought it would be nice. Not to happy with the way the hat turned out but over all I liked it. I made this with a mini cake mold.

This was Lilly's cake. We looked on the internet a lot for the kind of cake that she would like me to make for her. It was fun to sit with her and look at a bunch of different pictures while she got really excited. She ultimately decided on any kind of castle cake and this is what I came up with. I made the towers out of rice krispy treats but for some reason they did not harden very well and by the time that we had the party all of the towers pretty much collapsed. She had a great friend party in which we played lots of different games with high energy and lots of sugar with that cake. That everyone that came. 

This is the backside view. I did some vine work around the sides of it. The towers were already starting to give me trouble. Oh well.

New Years Resolutions

So I have been thinking about New Years Resolutions lately. Most of the things I have thought about are the regular ever year type things that people do. Then another thought came to me. I need to work on serving others.

I had made a good behavior chart for my children a couple of months ago and on it I listed "Service". My kids did not even know what service was. I tried explaining what service was and giving them examples. I didn't come up with many good examples because every time we would put up our stars for the things we did, service was left out.

So my goal this next year is to teach my family how to serve. Each month we are going to pick one thing to do for others and slowly but surely my children will learn that that is just part of life.

Do you have any stories of serving others?

Here are some examples I found.

19 Easy Ways to Serve Others

Posted on 11 February 2009 by Curtis Honeycutt

Part of my job at Grace is letting people know about “official” opportunities to serve others in the Indianapolis area. Here are 19 (because that’s a nice, even number) easy and “unofficial” ways to serve others that you can do on a daily basis:

1) Write a letter to someone to tell them how much you appreciate them

2) Find stuff in your house you’re not using or wearing and donate it

3) Give blood

4) While at the grocery store, buy a few extra items (non-perishable, of course!) and donate them to a food pantry

5) Go to your local community center and tutor a child

6) Pick up trash in your neighborhood…you can do this with your kids

7) On a snowy day, shovel an elderly or disabled neighbor’s walk or scrape the windows of his car

8 ) In the grocery store parking lot, offer to help someone load their groceries into their car.

9) If you strike up a conversation with someone in public, ask them if there’s anything you can pray for them about

10) Volunteer at a nursing home and spend time with someone who might not have anyone else

11) Drop off some homemade cookies at a neighbor’s house with a nice note

12) Leave a big tip on a small check

13) Be friendly in public–say hello to people

14) If you like animals, volunteer to spend time with dogs and cats at the animal shelter

15) While driving, if you see someone walking in the rain (and you’re not comfortable giving them a lift), stop and give them your umbrella

16) While driving, wave someone in who is trying to turn…be nice on the road

17) Offer to watch a couple’s kids so they can go out for a date night

18 ) This one’s a classic…at a drive-thru, offer to pay the person’s tab who is behind you in line

19) Open doors for people…chivalry ain’t dead…yet

No doubt I left some out…what are some that you like to do?

http://justwallpaper.wordpress.com/2009/02/11/19-easy-ways-to-serve/

Family Pictures

My friend took these pictures. I think she did a great job.

Memories

I've been needing to caught up on some things. The pictures are not in a very good order. It is starting from most recent to just before Halloween stuff.

So last weekend I went with my mother to Salt Lake City for a convention and doctors appointment that she had. We had lots of fun. It was really cold that weekend but the girls managed to do some things they really enjoyed.

This is at the very end of the trip right when we got the kids in the car ready for our 5 1/2 hour drive back to Boise.

I wanted to snap a picture of the hotel before we left. It was really pretty there. It is called The Perry Hotel and it was built in 1910. Very old antique beauty. They tried bringing the vintage charm and did a good job I think.

I took this picture on the train as we waited for our stop. It is nice that it is free to go about downtown. The parking garage where we parked was to far from the Gateway Mall where we went. I don't know why I didn't park closer but I just get so flustered in downtown areas with all the one way streets and trying to find where I'm going, I just give up. This was on our way back to the parking garage.

So to take up loads of time that we would have just by ourselves, I took the girls to the Kids Discovery Center. It was great, except for the price. It was $8.50 per child and adult, now come on the adults just stand there. they don't play, they sit and it is still $8.50. It would have cost us 26 something but on a visit to another hotel I found coupons that were $2 off and I got three of those. So it was only $20.

We spent almost 4 hours here. I hung around while Lilly was in heaven, running to the house just her size with all the normal things in kid size. Then there was a smaller kid area that Miah enjoyed, especially the water area where they could make little balls float down. She did get wet. Lilly also loved the kid size grocery store. Set up just like a normal grocery store where they could fill up their carts with play food and have a blast.

Miah took a turn in the Police car, very fitting for daddy.

This was Lilly and Miah in the bottom one waiting for the train. This was right before a snow storm hit. When we got off the train at the Gateway was exactly when it got back. We had to walk with our heads down barely able to see, trying to get to a place to eat before the Discovery center. Miah and Lilly's hands were freezing cold and they were crying having to go through that.

Hanging around the temple.

In the hall way next to our room.

This was our hotel room. It was pretty and roomy for the kids. The beds were very nice with down pillows and posture pedique mattresses. It did not help that Miah took a crayon and wrote scribbles all of the comforter. They made some big messes there.

This was Halloween at Grandma H's. Lilly got into Grandmas jewelry in the top photo. That is her favorite thing.

We always have to get a group pic of the family with the costumes. Jeremy was a scary Mime, Molly was a cat and there little baby was the mouse. I was nothing, Miah was a princess, Lilly a witch, Cameron batman, Thomas was Mario, Lizzy was an angel, and Grandma was a cat.

Daddy helped Miah out alot by holding her while walking to each house. Just too much walking for that little squirt.

This is when we first started the trick or treating. The kids were very enthusiastic.

A random day snapping a picture with my baby girl.

Camerons birthday party turned out well. We played hide and go seek in the dark, Simon says and something else that I cannot remember. Then we has cake and ice cream, which the kids only ate the ice cream even though I worried all day over getting it finished and actually didn't finish it until the kids ate their pizza during the party. I should have left more time for decorating but I had too many things to do during the day.

Look at those crazy boys. They were very funny.

Like I said, I didn't have a lot of time to decorate.

This was the night before Jeff hand to leave for the MTC. He is looking so much older I can't believe it. Cameron will be 8 around the time he gets back. It is weird to think of Cameron being that old.

Another group pic. I look funny, I guess my hair did not look as cute as I thought it did.

This was Miah at the Discovery Center. They has this ball area and she would lift up the door to it and pop a ball inside with air blowing really fast in her face. She is working on the sharing thing.

Good News

Hooray, Hooray, Hooray. My husband finally got the call that he is going to be hired by the Nampa Police Department. We have been waiting for sooooo long. He has been trying to get a job as a Police man for the last 3 years consistently doing the public safety testing and testing through other departments. Yippe. He is going to start December 6th full time. It is actually going to happen. Wow. Thank goodness for prayers.

Long Day

October 24th was a busy day for us. We had one thing after the other to rush to. All the pictures are in opposite order of the day so I will start by explaining the night and then to the morning.

It was trunk or treat time for our ward. Doug and Cameron went off with some other the family to Utah for the BYU game so it was me and the girls this week end. I got them all dressed up, made my taco soup and picked up my niece and nephew on the way. The gym was packed with people like it always is for the trunk or treat with a table full of all different types of soups. It was a little difficult wrangling the kids and getting them all some soup to eat before treat time. We got it going, and happily hung out with our neighbors that we invited to come.

There were lots of kids and not enough trunks, so I think each kid went around 10 times or more to each car. Lilly walked around with Ella following other kids and Joseph held Miah's hand the whole time walking her around(bless his heart, that was very nice). They each made out with a lot of candy and busily ate as much as they could until we got home.

The sugar rush did not make for a good Sunday morning. Church was really rough, actually I ended up crying just after Sacrament meeting. I think I was still tired.

Lilly gave me a great pose for this one. My little witch.

Miah was a princess. I went to the dollar store before this and got her a crown since I have no idea where the crown is that goes with the dress. She was happy to be a princess. By the end of the night the crown was no where to be found. At least it was from the dollar store. I didn't have enough time to do her makeup so she probably could have looked better but hey, she doesn't care.

Here is all of them. There are a funny bunch. I'm sure they had a good time. Joseph on the left was a hobo I think.

Next, we come to the middle part of the day where Lilly and I did a girls day outing. We got all dressed up really pretty. I let her do some of my make up and pick out my dress.

We went to Miss ?something in Meridian. It is a cute very girlie shop with a dine in area. They do tea parties and fancy dine in food. Lilly loved looking at all that stuff, I really could not afford to buy her anything there so we took a picture of a tea set that she would like for her birthday.

We already ate lunch we stayed to eat some dessert there. Not the best dessert and kind of spendy but it is the experience we were after. Lilly got her own yummy hot chocolate and we really should have shared a dessert, but Lilly is not too kean on sharing so both of us got something.

I really hope Lilly liked it. After this was when we went to the dollar store and I bought Lilly a mini tea set there along with Miah's crown. It was good enough for her and much better on our bank account.

I really like this dress on Lilly. We bought it at savers for $4.99. I thought it was a good deal. She also picked out the neckalace for $2.99. It makes me think that for Christmas, I will go to savers or Good will and buy a bunch of neckalaces and dress up clothes, she would love that.

In the morning I ran at the Prison Break Half Marathon. I did train for this but for some reason it did not turn out as great as I hoped. I plan on trying again next year but for now I am going o take a break from it. I just have to beat my time. I actually don't even know what my time was, it was definitely not good though.

This made me laugh. When everything was supposed to start, everyone was still at the porta potties. Things were not announced very well so nobody knew what was going on.

Oh, I didn't explain where we were. The race was at the State penitentiary by gowen field. There was a pretty cold wind that morning but at least it was not raining.

Here is a picture of the front of the penitentiary.

I ran the race with my sister Katie and Judy Gibson from the 13th ward. Judy greatly surpassed us, so congratulations to her. I was really impressed, Judy you did a great job. I did finish the race and that is the best I can say. They did have a nice lunch for everyone after and thanks to Jake Katies husband, he brought Miah and Lilly with them so that I had them to be with when everyone else left. It was nice to have some of my family there.

While we were running, at probably mile 10 Jake found a spot to wait for us with he kids and support us as we went. It was nice to see them, but when Miah saw me she cried until we finally reached the finish line and I could hold her.

It was a nice day. I got a lot accomplished and it was nice having some girl time.