Birthdays and babies

No fun pictures to go with this posting-bummer I know!

What are the chances of having 2 best friends throughout middle school and High school?

What are the chances that the 3 of you are still friends and talk regularly today?

What are the chances that your 2 friends are pregnant at the same time-and due within weeks of each other?

What are the chances that they both have their babies on the same day- with both going into labor early?

What are the chances that they are born on one of those friends birthdays?

Well it happened to me...so I'd say the chances are pretty good!

Congrats to my friend Stephanie who had a little girl on her birthday! Allegra was 5lbs, 14 oz born on December 7th.

Congrats to my friend Brynn for delivering a healthy baby boy on the same day!!! Tru was born on December 7th and weighed 6 lbs, 8 oz.

Congrats to both of you! I am glad that I'm still around to be a part of it. Love you guys!

Simple Prayers

Hailey has been quite funny with her prayers this Christmas season. We just had our nightly family prayer a few minutes ago, and it was Hailey's turn to say it. Most of the normal things were said, such as "bless us to sleep well," and "help us to be happy tomorrow." Lately though, she has been adding things about Santa Clause and "help us to not be put on the naughty list," which I think is a crack up!!! She just added in this prayer tonight to "not break any toys" and to "bless her to not wake up on Christmas eve so she won't see Santa." This girl is seriously worried about the whole Christmas thing!! What a funny girl....she's definitely on the NICE list!

Now that's a thought!

Here's the story. Whitney was upset one night at dinner because she couldn't find her sippy cup. She left the table and looked for it everywhere. She came back to the table disappointed after having no success at finding it. She then began to whine about not being able to find it. Dan & I ran down a checklist of spots in the house and asked her if she had looked there, and she had answered yes to all of them. As I started to get up from the table, Dan asked her about one more place-one I had never heard him ask before.

"Whit, did you sit on your sippy and it got stuck in your bumble-crack?"

Dan was just being funny...but a 3 year old doesn't understand that kind of humor. Bumble-crack....where did THAT come from? Whit then reacted as any child would.....she thought she'd check and see!! She whirled around a few times trying to look at her bum to see if her sippy was actually there! We were laughing so hard!!! She then said, "Nope daddy, it's not there" as to reassure us that she didn't sit on it and that it wasn't actually stuck there. We all had a good laugh.

Halloween 2010

Halloween was super busy-so many fun things to do! We started a few days early with a school Halloween party. We went to Hailey's school and ate dinner and danced to the DJ. The kids loved it! The next night was our ward trunk-or-treat at the church. We had the traditional Chili cook off for dinner and this time DAN was one of the judges! Papa & Lala met us there and spent the evening playing games and trunk or treating with the kids. Then "actual" Halloween was on a Sunday...so off to my parents house for dinner and our own little party. We LOVE Halloween-can't wait for next year!!!

Kids in costume for school party

Papa & Parker the pumpkin

Cutest pumpkin ever!

Pretty Pirate

Lala the witch

Cute!

Here comes the bride!

Arrrrggghhhhhh!

Me & Dan dressed up for church party

We did a little family party on Halloween at my parents house. We had dinner and then played a few games...then passed out candy. The game was fun and hard to do-eating a powdered sugar doughnut as fast as you can with it suspended in the air, dangling from a string! It sure made for some "good" pictures of everybody!
My Dad in drag-not a pretty sight!!

Beau and Tabitha as Care Bears

Mom in costume-retro!

Mandie catching the doughnut in her mouth

Kids playing game

Me and mom catching doughnuts in our mouths

Cakes-Sep-Nov 2010

It has been a busy baking time of year! Lots of cakes recently; birthdays, Halloween, baby showers...you name it-and a cake suits each occasion perfectly!

My 1st chocolate ganache cake. My mom loves chocolate-so a chocolate cake, with a mint filling, and covered in chocolate ganache! I tried some decorations on top of it...but was having bag problems. My bag broke while piping....luckily I caught a handful of icing before it ruined the cake completely.

I LOVE Halloween! I made a whole bunch of these cupcakes for doctor offices, neighbors, and some of Dan's home teaching families. They were so fun to make. New recipe too-a light pumpkin flavored cupcake with buttercream. I added a little bit of pumpkin to the frosting too to add more pumpkin flavor...but it turned out not as pumpkin flavored as I had hoped. Everyone seemed to enjoy them though.

My sister-in-law Mandie had her birthday, and since I make cakes....that's usually the gift I give them for the event. I tried something new with her cake too. New frosting and a new cake recipe. Mandie loves Snickerdoodle cookies-so I tried a Snickerdoodle cake with a cinnamon buttercream. The actual cake DID taste like a Snickerdoodle cookie. The buttercream was quite sweet-and a little difficult to work with. I don't know if I will use that recipe again or not. I added some sugar pearls on the sides of the cake, and a small decoration on top of the cake too. I wish the icing was smoother, and my edges were cleaner....but like I said-the icing was difficult to work with.

This cake I made for my brother's rehearsal dinner. We had dinner at a restaurant and I was in charge of dessert! Beau's fiance, (now wife) love zebra print. The table cloths at the restaurant were black, and my mom did a zebra-print runner lined with candles. It turned out beautiful. The colors of the wedding were black, white, and purple...so the cake matched those as well! Top tier was white cake w/ cream cheese buttercream, and bottom tier was chocolate w/cream cheese buttercream. Beau likes chocolate, and Tabitha likes white-so I incorporated both. Bow on top is made with a mix of fondant and gumpaste.

A baby shower cake! The mommy to be chose chocolate cake with peanut butter buttercream. Yummy! I covered the cake in a marshmallow fondant and added decorations made from fondant/gumpaste. I had an idea in my head of what I wanted to do decoration-wise, even though the actual party didn't need that much cake. Oh well, it was my gift and I wanted it to look good-so they just had to take leftovers home with them!

Baby toy made from fondant/gumpaste

Baby rattle

Top of cake

Final product

This cake is an ice cream cake that I made for a boy in my ward. He wanted Breyer's peanut butter cup ice cream-with cake, and covered in a peanut butter buttercream. Made cake, layered it with discs of ice cream, smoothed, and covered in icing. You have to do it in steps because the ice cream starts melting. I made a border at both the top and bottom of the cake with chocolate chunks. Used brown buttercream to add message and decorations.

(yes....I do realize that I left out the "D" in birthday)

Our Family Pictures 2010

These family pictures were so fun to take. My friend Annaka always does such a great job. We had these pictures taken in an orchard that's owned by someone in our stake, so it was close by even though it doesn't even look like Az! We brought my parents along to help get the kids attention to look at the camera and to make them smile. Beau and Tabitha came along as well, and good thing they did-we needed all the help we could get! We were told that there were cows in the orchard, but that they were friendly-YEAH...too friendly! They ALL came over to see what was going on, and we needed Beau to chase them out of our shots. Not only that...but we had to watch where we stepped now that the cows were nearby. The kids LOVED being so close to the cows-and feeding them grapefruits off the trees. Who knew cows ate grapefruits?! My Dad bent over to pick up a grapefruit he had dropped and got a whole face-full of cow tongue!! The cow licked him up his face....like I said...friendly cows! You would have never guessed by these pictures that all of that was going on behind the scenes...we all had a good time.