Mish Mash in a Flash

Ok, that title just means I'm going to cover a lot of territory in a short time.

Halloween dinner is starting to become a tradition, it happens sometime just before Halloween and it's something "gross".  This year we has Sheep eyes (turkey meatballs with olives) and worms (spaghetti that I used black dye on that turned the noodles purple) and we had blood (fruit punch)to drink, naturally.

 Jacob gets a spotlight in this post, just because he made me laugh.  If you want to see the rest of the kids costumes go to my facebook page.  Jacob and Ben got to dress up for Halloween at school for the first time EVER.  Jacob couldn't wear his Gorilla costume to school because it has a mask so he found a witch costume in our costume bin.  His friends at school didn't even know it was him.  Jacob is a pretty confident kid to wear a girl costume to school!

 I got all the stuff for this craft and cut and sanded the wood and invited my mom over for a craft day.  I love that my mom is retired now and that she's getting into crafting.  We plan on doing craft projects together regularly now.

 Micah's birthday has come on gone and now I have a deacon (church thing if you're wondering)!  I cannot get over the fact that I have a 12 year old 7th grade child, am I really old enough???  This year he requested cake balls, or cake pops.  I had made some with my friend Yolawnda a few weeks before his birthday and he loved them.  I also made a carrot cake in case the cake balls went to fast, we had lots of leftover cake balls and Micah was happy about that.

 I could not get him to just look at me and smile, but that's ok, I got about a dozen pictures similar to the one below, he just kept making all these different faces at me and moving his head.

 My sweet mom came over to babysit so we didn't have to worry at all about the kids.  Micah (Jacob) usually watches his siblings and everything goes well, but we wanted to be able to have a night to just focus on each other and not have to check in on kiddos.  My amazing and wonderful husband took me to dinner at PF Changs, we had gone there for our anniversary a few years back and I loved it but it was too pricey for regular dates, so we saved it for a more special occasion.  Then we rushed over to the William Saroyan theater to see Kristen Chinoweth!  We were in the VERY back row and could hardly see her but we could HEAR her and that was the important thing!  She was amazing and I like her even more now.  She has a great personality and is a Christian woman.  Great night with my best friend.

 Lastly, this has been the big thing in our lives lately.  Our little girl got her ears pierced!  She was so brave and didn't cry or hesitate at all.  Daddy had previously said that 12 would be the age she would be able to get her ears pierced and I thought that was RIDICULOUS, so we compromised and said she could get them pierced when she asked (but I couldn't prod her).  She has been asking for earrings since she was 2.  I would tell her that she couldn't wear them though because her ears weren't pierced and she would just say that when she was older she wanted to get them pierced.  Tyler somehow finally decided that he liked the idea and HE was the one to ask her if she wanted to get them pierced.  We were at Fashion Fair Mall and she wanted to go into Clair's and Daddy asked...she was ready and she picked out these cute little Rainbow Daisy earrings.  She even lets me do her hair now without a fuss so you can see her ears.  Just in time for Santa to bring her some earrings in her stocking!!!

The best cake ever...

because I let Miss P decorate it all by herself! She used half a bottle of red sugar sprinkles (literally) and some other sprinkles as well. She had requested a Strawberry Shortcake strawberry shortcake. Yes, I meant to put that twice. The cake was to be a strawberry shortcake decorated as Strawberry Shortcake. I did neither. It was a strawberry heart cake, close enough right? Well, I was not in the creative cake making mood and I didn't think it out very well, I used 2 boxes of cake mix in one square pan and 2 round. I didn't want to bake it in layers and thought this would be a simple solution. WRONG. The cake completely oozed over the edges of the pans, so I decided to self clean my oven afterward and made the house smell like nasty, burnt, something for her family party. NICE. Those who ate the cake said it was delicious, a few said the sprinkles were a bit much.

I was also short on frosting and didn't want to make more, notice the sides of the cake aren't covered? I am so glad my family isn't picky!

Birthday Girl

Wow, my baby is 4! She just started Primary, sunbeams, finally. The other day she fell and hit her head and immediately said, "It's ok, I'm ok, I'm in Primary now." That comes up a lot lately, "I'm in Primary." She is a big girl now. She loves to help me, especially in the kitchen. She loves Pink and Purple, Barbies and baby dolls. She REALLY doesn't like her hair done. She loves to have jammie days, most every day lately. She has her bath and everything and then goes right into another pair of jammies. She loves to watch Scooby Doo, have stories read to her at night, mommy to sing to her and then mommy to lay with her.

Here she is helping to knead our favorite, homemade naan (Indian Flatbread)
Here she is in her new dress from Nana Paula on her very first day of Primary.

Accomplishments

Micah turned 11 on Friday! I cannot believe I have an 11 year old. He's in sixth grade this year, student body VP and he's going to be in the school's play, Cinderella as the Prime Minister this Thursday night! For those of you that know Micah, this is incredible. He has really come out of his shell this year and is realizing his talents and interests. He just crossed over from cub scouts and is now in boy scouts. Life is incredibly busy but good. We have 2 boys in soccer, 2 in piano, 1 in cub scouts, 1 in boy scouts, 2 in the play (Jacob is stage crew) and I'm sure there's something I've left out. Tyler is always busy with Bishopric duties and I am in activity days now (8-12 year old girls week night activities).

Micah got a rip stick (like a skate board but only has 2 wheels) for his birthday. He was the only one that could do it, now Jacob can do it too. When no one was around last night I tried it...I definitely can't do it. I'm so glad I tried it in secret!

Tyler and I were the proudest parents last month, we had all 3 boys get Sparthenian of the quarter! It is like student of the month, they used to award it monthly, this year they only do it quarterly, and this was the first time it was given this year. We are trying our best to make a big deal out of any of their accomplishments so as to encourage them to continue accomplishing things, so we rewarded them with dinner out at Red Robin. It is times like these that I feel like I'm not completely screwing up as a parent!
I am so excited that it is now November, and cold! My favorite time of the year. Time for soup and hot cider, jeans and sweaters, warm pajamas and blankets, cuddling up to my husband at night instead of pushing him away! Thanksgiving and our Anniversary, and of course...Christmas! My sewing bug should be kicking in anytime now, I can't wait!

gardening, birthdays and such

I finally got all the pictures off my camera and onto my computer. I didn't realize how much I had to blog about but I'll have to make some choices and limit it a bit.

A few night ago while Tyler was working late the kids and I spent some time on the trampoline together enjoying this lovely, very non Junish weather. Peyton is such a cutie when she jumps I took about 2 dozen pictures! I wish this picture below was clearer, she was making the funniest faces.
You can kind off see below, but she was wearing underwear that used to be Ben's. I thought it was cute that she was in her frilly princess nightgown wearing boy briefs. It really sums her up well, she is a little tomboy princess.

She also helped me make Ben's cake. I am surprised that she can hold the mixer by herself with one hand. Mixing is her favorite part, she says when she grows up she wants to crack up the eggs.

We had family over for cake and ice cream the night of Ben's birthday. I even picked up Grandma Kay so she could be with us. It ended up being a late night but it was fun.
All of the in town cousins (Essien and Dustin) were there. Ben never requested any certain cake and he never complained about the cake I made him. It was lacking in decorations but everyone said it was very yummy and moist. Moist is always what I hope for!

Benjamin is 6 now and pretty much the same as ever. Always making us laugh, loves games, especially the Wii and his new Lego Pirates of the Caribbean game. He has the funniest and most adorable was of saying things. He loves having a sandwich for lunch and he is an amazing reader. He is a cuddler and a love bug but when he is going somewhere, like school, you may not even get so much as a "bye". He really likes to have a friend over and he is really good on the trampoline, front, side and backflips are his specialty, he can even do 2 back flips in a row! We love you Ben!
The thunder and lightening storm was our Sunday show. It kept the kids up later than normal but we all enjoyed watching it.
Monday my friend Christie B. came over to make clips and brought us a zucchini from her garden. I told her we didn't have any zucchini or cucumber yet. I took her out to show her our garden and low and behold we had 2 cucumbers! I forgot to get a picture before I cut the big one, here they are below.
Isn't that beautiful? I love having food growing right outside our kitchen window!
Today I decided to get a hold of the weed situation in the garden and check our plants and look what I found! A green bell pepper. Our yellow and red plants have peppers on them too but they are still green, and our jalapeño plant has lots of peppers on it. I am really looking forward to our tomatoes, I don't know why, but this year our tomatoes are growing like crazy.

Barbie Cakes (from Last January!)

I had an unfortunate accident with my camera last year and deleted many pictures, including all of the pictures from P's 2nd birthday party and her Barbie cakes. My mom had some on her camera, but of course, with the way we do things it takes a while, they get done, just not always right away! As you can see we made good use of my Pampered Chef bowl. Next time I do Babrbie cakes I'll use two cake mixes so the girls have more adequately sized skirts, they look like they must have very short legs!
What a cute 2 year old Peyton! She's grown and changed much in the last year.

Teapot Cakes and Teacup cupcakes

So, this was my first attempt with fondant. I thought it was going to be kind of hard, but it wasn't at all, it's super easy. I googled fondant recipes and went with the one that said it was the best tasting people had ever had, and it was really yummy. I didn't have clear vanilla extract so I used almond extract. We had grandparents over for a mini family party and I practiced my cake. I had a monster of a time with the cake part. I intended to use two cakes and put them together. After making 3 cakes, 2 of which got stuck in the Pampered Chef bowl I noticed my teapot on the stove and it was this exact shape, so that was good enough for me, I guess it's more of a tea kettle. I was not happy with the handle and decided I would improve on that next time around. One of the kids asked if the handle was a donut, not exactly the look I was going for!
I added some milk to chocolate frosting to make it thin so it would look like hot chocolate. The marshmallows added to the effect. In some of the cups the frosting ran down the sides a little and I liked it.

After all, this was for Peyton's 3rd birthday so I thought I'd include a picture of her. We got her a doctor's outfit that came with medical tools and she was a very happy girl.

On her actual birthday we had some friends of hers over for a little tea party and I made a few improvements to my cake. This is the snack table. I tried to make it cost effective, kid friendly and tea party like food.

I made the spout, handle and lid a bit more decorative. I would like to learn how to pipe frosting, I'm not very good at it.

For the frosting this time I added baking cocoa to vanilla frosting and made it a little thicker.

Well, I have been trying to add a picture of Peyton with all her little friends that came and blogger won't let me add any pictures for some reason. It was fun and Peyton had a good time.

We...Post#2

We...Went to Zoo lights! It was fun. There were more lights than I thought there would be. I am very happy with the improvements our zoo has made and continues to make. I am excited for the upcoming changes too! Anyway, we didn't really see any animals aside from the reptiles, which, by the way, the new exhibits are AWESOME, go to the reptile house if you haven't seen the changes there yet.
Santa was at the zoo too, one of his helpers was anyhow. I had one of the boys get a picture of me and Tyler because I am trying to make a point of getting more than just pictures of my kids!

Last, but definately not least, this is my baby Peyton, my baby! She's 3 today! We have had an incredibly fun day. We went to the Dollar Tree together to get a few things for her "tea party" that we had this afternoon. We went through the drive-thru at McDonald's and got her a sausage McMuffin and hashbrown (which she ate ALL of). Peyt accompanied me to my eye appt. where she asked a bazillion questions and I got a new rx. My left eye has worsened, but only slightly. We came home, I made sandwiches for the party, we had a little party with just about all of her little friends and their mommies. I will post pictures of that later, including her awesome teapot cake and tea cupcakes. Tonight after dinner I took her to the library to pick out a few shows and then to TOYS R' US. It's a birthday tradition in our family and Tyler always takes the boys and I got to take my girl this year, her first time for this tradition. We are part of Geoffery's Birthday Club. He calls on the kids birthday's to wish them a happy birthday, and he sends them a card in the mail with a $3 off card. We take the birthday child on or near their birthday and let them pick out a gift, usually something around 10 or 15 dollars. Peyton found a carseat/babycarrier for her dolls, it was $20. What can I say, I caved. I like girl stuff.

This is her at Zoo Lights with her hot chocolate that the kids said tasted like hot water. She is a ton of fun and full of personality. She reminds us a lot of Micah, I'll leave it at that. She knows what she wants, she sings, all the time, she loves baby dolls, barbies, clothes, shoes, cheese, animals and Dora the Explorer and Diego. Her favorite color is purple but she likes pink and red as well. She likes alone time, she goes in her room and closes the door, when her door is shut, that means she is playing happily on her own. If you go in to check on her she yells, "Close the door!" I love this girl and I'm thrilled that she is part of our family. Last night when I got home from a friends house I found her and Ben sleeping all cuddled up in her bed. Tyler fell asleep before the two of them went to bed. Ben had been playing with her in her room and he went to bed, Peyton cried for him and "made" him lay with her. It was just about the cutest thing I've ever seen, I got a picture, I'll post that soon too. I'm happy right now, really happy.

My 8 year old and a new addition to our family...

Today is Jacob's 8th birthday. A very special birthday in our family as he will soon be baptised! My mom and Morgan came over this morning right as we were getting ready for Jake to open his presents. He opened my mom's first, a new Lego set, Star Wars. After that it was time for him to open my sisters gift to him...Another snake, yes, we're trying it again folks. This time instead of a king snake we have a ball python and she is up on a higher counter and Miss P has been seriously instructed that she is not to get him out on her own. She is a beautiful snake and very calm, as ball pythons are. I am excited to have a snake in our home again and hope that this one will live in the tank rather than roam freely in our house!

She has no name as of yet and if you have any ideas please comment. Our last snake was named Porter and we loved that name. Jacob is thinking maybe Scarlett ( I know, funny that the Saunders have a boy named Porter and one of the girls is Scarlett).

The typical 8 year old presents in our family are a first set of scriptures, complete with the childs full name, a scripture case and a journal (Jacob is very excited about his journal, he has been saying he has a lot of stuff to journal about.) We continued the pocket knife tradition as well, Micah got his for Christmas that year, but Jacob wanted one for his birthday.

He can't believe he got one, he thought he wouldn't get one until he was 9. His is just like Micah's but instead of red it's black.

Jacob is a very smart and outgoing boy. He is doing well in piano and is now practicing on his own, without being reminded. He loves Legos and building things, jumping on the tramp and playing outside, he also still loves video games and has been enjoying Lego Harry Potter which Micah bought with his birthday money (Jacob is very happy about that) and baseball on the wii. this morning he told me that his arms have been really sore and he had a hard time believing it was from a video game. I knew this only because Tyler and I played the other night and both experienced the same thing, that pitching is good exercise! We love you Jacob and are excited about your decision to get baptised. You will do great things, I know.

Tonight...

We celebrated Micah's birthday with the Laing side (as many as could be with us!). I also let my kids play in the rain. Peyton wore her new rainboots that my friend Deann bought her.
She thought it was pretty nifty that she could stand right in the puddle.

The traditional Laing birthday song includes some "tooting" noises between verses

Here is the group that was able to come, minus me.

Mom and Dad with the birthday boy.

So, I have finally uploaded the pictures from my camera from the last several weeks and there are a lot of good ones. Apparently more was going on than I realized and I will have to get to posting! Next up, Halloween.

Double Digits!

A very Happy 10th Birthday to my oldest baby! I love you Micah.

Micah has almost 3 years of piano behind his belt and is doing really well. He continues to excell in school and is finding 5th grade to be more challenging. He likes his teacher at school and church as well. He is an amazing big brother, most all of the time and is much more willing to help out. Micah is still quite an artist and has found a new liking for basketball and would like to play for the school this year. Keep up the good work Micah!

Happy Birthday to me!

So, this was about a month ago. I don't know why, but blogging has been at the bottom of my list and I have just not felt like doing it. My birthday this year was pretty great. Tyler bought me a red velvet cake from Costco. Red velvet is one of my favorite cakes, but really, red velvet cake ice cream from Maggie Moo's is the best. I intended to get a Hot Genoa Sub (the best sandwich ever) from More Than Pizza for lunch but forgot about it and ate a piece of cake instead. If you couldn't tell yet, I used my birthday as a whole cheat day:) We had 3 free kids meals for Logan's Roadhouse so we decided to go there for dinner. It is definatley not a very family like environment, it's kind of like a bar environment but the kids didn't seem to notice. They could have been pretty noisy and I don't think any other patrons would have noticed or cared.
One of our favorite things at Logan's are the peanuts. You can crack them and eat them and throw them right on the floor. See Peyton in the background? She was going for more nuts.

This is all from me, and I was far from done.

I wanted to include a picture of all of us and this is the one I had of Ben. He is always doing something strange it seems.

I'm pretty sure that Ty doesn't like to be in pictures because he always makes faces.

I got a really yummy burger and fries (it had been a LONG time since I'd had fries). I had root beer too.

Micah got his first adult meal, chicken fried steak, onion rings and mashed potatoes (he loves mashed potatoes).

Jacob had fun eating peanuts too, oh yes, and I'm sure he had at least 3 of those huge buttery rolls they serve before the meal comes.

I wont bore you with my gifts, but they were all very fun this year and my loved ones were much too generous. I did get the book I have been wanting, Mocking Jay. I haven't read it yet because I have a few others to get through first and I know I need to read those because they will not be as good as Mocking Jay. My mom has it right now and if any of you want in the rotation for it just leave me a comment or call me!

Thanks for all of the birthday wishes I recieved and to my sweet friends who took me out to lunch and bought me high quality toilet paper, you're the best! Tyler, thank you for the date before my birthday and the fun goodies I got to pick out on our date, (stretchy ring and silver hoops and black flower earrings) that was really fun. I learned that I do like to shop. And if anyone is wondering, I am now 32. Feel free to tell me I look much younger than that if you think that, please don't hold back. It no longer bugs me to hear I don't look as old as I am, it's hard to believe I used to hate hearing that!